The crucial nature of connecting before fixing
(or, backwards for how to really screw up a relationship)
By Rafa Kalapa
The Pattern
One pattern I often see is that when something is not working we jump to fix it. Clearly there is nothing wrong with problem-solving, or trying to make a situation better. However, when we rush to fix or repair –before establishing a connection– we run the risk of spending time and energy (and sometimes money) working on solutions that don’t actually meet the needs of the people involved. In some cases we create more damage.
The graphic below depicts the process of moving to a strategy (solution), before creating mutual understanding on the level of feelings and needs (not my recommendation).
What I mean by connection can be described a few different ways:
1) the experience of “I trust that you understand me, and you trust that I understand you”
2) beyond mutual understanding: “I trust that my needs matter to you, and you trust that your needs matter to me”
notice that this does not necessarily mean “I agree with you” or “I see it your way”– rather, it means “I get you” and “I care” (and I may personally have a different perspective)
Quick story
I was invited by a small nonprofit to mediate a conflict. There had been a series of miscommunications, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings. One person in the room began with a clear observation, a feeling, and a need, but no request. Again she offered another observation, a feeling, a need, and again, no request. At this point she was in tears.
Immediately somebody in the circle jumped in: “Oh my gosh! I had no idea! How can we make this better for you? What can we do to improve the situation?” Before she was done…
…someone else jumped in: “How did things come to be this way? What did we miss that let it get to this?”
At that point I stopped them. I then turned to the person who had first spoken, and asked: “Was there something you would have liked from the group, or certain individuals, in response to what you shared?”
She casually said: “Oh no, I just wanted to be heard.”
This group could have spent an hour fixing (what can we do to make things better?), and an hour investigating (how did it ever get to this?) — and never met the needs of the person in pain — who just wanted to feel heard!
(Sound familiar?)
What to do instead
When something is not working, and we find that we’re jumping into problem-solving mode, the most effective first thing to do is to check whether or not we are connected.
I may assume that the other person wants to problem-solve. What do I do? I check it out with them. “Are you ready to look at possible solutions, or is there more you would like me to hear before we do that?”
Focusing on the connection means focusing on feelings and needs: the other person’s and our own. It will also include some attention to the stimuli or triggers (observations), and perhaps some initial exploration of desired strategies.
An example:
Imagine that I arrive home at the end of a long day and a long week. I’m tired.
My partner, Tess, meets me at the door, excitedly, saying: “Guess what — I got a babysitter so that we can go out to dinner and see a movie!”
Slowly I respond, “I really just want to lay on the couch and take a nap.”
It appears our needs are in conflict.
But when we explore it more deeply, we find that our Needs themselves are not in conflict, just our Strategies (defined as the ways that we go about meeting Needs).
But the conflict will be and always is at the level of “strategy” (solution). There is never a conflict at the level of Needs. Why? Because we all have the same Needs.
So in the example above, Tess and I would go through a process in which we discover what each other’s deeper needs were behind our dueling strategies. In Tess’s case going out to dinner and a movie would contribute to her needs for connection, companionship, and fun (which I also share, but they don’t happen to be up for me at that moment). In my case, curling up for a nap would contribute to my needs for down time, rest, relaxation, and self-care (which Tess also shares, but they don’t happen to be up for her at that moment).
When Tess and I create the kind of connection I’m suggesting — understanding each other’s feelings and needs rather than engaging in a power struggle over strategies — several wonderful things happen:
we are more self-connected at a deeper level, we know what is driving or motivating us
we are not fixated on one strategy as if it were our need, and a creative field opens up, –because for any set of needs, there are many, many possible strategies/solutions
we find that we share the same universal human needs as the other person
we more easily enter a space of collaborative or cooperative problem-solving
Does this sound “too good to be true?” I’ve seen it happen and experienced it. thousands of times!
The trick is knowing how.
The rule of thumb is: connect — create mutual understanding — before you try to solve the problem!
Once you are connected:
– You will have a joint collaborative mindset with which to explore problem-solving;
– You will have mutual buy-in for the agreed-upon solutions;
– Your solutions will be more effective, more do-able, and more durable!
Another example:
Tricia (my partner of 16 years at the time) and I were having some relationship issues and requested a consultation with Marshall Rosenberg when he was in town (this was back in the late 90s). After hearing each of us talk, he said two things:
1) “I’m impressed by how you are able to talk about this topic”; (I’m thinking, ok, ok, just get on with it and fix our problem!);
and more importantly:
2) “Take as much time as it takes to get connected on the level of feelings and needs before you jump to a solution or strategy.”
Initially, I was so disappointed! I came to you to solve my problem, and this is all you have to say? (Again, I have to laugh when I think back to this…)
But over time, the wisdom of it began to sink in…
Focus on the connection first, before fixing the problem.
The above graphic shows how creating connection as a pre-cursor to problem-solving leads
to mutually agreeable outcomes, which are always more effective and durable.
Only then can you actually co-create a mutually agreed-upon solution, the true win-win.
I have caught myself jumping to the solution prematurely so many times. And when my effort seems like a struggle I remember that perhaps what is most needed is some mutual understanding and connection to keep the conversation moving forward toward a mutually agreeable result.
This works equally with my 5-year-old as in the local government citizen advisory committee or nonprofit Board on which I have served.
Humans are humans, and one of our basic needs is to be understood. (Another tip: nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.)
Below are some more specific nuts-&-bolts tips-&-techniques for how to do this — especially in difficult, tricky, or high-stakes conversations.
