The Messages we send (and Assumptions we make)!

I recently had the challenge of spending two days with no voice. Laryngitis may not sound like too big a deal for most people but it certainly was a new experience for me and perfect opportunity for mevto do a lot of thinking. Silent thinking not the type that many of us females do – thinking out loud! What was interesting was the way people related to the new silent me. Firstly, people who do a stage whisper instead of speaking in a audible voice don’t fit in as “normal” any more which makes others suspicious and unsure. Why would anyone whisper back to me when they haven’t lost their voice? Let’s presume it’s empathy at work! Secondly, the quality of attention I received was poorer. In stores, I did not get served as quickly or with as much respect. So having a voice helps set our place in the world as someone worthy of attention. It denotes confidence and authority (and a right to exist)! I felt lonely! My wonderful partner is a quieter person than myself and doesn’t feel the need to chat as I do. This made me feel somewhat isolated and apart from him. It got me thinking. I couldn’t express my mood or my needs as well as I would have liked. I resorted to passing a note saying “PLEASE - CAN YOU PROVIDE SOME MINDLESS CONVERSATION?” Later that week I had another experience that made me think about how we present to the world. My colleague came to work with her normally curly abundant hair, straightened. She looked so different I had to comment on it and ask whether this changed anything for her. As expected, she confirmed that people actually treat her differently when her hair is straight as opposed to curly. As if she had a different personality! ASSUMPTIONS WE MAKE All of this got me thinking about the assumptions we make about people based on often the most trivial of signs. And of course, when we are coaching, we are trained to let go of those assumptions and treat each client’s story as uniquely their own – never presuming anything. But is it that easy? I would say not. We all have memories, triggers and filters that direct our understanding of a situation. Yet we cannot rely on these past experiences to be accurate. At most we can be guided by “intuition” but we must have an open mind to alternative truths. As with our clients, so with our friends and colleagues. Many hurts and grudges are borne because of inaccurate interpretation of a comment or a look which has tapped into a memory which might stem from a faulty belief. We tend to be proficient at helping our clients recognize these unhelpful beliefs but are we as good at picking our own? We may be coaches, but we are human and now and again it is a good reminder that signals we send can be received in many different ways. It is also an interesting exercise to try communicating without a voice for a while and to learn to rely on other ways of relaying information and perhaps defining ourselves!