Intro: Hi everyone, welcome to the ADCET Podcast – supporting you – supporting students. We would like to acknowledge the aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples who are the traditional custodians of the lands on which this recording is taking place. This podcast is the fifth from our series of bite-size sessions 12@12 to help you recharge. This session – Sharing Good News teaches you how to build trust and rapport with active constructive listening. Make sure you check out our show notes for links to the session recording and presentation slides. Enjoy.
Debbie: So high quality connections, fancy having a job or research focus on creating high quality connections at work. This is based on the work from Jane Dutton who just has that.
So high quality connections, we all share this deep psychological need to feel valued, to feel respected to feel seen and to feel heard. And to feel that we belong somewhere. When our workplace meets those needs and when we help other people feel they're respected, valued seen and heard it values them makes them feel worthy and makes ourselves feel worthy when that happens. That helps create high quality connections, so work places with high quality connections enables us to learn new skills to be better at solving problems, better creativity, so high quality connections are connected and has a ripple effect in our lives, we are more engaged in what we do, more motivated, more interested and then it makes sense it boosts our individual performance but the performance of our team.
So it really does impact on our wellbeing.
So one way that we make those high quality connection is our conversations, so we need the high quality connections to boost friendships maintain friendships and create other friendships, doesn't take long, just little moments of what we do when we pass someone in the corridor when we come in, when we go in to work places when we see someone or get on a zoom meeting just taking a couple of seconds how are you what's happening for you today or asking a bit more about what's happening in their life or how they are tackling their work. This conversation is the foundation of everything that we do and create together especially given our words create or social reality so what he we say and hear affects how we see the world around us. For example, if we talk about a colleague as a mega star, doing great stuff then that's our social reality about that mega star colleague, we see all the great stuff she does, we have more confidence in her we like to work with her or if we see a colleague that we think doesn't pull their weight and we start talking to others about that it starts creating that social reality about that colleague and we start to see those things. So our conversation directly with people or with others about others can either lift people up or put them down. So what we need is some conversations that lift people up and help them feel valued and respected.
One of the ways we can do this is through how we respond to good news. So this is a word by Shelly Gable who found how we respond to good news has a more powerful impact on relationship than how we respond to bad news, we even the protocols about responding to bad news we know it's important we take a few minutes to listen to someone to show empathy, to give that message we are there for them especially our friends, that we take that extra time and really listen to the emotions around that and give as much support as we can. We know that but shelly found it's more important for friendships for relationships in how we respond to good news and we don't often think about that. So she came up found that active constructive responding is one of the best ways, this is one of my favourite tools because it's so clear and can be so powerful and so easy to do when I remember. When I'm intentional about it. So we can respond to people actually in a destructive or constructive way if you are destructive and passive when someone gives you good news you shift the focus to yourself if I tell you I saw a great movie on net flicks last night if I am passive I'll say I saw a great movie the other night you should have seen so that I take the focus away from the person and on to myself, if I'm being active about that I'm going to point out all the down sides risks and concerns of watching a movie on net flicks, research says we should be exercising in the evening or too much television watching is bad for you, or they're creepy and you have to be careful these days I'm putting a downer on that good story. If you're telling someone a good news story and the person that you're telling shifts the focus or gives you the down side, your energy goes down you fall flat, there goes that good story. Totally deflating, you can be constructive in a passive way, not much, you can acknowledge and move on, okay, yep that sounds great a good movie I wonder what's on the agenda for the team meeting or I wonder what's happening in the weekend. So you acknowledge briefly.
An active constructive response actually helps the person really positive emotions from the story so you really start asking those questions; tell me about the movie, what happened, how come it was so important to you or how come it's your favourite one and you get them to relive the whole emotions.
So for example, if a colleague came to you and said I just landed this great new job if you are passive and destructive you say that's good, there's a great opportunity come up that I'm applying for too and I'm really hopeful of getting that. Straight away, the attention goes from them to you. And I think we've all probably been on the landing end of those conversations or if you are being destructive in an active way sounds like that going to mean for responsibility for you more hassles to deal with you will have long days as work. Short deflated my good news about the job and if you're being constructive but a bit passive, good for you, the end. So an active constructive response would be hey that's great so tell me what are you looking forward to in the job when do you start what do you think your main duties will be how did you get it was it a difficult process to get so you help them relive that only takes a couple of minutes but makes a big difference. That's active constructive response. The other thing about making connections count is being present. So, so often and I put my hand up too I find myself in conversations where I think, I'm not really here. I'm not really here, starting to think about what I need to do next or starting to think about what I didn't do yesterday or I am just, getting looking on my computer, or the phone interrupts, so make our conversations count the other thing is we need to be really present not just in our body but in our mind and heart too. So it takes turning away from our lap tops, especially when we are back on campus and people coming into see us turn right away from your lap tops, side on if you meet someone at the desk, so you are looking at them. Putting away our phones so even the presence of a phone on the table when you're catching up with someone either in a work meeting, or socially, even the presence of the phone on the table, can be a distraction and gives a message to the other person that you're not really 100 percent present. Stop day dreaming, which means sometimes you will notice, it's noticing I'm not really in this conversation I missed the last thing that was said so it's gently reminding yourself to come back, maybe take a deep breath and just remind yourself gently I'm going to come back in to that conversation and just looking, my 12 minutes is up. And set that intention and do that with curiosity, asking good open curious questions. The other thing I'm going to say take half a minute more sorry to stretch out the 12 and a half minutes - I picked up some great tips this morning from some researchers that have worked in communication for years, Peter and Sharon and they say you can ask - if you think you had a conversation that didn't go well ask for a do over, a couple of days later go up to the person and say, that conversation we had a couple of days ago I don't think I was at my best and I have been thinking about that and I wouldn't mind to have that conversation again because I think I can do a lot better, so you are giving the person the message that the conversation counts and they count and they matter, you have been thinking about it and you want to do a bit better there.
Outro: We just wanted to thank you again for listening to our podcast. If you are loving our podcasts please subscribe to our channel so you can keep up to date with our latest episodes, we would also appreciate if you could leave us a review. If you are after more great content you can head over to our socials and website - www.adcet.edu.au. Our next bite sized session will be on Permission to be Human - Become more comfortable with uncomfortable emotions and the messages they have for us.
