Words Can Change Your Brain (2 page)

The elements of Compassionate Communication can be combined in different ways to fit different situations, and you can integrate them with other communication approaches, thereby making them more effective. You can use Compassionate Communication with children to help them cope more effectively with interpersonal conflicts, to discuss difficult topics, and even help them achieve higher grades in school. It also helps family members and caregivers converse more effectively with people who are suffering from mental illness or various forms of cognitive decline. Psychotherapists and peer-counseling groups have integrated Compassionate Communication into their practices, and it has been embraced by many spiritual and religious organizations that promote interfaith dialogue and nonviolent communication.

Compassionate Communication in the Workplace

Compassionate Communication was originally developed as a tool to help couples build intimacy and resolve conflicts, and it has found its way into the hallways of hospitals and caregiving facilities, where doctors and nurses use it to improve their interactions with patients and colleagues.

Compassionate Communication has also generated strong interest in the boardrooms of corporate America. It reduces work-related stress, which compromises productivity and eventually leads to burnout, and it has proven to be particularly effective for building stronger and more cooperative teams, for improving communication between upper and lower management, and for improving client and customer support, thus leading to increased sales and company loyalty.

Financial and real estate companies have also embraced Compassionate Communication. Donna Phelan, a vice president and investment officer at a major bank, explains:

In the fast-paced world of business and financial management, my most important responsibility is
client communication
. Service professionals have a tremendous need to integrate the most effective strategies that exist, and this is particularly true when working in volatile financial markets, where people often experience sensory overload due to the flood of information coming from stock-quote monitors, analysts’ research reports, urgent e-mails, and multiple phone lines ringing at once. The principles and techniques of Compassionate Communication provide a mind-set that optimizes the dialogue between clients, advisors, and market strategists. The mind-set asks, what do clients want most? The answer: to be listened to, and to be heard, in the briefest period of time, with the greatest accuracy, and in a manner that generates mutual respect and trust. In my profession, business success depends on developing these crucial skills, and we have found that advanced training in Compassionate Communication effectively and quickly accomplishes this need.

In personal relationships, poor listening and speaking skills are major causes of disputes and divorce. And in the business world, such weaknesses can drive a company into bankruptcy. Thus, any strategy that can teach a person to speak with clarity, brevity, calmness, kindness, and sincerity will increase interpersonal stability in the workplace and at home. For this reason, Compassionate Communication has been incorporated into a core training module in the Executive MBA Program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. It enhances teamwork performance and the development of socially responsible corporate values, and it helps to reduce the stress generated by the extraordinary demands placed on students who are also managing thriving businesses. As Chris Manning, a professor of finance and real estate, states, “Compassionate Communication offers a cost-effective way to train individuals to communicate more efficiently and professionally with each other while fostering higher levels of openness, trust and interpersonal rapport.”
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Dr. Manning elaborates:

As a society, we have become word dependent, unaware that words play only a partial role in the overall communication process in business. More important is the sender’s skill in conveying an
intended
message and the receiver’s skill at
inferring
what that message will be.
²
These nonverbal messages are imbued with feelings, attitudes, and implied values.
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The strategies built into Compassionate Communication help students, managers, and business executives to recognize and develop these essential nonverbal cues.

Joan Summers also uses a variation of Compassionate Communication when she interviews job applicants for her insurance company. She begins by asking them what their deepest values are (a key component of Compassionate Communication that we’ll address in
chapter 7
). If the applicant’s personal values differ from the values of her company, that person is not hired, because she knows such discrepancies will eventually lead to employee dissatisfaction.

Joan then pays attention to how the person engages in dialogue: Do they make the right kind of eye contact? Do they respond to her questions directly and briefly? Is the tone of their voice warm and gentle? Do they exude positivity about themselves, their skills, and their desire to be part of her team? In essence she is using the components of Compassionate Communication to identify those individuals who have a propensity to communicate effectively with others.

At the Holmes Institute, a theological seminary of the Centers for Spiritual Living, ministerial candidates are trained in Compassionate Communication because it helps them to respond with greater sensitivity to the needs of their congregants. Elementary school teachers are also adopting versions of Compassionate Communication because it helps children develop better coping strategies when conflicts arise on the playground.

Deep Listening

Compassionate Communication puts as much emphasis on listening as it does on speaking. Conscientious listening demands that we train our busy minds to remain focused, not only on what the other person is saying, but also on the nonverbal cues reflected in the speaker’s voice, face, and body language. Deep listening also interrupts the inner speech that is constantly produced by the language centers of the brain, a phenomenon we’ll explore in
chapter 3
. When we learn how to step back and observe this chattering mind, a new type of silence is created. This allows us to give greater attention to what the other person is saying and bolsters our capacity to intuit what the other person is feeling, including subtle forms of honesty or deceptiveness that are reflected in the micro-expressions of the face.

As recent brain-scan research shows, the more deeply we listen, the more our brain will mirror the activity in the other person’s brain. This is what allows us to truly understand another person and to empathize with their sorrows and joys.

Stress and Transformation: Why Old Brains Resist New Tricks

Throughout this book we’ll guide you through different strategies that will change the way you listen, speak, and interact with others, but because they are new, you may find yourself resisting them. This resistance is a natural function of the brain. Once a behavior is learned, it slips into unconscious long-term memory, where it can be brought into action with hardly any conscious effort. Even when we’ve learned a new behavior that’s more effective, the earlier memory and behavior are triggered first.

