The Dead Goat under the Dining Room Table...

Why is it that some people find it so difficult to say what they mean? And why, when they finally do  speak up, does the issue often seem to get blown out of all proportion?

This is one area where the Life-Style Grid can give a visual representation of what is going on. You will remember that we talked about the vertical dimension of the Grid being about (in broadest terms) communication style. 

Laying aside for the moment whether we are talking about Interest, Usual Behaviour, Needs or Stress, people who are strongly oriented to the top of the grid will tend to be Direct and Assertive in the way they communicate. This isn't to say they will be aggressive, although that would be a possible stress behaviour, simply that they will tend to deal with clear communication that says what they think, at the time an issue arises. For people at the top of the Grid, there doesn't tend to be very much emotional overhead involved in speaking in this way; having to deal with difficult issues directly doesn't cost them much, emotionally.

People strongly orientated to the bottom of the Grid are a little different. They prefer to work in a Reflective manner and when they do communicate, prefer to do it in a somewhat Indirect manner. So this means that they are less likely to respond definitively at the time an issue arises, and they are less likely to simply say "Black" or "White". They are more likely to say "have a look at this rather complex map of 169 shades of gray, and I guess my conclusions would be around this and that and the other". 

First thing - neither of these approaches is better than the other. "Black and White" needs to be balanced by an appreciation for "shades of Gray", and "saying it now" needs the balance of "here are my reflections". But what happens when people strongly oriented to the bottom of the Grid find themselves confronted with a situation which genuinely is Black or White? For example, it might be that someone has spoken or acted in an obviously inappropriate manner, or that a decision has been taken without consultation which has obvious and immediate negative consequences. 

The problem is for that "bottom of the Grid" people, there is an enormous emotional overhead to speaking up immediately and out of character. This can be hard for "top of the Grid" people to understand, precisely because they have never felt this way themselves. The people at the bottom of the Grid - let's call them Low-Key People - end up trying to decide which hurts more: saying something; or putting up with the consequences of something which is clearly wrong. And the answer is often the former - "I hate this situation, but speaking up is even worse". 

If you aren't Low-Key yourself you will be wondering what on earth is going on here. A vivid illustration Claire Carrison (doyenne of Birkman Consultants in the US) gave a group of us once was of a room full of Low-Key people sitting around a table, with a very smelly dead goat under it. Were they happy? No! Were any of them going to mention the goat? Also no! Noone wanted to be first to speak up (although, and this is important, they would have happily joined in if someone else had started the ball rolling). They would rather suffer in silence. (Now there is a Low-Key mantra...)

Then in walks a top-of-the-Grid person: "Hi guys! Hey something smells terrible in here... look, there's a dead goat under the table. Anybody mind if I take it outside?"

Of course not. The sense of relief from all those low-key people is palpable. In fact, they may now have a vivid and detailed discussion of how they felt about the issue, and why it was such a problem. This will leave the goat-removing, top-of-the-Grid person wondering what on earth stopped them from doing the same for themselves.

But what if the top-of-the-Grid person hadn't ever walked in. Eventually (probably just before the deaths from cholera began) a Low-Key person would have broken ranks. But just think: that means the pain of saying nothing is now greater than the pain of speaking up. Any chance there may be a fair amount of emotional cargo carried by this announcement of a problem?

So that is all this involved story of dead goats is about. Low-Key people find it hard to do what may be obvious (to them as well as the top-of-the-Grid people), because of the emotional overhead involved for them. So when they do finally speak up, there is often an emotional "bill" to deal with.

If you are wondering whether this is affecting your team or your marriage or family or... get the people concerned to stand on  the Grid for Usual and then for Needs, and just watch what is going on. In particular, the altitude of Needs (i.e. up or down the Grid) will tell you who this is likely to be an issue for. 

• If everyone is low, then you may often find there are issues of which everyone is aware but which noone wants to broach;
  
• If some are high and some are low, the high ones may wonder why the others never seem to say what they actually think at a time when something could be done about it; and then when they do speak up, do it in what seems to be an emotionally punishing way.

So what can you do about this? Rocket science this is not, but learning to:

1. ask questions that make it easier for an individual to raise difficult issues ("Fred - what do you think?");
2. ask questions that focus on feelings - e.g. "Fred, how do you feel about this"; and
3. making use of indirect communication methods ("why don't we write each other a short letter about this issue" - in a marriage / "let's scribble what we think on post-it notes and stick them on the wall" - in a team)

can all make it easier for Low-Key people to raise issues early on in the process, and to do it in a less emotive manner.

