Do you shift or support?

A friend of mine posted an interesting article on Facebook this week which really got me thinking.  How do you respond to other peoples stories?  It could be a story about anything going on in their lives.  Potentially about adversity, challenge, loss, grief or indeed something far less intense like where to go for their holiday this year.  Often we feel either uncomfortable about a topic being discussed or we simply want to get more involved.  What do you do in that situation?  As the original author Celeste Headlee discussed, do you support the speaker by actively listening to them and offering your help or asking useful questions?  Or do you shift the conversation to a topic you know more about ie yourself!  I have people I know who shift the conversation all the time.  I had noticed it but had never had a useful label to put on it until now.  

If you are someone who 'shifts' you maybe trying to empathise, at least on a conscious level, but what you are really doing is to draw the attention away from the other person and onto yourself.  
Over the last few days I have been noticing how often those around me respond to other peoples stories with stories of their own experiences.  For example, I was in conversation with a friend talking about our plans for our holiday and suddenly we were talking about when he visited the location where we are going to...I felt invisible.  The moral of the story is that when you want to really empathise and listen, being supportive is about hearing others and acknowledging their experiences instead of listening and acknowledging yourself.  

Sociologist Charles Derber describes this tendency to insert oneself into a conversation as "conversational narcissism." It's the desire to take over a conversation, to do most of the talking and to turn the focus of the exchange to yourself. Derber first described these two kinds of responses in conversations: a shift response and a support response. The first shifts attention back to yourself, and the second supports the other person's comment. Here are a couple of simple illustrations from the article:

Shift Response
Mary: I'm so busy right now.
Tim: Me too. I'm totally overwhelmed.

Support Response
Mary: I'm so busy right now.
Tim: Why? What do you have to get done?

Start practising asking questions instead that encourage the other person to continue.  Also, make a conscious effort to listen more and talk less.  Notice what happens when those around you feel they are being heard.  This also works a treat when communicating with your teenagers!  

NLP is all about improving the way you communicate.  Sign up to our free Introduction to NLP course now.  

Have a great week.  From Lindsey and all at Team NLP.