Provision #609: Honesty Needs
by Bob Tschannen-Moran
LifeTrek Laser Provision
What do you think of when you think of honest self-expression? Do you think
of telling people exactly what you think? Do you think of telling people what
you want them to do? These forms of communication may sound honest, but they
often skirt and confuse the real issues. Our needs for honesty take us to
another level altogether. They have less to do with what we think and want and
more to do with what we feel and need. Being honest at that level holds great
potential for making life more wonderful, and I hope this Provision will show
you a way to make it so.
LifeTrek Provision
As the weeks go by in this series, I continue to learn much about how best
to express our universal needs. One way to keep an eye on how that is emerging
is to visit one of our companion websites,
www.CelebrateEmpathy.com, on a
regular basis. The now 4-page handout,
Understanding
Needs & Feelings, includes my own constantly-evolving Wheel of Needs as
well as a condensed summary of Manfred Max-Neef's model of Human Scale
Development. Instead of evaluating wealth solely in financial terms, Max-Neef,
who hails from Chile, is one of those economists who asks larger questions about
how well a society is meeting the needs of its people.
Max-Neef understands needs in the same, broad scope as we have been exploring in
this series of Provisions. They are certainly far broader than money, which is
actually a strategy for meeting needs rather than a need itself. Money is an
invention of human society, and not that old of an invention at that (only a few
thousand years). For the vast majority of human history and pre-history, needs
were met without the use of money through bartering and sharing. At times like
these, during economic recessions and depressions, people are rediscovering
these ancient practices as we search for new strategies to meet our needs.
That's what needs do: they motivate human behavior. When needs are being met,
they generate positive emotions and motivate appreciative behaviors. When needs
are not being met, they generate negative emotions and motivate acquisitive
behaviors. Something there is that doesn't love an unmet need.
Over the past five weeks, I have reviewed the first half of my Wheel of Needs
diagram. We have considered our subsistence needs, as well as our needs for
safety, community, empathy, and work. Those are pretty basic, when you think
about it. If we don't feel safe, either personally or in society, then it
circumscribes the realm of the possible. If we don't have others upon whom we
can depend and trust to share power with, then we come up short more often than
not. If those others blame, judge, evaluate, and criticize our efforts and our
way of being in the world, then it's hard to develop a happy and life-giving
relationship with either ourselves or others. And if we do no work, then our
bodies, minds, and spirits will suffer.
Now we come around the horn and begin to review those needs that are on the
opposite sides of the wheel from the needs we have already covered. That is no
accident. The needs are arranged on the wheel in ways the illuminate a variety
of relationships. The needs that are next to each other on the wheel share the same
energies and support the same ends. It's hard to meet our subsistence needs, for
example, without meeting our needs for work and safety. Life takes work whether
it comes to putting food on the table or securing our environment against
possible threats.
That's the way all the needs work as you move around the wheel. Pick any one
need and look at the two needs on either side. A little reflection will begin to
tease out new insights as to how the needs are related and how best to meet your
needs when one or another is lacking.
Needs on opposite sides of the wheel represent opposite ends of a spectrum.
Their energies are different and they challenge us to come from different
perspectives and positions. It's not that they are opposed to the needs on the
other side of the wheel, it's rather that they pull us in opposite directions.
Understanding, appreciating, and navigating that pull is the secret of life.
How's that for a nice gift! The secret of life, revealed, and you didn't even
have to hike to the top of a mountain to consult with a guru. Getting our needs
met, not just some of our needs but all of our needs, is the secret of life. The
fact that that secret eludes so many people does not change the secret. When one
or more needs are not being fully met, there is a hole that won't leave us
alone. We cannot be whole with holes.
The pull on the other end of the spectrum from empathy is honesty. Simply put,
empathy is receiving respectfully what's alive with someone else. Honesty is
expressing respectfully what's alive with us. Talk about opposite ends of the
spectrum! Both are needed, both are essential, but they are very different
movements on the trek of life.
From moment to moment, it's always a judgment call as to which movement we take.
And it's not always clear as to which movement will be the most in any given
situation. Do I seek to understand where someone else is coming from (empathy)?
Or do I seek to express where I am coming from (honesty)? The movement
represents a dance and it takes mindfulness as well as practice to get the steps
right.
Most of the time, in my experience, it's better to lead with empathy. I say in
my experience because most of the time, when I impulsively lead with honesty, I
end up in trouble. I get my motor caught in deep weeds and its hard, if not
impossible, to get out. So I have learned, the hard way, that it's better to
lead with empathy.
Echoing St. Francis' prayer, Stephen Covey pegs this as the fifth habit in his
bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: "Seek First to
Understand, Then to Be Understood." Covey writes, "'Seek first to understand' involves
a very deep shift in paradigm. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people
do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything
through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's
lives" (p. 239).
