Are Your Filters Getting in the Way?
Are Your Filters Getting in Your Way?
Believe it or not the majority of your conversations with other people involve the filters you carry. What does that mean? Your filters are your knowledge, experience and values that directly influence how you listen, think and communicate. InSherpa Executive Coachingwe refer to filters as the block to your ability to be centered and objective in conversations with people who have different points of view. Believe it or not, not everyone thinks the way you think. We actually see others as we are rather than who truly are.
“When your filters are in place, you only interpret things as if you had said them. You don’t search for what someone else mens, based on theirexperience, knowledge and values. So, what are filters?
- Your personal agenda: Self-contained directions and guidelines that you follow every day.
- Pre-conceived notions: Views you have held in the past, with or without adequate information and evidence.
- Judgment: Formal decisions you have already made in advance.
- Experience: Answers that worked in the past, based on what you ave been through in your life.
- Opinion: Beliefs or thoughts you have on a variety of issues.
- Values: Things you hold most important as you relate to your job and working with others.
“Your job is to realize how often your filters influence what you think, hear and say.” – Be Don’t Do, By Brenda Corbett and Judith Colemon
Filters fuel mind-reading, fortune telling (assumptions about how the future will be), and conclusions about why people do what they do or say what they say.
Take Action:
- Observe your conversations and notice where your filters may be distorting the information that you are hearing and influencing how you communicate and behave.
- Make a conscious effort to hear what other people are trying to communicate along with understanding their side of the story.
- Ask effective questions to gain clarity around what is being said.
As you find yourself in situations where you feel you can positively impact other people’s perspectives, be conscious of your intonation, body language and choice of words. Listen, love and then lead.Jesus was masterful at this as He spoke to the woman at the well in the Gospel of John 4:4-26. Notice the questions that Jesus asks.
