Hidden Rules of a Great Conversation Podcast Episode

And one of the natural parts of communication is there’s so much assumption. You don’t realize it, but you just have to fill in the blanks all of the time. Because for the speaker to give you everything would just be so cumbersome, so we fill in the blanks. That’s just how communication works. But when we’re filling in the blanks with things that aren’t helpful or may not be accurate, then we have to slow down and start to recreate those assumptions.  

Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. It’s terrific to have you along as always. Kaleb Beyer and Brian Sutter are in the room with me today. Welcome guys. Thanks, and glad to be with you. Yeah, so I pulled these brothers aside and said, hey, let’s do a podcast on the speaker listener model. Okay. Something that actually has been mentioned I’m sure in more than one podcast.  

Kaleb, as you talk about marriages, speaker-listener. Right. It doesn’t get much more basic than speaker listener. And I think actually, being familiar with our materials and the speaker listener model and communication, that type of thing, my eyes have gone hazy when this topic is talked about. Yeah. Because it’s been kind of like, yeah, I get it, somebody speaks, somebody listens. What more needs to be said? This is much to do about nothing, I think. Right. And then I had a situation where I was trying to help mediate a situation and a family and in another separated situation between two individuals and I engaged both of you and both of you said, well, a speaker listener model is what you need to do.  

And again, I was like, all right, well maybe I’ll give this another try. Who else is available for ideas? One person speaks, another person listens. But you unpacked that in a way that really gave me a model, and it was super helpful in these situations. 

And really what I came to understand is actually by doing this being very careful with who’s speaking, who’s listening. It actually helped everybody in the room understand one another a lot better and ourselves. Yeah. Okay. So, I thought, let’s take another crack at this. 

Yeah. So, this is like take three for you but take one for many of us on the speaker, listener model. Okay, so that’s my setup. Okay. Let’s talk about the speaker listener model, and let’s unpack it in a way that’s not just working with people, but spouses, right? This is a great thing to do whenever you’re having a hard time communicating with somebody. 

Am I right? Oh, yeah. You set up speaker, listener model. What are we talking about? Well, I mean, and I think not only for spouses, but even just parent, child relationships. I think that would be another context that I would say, and you may not even need your child to be in on it, but if you can see it through that model, I think it can be a helpful lens. 

One thing that comes to mind here, Matt, is relationships. All of us would say relationships are important. Relationships are something I need to invest in and that communication is the pathway through which relationships can either go really well or really poorly. Yes, so, if we’re going to get something right, let’s get communication right. And that’s in this space, and that’s why I think it’s really important. Well, let’s just pause there and appreciate that fact even more. You’re absolutely right. At the core of relationships is communication, verbal and non-verbal. Exactly. It is a presence of knowing that we’re sharing this space and you mean something, and I mean something. 

And we mean something even more together. Right? Isn’t that relationship? Yes. Which is communication, Kaleb. So, much of what you do with couples is communication oriented. For sure. And I think the reality of how much we are communicating, even when we don’t realize we are. 

And I think an aspect of the speaker listener model is in some sense slowing it down to realize there is a lot happening, a lot that we don’t know. For example, when spouses are communicating with each other, we’ve heard the term 90% is nonverbal. Yeah. So, there’s a lot that happens outside of words that is conveying a meaning and a message that sometimes we just fly right past, or we assume. Then we’re off to the races and the relationship is ruptured and that sort of thing. That whole thing there, Kaleb, about slowing down is probably one of the biggest hallmarks of the whole model. It slows communication down, which can sound a little bit frustrating. 

Oh, for sure. It’s like, okay, I don’t think slowing down is probably a good method on getting anywhere. Don’t you understand, Kaleb? I want to get somewhere with this person. I have a lot to say. How does that work in your car? Slow down and you get somewhere? Yeah. Okay. But say more about slowing down. 

Why slow down? Yeah. It’s not just slowing down, but it’s structured slowing down. Meaning it’s slowing down to allow for something. Yes, correct. And in slowing down, you have structure, right? So, we’re talking about the speaker listener model where you have roles, and I know, this can feel very mechanical, but the reason for slowing down is both the awareness of ourself and also the awareness of the other. 

And when you have structure that helps with emotional regulation, if you think about it. Yes. And so, both of those in some ways go together in this model. The slowing down and the structure that feels pretty constraining and mechanical when we first step into it. 

And one of the things that we haven’t said, but I think it’s important that you’re highlighting here, is that when we’re talking about using this technique, we’re generally talking about when there’s tension. Or there’s difficulty or challenge. We’re not talking about just the high-level logistic kind of conversations. 

