General – Seite 2 – Food for thoughts

Listening and silence are crucial for our conversation

We all assume that we are great listeners. Are we really one? No-one can prove it at the end, as the interpretation and assumptions of what was heard are maily not equal with the interpretation and assumptions of the speaker. To reduce this gap as much as posible, try the method ATTENTIVE listening.

ATTENTIVE listening:

Accept that multitasking is not possible, focus on listening only and follow the conversational flow.
Teaching and instructing do not go well with attentive listening, they belong in schools and courtrooms.
To ask questions as openly as possible is crucial, but don´t over prepare the conversation through question list. Questions are normally coming naturally.
Even repetition, paraphrasing and duplications should be avoided.
Not knowing and admitting it helps the conversation flow.
To the point and short should be your own statements.
Individual are our emotions which means they are free from any comparison and judgement and none of us would have in the same situation same emotions.
Very important is, that reproduction of rumors, word of mouth or hearsay does not belong to attentive listening.
Empathy and equality is the basis of a successful attentive conversation.

Are you curious to read more about the importancy of good listening skills, read my bock chapter „4.3 Zuhören und Stille ermöglichen, bewusst zu denken” reference page 143 following.

Almost 1000 accesses to my book: “Erfolgreich Gespräche im Berufsalltag führen“

Looking back on the time I spent writing the book, it took me a lot of patience to validate and substantiate the contents of the book. It was worth it because the research was very interesting and fruitful as I found wonderful studies and literature that supported my approach and scientifically proved its practicality. The approach developed for the company could not be fully based on valid literature at the time, as I had only two months to develop it for the company, so I researched to find sound studies for the book’s content. The proven and validated content showed me that the dialogue approach was thought provoking and can change in a more human way the conversation in business and beyond.

The book I have written builds on most of the available communication books I have now read and will take the reader to a more advanced level of communication. It is less about recipes on how to convince people of your opinion. Even one part of the book is about how the reader can detect such recipes that are designed to get other people to do something for the person (manipulation). My book is much more about having an honest conversation. This is not just about being honest about the content of the conversation, but also about being honest with yourself in order to uncover the thought patterns and subconscious of the other person(s) and to become aware of your own. This approach allows us to meet each other as people rather than as roles or functions.

Our autonomic nervous system influences thoughts and feelings

Deb Dana and Deb Grant develop a model to illustrate the connection between emotion, thoughts (Psychology) and the effect of the autonomeous nervus system (Biology). (source: The Polyvagal PlayLab: Helping Therapists Bring Polyvagal Theory to Their Clients)

Deb Dana and Deb Grant This “ladder-model“ is build on Stephen Porges “Polyvagal Theory”. The three aspects emotion, thoughts and autonomeous nerveoussystem influence each other and are dependent from each other. By understanding these dependencies, actions can be derived that calm the autonomic nervous system and enable us to develop more lighter and uplifting thoughts and emotions.

The “ladder mapping” divided our modes into three phases:

Darkness:

Feelings that prevail for example: blurred, hopeless, loss of focus, numb, cold, hopeless, closed, helpless
Thoughts are for example: I am… invisible, lonely, lost, unlovable and the world around me is… cold, hostile, dark
From the autonomic nervous system the dorsal-vagal nervous system is active. Which leads to immobilization and freezing / stagnation. Through this the person can collapse.

Chaos

Feelings predominate for example: it is out of control, overwhelming, confusing, full of anger, confronting and the desire to run away
Thoughts that arise are for example: I am… different, crazy, unacceptable
The autonomic nervous system is the sympathetic nervous system. This has a mobilizing effect, creating a readiness to fight and curse

Balance

Feelings that prevail are for example: connected, warm-hearted, open, curious, committed, passionate, relaxed
Thoughts are: I am … okay and the world around me is full of possibilities and enriching
The active autonomeous nerves system is the ventral vagal part / smart vagus, which enables security and social interaction.

