Author: Anna Plesovsky, business coach, general director of the inter-industry association PHARMPROBEG
Honestly, if someone told me a couple of years ago that I would write such materials, I would be very, very surprised. And this surprise would be completely justified, because I have long found myself in the field of communications and truly love my work. Why should I spend time on educational activities? Call it “professional deformation,” but over time I began to notice that there are a number of communication blocks that impede or, on the contrary, contribute (if overcome) to the successful construction of effective communication, which, in turn, affects all areas human life. One of the most common communication barriers is “running away,” which today’s article will focus on.
So what, in my opinion, is “running away”, “avoiding” and other derivatives? In fact, “running away” is a behavioral barrier when the interlocutor deliberately or unconsciously avoids communication with an opponent.
How are signs of “running away” manifested? I’ll start with simple examples. You have agreed with your partner about a call, meeting or a joint event. However, unexpectedly, the partner stops responding to calls, messages or says that he is constantly busy and does not have the opportunity to follow the agreements. Pretty common situation, isn’t it?
There are more sophisticated ways. Especially often, I observed such cases when working with top managers at the stage of “growth disease”, when the customer had an internal understanding that there was a need to move to a new stage of development, for example, career growth or the desire to achieve higher business performance. At the same time, the leader can set well-defined tasks that, when implemented, will undoubtedly lead to the fulfillment of the intended goal, but in fact it begins to impede the process, choosing a priori weak executives instead of a competent manager or worse, interfere with the task, citing external circumstances of “force majeure”.
As a rule, in such cases, a peculiar “pendulum effect” is triggered, when, on the one hand, there is a well-formed desire to rise to a new stage of one’s own development, and on the other hand, there is a communicative unit with which it is important and necessary to be able to work. After all, it is one thing when a person simply did not answer your call and another thing completely when the degree of influence of a person extends to your activities, life plans and business processes of the company as a whole. In order to learn how to manage communication in an obvious barrier situation, it is important to understand the nature of the appearance of such a block.
What are the main reasons for the emergence of a behavioral barrier? First of all, at a basic level, it is necessary to understand that this type of communicative barrier is a manifestation of resistance – such a mechanism for protecting the psyche, in which the defensive reaction itself in a favorable situation serves as the opportunity to move to the next step in the hierarchical ladder of social relations. Moreover, it should be noted that the psyche almost always protests everything new, unknown. That is why we often observe situations when people cling to obsolete relationships, including in working tandems, which do not bring the joys of movement and development, making themselves and others miserable. That is why the helpful brain tells us a million “no” to refuse a new acquaintance, meeting or completely unexpected actions.
It is worth noting that in trying to keep the past, the illusion of a change of scenery may arise: so one of my acquaintances top manager constantly changed the staff of his company, comforting himself with the hope that just about a little more and everything in his life would change. Only the paradox is that the quality and competencies of these people were exactly the same. That is, the change of people in this case was absolutely pointless, because the top manager simply could not overcome his own resistance to the emergence of a new type of people who could independently manage processes within the framework of their functionality.
Nevertheless, the most wonderful thing in this type of communication barrier is that it can be completely changed with simple actions. For example, if you often ignore incoming calls, you just need to learn how to answer them. Or you can try to convey to the interlocutor your position directly and without excuses for yourself that your words can hurt or offend him. It is important to understand that in this case you are driven by your own settings.
In addition, it is worth trying to fix their own fears. As an example, I’ll give my experience when I have been afraid of heights for almost my whole life and to overcome it I had to climb a wet mountain to a waterfall and just jump into it. However, this is too extreme a method; I do not recommend using it in the absence of internal readiness. Good practice here can be sporting events. In particular, when developing communication training in conjunction with the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Information Technology of the Russian Federal Medical and Biological Agency, we plan to include, in addition to practicing communicative barriers in the lecture room, going to a lesson in the FLYARENA wind tunnel as one of the most effective ways to remove communication blocks.
In general, I note that the communicative barrier “runaway” is a signal that there is an internal need for development. The most important thing is to admit to yourself the fact that either you or others have such a block. And then, believe me, the right actions will not take long.
In turn, I will be glad to see you at my trainings or at the trainings of my partners.
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