We’re like, okay, something’s not quite right here, or something’s off. And let’s figure out what that is, and slowing down can help us highlight what that might be. So, this is when communication is difficult. When you need to do an intervention in a relationship and communication is at a crisis. The speaker listener model has proven helpful. So, let’s go through the steps. You said structure. What’s the structure look like?  

Well, I think first of all would be just to recognize there are two separate roles in communication. There’s the speaker, the person who’s communicating, and then there’s the listener. So even just recognizing those different distinct roles and that each role has different rules to operate by, that would be at least a starting point. And in order for that to happen, you have to have a clear delineation on who’s the speaker and who’s the listener. Yes. Because right there we go off the rails. Exactly. Yeah. Because often we have two speakers, right? Yes. No listeners. Yes. And relationally, either you have two yellers or you have two silencers. 

There’s silence and neither direction communication’s happening. And so, knowing that I am in the speaker role means that I should be speaking right now. And one of the challenges here, and this goes back to slowing down, is if you’re in the speaker role to operate by a few rules, one of those is to keep what you’re saying pretty succinct. It has to be pretty short because the other person is going to try to summarize it. If your tendency is to go too long and try to get too much in, they may grab an aspect of what’s been said, but not all of it. So, keeping it short is a really important key. And as a speaker, one of the things with it is really encouraging, speaking from the speaker’s perspective, right? This isn’t a time to call out what the listener is doing wrong. Or blaming. It actually requires the speaker to slow down a bit and seek to understand themselves in a way that’s like, what is it that I really need?  

Can you give us some prompts, Kaleb, that would be good prompts and bad prompts or scripts? How do you help somebody say, what do you mean by that, from my own personal perspective? Sure. Yeah, so if there’s a conflict between you and I, Matt. I’m trying to think of a situation. So, I’m sure we’ve heard about the I statement. Okay. So that’s very basic and simple, but important in this aspect. Okay. That’s helpful. Say something about the I statement. What do you mean by I statements? Well, when the speaker is sharing their perspective, when I’m using I, one of the things that happen is what we find is it lowers defensiveness versus me saying, you know what, Matt? You never clean up your office and it’s frustrating. Yes. Okay. Exactly right. And so automatically out of the gate, what happens when you hear you? 

You know the saying; a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind. I’ve heard it. You heard that? Yes. Well, what’s an empty desk a sign of? Oh goodness. Yeah, so at least you know. Yeah. Wow. So, you is accusatory. Right. So, when you get off on the wrong foot, people hear, and that listener hears you and probably hears nothing else. Yeah, well, of course because I already feel misunderstood and you want me to stay present with you and listen and try to understand you. And all of a sudden, my nervous system, my mind is already on defense. But when you are doing it from your perspective, saying, I, do you stay more objective then, or is it that you’re able to speak to truth?  

Well, I think in a way, one of the heartbeats of communication is trying to understand the other, if that can be our goal, to understand the other, so if I’m speaking from my perspective, then hopefully you’re able to hear where I’m coming from. You understand my perspective, but if I start off with you, Matt. What I’m automatically doing is telling you that I think you are the problem, and you need to do something different. But if I start off with, hey, this is my concern, or this is what I’m feeling, or this is what I’m thinking, then it can move into understanding or it’s more likely to. 

Okay. So that’s really helpful. Let’s go back to the structure piece. You’ve got a speaker speaking from their vantage point. Brian, you’re saying one of the rules is to be succinct. Yeah. Because our attention is limited especially when there’s conflict. You can have a lot of opinions about what needs to happen, or I don’t get their ear very often, so they’re going to hear it all. And then we tell them all the things that we’ve been frustrated about, or all the things that haven’t gone well for the past month. And again, they’re defensive now or they haven’t heard anything that I’m saying. They’re just bringing up their rebuttal. 

But if it’s like the last meeting, Kaleb, when you said I felt, then we’ve got a specific thing that we’re talking about. You’re keeping it short. Okay. So, the listener, what is their job or role? Yeah, their job is to focus on the message they’re receiving from the speaker. So sometimes with listeners, I’ll have them even have a pad of paper to jot down some thoughts, but I think the important thing about a listener is that you can tell me a certain message or content, but the way in which you say it conveys a meaning. 

And so, part of the listener’s role is to reflect back that meaning, right? Because there’s something that happens between the two of us that neither you nor I necessarily know if we don’t bring it into the conversation. So, there is a way for them to do that in this model. Right.  

