Communication in Validation 3 Keys

Three steps to successful validation in communication:

• Perhaps the easiest to achieve, allowing someone’s opinions to be known is as easy as allowing that person to share those opinions with you. Make sure to LISTEN to them, so they can get all of their thoughts out. Once that is achieved, you have accomplished the 1st step in the process.

• By listening, you have already started the process of letting the person with whom you are communicating, know you understand them. You will also need to ask questions. Questioning the people we have conversations with gives us a chance to show how well we are listening and how well we understand what they are sharing with us. Be sure to keep your questions open ended enough to not allow your personal position to enter into this part of the conversation. This portion is about the person you are conversing with-- not you! (Your time will come, assuming you follow these steps correctly)

• The combination of validating the unknown and understood, has all but taken are of the value portion of your job as an active participant in this conversation. The only thing left to add is time. Make sure you have given ample time, listened to everything that has been said, and have asked plenty of clarifying and open-ended questions to ensure the person you are speaking with feels an overall sense of being valued on the other end.

Validation in my opinion, is a lost art. Many people feel that it is not necessary, or that time doesn’t allow for it to be a viable piece of daily communication. I disagree. In all actuality, this is the very base that true and meaningful conversation is built on.

Don’t believe me? Let me ask you a question...

If you had something to share with someone that YOU felt was extremely important, who would you feel understood the importance of your information more? The person who said “O.K. I got it.” After you told them and left without any further conversation about it, or the person who stayed, asked questions and spent the time going back over the information just to make sure?

…That’s what I thought…

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