Best Practice #1– Diminish Defensiveness and Foster a Supportive Climate

Communication research on healthy climates in small groups discovers six sets of supportive and defensive behaviors[1]:

• Description and evaluation
• Problem-orientation and control
• Spontaneity and strategy
• Empathy and neutrality
• Equality and superiority
• Provisionalism and certainty

It helps to use descriptive, I-messages, rather than evaluative, you-ought-to messages. Lead with the indicative rather than the imperative. 

Problem-orientation collaborates and mutually explores while control relies on hidden agendas and predetermined solutions. 

Spontaneity allows the conversation to flow and considers other points of view rather than strategically manipulating the conversation to win our own point. 

Empathy, as novelist Mohsin Hamid puts it, "is about finding echoes of another person in yourself." It includes a commitment to dialogue and active listening whereas neutrality discounts or ignores what they have to say. 

Equality respects another’s importance rather than making judgments based on ethnicity, race, class, or gender. Claims of superiority lead to hostility, hurt, and division. 

Provisionalism keeps ideas tentative and open to change whereas certainty makes them absolute or close-minded. We’re able to influence one another. 

In short, defensiveness leads to feeling judged, controlled, manipulated, ignored, excluded, and cut off while supportiveness means we speak for ourselves, collaborate, have free-flowing conversation, are attentive, inclusive, and open-minded.

So, how are you doing in diminishing defensiveness and fostering a supportive climate in your communication and relationships? Which behaviors most affect the health of your relationships? For example, think of an experience where close-minded, judgmental attitudes adversely affect the communication climate. How can your use of I-messages or other effective communication behaviors and skills result in better relational outcomes? 

[260 Words]

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[1] Jack R. Gibb, “Defensive Communication,” Journal of Communication 11, no. 3 (September 1961), 141–48.