So, the speaker speaks succinctly. Yeah. And then the listener has an opportunity to reply. Yes. And their objective is to simply say, this is what I’ve learned or heard. Exactly. This is what I hear. Yes. Not, oh, this is my perspective on that point of view. It’s not my rebuttal. Right. That’s often what happens, we go to rebuttal mode. They want to move into the speaker role. And so, it’s hard to stay in the listener role. Yes. They’ll get their chance, but to start off with, it sounds like you’re saying to listen to whatever. Is that accurate? Yep. And if you think about it back to the roles piece, it helps the listener to realize that they’re going to get their opportunity. Right, the structure piece. And so, it helps me be more present and be focused on what is it that I’m receiving, what is the message I’m receiving from the speaker when I’m in the listener role?  

So, give us a flyby of what this cycle looks like. So, at a high level, you’ve got the speaker and they’re going to speak from their perspective using I statements, trying to keep it fairly brief. And then they’ll pause for the listener to say, okay, I think I heard you say and try to summarize what’s been communicated. And then at that point, the speaker says, yeah, you got it. Not quite, let me try again, or not at all. I’m going to restart and that’s one cycle through and you’re likely going to be talking about lots of cycles through that. 

So, the speaker then has an opportunity to evaluate whether they felt heard or not, right? Yes. That’s really the nature of it, right? Yeah. And if they feel like they’ve got it, then you kind of keep the conversation moving and here’s the next step, or here’s the next part of it. 

So, you’re not covering a lot of ground, but the hope is that there’s understanding along the way, and then you’re switching roles. I mean to that point of not covering a lot of ground as far as what we’re talking through but covering huge ground in the sense of understanding. Yes. What we know about the ability to be in relationship and be responsive to each other, sometimes conflict comes out of not feeling understood and conflict almost always undermines trust for each other. So, when you’ve got a lot of history of communication not going well, trust is very low. 

And this is a way to hopefully slowly start to build that up. And then you don’t have to do the exercise every time long term. But initially just to restore trust, it can be pretty important. So, that listener then, as they repeat back and say, this is what I learned it doesn’t mean they agree with it necessarily, and that’s probably an important point. 

Right. That’s really important. Yeah. It sounds to me like you feel disrespected. Yeah. And not to say I, is I’m not disrespecting you. There’s a hair breadth between that and you wanting to go a different direction. Right. I think that’s a place, Matt, where it’s easy to get hung up because it can feel like for the listener that if I reflect back what they’re saying, I’m agreeing with it in the sense that yes, it’s true. 

Yeah. Compared to it’s true in their reality, right? I’m not saying yes, it’s the ultimate truth. Yes. But, oh, I see how that could be true in this situation. And that’s what I’m validating. That’s what I want to convey. That makes sense. That probably is the trust piece that you spoke of Brian. Right? Exactly. And if we can do that, what we’re then able to do much more effectively is empathize with the other. You know, if I realize that you felt disrespected, Kaleb? If I realize that, then your response makes a lot more sense. I’ll get a chance of telling, like, I didn’t mean that to be disrespectful. But if I get the sense it was for you, then I can at least empathize with what that would’ve felt like.  

Yep. So, here’s one of my aha moments and that is sometimes relationships fall into such patterns of broken communication that they don’t know how to right set the cart. And I feel like this right sets the cart in some structured manner. And what I mean by that is as I was watching this play out in real time, and I would have one person repeat what the other one said, and the other one was satisfied with that interpretation. I was an onlooker. I was like, ah, no, I wouldn’t be satisfied with that. Because I think they missed the point. And then when I raised it. Neither one really knew. And it seemed like the speaker lost the point as well. Yeah. Because they were so accustomed to the way they do it, that they almost had different ideals and objectives.  

When a person has never been understood, they don’t even go for understanding anymore. Right. Yeah. And that’s where it’s fairly easy to just parrot back the words that have been communicating to get the content right. You can do that, but I think what you’re talking about is being able to not only get the content accurate, but what was the intention? What was the meaning? And if you can capture that, that’s really what we’re going for. And that’s a layer deeper that’s actually pretty hard to see sometimes when you’re in that pattern or to even know what it is, either direction. 

And to have an outside party say, well, I think this is actually maybe the heart of what you’re trying to say. Oh, I think you might be right. Yeah. This could be couples, parents to children or to spouses. Could be boss to employee pairings. What pairings will this work for? What needs to be their goals and what needs to be some of their temperaments in order for it to work? You’ve done this with lots of people. For whom is it most successful and for whom is it a loss because they lack this thing? Yeah, this quality. Well, my first thought is that I’ve seen it most often not be successful when the pattern of communication has been very long standing and very poor and they try to do it on their own. 

