Introduction & Overview
Scouting the Territory Ahead
The first shift and how it points to all the others
The material in this workbook addresses several different learning levels. Chapters One and Eight are about changing attitudes and adopting new overview ideas. Chapters Two through Seven are primarily about learning new skills. Chapter Nine is about building learning-partner relationships.
The attitude shift introduced as Transformation One is the foundation of all the other growth steps. Because this shift is what ties together all the others, I feel it deserves a little extra introducing. It is to shift from just gliding along in the conversational grooves that our culture has already created for us, to consciously observing and guiding our conversations toward win-win successes in cooperation with our conversation partners (from gliding to guiding). The first big shift is to go from being a passenger to being a co-pilot of the airplane of your conversational life.
Each chapter that follows Transformation One will help you apply that transformation in a new way, will help you expand your areas of conscious choice and creative cooperation. I am deeply grateful to the work of Prof. Robert Kegan, and especially his book, The Evolving Self, for helping me to understand the crucial role that self-observation plays in processes of self-development. Observing makes guiding possible!
Nine Ways of Being the Change You Want to See
Because conversations are a bringing together of both persons’ contributions, when you initiate a positive change in your way of talking and listening, you can single-handedly contribute something different to all your conversations.
One of the most empowering lessons I learned from communication teacher Marshall Rosenberg was this: in order to have new conversations, we do not need to wait for the other person to change. We each have half the lines in every conversation, and with mindful attention, we can start talking and listening more skillfully no matter what the other person is doing. If someone throws a mudball at you, you do not have to pick it up and throw it back. You can offer back a flower, or a cup of coffee, or a thousand other things — because we have more creative choices than we realized.
The communication signals and sentences we send out we also “send in” (to our own hearts). While having a physical body might persuade us that we are really separate from other people, personhood arises in a web of persons. Notice how many of our most important personal virtues are descriptions of people in conversations with other people: patient, kind, generous, helpful, etc. These long-term adjectives of character are what emerges from a lifetime of practicing the moment-to-moment virtuous adverbs of conversation: listening and speaking patiently, kindly, generously, helpfully, etc.
The nine practices described in this workbook are nine examples of Gandhi’s saying, “be the change you want to see” — to which I would add the friendly amendment, “by becoming more of the person you want to be”. This may sound idealistic, but you can also understand it as a deeply practical principle: in each conversation, model the behavior you want to evoke from other people AND become more of the person you like living with (since you are your most continuous living companion on the journey of life). Every time you listen carefully, you are both making your own life easier AND teaching those around you that careful listening is possible. Every time you translate a complaint into a clear request, you are both arranging a better outcome for yourself AND demonstrating for others a better path.
Every interaction is, under the content level, BOTH a step in your own development AND an instruction-plus-invitation to the people around you.
One of the deepest questions in life is whether you will shape the communication culture within you and around you on autopilot, just continuing previous patterns — or whether you will shape your present and future by conscious and compassionate choice.
A brief summary of each transformation is given in the paragraphs that follow, along with some of the lifelong directions of personal development that are woven through each one. In Chapters One through Nine you will find expanded descriptions, discussions, examples, exercises, and readings to help you explore each practice in action.
Transformation One. Awaken to conscious conversation.
Become aware that most of our communicating runs on unexamined patterns absorbed in childhood, and that we can learn to bring conscious attention and intention to our conversations. Recognize that communication skills are genuinely learnable, that you are already better at this than you may realize, and that the journey ahead — while challenging — is deeply rewarding. Begin a Learning Journal and start looking for a practice partner.
One deeper level: Learning to see yourself as a developing communicator rather than a finished one — someone whose patterns are ready to grow.
Transformation Two. Listen more carefully and responsively.
Listen first and acknowledge what you hear, even if you don’t agree with it, before expressing your own experience or point of view. In order to get more of your conversation partner’s attention in tense situations, pay attention first: listen and give a brief restatement of what you have heard — especially feelings — before you express your own needs or position. The kind of listening recommended here separates acknowledging from approving or agreeing. Acknowledging another person’s thoughts and feelings does not mean that you approve of or agree with that person’s actions, or that you will do whatever someone asks.
Some deeper levels: Learning to listen to your own heart, and learning to encounter identities and perspectives quite different from your own while still remaining centered in your own sense of self.
Transformation Three. Start important conversations by explaining your intent and inviting consent.
In order to help your conversation partner cooperate with you and to reduce possible misunderstandings, start important conversations by inviting your conversation partner to join you in the specific kind of conversation you want to have. The more the conversation is going to mean to you, the more important it is for your conversation partner to understand the big picture. Many successful communicators begin special conversations with a preface that goes something like: “I would like to talk with you for a few minutes about [subject matter]. When would be a good time?”
Some deeper levels: Learning to be more aware of and honest about your intentions, gradually giving up intentions to injure, demean, or punish, and learning to treat other people as consenting equals whose participation in conversation with us is a gift and not an obligation.
