Dealing with the Elephant in the Room

Mike Bechtle Dr.

Description

Most people want to avoid tough conversations. Whether it's with a spouse, a friend, a boss, a coworker, or a child, tough conversations create high anxiety--and often lingering resentments. Communication expert Dr. Mike Bechtle offers practical help. He equips readers with the skills they need in order to handle conflict with the important people in their lives. Readers learn to be better prepared for hard conversations by learning to listen, to give and receive genuine feedback, and to saturate relationships with kindness. With the right skills and tools, anyone can feel more confident handling the elephant in the room and other conversational quicksand.

Sujets

• Popular psychology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781493410767
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

© 2015 by Mike Bechtle
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www . revellbooks .com
New edition published 2017
Previously published as You Can’t Text a Tough Conversation
Ebook edition created 2015
Ebook corrections 03.23.2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-2066-0
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled EXB are from the Expanded Bible, copyright © 2011 Thomas Nelson Inc. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com .
To Brian Every dad’s dream is to have his daughter marry a man of character. You fulfilled that dream, and I’m grateful you’re in her life— and mine.
Contents
Cover 1
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Dedication 5
Acknowledgments 9
Introduction: How the Elephant Got in the Room 11
Part 1: The Process of Conversation 19
1. Elephant Prevention 21
2. How Conversations Get Tough 31
3. What People Need 43
Part 2: Tools for Healthy Conversations 55
4. Tool #1—You Gotta Learn to Dance (Perspective) 57
5. Tool #2—Confidence in Communication (Trust) 69
6. Tool #3—Staying on Your Side of the Checkerboard (Ownership) 81
7. Tool #4—Your Personal Fuel Station (Emotions) 93
8. Tool #5—Crock-Pot Relationships (Time) 103
9. Tool #6—The Value of Everybody (Respect) 115
Part 3: Skills for Healthy Conversations 123
10. Skill #1—Make It Safe 125
11. Skill #2—Eliminate Intimidation 137
12. Skill #3—Practice Power Listening 147
13. Skill #4—Encourage Honest Feedback 159
14. Skill #5—Start with Kindness 169
15. Skill #6—Know Your Purpose 181
Part 4: Growing into Connection 193
16. Relating to Relatives 195
17. Rust-Free Relationships 205
18. Redeeming Technology 213
Conclusion 227
Notes 229
About the Author 233
Books by Mike Bechtle 234
Back Ads 235
Back Cover 240
Acknowledgments
W hen I wrote my first book, I realized that there are a lot of people who are involved in making it happen. Some (like editors and agents) are directly involved. Others (like a spouse) come alongside your dream and believe in you. Others are impacted by the fact that you’re spending time with a manuscript you might normally be spending with them.
It’s all still true.
Vicki Crumpton has been my editor for all four of my books. It’s been like having a personal coach and mentor who comes alongside and teaches you how to get better each time. She uses up a lot of red ink on my manuscripts, which means that any success this book achieves has her fingerprints all over it. Working with her has been one of the main reasons I’ve come to love writing. She’s as good as they get. Thanks, Coach!
Somewhere along the line, Joel Kneedler shifted from being my agent to being my friend. He guided the initial decisions for my last book and this one and has helped steer my writing career over the past few years. He’s moved on to the next level in the publishing world, but I’m grateful for his belief in me when I wasn’t sure which way to go next. Thanks for the partnership!
My wife, Diane, was more heavily involved in this book than any other. Her input on the content and her comments on the manuscript shaped my ideas in priceless ways. Those discussions had the potential to turn into “tough conversations,” but she found the balance between being tough and tender. You’ve always been my biggest fan, and I’ll always be yours. I’m grateful for you just being you!
Finally, there are the people I have coffee or hang out with, and that hasn’t happened as much over the past few months. Sara, Tim, Brian, my grandkids, and my new daughter-in-law, Lucy, deserve more focus in the coming weeks as soon as I hit “send” and this book goes on its way. You guys are all priceless gifts to me, and I love you.
Then there’s God. What can I say? Eternally grateful . . .
Introduction
How the Elephant Got in the Room
When there’s an elephant in the room, introduce him.
Randy Pausch 1
M y daughter, Sara, asked me if I could build her a certain piece of furniture. I said, “Of course.” In fact, I gave her a certificate for it for Christmas.