These three phases have parallels to the griefing / change phase according to Kübler Ross (source: change curve), There are five phases described:

Shock and denial, which is paralell to the „darkness-ladder“
Anger is equal to the „chaos-ladder“
Bargaining is between „Chaos-“ and „Balance-ladder“
Depression: Is going back to „Darkness-ladder“
Acceptance: at the end is the „Balanced ladder“

Tip to overcome better the „darkness-“ and „chaos ladder“:

The SMART vagus is activated in empathic conversations, which is why psychotherapy and coaching are very powerful. Whereby personal contact with people, in reallity and not virtually, is important for the unconciousness to „co-regulate“ and create the neurozeption. Neuroception activated the SMART vagus and stop the dorsal vagus and sympathikus. This happens only optimal when conversational partner meat real (not virtual) conversation, as this was learnd from the unconciousness through evolutrion. This happens through the autonomic nervous system (unconciousness), which scans constantly the environments and registers external stimuli. A positive facial expression, a friendly smile, people who take their time and do nothing but listen, a calm and relaxed voice are necessary to bring the autonomic nervous system out of immobilization or fight or flight. Singing and deep breathing is also supportive, as it has a calming down effect.

If you find yourself on the ladder of darkness or chaos, then seek a personal conversation with a person who is sympathetic to you and accepts and respects you as an individual, this will calm your autonomic nervous system.

Causes of gullibility

Who doesn’t know the rumor mill? Rumors and erroneous or even distorted statements last a long time and stick to the people at the center of the „gossip“ like tar.

A study by Ecker et al. in 2022 got to the bottom of „the psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction“. The researchers found that two factors play a role in gullibility. These are:

Cognitive factors, which differ as follows:

Intuitions that arise from a low level of analysis
Cognitive inaccuracy due to not applying one’s own knowledge and ignoring counter-evidence, as well as not asking for valid sources
Illusions of truth created by the familiar atmosphere and interactions, as well as the coincidence with one’s own experiences

2. Social factors, which differs as follow

Credibility of groups. Hierarchically higher and elites are believed more, attractive people are rated as more credible and one’s own social affiliation plays a decisive role.
World views such as one’s own party or personal views are decisive here
Emotions, if a message is presented emotionally, it is believed more, and one’s own emotional state also plays a decisive role.

Tip:

Before investigating the rumours again and accepting what has been said as all too true, it is better to talk to the people who were involved. Listen to them and make up your own mind about the facts.

It is also important to recognise that higher hierarchies, celebrities or people of high status are as flawed and ‚fallible‘ as anyone else.

The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction | Nature Reviews Psychology

Define your value / worth in life

We often give more power to others to decide what value we have. In my eyes this should be different. I think it should always start with allowing ourselves to recognise and internalise our own value.

We tend to accept that our value is defined by the opinions of others, by our salary or by our status symbols. We rarely reflect on the skills we possess and who we are in terms of character. What value would we place on ourselves?

In my opinion, we must first value ourselves from within and define how we see our own worth, not measure our own worth through the eyes of others who can only judge from their own beliefs and value us by comparing us to what they are doing. Appreciation that comes from the outside has to be seen in the context of the situation. As an extreme example to illustrate my thoughts, surely the value that a mafia boss would define would be opposite to a clergyman on some issues.

When we begin to value ourselves, we will be able to value others in a non-judgmental way. If we begin to value ourselves, we will be more patient with others and less competitive, because we will have little or no need for the appreciation and recognition of others.

Our own appreciation and esteem for ourselves should be enough and weigh more than that of others.

I found this story, with thanks to Nadja Sandmann for posting the German version, which illustrates these thoughts very well: https://youtu.be/tb5iRxXahyI

Chocolate and its dark side

Chocolate in all combinations and tasts smile at you from every supermarket. But the sweet seduction also has its dark side. I’m not talking about dark chocolate, but about what researchers have recently discovered.

In a study of 1018 adults (694 men and 324 women) from San Diego, California, without diabetes or known coronary artery disease was studied in a cross-sectional analysis, wanted to find out whether depressive or depressive-prone people have an increased consumption of chocolate.

This was indeed proven. The higher the score for depression, the higher the chocolate consumption.

It is still unclear whether chocolate triggers depression or whether depression causes more chocolate to be eaten in order to activate serotonin production.

It’s just like Paracelsus said: „All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.“

What is the characteristic of a highly motivated person?

