A couple of summers ago I was reading a book called, “The Whole Brain Child,” by Daniel J. Siegel. I found it very interesting how when children are acting out emotionally it is crucial we hang out in the right side of the brain with them, empathizing and validating their feelings before bridging to the left side of brain where we talk about the “why” or logic. Totally easier said than done. All I could think was, “I wonder how this applies to adults?” A few months later, because anymore, it takes me this long to read books, as a new mother. I am camping with friends and the book was on the table. My friend sees the book and says, “Oh, you are reading a Daniel J. Siegel book, that man is brilliant!” I responded thinking she also read the book because her child was four years older than our little girl. That wasn’t it at all though, she had produced a course for the author with the production work she does for her career. We started talking and she shared that she had to read multiple books of his to understand what he was talking about in his course. That was the beginning of the path I went down to understand more about his findings and how actually, we should be communicating the same way with adults by hanging out in the right brain before bridging to the left. It follows the same concept I talk about with empathizing before educating, yet it explains more of the “why” behind it. As humans, we cannot hear or grasp left brain thinking until we feel heard, validated and empathized with. Once we have this type of connection, our brains can relax and hear the next steps for resolving the issue or situation at hand. He shares that communicating this way will help in living balanced, meaningful, and creative lives full of connected relationships. Sometimes I feel like adults are similar to a bunch of children running around on a playground lashing out at one another with frustrations. I am not convinced a high population of parents in the 50’s-70’s were reading such books. Here we are as leaders seeing that we must change how we communicate with our team members and in turn coach them on how to communicate with guests.
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AuthorPassionate about Customer Service for over 30 years! Archives
November 2020
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