Two years ago.
The problem was that I didn’t know how I was going to build it. I do well with plans but not with making things up. This project didn’t have plans. I would think about how to do it but couldn’t figure it out. So I would set it aside for a couple of weeks, thinking it would percolate in the background and I’d know what to do.
A week or two later, nothing had changed. I wasn’t any closer to a solution. So I kept putting it off week after week, month after month—because I was stumped. When I don’t know how to do something, my default setting is to procrastinate instead of jumping in and tackling it.
Whenever Sara and I would talk, I would carefully avoid the subject. I didn’t want to let her down or appear incompetent. Since we weren’t talking about it, she didn’t know what was happening. I assumed she was either irritated with or disappointed in me. But I never asked, so I never knew for sure. I think I was afraid to ask.
Eventually, I realized the situation had created an unspoken barrier between us. My daughter is one of the people I enjoy talking to the most on the planet, and I want a close, loving relationship with her. But my silence was building an unspoken wall that had been growing for two years.
Once I figured out what was happening, I went to her and told her what I was feeling. I apologized, wanting to do my part to remove the barrier I had created.
As we talked, she said, “Yeah, it was the elephant in the room.”
That’s a word picture we’ve all heard and experienced. An elephant is in the room when something obvious is going on and nobody talks about it, and we pretend it’s not there.
I pictured the scenario. I’m sitting on one side of the living room, and my daughter is on the other side. We’re peering through the elephant’s legs, trying to make conversation. The elephant smells, and it fills the room. It’s noisy. It’s huge. But we don’t talk about it.
Once we acknowledge it, we think, “How in the world did that huge elephant get in this room? It doesn’t even fit through the door!”
Sound familiar? Is there anyone in your life with whom you share an elephant—something that everybody knows about but nobody talks about? Nobody wants to say anything, because it will be uncomfortable and people might get upset. The longer the elephant has been there, the harder it is to talk about. But it’s big, and it smells. It gets in the way of genuine relationships taking place.
So how did that huge elephant get into the room?
It came in when it was little.
If we had talked about it when it first entered, we could simply have guided it out through the door. But when we let it stay, it grew and grew and grew. Getting rid of it became a much bigger issue. Once an elephant becomes full-grown, we might need to remove some walls and get professional help to be rid of it.
When I finally acknowledged the elephant with my daughter, she said, “You know, if you had told me you couldn’t figure it out, we could have spent a day working together on it until we knew what to do.” That would have been an awesome day with her. One of our favorite dates is to get coffee at Starbucks and cruise around a hardware store or lumberyard.
I love my daughter. And I love the fact that we got rid of the elephant. She loves the fact that I finished the furniture. And the house doesn’t smell like elephant anymore.
What’s the lesson? Watch for baby elephants in the room. If you let them stay, they’ll get really, really big.
Tough Talking
Do you want to know what your communication will be like in your marriage?” the counselor asked.
We were young and in love. Like most couples, Diane and I knew our marriage would be different. We had seen other people fall in love, get married with high expectations, but then spiral downward over time. They started fighting or withdrawing from each other, and the marital magic disappeared in the first few years.
We knew that wouldn’t happen to us. We had something special between us, and it would carry us through to sheer bliss. Sure, we’d have struggles. But we were in l-o-v-e, and we believed that our unique passion for each other would help us calmly negotiate those issues, find quick solutions, and make us even stronger.
“Sure,” we replied to the counselor, convinced we knew the answer. We had gone through several sessions of premarital counseling with him already, and his guidance was always spot on. “What’s our communication going to be like?”
“Well, it’s not a foolproof technique,” he continued. “But here’s the best predictor of what your communication will be like. Imagine what it would be like if Mike’s dad was married to Diane’s mom.”
It took a few minutes for Diane to regain consciousness while I picked my jaw up off the floor. That wasn’t what we ex