What We Don’t Know and Don’t Do That Can Help Us Bridge the Gap in Communication and Interactions
Jennifer Edwards and Katie McCleary are the authors of the book, “Bridge The Gap: Breakthrough Communication Tools to Transform Work Relationships from Challenging to Collaborative.”
“Let’s just say it flat out: you work with people that you struggle to understand, like, or respect. You also work with people who struggle to understand, like, or respect you.
“As much we would all like our work relationships to be simple, unemotional, and confined to the 9-5, the fact is that connecting, communicating, and collaborating with people is much more challenging.
“Bridge the Gap is a framework to help you step up and deepen the quality of your relationships, especially in the workplace. Quality communication and collaboration is the lynchpin of success and it begins with you.
“You have always have a choice, and therefore power is always in your hands.”
We quickly learn in life that the correct, most skilled and effective communication — knowing the best words, meaning and tone, at the right time, with everyone with whom we interact, is complex. A new book examines the challenges we have with our emotions and communication and shows us how we can do it better, do it well, do it successfully.
“Bridge The Gap: Breakthrough Communication Tools to Transform Work Relationships from Challenging to Collaborative,” was authored by Jennifer Edwards and Katie McCleary.
The book speaks to what we all know too well, “In today’s increasingly polarized world, we’re struggling to fully understand and respect one other. As a result, we’re losing sight of the importance of building and maintaining professional relationships; even forgetting to be curious and listen to each other. And that’s bad for business,” the marketing material says.
The book informs the reader on 1) mastering biological reactions when pressure, stress and anxiety hijack your efforts to connect 2) understanding how to better communicate and collaborate 3) leading with curiosity in communication strategies 4) learning how to give authentic feedback and 5) becoming more comfortable working on diverse teams, embracing all cultural backgrounds.
It interestingly and importantly, “explores the intersection of how your biology and lived experiences define, refine, and contribute to your presence and behavior in relationships where you struggle to connect.” And maybe just as important or refreshingly encouraging, it moves away from the discussing the mechanics of ‘difficult’ conversations to talk more about how, “presence, curiosity, and language can foster better interactions and outcomes with others.”
I really like the title of your book. There is certainly a gap, and the bridge is the way. How did the idea 0f — and commitment to — writing the book come together for you as a team?
Katie: We met four years ago in a women’s leadership circle and were each working on a book about how to show up better in the world to accomplish great things. When we discovered each other’s work, it was like finding a puzzle piece that was missing to our own.
Intersecting our tools, curriculum, and passions became a gamechanger, and it required that we let go of our individual books and embark on adventure together. To create a relevant and resonate book, using both our sets of knowledge and ways of describing our methods, meant that we had to bridge many of our own gaps.
Jennifer: The book idea came about because, frankly, we both love our country and were exhausted from the polarization and cancel culture that was creating a pressure cooker around us and our clients.
In addition, we realized we represented the divide. We couldn’t be more different from the outside looking in, we, Jennifer and Katie, appear like different sides of a coin: Republican/Democrat; Christian/Spiritual Explorer; Executive/Creative; Country/Rock n Roll; Polished/Tattooed; and Upper Class/Working Class.
And yet, we still were able to get along and communicate across our differences and collaborate to create a unique framework that represented both our passions and expertise.
Katie: It helps that we love interacting with different types of people and the spirit of business and entrepreneurship which requires a diverse range of talents, skills, and knowledge.
Today, we’ve grown into ‘work-wives,’ which is our way of defining the relationship. It’s a ‘marriage,’ with a lot at stake. Our open communication methods have allowed us to traverse hard stuff and real tensions that can arise every day in this crazy world.
I am drawn to what you have analyzed as problematic and what is important for success: “flagging curiosity, listening skills, and willingness to find common ground.” To what do you attribute our predisposition for heuristics and jumping to conclusions over humility and curiosity? So many issues could be prevented with poise, patience, and increased curiosity.
