Wanted to blog on this post by Dr. Henry Cloud. Something to think about...
"Hope yall are well. On the road for a little bit....was in Midland, Texas today, and now on my way to the Bahamas to speak at Chic-fil-A's annual gathering. That should be fun, and what a beautiful place. Then, its on to Florida and then NY. So, lots of travel, but fun as well.
So, here is a thought from my talk today that I wanted to share with you: in whatever situation you find yourself, whether at work or in your personal life, something to focus on with all diligence is "tone." Your "tone" is the way that you talk to someone, especially when they are doing something wrong, or not doing something that you want. We all have a tendency at some level to get aggravated and amped up a bit, depending on how much we are hurt, frustrated, or afraid. But, the kicker is this: the more our tone is negative towards someone, or angry, or escalated, the less chance we have of getting the outcome that we desire.
The reason is that when we are angry or negative, it causes people to go into a brain state where higher thinking, self-control, problem solving, and all the good stuff shuts down and stops working. They go into a chemical reaction of stress hormones that activate their "lower brain" that is reactive, and operates on fight or flight modes. So all they are doing at that point, when threatened, is to fight what we are wanting them to do, or move away from us, at least on the inside.
It is a pardox....we push harder to get someone to do something, and yet we will get less of what we want because their brain will stop working in the ways that we need.
So, the bible's principle of "speak the truth in love" is not only a nice thing to do, it is sound brain anatomy. When we do that, we actually are helping someone's brain function in a way that will get to a solution, instead of causing it to react.
Try it....keep the tone positive, even when you are giving negative feedback. You will probably get better results if you do.
I write about this in the new book, "Boundaries For Leaders" coming out soon. If you want to read more, you can pre-order it above. Enjoy!!"
Blessings,
Kristi Starkey, MS, MFT
http://www.counselingbykristi.com/
