Talk to Me

Find the Right Words to Inspire, Encourage, and Get Things Done

Kim Bearden

• Publisher: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781946444868
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

Whether you are a teacher, administrator, parent, or business professional, chances are, you struggle at times to find the right words. This inspirational handbook empowers you with six principles for effective communication. You'll learn how to develop rapport, strengthen relationships, and connect with people in meaningful ways. In a world desperate for kindness and understanding, Talk to Me equips you to use your words to show others that you care.

Part 1:
The Foundation

The six principles serve as the foundational tools to help you build more effective communication. In this section, you will gain an understanding of the principles and the ways to implement them in your daily interactions. The principles are taught in a specific order, for the concepts build upon one another; however, once you have mastered each, you do not have to implement them sequentially. To help you reflect as you learn, each chapter is followed by a summary and suggestions for implementation.

Chapter 1:
Consideration

“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

—Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I was engaged in teaching my fifth-grade students a lively song on verb conjugation when I noticed one of my teachers peeking in my door with a look of distress on her face. When she saw my class was in session, she quickly turned and left, so I went looking for her as soon as I dismissed my students. I found her sitting alone in her room, tears pooling in her eyes.

“Do you need me? Are you okay?” I asked.

She did not answer at first; instead, she turned her computer screen toward me and pointed at an email—an email written in capital letters and filled with exclamation points. As I began to read, she exclaimed, “Why on earth is Mrs. Caldwell^* so angry? I don’t understand. Please scroll down and read what I wrote first. Did I do something wrong?”

The teacher had politely asked for an overdue field-trip permission form, yet somehow the teacher’s simple request had angered Mrs. Caldwell. The response was the kind that felt like a punch in the stomach. I didn’t get it either. Normally, I encourage teachers to reach out to a parent first before I intercede in a situation, but in this case, this mama’s response was not rational. I knew it was my job to contact her instead.

I called and left two voicemail messages that went unreturned. Luckily for me, Mrs. Caldwell picked her daughter up from school each afternoon, so I knew that I could catch her in the carpool line. As I approached her car, Mrs. Caldwell pretended not to see me. She slumped down in her seat, attempting to avoid eye contact. I gently tapped on her window, and she rolled it down, feigning a look of surprise. “Mrs. Bearden … uh, hi.”

“Hi, Mrs. Caldwell. I am not sure if you received my calls, but I need to talk with you for just a couple of minutes. Don’t worry—your daughter is okay. Would you mind parking your car and coming inside?”

As she walked with me into the building, I did everything I could to make small talk, but she wasn’t having it. She remained cold and noncommunicative; she walked so slowly to avoid our conversation that I felt like I was walking backward instead of forward just to keep her beside me.

As soon as we sat down in my classroom, I reached across the table, took her hand in mine, and said, “Thank you for taking time to come inside. I know you are probably ready to get home. Is everything all right? Are you okay?”

“What do you mean, am I okay?” she snapped.

“I just wanted to know if you are okay. I care very much about you. Talk to me.”

She put her head down and sighed. And then the tears flowed. For the next twenty-six minutes, I said nothing. Not one word. I just nodded and listened as she sobbed about her current situation. In the past two weeks, she had lost her job managing rental properties, thus also losing her rent-free housing on one of the sites. When her husband realized she had lost the job (and their home), he left her. She was driving her sister’s car that day because her own car had been repossessed. She finally shouted, “I have lost my job, my car, my husband, and my home, but I am not a bad mother! I am not!”

And just like that, it all made sense. She had equated a teacher reminding her that she had forgotten to turn in a permission form to an accusation of her being a bad mom. Now that is a big leap that seems irrational, but this woman was on the edge. Overwhelmed. Broken. Done. Her reaction to that friendly reminder had absolutely nothing to do with her daughter’s teacher or with me.

She slumped her shoulders, and her sobs quieted into soft weeping. I handed her another tissue, reached for her hand again, and waited. When she raised her head, she said, “Oh, no. I did something terrible. My email was so awful. I need to go apologize right now!”

I finally spoke. “Hold on. First, I want to thank you for entrusting me with all of this. We care about you. I care about you. Life is giving you a lot to deal with all at once, and I am so sorry that you are going through this.”

“But I need to go apologize! I feel so terrible!” she repeated, shaking her head.

