JAB: How NOT to Respond to Sharing

In my last post, I talked about my acronym EARS, which describes green light and yellow light behaviors when responding to someone who is trying to share with you. The green light behaviors (Empathy and Asking questions) help the speaker to feel understood and listened to and encourage them to say more. Yellow behaviors (Relating and Solutioning), when used well, can also help to deepen your connection.

 🛑 Red Light Responses

In this post, I’ll share my acronym that describes red light behaviors — JAB. These are ways that we shut down sharing -- without even intending to. Because in the end, if you want someone to be open and share their experience with you, you have to provide a hospitable environment. That is your end of the bargain. Doing any of these JAB behaviors will serve to shut down the conversation and dissuade this person from sharing with you again.

So without further ado, here are the behaviors: 

• J. J stands for Judge.  Do you want someone to share with you? Well, don’t make them feel like they are bad. You don’t have to agree with them, but you cannot make them feel judged. This is a sure fire way to shut someone down. Here are some great ways of making people feel judged: criticizing, moralizing, lecturing, shaming, guilting. And you don’t even have to say any words. If your facial expression or body language looks judgmental, forget it. That person is not going to want to share anything with you.  Instead, you are making them feel like they are bad.

• A. A stands for Argue. When someone is trying to share with you, do not argue with them!  This can be particularly hard when someone is recounting a story that you remember differently.  Or when they are misinterpreting your intentions.  The thing is — if you argue with them to defend yourself, correct the record, or prove a point, you are creating an environment that doesn’t feel safe for sharing.  You are making them wrong.  You can win or you can connect -- but you can't do both. Here are some other ways you can argue: minimize their feelings or experience (that’s not that bad), compete with them (that’s nothing — wait until you hear about what happened to me!), deny their reality (that didn’t happen), get defensive (it’s not my fault, I didn’t do that, that’s not what I meant!) If you are arguing with them rather than listening, they will not feel understood or important.  You may be able to bring up your points later, but right now — they have the floor, so don’t make them wrong by arguing with them while they are trying to share.  And finally, 

• B.  B stands for Blame.  Blame is about responsibility or fault.  It is when you point out that the person sharing deserved that consequence or is somehow to blame for the fact that it happened.   You may think this -- but don't say it IF you want that person to feel like they can share things with you. Blaming can look like pointing out how that person contributed to the problem.  Or, a perennial favorite, you can become the victim and make them to blame.  No one wants to feel like they are at fault or solely responsible, so if you want to invite sharing, don’t blame them.
  

Let's give an example to see how these might play out in real life.  Let's say your partner comes home from work and wants to share a story about an annoying colleague.

Partner: "You'll never believe what happened today.  I was talking about my idea in the staff meeting and Joel totally took credit for it!  Can you believe that?  It was my idea!"

And here are some possible red light 🛑 responses:

• "Here we go again -- there is always something." (Judging)

• "Maybe you should have talked to him first." (Solutioning, Blaming, Judging)

• "I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it." (Arguing - denying, minimizing)

• "I'm sure it wasn't that bad." (Arguing - minimizing)

• "You always get so upset by stuff at work." (Judging)

• "Did you say something mean to him in advance?" (Blaming)

• "You *are* kind of competitive with him." (Blaming)

• "You are ruining my nice night with your complaints!" (Judging, Blaming - becoming a victim)

Again, this is only if the goal of the conversation is to invite sharing.  If the goal is to distance yourself, punish the speaker, or shut down the relationship, feel free to use all three of these behaviors with gusto!  They work really well for that.  But if you want to feel connected and invite sharing, steer clear of all of these.

Let me know what you think! Comments are always appreciated and thanks for reading.