Jennifer: Humans are meaning-making machines. We receive information and tuck it into a comfort zone of what we already know and have come to believe. Essentially, we are wired for confirmation bias, which means that we make sense of the world by collecting ‘evidence’ that supports our own perspectives.
When confronted with that which we don’t yet know or struggle to understand or hear as threat to our core values, we quickly become judgmental because it doesn’t corroborate our ‘evidence. This means that we tend to become more defensive and unwilling to practice curiosity and humility.
The real solution to overcome polarization or to mend fractured relationships is to get radically curious about what’s at stake for the other.
Katie: So often we are hijacked by our own desire to be right, to be heard, to be seen and known as smart and unique individuals. This immediately diminishes the qualities you stated in your question: humility, listening, and patience.
Becoming radically curious is a choice—it’s a choice to suspend your own beliefs, values, and ideas to hear the other’s perspective and where it comes from. Radically curious people don’t push their agenda, nor do they show up and woodpecker someone to death with questions.
In fact, we call those strategies ‘curiosity fraud.’ Radically curious humans show poise and patience and are willing to hang in a conversation, establish care, and build connective tissue to learn what will unlock and free the relationship from struggle.
Listening skills — what don't we know about them that we would greatly benefit from learning?
Jennifer: Listening doesn’t start with your ears. It starts with being present in the moment and being fully with another person.
Quality listening is all about becoming ultra-aware and clear about how you filter information coming into your ears and making meaning of what you heard.
Words mean different things to different people based on lived experiences and, perhaps more importantly, in whatever biological state they are in when they hear something. When our bodies are agitated, stressed, anxious or frantic, we listen and interpret what we hear much differently than when our bodies and brains are in calm, optimal place.
Katie: We teach ‘clean listening, which is kind of like the craze of ‘clean eating.’
‘How can I show up optimally so that I can be present, undistracted, and not at the mercy of my own internal chatter, agenda, and-or feelings in my body?’
In addition, ‘how can I listen not only to the words of another, but their energy?’
‘How can I know what matters to them if I’m not hearing which words light them up or drag them down?’
When listening, pay attention to that and ask follow up questions that help you understand the energy behind their words.
Common ground, as a collective and maybe one-on-one: it’s easy to assume there is absolutely no way that it can be found or reached in a heated dispute or entrenched conflict. Of course, that belief changes our psychology and understanding of what is possible. What can help us change how we frame ‘common ground’ and what can inspire us to be willing to pursue it, believing it's there....somewhere?
Jennifer: We often say that we are two sides of the same coin. And what separates those two sides are millimeters not even inches or canyons. Unfortunately, in heated moments that becomes lost.
Each of us are at the mercy of living in a human suit that nobody can unzip. . . and therein lies the problem and the possibility. All humans carry with them three fundamental emotional needs: to be understood, valued, and-or accepted.
Katie: Bridging the gap under the guise of ‘find common ground,’ doesn’t work unless one, two, or all three of those fundamental human emotional needs are met.
You don’t have to bat 1000, but transparently coming to an agreement that you either understand the other’s point of view or can accept and-or respect certain aspects goes a long way in bridging gaps.
Then you can find a common goal to work towards together. But if emotional needs aren’t addressed it’s often a fruitless endeavor.
How can we reliably accomplish what seems so elusive at the most stressful moments, mastering biological reactions to connect amid pressure, anxiety and stress?
Jennifer: It’s back to that human suit that we can’t zip off. As social creatures, we are quick to absorb and respond to all the stimuli we encounter.
Life is a pressure cooker, and we are not immune from our biology and brain being hijacked when we get squeezed or hammered. The most successful people who can connect inside the pressure cooker are able to disrupt the hijack before it diminishes their ability to be creative, curious, present, and communicative.
Katie: In a fast-paced, digitized world, people are often hijacked from showing up as their best, most present selves. We are all at the mercy of stress and anxiety, along with giant to-do lists, burgeoning email inboxes, an onslaught of meetings, and responsibilities to care for our families and health.