After we express empathy, after we connect with respect, after we understand the
feelings and needs of others, then we can express what's alive with us -- and,
at that point, it often comes out in totally different ways than if we had gone
first. Once we hear where someone else is coming from, we can reframe where we
are coming from and express it with clarity, courage, and compassion.
That's the connection between empathy and honesty. The better we are at one, the
better we will become at the other.
Honesty is not about giving someone a piece of our mind. Honesty is not about being
rude, opinionated, and judgmental. Honesty is about walking the talk, sharing
our needs, and making requests. When we can do those three things with clarity,
courage, and compassion, we really are making life more wonderful both for
ourselves and for others.
Walking the Talk. Honesty starts with integrity. If we are not honest
with ourselves, then we cannot be honest with others. If we are out of step and
out of sync with our values, then others will not want to hear what we have to
say. How many leaders have fallen out of favor in just this way! It has happened
so often that people are no longer surprised when another prominent person bites
the dust in this way. We just roll our eyes as if to say, "You can't trust
anyone anymore." But honesty requires trust and trust requires integrity.
Sharing our Needs. This is probably the most overlooked part of honest
self-expression. We go right to what we think would make us feel better -- "I
want you to stop talking that way." -- rather than to what needs are being
stimulated when someone talks that way -- "I need respect, consideration, and
affirmation". Remember the Wheel of Needs. By sharing our needs without
immediately sharing our ideas as to what people should do to meet those needs, we give
people the chance to understand us better and to express empathy.
People are more likely to do that if, after we honestly express our needs using
the language on the Wheel of Needs chart, we stop talking and allow those needs
to sink in. If we rush to put forward whatever we think the other should start
or stop doing to make the situation better, the other will often take issue with
the strategy without appreciating and connecting with needs. When it comes to arguing about
strategies there is no end! When it comes to understanding needs, however, there
is a common bond of experience and humanity.
Making Requests. One way to allow the needs to sink in before you start
figuring out solutions is to state the needs that are alive for you and then to
ask, "Would you be willing to tell me what you heard me say?" That's what
Nonviolent Communication refers to as a connection request. It's a way of
pausing the conversation and of checking in with how your honest self-expression
is being received before moving on to action requests. Action requests will
come, but they will go better and you will have more courage if you take time to
first connect at the level of feelings and needs.
Action requests can involve all sorts of things. One of the beauties about
getting clear and connected around the needs is that all kinds of new ideas
emerge as to how those needs could be better met. This isn't about comprising your
ideas or sacrificing your boundaries, this is about generating better ideas through
facilitating understanding, openness, and respect. Once people hear that you are
not demanding "my way or the highway", once your honest self-expression is about
meeting needs rather than throwing your weight around, then they become partners
in the search solutions. That is the key to making things work.
We all need honesty, both from ourselves and from others. Unfortunately, it gets
compromised in countless situations and ways. If we take this Provision to
heart, however, we may find an approach that can increase the incidence of
honesty in our lives and in our world. It's not about being rude and pushy to
get our own ways. It's rather about being integral and whole, sharing our needs
and making requests, until those proverbial win-win solutions rise to the top.
Coaching Inquiries: How would you rate the honesty quotient in your life? What
would assist you to express your needs more fully? How can you avoid coming
across as self-centered and demanding? What opportunities exist for you to
express honesty in new ways and places in the week ahead? How will you make it
so?
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LifeTrek Readers' Forum (selected feedback
from the past week)
Editor's Note: The LifeTrek Readers' Forum contains selections from the comments
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Email Bob..
I am so enjoying your weekly Provisions. This week's
horse
whisperer story is no exception. You have a gift of tapping into ideas,
resources and information from very varied, rich and sometimes unexpected
sources. Thank you.
Often an issue is one I like to keep in my computer files so I will do a cut and
paste in Word. It's a bit cumbersome. So I have one request: can you set it up
so we can hit a "print" button" to get a printable version? And perhaps a "send"
button to make it easy to forward? Similar to other newsletters and magazines
out there. (Ed. Note: We don't have that capacity right now, but the most
printer-friendly edition can be found at our
AvantGo site. Hope that
helps.) Top
May you be filled with goodness, peace, and joy.
Bob Tschannen-Moran, President
LifeTrek Coaching International
121 Will Scarlet Lane
Williamsburg, VA 23185-5043
Email: Coach@LifeTrekCoaching.com
Phone: (757) 345-3452
Fax: (772) 382-3258
Twitter: LifeTrekBob
Web: www.LifeTrekCoaching.com
Mobile: www.LifeTrekMobile.com
Coach Training: www.EvocativeCoaching.com
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