17/04/2022
A great deal of conflict and break down occurs as a result of miscommunication, and I would say, more specifically, because of conscious or unconscious emotional turbulence that arises in interactions.
Storytelling does not exist in a vacuum; it always exists in relationship to listening. Listening is like a vessel that shapes the story. If my listening vessel is contaminated with judgments, criticisms, assumptions about the other, that’s the shape of the story I’ll elicit. So I need to learn how to suspend judgment, assumption and criticism when I’m listening to a story. On the teller’s end, definition of storytelling is a “What happened?” account, which means that he or she sticks strictly to the facts in the story.
When we say only what happened, we remove our opinions, our judgments, our criticisms, which are the fertile ground of conflict. Opinions only beget other opinions. It aligns people on both sides around a factual account of what happened, without interpretations. Simply said, in order to break down barriers, you have to make sure that people are able to listen to one another's “What happened?” accounts. This is how communication can be transformed.