“I wanted to adapt to the standards and I wanted to meet the demands that nobody had put to me; I wanted to be something or pretend to be something I’m not. And so once again it happened that I hastily asked myself and even my entire life. “
Hermann Hesse
Imagine that it is a beautiful morning and you are sleepy and have decided to go to a nearby cafe. The coffee bartender listened to your complaints and then poured you his best coffee and handed it to you with the words: “Please try the coffee. I have been drinking it for five years and it really helps me”. You then drink it, but instead of feeling relaxed and less lethargic, you feel even worse. „It’s disgusting!” you’ve made it known – now you’re going to be sick! „Why?” asked the bartender, “it helps me. Try it again and try to absorb the coffee aroma”. “I’m trying to, after all, you assured me that it is the best coffee that is available on the market”. „With that attitude, it’s no wonder that it does not taste good”. “It’s not a matter of attitude. This coffee is simply not good!” “You are ungrateful!” shewed the bartender, “and after all that I have done for you.”
In such cases, is there any chance that when you again need caffeine to boost you up in the morning, do you then go back to the same bar tender?
I am convinced that the chances are minimal. There is in fact no trust in a man who has not adapted to your expectations, trying at the same time you impose your way of thinking and your values. What’s it like for us, in our communication with other people? Do you always try to adapt to the customer, employee, employer or rather impose your point of thinking?
Our convictions (Maps and filters)…
Regardless of who we are and what experience we have, we know the world through our senses. We are not able to pick up all the sensations that occur in our environment, and therefore what we see and hear is filtered. We use the so-called maps and filters (map of reality), our values and beliefs. We pick what we want to pick, what we want to hear and what beliefs we have. Maps are very selective and provide certain information, leaving the others aside. Contrary to appearances, this mechanism is very necessary and invaluable, because each of us with such a multitude of events and emotions at once would go crazy. Our consciousness is fortunately very limited, it seems that we are able to accept and process a maximum of seven variables at a time (George Miller, 1956) Psychodynamic theorists advocate the thesis that this is who we are and what we value and how we filter reality and what we take away from the home of our parents or caregivers. Our convictions act as filters, causing us to act concretely, in an individual way and we see some things at the expense of others. Looking through the prism of all our generalizations, people are deceptive from the outset, because each of us is unique. “Adapting” in our actions only occurs when we do not claim to enact objective truth, which does not yet exist. Thus, the beginning of the change is to try reframing your own filters or expand the space in which you have embed yourself and other people. This is what empathy is, empathic communication, when you try to understand another person will not impose their beliefs and values on you. This is the first rule to be more effective in your profession and in life.
Applying…
Why is adaptation so important in communication, sales and management …?
Because it is the beginning and the end of the strategy based on the relationship with oneself .. Living for other people. If you are going to talk about empathetic communication, which is intended to give us fun, give financial and social satisfaction and the willingness to cross our own boundaries, we must understand its fundamental right.
Help yourself first to be able to help other people. Purify your life with paradigms that inhibit you. Change or eliminate the habits that limit you. Adjust to other people who will help you grow in your desires. Then you’re ready to listen!
Adapting is a kind of strategy, consisting in understanding the needs of the other person. By adjusting to another person, you give them the space to reflect, feel and describe their desires. We do, however, quite often enter the lives of others, we try to give them good advice and guidance which for us personally is important, but so often we forget that each of us is unique and therefore we pass on to others our beliefs and values. Hence, in order to really understand what the problem is, we must listen to others and then be heard.
If I had to put what in human relations is important in one sentence, I would argue: put on the “shoes” of another person, and (to) follow this strategy.