The Pattern
Have you ever had the experience that you’re having a conversation with a friend, or your partner, — everything’s going fine — and suddenly you’re in an uncomfortable, ugly space — or maybe even in a downright fight? And then you’re wondering, “how did this happen? How did we get here?”
If this has never happened to you, congratulations! After asking hundreds of workshop participants, most have had this experience, or something similar.
My partner and I noticed this pattern. Everything was fine, and bam! suddenly someone is upset, or has their feelings hurt, or we’re arguing.
It really bothered and confused us, and we began to investigate what was happening.
Big discovery
We realized that whenever this happened, 10 out of 10 times it was because at some point in the conversation “message sent” and “message received” were different – and neither of us noticed!
She said red, I heard blue (or vice versa) and neither of us noticed, so the conversation continued. Well, it’s no mystery why 10 or 15 minutes later we’re fighting.
Habitual patterns in communication — both on the speaking and listening sides of the equation, but also in our thinking — much too often guarantee that message sent does not equal message received.
The captions of two of my favorite comic strips that illustrate what I mean:
Cartoon #1:
What she heard: “Your lot in life is to stop whatever it is you’re doing in order to serve my every need!”
What he said: “Honey… do you know if we have any more triple-A batteries?”
Cartoon #2:
What he heard: “You’re way too stupid to be trusted driving alone in bad weather!”
What she said: “Drive carefully, dear.”
When we or others hear a message that’s different than what was intended, that misunderstanding can snowball into a conflict.
So, how do we check that message sent and message received are the same?
What to do instead
Nonviolent Communication, also known as Empowered Communication or NVC, teaches us to take responsibility for what we want by making a request.
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of requests:
(1) Strategy Requests, in which we request some specific action of the other person, and,
(2) Connecting Requests, which lead to the quality of connection out of which everybody’s needs are more likely to be met. There are two kinds of connecting requests I use all the time (“a” and “b”, below):
(a) Requesting verification that message sent and received are the same; this can sound many different ways. Some examples:
“Did you get that?”
“Do you feel like you understand”
“Could you tell me what you heard, just so I know that I was as clear as I would like to be?”
(b) Requesting to hear the other person’s honesty: what they feel and need in relation to something; again, it could be expressed many different ways. Some examples:
“How do you feel about what I just said?”
“When I tell you how I feel, what comes up for you?”
“Where’re you at with that?”
I use connecting requests (versus strategy requests) about 90% of the time. And doing so, has saved me a lot of time, energy, and heartbreak, not to mention A TON of emotional and psychic energy. It has also opened the door to many mutually-negotiated, win-win outcomes.
That which flows from clarity in mutual understanding is very different from what flows when you’re missing that clarity.
Story/Example
Many years ago, the woman who is now my friend and co-parent, Tricia, and I were in a meeting with some housemates.
I said something along the lines of, “…and sometimes I say to myself, ‘you arrogant bastard!'”
To clarify: I was talking about a way in which I would get down on myself — judge myself.
Well, suffice it to say that Tricia heard me calling her the words “arrogant bastard”. And boy was she mad!
After a moment of empathic attention for how that felt (which helped her calm down enough to hear me) — I was able to clarify that I was talking about how I was talking to myself and not her!
If I had gotten defensive, “That’s not what I said!” – then the misunderstanding could have escalated. Instead, I was able to say, “Let me try that again,” followed by my clarification.
Well — we do have some laughs about that one now and then!
Another story/example
I was presenting at an event in Oregon, and a couple approached me asking if I would work with them during the afternoon break.
This couple had been together 32 years, married for 30, and in couples’ therapy for 25.
During the following 90 minutes, I asked them to have a conversation about their issues. BUT I placed the condition that after every single thing they said, they would follow it with either (a) checking that they were heard the way they were intending, or (b) requesting the other person’s honesty in relation to what was just shared (the same connecting requests that are above). I urged them to use “(a)” if there was any doubt about having been heard the way they wanted to be.
After 90 minutes of this kind of conversation, I asked them how they felt about our time.
They reported the following:
– It slowed things down so much that it was excruciating for them. They were not used to asking for clarification or to eliciting the other person’s authentic expression. (They were used to taking positions, getting stuck, and giving up.)
and
– They got farther in 90 minutes, around a persistently difficult conversation, than they had in 25 years of couples’ therapy!
Conclusion
There is a place for flow — in which we’re just having a conversation and connecting. We do not need to slow down so much and check in at each step of the conversation.
And there are times during which having the tools and skills to slow things down to ensure mutual understanding and prevent or resolve a conflict can come in handy, to say the least.
This is an important pre-cursor to collaborative exploration of solutions, especially when strong feelings are involved. Especially in charged situations, shared exploration of win-win possibilities does not come so easily if you don’t trust that I ‘get’ you and I don’t trust that you ‘get’ me.
In other words, once the quality of our connectedness is at a certain place, a collaborative approach to strategies is a natural outcome.
Just because these concepts are simple, does not make them easy to practice!
If you find you are not being understood in the way you would like, check that message sent and message received are the same.
If you would like to hear from the other person, don’t just wait for them to initiate. Take responsibility for what you’re wanting by requesting the kind of heartfelt expression for which you are longing. (What to do if they say no? That’s a topic for another article, and something we get into in a workshop setting.)
These connecting requests, no matter how you say them, can go a long way toward giving us the foundational connection needed before engaging on collaborative problem-solving.
Real-life examples and situations are the most instructive. Exploring those -and getting practice- with a skilled facilitator is irreplaceable. However, through a free monthly email, you at least have some basic tools that you might practice when the situation calls for slowing ourselves down from jumping to fix things, and focusing on the connection first.