Transformation Four. Express yourself more clearly and completely.
Slow down and give your listeners more information about what you are experiencing by using a wide range of “I-statements.” One way to help get more of your listener’s empathy is to express more of the five basic dimensions of your experience, which researchers have identified over the past half century: (1) What are you seeing, hearing, or otherwise sensing? (2) What emotions are you feeling? (3) What interpretations or wants of yours support those feelings? (4) What action, information, or commitment would you like to request? (5) What positive results will receiving that lead to? The more facets of your experience you share with easy-to-understand “I-statements,” the easier it will be for your conversation partner to understand what you are feeling.
Some deeper levels: Developing the courage to tell the truth, growing beyond blame in understanding painful experiences, and learning to make friends with feelings — your own and other people’s.
Transformation Five. Translate complaints and criticisms into specific requests.
In order to get more cooperation from others, whenever possible ask for what you want by using specific, action-oriented, positive language rather than generalizations, “why’s,” “don’ts,” or “somebody should’s.” Help your listeners understand and comply by explaining your requests with phrases like “so that…,” “it would help me if you would…,” or “in order to…” When you are receiving criticism and complaints from others, practice translating and restating those complaints as action requests.
Some deeper levels: Developing a strong enough sense of self-worth that you can accept being turned down, and learning how to imagine creative solutions to problems — solutions in which everyone gets at least some of their needs met.
Transformation Six. Ask questions more open-endedly and more creatively.
In order to coordinate our lives and work with the lives and work of other people, we all need to know more of what other people are feeling, thinking, wanting, and planning. But our usual “yes/no” questions tend to shut people up rather than opening them up. Asking “How did you feel about that meeting?” will evoke a much richer response than “Did you like it?” Beyond open-ended questions, there are powerfully creative questions from many areas of life — questions that help us move from problem-saturated thinking to possibility-rich thinking.
Some deeper levels: Developing the courage to hear the answers to your questions, learning to be comfortable looking at a situation from different perspectives, and learning to accept that people often have needs, views, and tastes different from your own.
Transformation Seven. Express more gratitude, appreciation, encouragement, and delight.
To build more satisfying relationships, learn to notice and respond to what is delightful, excellent, and enjoyable — to work well done, to food well cooked, to kindness offered. Because life continually requires us to attend to problems and breakdowns, it gets very easy to see in life only what is broken and needs fixing. But satisfying relationships require a core of mutual appreciation. It is appreciation that makes a relationship strong enough to accommodate differences and disagreements. Thinkers and researchers in several different fields have reached similar conclusions about this: healthy relationships need a foundation of expressed gratitude.
One deeper level: Shifting your overall orientation toward gratitude — toward other people, toward nature, and toward life itself.
Transformation Eight. Adopt the continuous learning stance.
In order to have your new communication skills available in a wide variety of situations, practice them in as wide a variety of situations as possible, until — like driving or bicycling — they become second nature. The Eighth Transformation is to approach your evolving communication skills with a growth mindset: seeing each conversation as an opportunity to grow in skill and awareness, each encounter as an opportunity to express more appreciation, each argument as an opportunity to translate complaints into requests. This chapter explores the psychology of learning and change, why practice works the way it does, and how to harness your brain’s habit-forming system as an ally rather than fighting it as an enemy.
One deeper level: Understanding the lifelong journey of expanding self-awareness — from being completely immersed in our patterns to being able to step back, observe them, and guide them with conscious choice. This recurring shift, traced by developmental psychologist Robert Kegan across the whole arc of a human life, is what every chapter in this workbook invites you to practice in the specific domain of how you talk and listen.
Transformation Nine. Build wider circles of mutual support for learning.
Work together with practice partners to build circles of mutual support for cooperative communication skills — for both yourselves and for the wider world around you. This chapter offers practical guidance for finding a practice partner, structuring practice sessions, and gradually expanding your circle. Because communication is inherently relational, learning it in relationship is not just helpful — it is the ingredient that makes lasting change possible.
One deeper level: Learning to separate yourself from the current culture of insult and injury, and learning how to create islands of cooperation and mutuality — islands you can gradually expand to include more and more of the people you encounter on your life journey.
Next steps:
A step for today on your learning journey: start a Learning Journal. It can be any kind: a bound book, a digital document, an online notebook, a three-ring binder — even a daily email to yourself. Your Learning Journal is your first learning companion — a private, patient place where writing down your experiences allows you to see them from a different angle. That shift in perspective is where conscious learning begins. As your first entry, write down some of the improvements you would like to make in the conversations you have with the most important conversation partners in your life.
Begin watching for a practice partner. No action is required yet — just keep one eye open, as you read, for a person you might eventually invite to explore this workbook with you. Any time you are ready, Transformation Nine will walk you through the invitation, step by step.