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There are some really difficult communication situations where we desperately want to use reflective listening or empathic listening to do a better job in the conversation and connect with the person we're talking to.
But we're afraid if we acknowledge their feelings they'll think that we're agreeing with them and we really don't want to agree with them.
So what do we do?
I'm going to talk about how you can use reflective listening and empathic listening to acknowledge the way someone else feels without actually agreeing with them or approving of the way they are acting or feeling.
Acknowledgement vs. Agreement
One obstacle to empathic listening is our inability to distinguish between acknowledging other people's feelings and approving of or agreeing with other people's feelings. Sometimes when we're in a difficult conversation and we want to really listen to the other person to make them feel heard and understood, we're reluctant to use all the reflective listening skills that we've learned. I will link to two different videos where I talk about reflective listening skills: 5 Essential Phrases for Active/Reflective Listening, and Chris Voss’ Tactical Empathy - Master Reflective Listening.
You may have learned those skills but in this particular situation you're reluctant to use them because you don't really agree with the person. You don't agree with their assessment of the situation. You may not even agree with the way they're feeling. You may think they're overreacting. You may think their analysis of the situation is all wrong. You may think their perceptions are flawed.
So, you don't want to use reflective listening. You're hesitant to because you think that your acknowledgement of their feelings will be interpreted as you're approving of or agreeing with their feelings. Maybe you're even agreeing to a request or something like that. It doesn't have to be that way.
These are two different things. Acknowledging that you've understood the way someone feels and you've understood their perspective is not the same as agreeing with or endorsing their perspective or their feelings or their analysis of the situation. It's also not the same as agreeing to some requests that they're making. We can acknowledge people's feelings and perspectives without agreeing to any request and without approving or endorsing the underlying feelings.
This point is made really well on a site called newconversations.net. It’s a great website full of useful information about communication that's all free. Whoever put this site together I really, really appreciate and respect what they've done because it's full of great stuff. They have a free downloadable workbook, and it's one of the chapters of that workbook that contains this discussion of the difference between acknowledgement and agreement that I find so fundamental.
How to Listen Without Arguing
I'll tell you a story about how I use this technique in my own job. My full-time job is being a college professor at Northwestern University, where I run a master's program. Occasionally the students in my master's program and other students that I teach will have complaints.
They'll have complaints about me, or about the program, or about another teacher, or about a homework assignment or about a bill or just a general complaint. And because I'm the director of the program, eventually these complaints get escalated up to me.
Often when I see students they can be very, very agitated or upset. My strategy with students like this is always the same. When I have a meeting like this scheduled with a student who I know is upset and who my staff has already tried to talk to and yet not been able to resolve the problem, I'm a little bit anxious. I don't like difficult conversations any more than the next person and I'm afraid they might be really angry and upset with me or project their negative emotions on me. It just might be difficult to deal with. But I always have the same strategy which is to spend as much time as I need to understanding their perspective.
1. Listen
Now, often I do not agree with the student's perspective. I might think that they've analyzed things wrong, that they perceived things differently than I did, that what the teacher intended was not what they interpreted, or that the policy in place is reasonable even though they think it's unreasonable.
So I often begin these discussions not agreeing with the student's analysis of the situation but I put that completely to the side and instead I focus just on understanding their perspective. Because often all I've seen is an email trail about what's going on and I don't completely understand. I certainly haven't heard it from the student him or herself telling their side.
I let them tell their story and I take as long as I need and I do all the reflective listening techniques. I summarize. I paraphrase. I reflect. I ask them to tell me more. I ask them to elaborate. I describe what I think they're saying and feeling and I let them correct me if I'm wrong. I offer hypotheses about why they're feeling. I ask them what the worst part is. I ask them what they think would be fair to do and so on.
2. Summarize
Then I summarize all of that. I say, "This is what I hear you saying, and this is what I hear you saying the problem is. This is how it seems like you're feeling and this is what you want me to do." Like Chris Voss says, I try to get them to say “that's right”. If we get to the point where the student says, "That's right," I know I've succeeded.
Then, remember the point of this post is to say acknowledging someone's feelings is not the same as agreeing with them. So in most of these situations I'm not going to be able to give the student exactly what they want to change their grade or to give them a refund or intervene in some way in the dispute that they might be having. I often can't do that and don't want to do that and don't even think that that's the right thing to do.
The majority of the time, once I've given the student the opportunity to describe the problem in detail and allow them to feel heard and totally understood – because I took as long as possible or as necessary to listen to and acknowledge their understanding of the situation – I say, "This is how I see this situation."
3. Interpret
I next offer my interpretation. It's like, "Now, this is what you want me to do." Sometimes I'm able to do what they want me to do. Sometimes by the time they've been able to express themselves, the remedy they want is a remedy that I can grant. So I say, "Well, you've asked for this and I can do that."
But sometimes they've asked for a remedy that I don't agree with or can't grant and I say, "I'm not going to be able to do this and this is why. But, and I understand you might be frustrated that I can't do this and it's okay for you to be frustrated. I apologize I can't do everything that you asked, here's why."
But the whole goal of this and the reason for this long story is that I have acknowledged their feelings without ever agreeing to their interpretation. I don't necessarily agree that the teacher was unfair, or that the paper was graded unfairly, or that the deadlines were not fair, or that their payment should be refunded. I don't necessarily agree.
I've never said that I agreed so I'm not being manipulative or dishonest, I've just listened so I understand their complaint. I don't think I can really respond to a student's concern or complaint until I thoroughly understand it.
4. Explain
Once I understand it and then I can explain, "I've understood your complaint. This is what I can do, this is what I can't do." Normally the situation is resolved at that point. Occasionally there's a real impasse.
Communication doesn't solve every problem. Sometimes I understand what you want and need and you understand what I want and need but we need and want different things. Clear communication doesn't solve every problem. That's a myth about communication.
“If only we could understand one another then we could solve all of our problems.”
No. Sometimes we understand one another completely and we're at an impasse where we have an unresolvable disagreement. Then we have to go our separate ways or the person with the power can impose the solution or whatever it is.
Summary
So that's it – acknowledgement is not the same as agreement.
When you're entering into a difficult conversation and you're afraid you won't be able to use your empathy or reflective listening because you don't agree with the way the person feels you can let go of that. It's okay to acknowledge what they're feeling. This does not imply agreement.
Once you've thoroughly acknowledged what they feel and their perspective and especially if you can get to a “that's right,” then you can also say why you disagree and why you won't be able to approve of or grant their request, endorse their plan of action, or even endorse the way they're feeling. You don't have to do that but you can acknowledge their humanity and often make them feel a lot better by just simply acknowledging the way they feel.
We all have these basic needs, to feel understood and seen and recognized and have our own reality validated. Then we have the need to have our wants granted, but we don't always get that. In this situation we could acknowledge another person's perspective without meeting all their desires or needs.
It's not a perfect solution but it's a pretty good one. It's the best one that communication might be able to offer in a lot of situations.