We all theoretically recognize that everyone has the right to their own beliefs. But in situations where we have great passion (or the moral high ground, as we would like to believe) we have difficulty being generous with those who disagree with us. Wouldn\u2019t it be nice to persuade others to see the world as we see it? What\u2019s causing the disparity between ideas, goals and convictions?<\/p>\n
BELIEFS<\/p>\n
People\u2019s viewpoints, values, and world view come from their core beliefs, acquired through the experiences of our lives: from parents and education; religion and what we do for a living; what our parents taught us (implicitly and explicitly) and what we learned from friends. The conglomeration of these experiences create our political views, who we marry, how we raise our children, how we view the world, how we behave in relationships and where we live. I remember in 2000 I called my then-28-year-old son \u2013 living in the swing state of Colorado – on election day. I casually asked him what he was doing that day. He replied:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t be calling me to ask who I\u2019m voting for, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUm, well, maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMom: You dragged me to rallies and marches, made me hold signs and go to sit-ins, and had activists over for dinner who became our friends. How could I vote differently than you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Our beliefs become the foundation of how we decide\/act\/live\/socialize daily, making it so endemic that it\u2019s hard to fathom that anyone would think differently. As a result of our orientation, anything said outside our beliefs gets runs the risk of being disrespected, disregarded, and discounted, and we often disenfranchise those who don\u2019t believe or act as we do. Those of us who have strong beliefs about the environment, for example, may become angry when others don\u2019t believe we are harming the earth. But if it were so obvious to everyone, if everyone shared the same beliefs, we would all be in agreement.<\/p>\n
And so we attempt to persuade those who haven\u2019t yet \u2018seen the light\u2019 to agree with us. But getting into agreement with folks whose ideas run counter to our beliefs is difficult: regardless of how rational our argument or the source of data we share, we are heard through biased ears.<\/p>\n
HEARING AGREEMENT<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible that by pushing our own agendas and not focusing on what might be common values and consensus, we are perpetuating harm and causing others to defend their beliefs. Isn\u2019t there a middle road to agreement?<\/p>\n
Change needs consensus: win-win is key (we know there is no such thing as win\/lose). To enable change and facilitate agreement, we must discover common beliefs. NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) does this by \u2018chunking up\u2019 \u2013 looking at a broader view beyond biases to more generic beliefs. So instead of focusing on Global Warming, for instance, a chunk up might be discussing ways to diminish natural disasters so less people will be harmed.<\/p>\n
A key elements to facilitating agreement is hearing without bias. I\u2019ve just published a book called What? Did you really say what I think I heard? <\/i><\/b><\/a>that explains how difficult it is to effectively hear others without the filters, biases, assumptions, and triggers that maintain our world view.<\/p>\n What if we enter conversations listening for common values instead of the typical focus on differences? What if we live with Ands and not Buts? What if we listen for words or ideas that would enable working collaboratively, or finding win\/wins? If all we change is how we can hear each other to enable agreement somewhere, we might just be able to discover places of agreement and help us all make the world a better place.<\/p>\n But listening without bias isn\u2019t natural or easy. Hence I\u2019ve made What? <\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0to enable everyone to read the material and begin discussing how we can disengage from our listening biases and wend our way to agreement. Get the book on www.didihearyou.com<\/a>. For a more robust solution, contact me at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com<\/a> and we can discuss how to use the learning tools I\u2019ve developed to both assess and guide you and your colleagues through change and choice. http:\/\/didihearyou.com\/learning-tools.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We all theoretically recognize that everyone has the right to their own beliefs. But in situations where we have great passion (or the moral high ground, as we would like to believe) we have difficulty being generous with those who disagree with us. Wouldn\u2019t it be nice to persuade others to see the world as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n