This below section is one I often come back to when trying to improve communication. The idea is to start with what we are feeling or perceiving, instead of trying to fix the other person or accurately label the problem, because what is inside us is the only thing we really know is true. This is really hard for technical people, because we want to just fix the problem. However, until we understand what is going on, we canât fix anything.
When problem deďŹnitions differ, learning is almost impossible. The only way I know to arrive at clear, common deďŹnitions is to concentrate on controlling the quality of communication. As always, the only leverage I have is on myself, but quality breeds quality. If my communications are of high quality, Iâll receive high-quality communicationsâfrom which I can learn to do even better.
When Iâm able to be congruent, then even if the communication is bungled, Iâll have more reliable information to use in learning how to do it better the next time. Suppose I start a difďŹcult interaction with Rod by shouting, âWe would be on schedule if it werenât for your malingering. Why donât you get your act together?â When Rod shouts back at me, or clams up, I have no way of knowing whether heâs reacting to the form or the content of my message. The interaction doesnât come out well, but I donât know whether itâs Rod or me.
Suppose I start the same interaction with the more congruent statement, âI feel angry because weâre not getting the job done on time, and I donât know why itâs happening. When I look around for reasons, I notice that youâve been absent six times this month. Do you feel that your absence is contributing to the schedule problem? Or is there something else?â
Rod now has an accurate problem statement to work with. Suppose the reply is âGee, I didnât know we were having a schedule problem. Donât we have until next Friday?â Now you have several opportunities to clear up crossed wires.
But if Rod shouts back, or clams up, then I have a better idea that the problem does lie somewhere within him, not within me or my interaction with him. I could still be wrongâI may not have been as congruent as I thoughtâbut Iâm off to a better start.
The Payoff for Being Congruent
As with any communication skill, being congruent is not some-thing you ever learn one-hundred percent. But the payoff is so great, you donât have to be perfect. Even if one person manages to act once in a congruent manner when the rest of the group is acting in a twisted way, the results can be worth a thousand failures.
Many years ago, when I was teaching at the IBM Systems Research Institute in New York, several faculty members complained about a student who was âtrying to get away with something.â Steve, a student from Kansas, had failed to turn in any of his assignments for several weeks, and the outraged faculty members proposed sending him home. Steve wasnât in any of my classes, so I didnât get quite so emotional about the situation. When I suggested that perhaps we didnât under- stand the problem, I was forcefully reminded that all of the students had been carefully selected from among IBMâs elite employees. Steve could certainly do the work, if only he was motivated.
Even so, I argued, sending him home would probably destroy his career, so we should be doubly sure that we understood the circumstances. They reluctantly agreed to allow me to speak with him, but I was to be his last chance. After an hour with him in my ofďŹce, I felt we were getting nowhere. I thought I started out in a congruent fashion by asking Steve, âWhatâs going on? Can you explain why youâre not doing the work?â but Steve denied that there was any problem. I noticed, however, that Steve didnât look like there was no problem. He sat stifďŹy in his chair, and couldnât seem to look me in the eye. I began to convince myself that he had something to hide, and that it wasnât something honorable. I was about to start accusing him of dishonesty when I realized that I was making inferences about what was inside him, rather than making statements about what was inside of me. [I think this is the key âŚ]
So I decided to try restarting the conversation on a more congruent note. âSteve,â I said, âIâm sitting here getting angrier and angrier because I feel Iâm trying to help you and you wonât even talk to me about whatâs going on. Youâre telling me that thereâs no problem, but to me it seems that there is a problem. The other faculty members want to throw you out of the Institute and send you home. If that happens, youâll probably lose your job. To me that sounds like a serious problem, but you say it isnât. What am I missing that I need to help you?â
At this point, Steveâs appearance changed from stiff avoidance to violent anger. He looked me in the eye and shouted, âWho the hell do you think you are? What makes you think you can help me? You think youâre so big and powerful, but youâre nobody! Nobody!â Then he stopped talking and turned away.
My ďŹrstâmy ânaturalââimpulse was to shout back at him, but somehow I realized that he was in terrible pain. Even though I didnât know what the pain was, I overcame my ânaturalâ training, said nothing, and reached out and laid my hand gently on his arm. Suddenly, he started shaking all over, then sobbing and uttering incomprehensible words. I sat there, my hand on his arm, until he recovered himself sufďŹciently to talk. Then he told me the whole story.
A week before he left for the Institute, Steveâs wife had been diagnosed as having terminal cancer. She wasnât expected to live more than six months. He naturally decided he would not attend the Institute, but she insisted that he go, arguing that he would hurt his career by refusing this opportunity. After she was gone, he would be the sole support for their three children, so it was doubly important that he do well in his work.
To me, it was easy to see that he had made the wrong decision, but blinded by grief and unable to go against her expressed wishes, Steve went to school in New York. Under the circumstances, the homework assignments looked meaningless, and Steve couldnât bring himself to do anything but sit in his hotel room and weep. He was afraid to tell anyone, so his teachers assumed the worst.
When Steve attacked me for assuming I could help, he was exactly correct. There was no way in the world I could help his wife recover from cancer, which was a problem inďŹnitely greater than his schoolwork. Had I not resisted my ânaturalâ instinct to attack him when he attacked me whole story might have been an even greater tragedy. I couldnât help with his wifeâs cancer, but I could help him deal with his wifeâs cancer in a less destructive way.
Once the circumstances were understood, IBM arranged to send Steve home to Kansas, giving him paid leave to be with his wife in her ďŹnal days. A year later, he was able to return to the Institute and make a fresh start. You may have to succeed one hundred percent of the time to be perfect, but you donât have to succeed one hundred percent of the time to be powerful.