“It’s not you, it’s me”

If you want anyone to change, let’s say it’s your boss just to make it interesting – how can you do it?

Worst way – tell them they’re crap! “You never tell me what’s going on”. “You’re a bad communicator”

You’d be crazy to do that to your boss, but I bet you sometimes do it to your partner, and your kids!

Better but not great – tell them to improve: “I want you to get better at communication. Please will you communicate with me more?”

Best – ask for something specific: I love to know what’s going on, it motivates me and makes me able to be more effective, so please could we have a meeting every Monday, just for 5 minutes, where you give me an update?

We’re not criticising them, we’re blaming it on ourselves, and then asking for something specific and easy to do. Who could say no to a five minute update??

image 6

Here are some other examples:

Instead of “You never support me in meetings” you could say “In today’s meeting would it be possible for you to back me up? It would he me hugely, and I know you support it as well, so straight after I propose the new system, would you be able to chip in and say “Yes I agree, Chris is absolutely right, we should definitely do this new system!”?

Instead of “You always take the credit for what I do and it upsets me” you could say “I’m really proud of this new project that i’ve just finished – please could I have a five minute slot at the next meeting where I present the results of it?”

Instead of “You’re so negative, I find you depressing, all you ever do is find fault and criticise” you could say “I’ve realised that I really like being praised or thanked, I know it’s ridiculous really, I shouldn’t need it, but I do, it really makes a difference for some reason – so I’m thinking, would it possible for you to tell me something good, approximately every week, point out something good that I’ve done or thank me for something, every few days?”

Making it positive and specific and about me rather than vague and negative and about them. It becomes entirely different doesn’t it!

image 6
Scroll to Top