Okay. If that’s where you find yourself. You’re probably going to need to invite an outside party to be that observer and help provide some feedback. One caution that comes to mind is just the ability to be able to have perspective taking, right? I mean, it does require a level of empathy to be able to be in a place where I can empathize and connect with another. I’m thinking of certain situations and circumstances where that’s challenging just because of makeup or neurodiversity, certainly as something that sometimes that looks different. 

It doesn’t mean it can’t work, but it does look different. That’s interesting. And let’s take that same category, Kaleb, which I really appreciate. That neurodiversity in the sense of some who don’t empathize, or it is really difficult for some. Or I should say they empathize but it’s different in a way to actually take another’s perspective is really hard. Exactly. Yes. I mean, the way you’re sharing there just makes me think. Maybe one of the other pre-requisites you might say is to go in with just wanting to learn, if you can, that would be an ideal starting place. I’d like to learn what their perspective is. What do they want? What are they frustrated with? The other? If you can start there, this actually can be really effective in helping you fill out that space for you.  

But a lot of times we’re not really interested in learning or interested in defending our own position. Yeah. And with that, I think it is helpful if there’s been conflict or an ongoing pattern or situation that happened to have some space for it to step into the conversation. Because if not, I mean, part of it does require some ability to regulate emotion, to be able to be present enough with the other person, and to follow the rules. 

Otherwise, we’re just going to have the same argument a second time. And so that self-regulation piece, but also sometimes some space from the difficult conversation that we had. And so sometimes those are difficult. Are there any tactics you use for providing clarity in terms of roles or the rules for that person who struggles to stay in bounds? 

Well, sometimes this doesn’t necessarily answer your question directly, but I do think sometimes I physically have individuals like the speaker hold something or the listener has a notepad, so there’s a visual reminder that, oh, we’re in this thing. Right? Because this is new, it’s different. 

If not, sometimes those physical reminders are helpful cues to be like, oh yeah, I’m in the listener role here. And so, I back it up and that sort of thing. I think the other thing is just the opportunity to talk about how we slow this down and take a break, right? 

Or when it gets to the point that we’re no longer engaging in a way that was intended. Let’s come back around and look like it. Everybody says, boy, this is awkward. It doesn’t feel natural. And so that’s often one of those barriers. So, just going in knowing this is going to feel like a different pathway of communicating, but that’s really the goal. 

You know what’s been going on particularly in a tough conversation is not working. So, we’re going to try something different, and part of the purpose is it’s going to feel awkward. Well, and you know what, it requires commitment from both parties to enter it, which, if there’s a moderator, they will help with that. 

Right. But if there’s no moderator that needs to be worked out. Right. And I would say maybe even just giving yourself parameters. How long are you going to do this? Let’s do this for 20 minutes. And you know what, I’ll try to take the speaker for 10 minutes and you’ll take it for 10 minutes, so you don’t feel like you’re going to be there all night. 

There’s a little bit of time like, okay, I can do this for 10 minutes. Good. Yeah, and I think this is going off of what Brian said about the awkwardness. You know, you think about it, and it is awkward, it’s uncomfortable. It’s back to what you shared, like this is so basic, but think about any new skill that we learn. The first time we step into something and begin to learn it, it is uncomfortable. I think part of it is to embrace it and stay with it. And it’s this thing with it and moving through it and often being able to adapt it in a way that works for you as a couple but find out what’s helpful as you continue to have conversations in that space. 

I think too, one of the things that I’ve observed in just normal day-to-day life and conversation is that good communicators are doing this naturally in their conversation. Like they’re in the listener role and they’re like, I’m not sure I understood that. What did you mean by that? Or this is what I understood you mean. Is that true? Yeah, exactly. How would you change that? And, oh, there it is. And you start to see how it actually could look in day-to-day conversation in a natural sort of way as you observe people. This preset that a person might have that simply says, I don’t understand, and I’ll let the speaker tell me when I do. Which is grace and a mindset that I don’t always have. Right. It takes a lot of humility to do that. And one of the natural parts of communication is there’s so much assumption. 

You don’t realize it, but you just have to fill in the blanks all of the time. Because for the speaker to give you everything would just be so cumbersome. So, we fill in the blanks. That’s just how communication works. But when we’re filling in the blanks with things that aren’t helpful or may not be accurate, then we have to slow down and start to recreate those assumptions. 

That’s great. Well, thanks both of you. Anyway, I just woke up to the power of the tool. And this all that really worked well in practice so thanks a lot for sharing that. And I trust our listeners can find this could be helpful. 

In the show notes, I’ll put some links to some help that might further express this idea. Perhaps you have somebody in your life that you would like to engage with. It might be something to share too, resources that way. So, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. It was a pleasure. See you.