According to Prof. Michaela Brom-Badry, lecturer in the theory of motivation at the University of Karlsruhe, there are three identical characteristics of looking at oneself as a reason to be highly motivated.

These are:

Acting Autonomously: If you would say the following sentence to yourself: „I have the choice and feel free in what I do“, then you perceive your activity as acting autonomously. The higher your satisfaction with your own autonomy, the higher your sense of well-being and motivation to perform.
Competent: If the following sentence fits you, you feel competent: „I have the feeling that I can successfully master difficult tasks.
Socially Connected: If you are socially connected, you would say: „I have a warm feeling for the people I spend time with.“ Or „I feel close and connected to people I care about.“

If you want to feel more motivated, work on the three things: Feeling free, feeling competent and feeling connected.

How would you liked to be remembered?

Yesterday we had a fantastic meeting in the OBD, about our agile and modern meeting culture, we will establish.

One point in this presentation was, that we should not accept an invitation, when we think we bring no added value to this topic. I can´t agree more.

Nevertheless, some of us have the assumption, that we should follow meeting invitations, as when we are seen there create the impression and the memory that we are important and crucial for the business.

This brought me to some thought about, how people might want to be remembered, as:

always to be busy and to have an overcrowded diary to show how important we are
spending long time in front of our laptop or in the office compared with others
trying to achieve good sounding job-title, a higher hierarchical level or other status symbols

Is this really for what you want to be measured or be remembered?

What do you think, could this be truly honest satisfying for you?

For me other thinks count more. I would be happier to be remembered as a person, who:

gave you valuable food for thoughts and thinking time
saw the brilliance in each conversational partner, with less amount of prejudgment a human being can have
was open to learn from others and treat all people in the same way
make people smile and reflect on their own and other way round.

For what or how would you like to be remembered?

If you like share your thoughts with us. I would be glad to get any ressonance from you.

Thank you in advance.

Study: Gender difference in building self-confidence

In an 2020 IFD Allensbach study (IfD – Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach (IfD) (ifd-allensbach.de)), 800 women and 800 men were asked: „What people draw their self-confidence from varies greatly. According to your observations, what does it particularly depend on whether women / men are self-confident? What from this list is particularly important?“

On top one for men was „success at work“ with 82% builds their confidence, followed by „finances“ at 77%. On top one for women was „popularity“ with 74% builds their confidence, followed by „good looks“ 72% Women answered only 66% that „success at work“ is important to their confidence.

Men want almost equal amounts of „recognition from women“ (51%) and „recognition from men“ (45%). Women voted differently in terms of gender. „Recognition from men“ supports self-confidence more (45%) than from „recognition from women“ only with (29%).

One assumption of the last fact could be that gender equivalence is more ingrained in the minds of men than in the minds of women. Women seem to value the recognition of men more than that of women (maybe this is just a wrong interpretation of a statistic 😉 ).

What is your opinion on this interesting fact?

Of meaningfull importance for learning and improvement: Reflection

“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.” – Margaret J. Wheatley

This quote of Margaret J. Whealtey is fantastic as it brings it to the point. To learn from others around you, your circumstances your are in and from your self to become your better self reflection is more than important and needed.

But how reflection could be easy mastered in the full days we are facing with. Here are some thoughts and tipps for this:

Helpfull is to go through these four steps, which you can see in the picture:

1. Step: Observe

the situation in a retrospective or during the situation from the metaperspective

2. Step: Reflect

with the following questions:

a. What?

This question focus on the past. (e.g., What in detail had happened? What are the facts?)

b. So what?

This question focus on the present (e.g., What I have learned? What is my conclusion?

c. Now what?

This question focus on the future. (e.g., What I will change or retain in the future? What direction I will follow?)

3. Step: Plan

the steps and think in small nuggets (KISS = Keep it short and simple) which is really feasible. To make it easy you can follow these Acronyms:

4. Step: Act

following your plan. This is the most difficult step as the new way of interaction is new and unusual to this. The first times it will feel foreign and perhaps a bit threatening. It is like jumping the first time from three-meter diving tower. During the jump you sometimes regret it to have been jumped. But when you have landed save down in the water, you feel proud and happy.

For your reflection you need:

Time and space
A good environment with a positive atmosphere
Emotional supportive environment