As a coach to others whether you are coaching peers, children or as a leader in your company, pay close attention to your choice of words and your mental flexibility if you wish to invite open communication.
In a book called Practical Intelligence by Karl Albrecht, Karl references Jeff Foxworthy’s comedic phrase, “you might be a redneck if…” Karl’s revision of Foxworthy’s phrase is, “you might be mental redneck if, you take pride in having strong opinions and in stoutly defending them, and you have no patience for wimps that don’t.”
Strong opinions are great. It’s good to have beliefs as long as in conversation it doesn’t become a way of speaking as a performance – If the intent of your conversation is a way of showing off, to impress others about how smart you are and how well you can express yourself, you may be suffering from what Karl calls “Opinionitis.”
One way to stop performing is to be aware of your motives and truly consider them before you speak. Begin by changing your language from: MY OPINION and MY POSITION – To my VIEWPOINT, my CURRENT UNDERSTANDING, my IMPRESSION. And consider that we all come from vastly different environments and therefore we have different ways of learning, understanding and assimilating.
Once you let go of your need to be right about everything, you liberate your natural intelligence at all levels. (Karl Albrecht, Practical Intelligence, The Art and Science of Common Sense.)
As a coach and as a parent, I’ve witnessed the impact of mental flexibility as it has helped time and time again to invite and maintain open communication rather than to deter it.