Some more Interesting confusions...

In the last post, I gave an example of a combination of "Areas of Interest" scores which seemed to put a couple "on the same page", and yet left them wondering what language the other was speaking. Without attempting to cover every possible combination of "Areas of Interest" scores which could lead to similar situations, here are a few I've come across in practice.

High Artistic v. high Mechanical - both may do creative things, but for the former it is how the end result looks, for the latter the process of producing the work that matters.

High Musical v. high Mechanical - both may play instruments, but for the former it is working with sound (and therefore how the result sounds) that matters, for the latter the process of producing sound (so may rather play themselves than ever listen to someone else).

High Social Service v.  high Mechanical - both may put their energies into helping others, but for the former it is the fact they have made a difference for other people that matters, for the latter it is the opportunity to give practical assistance.

High Social Service v. high Persuasive - both may engage with people around social issues, but for the former it is once again the opportunity to make a difference, for the latter it is the opportunity to engage in debate and persuasion.

High Clerical v. high Artistic - both may like a tidy house, but for the former it is achieving better functioning (because everything can be found in its proper place) while the latter likes the way tidy looks.

High Outdoor v. high Persuasive - both may enjoy sports, but the former enjoys the active and outdoors aspects while the latter likes the opportunity to compete (and win!).

There are dozens more, especially once you take multiple interests into account, but you probably get the picture. What are the significant differences for you and your significant other?

Whatever floats your boat...

The specifics of what motivates us - and especially the differences in these motivations within a couple - are important keys to understanding communication. They are especially powerful in understanding why communication seems to break down at times.

For example, take the couple who agree on Wednesday evening that come Saturday, they are going to spend the day working on the garden. They both feel excited and pleased by the prospect, and yet by 10am on Saturday, they are embroiled in a major disagreement. 

Here's why: even though they thought they were agreeing to the same thing, what "a day working on the garden" means to each of them is quite different. In Birkman terms, if one of them is high Artistic and high Musical, then "a day working on the garden" meant something along the lines of "enjoying the peace of the garden, and giving significant time to thinking and discussing how to get it looking 'just so', and then executing this plan to deliver maximum pleasure to the eye..." 

Unfortunately, if the other one (and it could be the woman just as easily as the man, before we make any sterotypical assumptions!) is high Outdoor and high Mechanical, then by the time the first person has made it to the garden, brimming with creative ideas, the second has been to the petrol station, bought a tin of two stroke fuel for that chainsaw that has lain unused in the shed for the last five years, and taken all the major limbs off three of the big trees at the bottom of the garden. Being outside, doing something practical and "hands-on" was what they were looking forward to, and the destruction and noise simply heightens their sense of achievement. Yet it sends the first person into an absolute spin.

This couple didn't realise that a day working on the garden held such different - and in this case mutually exclusive - promise for each of them. I'll give a couple more examples next time, but this is why simply comparing your Areas of Interest reports can be such a fruitful exercise.

My Old Dutch...

"We've been together now for forty years
and it don't seem a day too much

Oh there ain't a lady livin' in the land
wot's the like of me dear old Dutch..."

If you are ancient enough, you may remember Hermans Hermits - or even Albert Chevalier - singing this song of long-term marital contentment. Perhaps you also remember Peter Sellers' version which starts in the same vein but ends in him trading bi-lingual insults with his "silly old Dutch person" (her side of the argument sounding rather more like Italian, so it was probably Sophia Loren).

There is a serious point to this, however unintentional: as couples, we can be "together" for years and years and still find that, at times, we are speaking a mutually unintelligible language. 

"You said 'x', but when I did 'x' you got mad at me! You are always doing that..." 

"I never said 'x', I said 'y'. You only thought I said 'x' because that's what you always think / do / your mother warned me / my mother warned me / ..."

And so on.

The good news is that this is both perfectly normal, and completely explicable. No character flaw is involved on either side - just some fundamental (and unchangeable) differences of perception. While we can't change the way we are wired, we can learn to understand each other's perceptions and therefore make allowances and adjustments when we communicate and work through daily life together.

And that is where Birkman® Express is so invaluable. It gives you both objective data on what can otherwise seem very subjective and hard to pin down differences. In the next few posts, I'll talk about some specifics, but you can learn an awful lot just by sitting down with each other's reports in front of you, and talk through what you can see the differences might mean...