“Mrs. Caldwell, I don’t want you to feel terrible; however, I ask that you never write an email to one of my teachers like that again, and an apology would be nice. When you are struggling, you don’t have to share your personal business with us, but if you tell us you are having a tough time, we are here to help in any way that we can.” She stood and hugged me tightly for several moments. She thanked me profusely for understanding, and then she hugged me again before leaving. Mrs. Caldwell apologized to the teacher, and she even sent cupcakes to school with her daughter the next morning.

WE ALL HAVE A STORY

We encounter Mrs. Caldwells every day. They are the overwhelmed, the broken, the lost, the hurt, the scared, and the scarred. And we usually do not have the benefit of knowing their true stories. We brush off such people as crazy or mean, and we let their words and actions steal our joy and break us.

After thirty-one years as an educator, I have dealt with thousands of adults and children, and I have learned that the Mrs. Caldwells feel invisible, and sometimes they shout because they are so desperate to be heard by someone—anyone. Sometimes their pain comes out as insults; sometimes their pain is shown through multiple emailed exclamation points.

Every person on this planet has a story, and it is still being written. Some are living in their brightest chapters; others are in the darkest ones, barely able to turn the page. Realize that others have burdens and pains that we may know nothing about, and these could be framing their comments and reactions and inhibiting their ability to communicate with others appropriately.

Realize that others have burdens and pains that we may know nothing about, and these could be framing their comments and reactions and inhibiting their ability to communicate with others appropriately.

When faced with people who seem irrational, consider the fact that you don’t know their stories, and remember that there can be a difference between being right and doing the right thing. I had documentation to prove that my teacher was right. The parent was wrong in the way she had responded, and I do not think that we should go through life allowing people to treat us harshly or bully us. But the right thing for me to do in that situation was to listen and to show genuine concern. In doing so, I supported my teacher and made it clear to Mrs. Caldwell that her actions were not acceptable.

In my encounter with Mrs. Caldwell, I followed the six foundational principles that foster effective communication:

Consideration: What could be the other party’s perspective?

Motivation: What is driving the outcomes that I really want from our conversation?

Appreciation: What am I grateful for in this situation?

Validation: How can I make the other party feel respected and heard?

Conversation: What needs to be said? What needs to be heard?

Celebration: How can we express our success at reaching understanding?

These principles can be taught to anyone, and I will teach them to you in the pages that follow. They will increase your ability to develop rapport, gain respect, support others, engage listeners, develop insight, be heard, and increase productivity. But—there is a catch. The extent to which these will work will be directly proportional to how much you embrace the importance of the first principle and overarching concept: consideration.

Mrs. Caldwell went from furious to appreciative in one meeting because she believed me when I said I cared. She believed me when I said we were there to help. She believed me because it was true. No matter how planned or eloquent the words you speak may be, at the heart of it all, true leaders understand that communication isn’t as much about the words you say as it is about the sincerity with which you say them. Effective communicators understand the idea that, “There is a point to my life, and I am not it.” To do the same, we must always consider that there is more to the story, and we must lead with empathy.

True leaders understand that communication isn’t as much about the words you say as it is about the sincerity with which you say them.

Empathy and sympathy are often confused. To put it simply, empathy is the attempt to put yourself in another’s shoes—to seek to understand another’s perspective. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone else’s circumstances. Now in Mrs. Caldwell’s case, I certainly did feel sympathy when I learned what was going on, but before that, I had empathy. Sometimes empathy will lead you to sympathy. Sometimes it will not; however, it will always lead you to a better understanding.

As I walked out to meet her in the pick-up line that day, these were the kinds of thoughts that were going through my mind:

I wonder what could have triggered that email? Something is obviously going on that I don’t understand.

Is she going through some type of personal crisis? Could we have done something else that upset her, and is she just responding to suppressed anger about it now?

If she is experiencing some type of problem, how can I let her know that we care?

I need to figure out how to fix this for the sake of her daughter, the teacher, and the parent.

Notice how such thoughts are very different than this kind of thinking:

Who does she think she is?

I am going to let her know that I saw that email, and I am not happy!

She cannot get away with acting like that! Not on my watch!

I have done so much for her child. How dare she! How ungrateful of her!

Jeez! This is why I hate my job sometimes! If people only knew what I have to put up with every day!

You get the picture. Look, I have had those kinds of thoughts, too. But I have learned that consideration for the other person’s perspective always leads...