Learning about the Variety of Answers: Silence is not always a Non-Response

Are you completely aware of how people respond to you?

This morning was one where I did something I only occasionally do; read my journal. Journaling is largely a write-and-get-it-out kind of an exercise for me, but once in a great while I will read over my past week (rarely reading entries older than that) because some nagging voice in my inner consciousness tells me that I wrote something down I don't want to forget about. This morning it was as if that inaudible voice was actually screaming at me, and so I skipped writing my morning pages and read prior ones instead.

I did forget something, amazing how our intuition works.

However, there was also something else I stumbled across. What I noticed, was that I had written down a couple of ways that I got answers from different people which technically speaking, they didn't exactly give me.

Quite a few of them were from the authors who so generously contribute to Joyful Jubilant Learning (we have no staff writers here, just love-the-place writers). We have this common understanding that we are all pretty busy people, but also an unsaid assumption that we all use RSS (and each other's feeds are no-brainers), click in to JJLer blogs for comment check-ups too, have Technorati Watchlists or Google Alerts set up, check our own referral logs, and will find responses or answers via those things. One example happened later this very morning, triggering my writing this post: I discovered that someone in the Ho'ohana Community lost her mom recently, and posted a message in a Google Group we use for our JJL editorial calendar. Terry did respond, saying "thanks Rosa, really appreciate the note" but the HCer's blog comments showed me that she then received more JJLer visits, and not only Terry's.

Action taken can be a much more affirmative response to a request than someone just telling you they'll think about it, don't you think?

It used to be that I was much more sensitive about a lot of different things, always wondering what people thought about what I said, and what I did. I still think that is a good thing to some degree, for sensitivity to the feelings of others is one of those qualities that helps us navigate our way through this world more carefully, and more skillfully. What you can't do however, is get too impatient - people do need time to think about things, and handle whatever else was on their plate first. You can't start jumping to assumptions that can be way off course from what else might be on their mind.

As my kids would so blatantly and honestly remind me, "It's not always about you mom!"

The 3Ms have helped me be far less sensitive and much more observant: In the order they happened for me, Management, Marriage, and Motherhood. Good thing... I think that's the same order they intensify in their learning challenges!

...I would ask my employees to please answer the phone before the third ring, and customers and peers alike would tell me they appreciated our quick responsiveness.
...I would ask my husband to please let me know when he'd have a Sunday off again so I could plan for a two-hour drive to Hilo with him, and he'd start bringing an extra copy of his monthly work schedules home to post on the refrigerator.

How do they intensify? Besides action-answers, you get other questions...

...I would ask my employees why there was such a jump in our expenses, and in one of our huddles a week later, someone would bring up how much waste they have noticed, asking why our recycling programs aren't working that well anymore.
...I would ask my children to please stop spending their allowance so foolishly, and the following Saturday morning they'd ask me how much extra washing the car would earn them (which they know I despise doing as one of shortest ones in the family).

Would you help me learn more about this?

In what other form have you learned answers come to you?

In what other ways can we "listen" more carefully?

Is there something else you'd consider a bit different from action-answers or other questions?

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Post author Rosa Say is the author of Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawaii's Universal Values to the Art of Business, and she currently writes for Managing with Aloha Coaching, Value your Month, Value your Life. Visit her there, pick up a feed for your reader, and let her know what you think.

If you like what you read here and there, consider spending some time at her new Tumblr log too, Ho‘ohana Aloha. No comments are part of the program there, and she'll really have to learn about hunting for your answers!

Comments

[Karen Wallace]

Rosa,
Management, Marriage and Motherhood... ahh yes, my order was a little different to yours (management came third) but I agree that these are huge life teachers! Especially motherhood.

We're in the midst of the topsy-turvy tumble of summer holidays here, and I have made a promise to myself to be more in the moment with my children, do more experiential things and not say "I'll see" or "maybe"; "soon" or "later". And your words "action taken can be a much more affirmative response to a request..." hit home that that is what I am trying to do. Take action, Be with my family. Not just make promises.

Less room for guilt there, too, then.

Today's action includes a stop at a shop to get a new game - I'm all Uno'd out!!

[Rosa Say]

Oooh Karen, I cannot tell you just how much time we have spent playing Uno in our family too. Let's just say it is an awful lot - that game is easy to learn and totally addictive. It is also fabulously mobile, and we have played it snowbound in a cabin at Lake Tahoe, through more than one delay in airport terminals, and even trolling on a boat whale-watching while the captain did all the before and after sightings for us.

Thank you for taking this time to visit Karen. It's nice to think about summer as the wind howls outside. Now get back to that family of yours:)

[Steve Sherlock]

Uno.. yes many hours were spent there. Phase 10, Donut, Spite and Malace... wonderful card games to wile the hours away with family and friends.

Phase 10 comes as a package. Donut is played with a deck of regular cards. Spite and Malace as well. It is a form of two handed (and thereby competitive) Solitaire. It can do wonders for the relationship with your sigificant other, if you know what I mean! Let us know what game you did come up with Karen.

Awareness of what is happening around is so key. Hearing the simple things, and then suddenly not hearing something, all are important to understanding where we are in the world. Great posting Rosa, mahalo!