The human brain needs a tremendous amount of energy to function, and it takes even more energy to build new neural circuits to change the way we normally converse with one another. In fact, every change we make in our lifestyle is perceived by the brain as a stressful event, which is why Compassionate Communication gives special attention to developing strategies that decrease stress.

Stress interferes with the neurological mechanisms that govern language production and perception. When we are stressed, the emotional circuits of the limbic brain become active, and the language circuits in the frontal lobe become less active. Communication studies have shown that stress and tension tighten up the muscles of the face in ways that convey suspicion in the minds of others who are watching us. A relaxed demeanor, on the other hand, conveys openness, confidence, and trustworthiness.

When we are under stress, our tone of voice also changes, taking on a quality of irritability and frustration. This will immediately stimulate a defensive reaction in the listener’s brain that will undermine the potential of having a productive dialogue even before
the conversation begins.

How do you integrate stress reduction and relaxation into a dialogue, especially when you are in the midst of a busy workday? Here’s what John Watkins does at his software development firm. He starts the day by standing in a circle with his six departmental heads. The first minute is spent yawning and stretching, which helps to clear everyone’s mind of distracting thoughts and irritations. Next each person is allotted thirty seconds to describe what they are currently working on. If they’re encountering any problems, or need assistance, other people in the circle can respond with positive suggestions. But again, they must adhere to the “thirty second” rule, which is a crucial component of Compassionate Communication. No criticisms may be expressed, because a single negative thought can disrupt the collaborative process for the rest of the day.

This may sound like a strange ritual for a multimillion-dollar company, but the results speak for themselves: in less than twenty minutes the team can identify the most essential goals for that day and come up with creative suggestions that can be rapidly evaluated, modified, and implemented.

When John’s company was tested by an independent research team, there was—after a year of utilizing this strategy—a significant increase in corporate camaraderie and personal satisfaction, along with measurable decreases in personal anxiety and stress. The number of sick days decreased and company loyalty increased, and this translated into a lower rate of employee turnover. In essence, low stress means greater happiness, and as an important research study recently found when examining more than two thousand business divisions of ten large companies, happy people work harder. They’re also more imaginative, creative, and productive.
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The Meandering Conversation

Compassionate Communication has a long history. It began in 1992 as an informal experiment that Mark developed with a group of transpersonal psychologists and therapists in Los Angeles. At that time there were only three “rules”: relax, speak slowly, and take turns saying whatever comes to mind, without censorship.

The premise was simple: if we could speak from the depth of our beings, rather than in the defensive way we normally relate to others, we might be able to communicate our feelings and desires with more honesty, less anger, and greater sensitivity. Furthermore, if we allow ourselves to speak spontaneously from this inner, deeper self, without imposing a specific agenda on the conversation, the dialogue might become more relevant and meaningful for the individuals involved. We might be able to access deeper emotional truths without fear and thereby generate increased intimacy and trust with others.

When we teach Compassionate Communication to others, we pair people up and guide them through a series of well-tested relaxation techniques. This is followed by several imagination and values-related exercises. Then we tell them to let their conversation flow in any direction it wants to take and to make sure that they respond only to what the other person just said. This strategy enables them to interrupt the inner agendas that most of us unconsciously impose on others when we speak.

By responding only to what the other person just said, both speaker and listener learn how to stay focused on the present moment, and this allows a stronger interpersonal connection to be established. To converse without an agenda may seem counterintuitive—and in business this may sound impractical—especially when there are important issues that need to be addressed. But it isn’t. One can open the dialogue by addressing a specific topic, for this will set the tone and direction for the conversation; but once the dialogue begins, you need to give both yourself and the person you are speaking with the opportunity to bring up other issues and concerns that if left unaddressed could compromise the outcome that you desire.

If we don’t create a “space” in which these hidden concerns and problems can be shared, then we have failed to communicate effectively. Compassionate Communication creates such a space by limiting the speaker’s time and increasing active listening. Consciously encouraging spontaneity in dialogue is also one of the best ways to solve problems because it rapidly generates new ideas and solutions that are unlikely to emerge in more constrained forms of dialogue. In business this is called brainstorming. From a neurological perspective, it taps into the creativity that our human frontal lobes are famous for,
⁵
and which some scientists like to call “cognition without control.”
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In situations where you are attempting to establish intimacy, following a preconceived agenda can feel like cold manipulation to the other person. The same holds true when talking to clients and colleagues. They too need to be heard, and so a balance must be struck between having an agenda and following the flow of a moment-to-moment exchange. This “flow” experience is a core element of Compassionate Communication, and research shows that it encourages optimal work capacity, with the greatest potential for creativity, and with the least amount of effort and conscious control.
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In order to give an individual an experiential
sense of the power of moment-to-moment spontaneity, we developed a specific training protocol: a twenty-minute scripted exercise in which two people sit down and practice the twelve strategies of Compassionate Communication. You will be guided through this exercise in
chapter 9
, and if you practice it several times, with different people, you’ll begin to see how it can transform an ordinary conversation into a remarkable event. The more you practice the training exercise, the easier it will become to integrate Compassionate Communication into conversations in the real world.