So, in the rush our world, intentionally choose Response Over Reaction when you struggle to connect with someone, or the situation is tense.
Slow down your brain when a swell of words want to spew out of your mouth by counting 5-8 full seconds before you respond.
If your body is shaking or nervous, pinch one of your thumbs to immediately calm down.
It’s okay to take the time to choose your words internally before speaking to them externally.
“Manage biases, reactions, and judgment to build better relationships.” That sounds like Ph.D.-level work. Are we, as humans, as individuals and a collective, even capable of this to prevent or navigate through difficult interactions?
Jennifer: Yes, we are. If we are willing to become radically curious about how lived experiences, culture, and our family of origin creates narratives that drive people’s behavior, then we can work through biases, reactions, and judgements to build better relationships.
The key is to be curious about what you feel, how you react, when you react and with whom.
And then flip that coin and be curious about how the other feels, how they react, when they react and with whom.
Katie: It’s all about building awareness and learning how to disrupt the compulsion to argue, negate, and be in a breakdown with another.
It takes practice and reflection to exercise and grow new muscles. So, when you notice a bias or judgment happen, push pause. Ask yourself, ‘what am I feeling right now and what do I need to get curious about instead of jumping to judgment?’
“... .the way you show up (your energy, presence, listening, and language) shapes key outcomes.” Can you elaborate generally how this works?
Katie: How you show up matters. Throughout life, most of us didn’t consciously acquire communication and conversational skills to show up consistently or optimally. Very few of us ever learned how to be present with another person, to ignore internal and external noise and distractions, and connect and converse with others in useful or collaborative ways.
Every interaction you have has the power to improve or deteriorate a critical professional relationship.
Jennifer: You have the power to propel the work forward by showing up with an intention to connect, engage, and communicate — even through tension, conflict, or awkwardness. Equally, you also have the power to shut people down, build divisive walls, create drama, shame and blame, and stonewall your own success and the company’s. The choice is yours.
Lock yourself in a bathroom and look in the mirror to practice how you look, speak, and emote when you say certain words and in certain tones.
Katie: Ask others that you trust how they experience you when you’re happy, sad, frustrated, angry, impatient, or any other key emotions.
Do they experience you as a flustered? As long winded and all over the place? Do they experience you as shut off and defensive? Be intentional to learn about how you show up and ask for feedback.
“... how to communicate clearly with people of any level or background to navigate any emotion or situation.”
I know intelligent people who struggle to communicate clearly, and they get frustrated that they can't convey their message successfully. I want to hear them and understand yet they get very impatient and upset. I know my communication has likely not always been clear. How can we learn to be clear communicators and especially to, “navigate any emotion and situation.”
Jennifer and Katie: Here are seven tips to be clearer in any situation:
Be brief and brilliant… then be gone. Less is more. Overtalking can easily be a destroyer of connection. Extra words create added confusion. Finish a point, but don’t hammer it into pulp. Simple words and sentence construct works best.
A smile goes a long way toward building connection. Keep your jaw loose and your shoulders relaxed. Take a big breath before any workplace communication and smile.
Don’t interrupt. Period. It is too easy to jump in and sling words that aren’t necessary into the conversation. Hold tight. Wait. Enter the door into the conversation when appropriate.
Never make a point without telling a short story example. And never tell that story without being clear on its point. Too often, people start telling stories and never end up where they meant to go. Have a clear anchor in your story that can land well.
Thinking and processing out loud often discredits you in relationships where you aren’t close with the other person. If you are looking to gain professional credibility, be sure to do your processing and thinking ‘offline’ before the conversation to bring your best, most confident, and curious nuggets to the discussion.
Silence is a secret weapon. There is no reason you need to do all the talking and explaining. Hit pause on your lips. Let another person do the work. ‘Silent’ equals ‘listen.’
Practice humility, not cockiness. Even if you know the answer, the path, and the solution—resist being a showoff. Humbleness in professional settings is attractive and powerful.
