Communicating Smarter When You're Feeling Resistance
It can be confusing as to what to do next when one is met with seemingly illogical resistance in interactions with authority figures when the facts and evidence are well known and are being presented.
When you're not either being fully understood or trusted about what you're communicating, there has to be a better, more effective way forward.
“I suggest my clients consider both a short-term and a long-term approach,” says Blanka Molnar, a coach and practitioner at her company, Awarenest.
Having both professional and personal experience with this type of situation, she explains the short-term approach:
“They can use that knowledge to adjust, or flex, their communication style to better match the other person's,” Molnar says. “Since ancient times, our brains have been wired to trust and relate more easily to people who are similar to us and this applies strongly in communication. We feel safer when we know what we can expect.”
If we’re dissimilar in our styles or we feel that we are and that is a driving force in impeding communication, clarity and progress of understanding, it is important to know there is a way through the difficulty towards improvement.
“I believe the key ingredients to bridge the gap are higher EQ, self-awareness and mental agility,” Molnar says. “Our default, preferred communication style, is closely tied to our identity and we protect that, especially when we feel misunderstood or attacked.”
It isn’t helpful to get bogged down and insistent with what we prefer when what is needed and beneficial is different.
“Stepping out of your comfort zone and not be limited by ‘this is who I am, this how I communicate, take it or leave it’ and flexing your style and adjusting as needed, takes courage, self-awareness and being grounded in who you are,” Molnar explains.
Knowing the favored, habitual way that a person prefers to communicate can help an interaction be more connecting, so if you “start to match it, you increase your chances of being heard and understood,” she suggests.
Molnar talks how this differs from the long-term approach.
“If the discrepancy in communication isn't just a one-time occurrence but it’s an ongoing issue and a pattern, I recommend to explore the root causes of that pattern,” she says.
What people may find surprising is what’s taking place in ourselves when we’re struggling with other people.
“Often, communication patterns are deeply intertwined with underlying, and-or, subconscious limiting beliefs around authority, self-worth or visibility,” Molnar says.
“By addressing these hidden beliefs at the root through coaching, self-exploratory work or holistic therapeutic modalities, they can shift not just how people communicate but also how they are perceived and received.”
There may instances when a person feels like the person in authority doesn't want to understand and may not be willing to be open-minded to facts, evidence and context.
When this is the case, “The solution depends on the working relationship the two people have,” Molnar says. “Is it a newly established work relationship? Is there a history? And the lower-ranking person's personality type.
“The different personality types tend to react, behave differently.”
There is self-talk or a mantra that may be useful to adopt for someone going through this process.
“‘I cannot control or change the other person but I have a choice about how to act or react,’” Molnar offers as a possibility.
“This quote from Viktor E. Frankl would summarize what I suggest doing: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose to respond.’”
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