Practical Tools for Playing Well with Others

This is, by far, the best talk I've watched on communication. And I would recommend it to everyone I can. You should watch it because it's difficult to get the point from just my notes:

How I learned to stop worrying and love working with silly bags of meat

  • Debugging a conversation
    1. Intake (misperception -> difference of perception)
      • What do we see, hear, or read?
      • Gorilla test
      • That's not what I think I said
    2. Meaning (misunderstanding -> difference of understanding)
      • decoding the signals
      • When you say bla, what do you mean by that?
      • Provide a base line (when people say bla, they often mean blabla, what do you mean by that?)
      • Airline lose and find technique
    3. Significance (misinterpretation -> difference of interpretation)
      • Why is the other person behaving this way.
    4. Response
      • The path from significance to response is so deep inside us, and it's impossible to change
      • Assume their response makes perfect sense given that interpretation
  • Prebug a conversation (TDD a conversation)
  • Don't let miscommunication spiral out of control
  • A Few Helpful Tricks
    1. Think of 3 ways to interpret what just happened
      • Empathy
    2. Ask, "What did you intend by that [surprising comment, question, action...]?"
    3. Communicate in E-Prime to reduce judgmental perception
      • E-Prime: do not use to-be (to avoid judgement)
    4. Warn the other person when you need to say something uncomfortable

-- from Øredev 2013 - J.B. Rainsberger - Practical Tools for Playing Well with Others on Vimeo