John Morgan Newsletter – S P A C E S

THE AGREEMENT FRAME

People listen less when they have a one-way agenda. You can identify a one-way agenda very easily. You have a one-way agenda when all you want to do is get your point across without any feedback. It’s like a person I worked for many years ago said, “This is an I-talk-and-you-listen meeting.” Those are not very much fun and, from my experience, counter-productive.

The difficulty of one-way agendas is that those on the receiving end do little, if any, listening. You have not afforded their point of view any validity so they shut you off, even though it may appear they are paying attention. Question: How do you get your point across in the most effective way while giving credence and consideration to another’s point of view? Answer: The Agreement Frame!

The Agreement Frame is something I learned in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) training. It’s so simple and so effective in becoming a better communicator. Here’s how it works: When someone says something with which you disagree, respond with The Agreement Fame. Do this especially if you care about the person or the outcome you are seeking. The Agreement Frame has you use a form of one of the following phrases:
            
 I respect your point of view about blah, blah AND . . .
 I appreciate what you are saying about blah, blah AND . . .
 I agree that one could feel that way about blah, blah AND . . .

After the word “AND” you say exactly what you want to say. For example: “I respect your position that all left-handed people are superiorly intelligent AND my theory is blah, blah.

To agree, appreciate or respect someone’s position you have to listen to it to repeat it. Many times when we have a one-way agenda, we are not listening. We just wait for the person to take a breath so we can inject our thought. In most cases when we do this, we use the word “BUT.”

“BUT” is a word our mind is conditioned to. When a person hears someone say “BUT” after they’ve stated their position, a part of their mind immediately turns off to the next thing that person has to say. We discount anything that follows the word “BUT” due to this conditioning. If you say, “I love the dress you’re wearing BUT  . . . , you may as well have said, “I don’t like that dress” because that’s the message they received.

The Agreement Frame is very useful when writing or giving a face-to-face review of an employee’s work. If there is an area of an employee’s work that needs addressing, schedule it after you have given the person credit for their accomplishments. The key is to leave BUT out of it. Suppose you say, “Your performance in customer service is excellent but you need to give more attention to the proper filling out of paperwork to be considered for promotion.” This statement does not communicate both pieces of information to the receiver. The compliment, “Your performance in customer service . . .” did not register with them once you added the BUT. Here’s the same idea without BUT. “Your performance in customer service is excellent AND if you give more attention to the proper filling out of paperwork, you will be considered for promotion.”
This nuance of change will allow you to make the points you think are necessary without having the person feel like they’ve committed a capital crime. It works everywhere. It takes some effort to employ The Agreement Frame and it’s worth it.

If your outcome is to bloody someone, BUT him to submission. If your outcome is to communicate your point and leave them with dignity, get curious how soon you can make The Agreement Frame part of your communications package.