UNDERSTANDING
YOUR EXPERIENCES
According to Hughes in Leadership Enhancing the Experiences
of Life, “Making the most of experience is key
to developing one’s leadership ability. In other
words, leadership development depends not just on the
kinds of experiences one has but also on how one uses
to them to foster growth.”
It is not enough to simply go through the actions of
doing things. You can go to parties, meet different
people, and join an assortment of clubs at the university
– but get nothing out of it. Without reflection
and understanding, your experiences teach you little
about yourself, and in the long-term, it will diminish
the quality of future interpersonal interactions. There
are a variety of techniques that can help you see just
what kind of interaction transpired. You will be provided
with information on what are these techniques and how
they work, but it is your choice concerning which technique
you feel is appropriate for your specific circumstances.
You may also wish to modify them.
Self-Monitoring
This technique is a systematic approach to “observe,
record, and report” on your interpersonal interactions
(Eisler and Frederiksen, 1980). An important advantage
of the self-monitoring approach is that encourages the
reflection of what goes on both internally (your private
thoughts, feelings, etc.) and externally (your actual
actions) (Kazdin, 1974). The philosophy seems to be
also in tune with the ideas of Covey, who feels that
prior to successful external interactions with others,
you have to have a genuine inner personality. The self-monitoring
technique helps you identify if indeed your inner self
matches your external behaviour.
You can apply the self-monitoring process to your own
life. This is an act of self-leadership: You are taking
the initiative to understand yourself better. Eisler
and Frederiksen offered some advice when doing so:
(1) Identify area of concern – what feelings
are associated with it? What are potential roots to
the problem?
(2) Do not overflow the information in the chart. Too
much information has usually led to unnecessary confusion.
(3) Try to fill in the information as soon as possible.
If this is not feasible, set clear times during each
day to fill in the information.
Spiral of Experience
The philosophy behind this technique is similar to
that of the previous technique: a meaning of an experience
is not complete until one considers what happened and
how it happened. However, it is slightly different than
the self-monitoring technique in that it places a greater
emphasis on the events or decisions of an individual
rather than his or her behaviour.
1. What happened? What did you do?
2. What were the results of these actions? How did it
impact yourself and others?
3. How do you look at it now? How do you feel about
it now?
According to Hughes, only after these three questions
have been reflected upon does one truly experience.
An example of Spiral of Experience at work:
Here is an example showing I used the Spiral
of Experience to reflect upon an important issue:
Getting along with your roommate.
1. What did you do? What did you do?
My roommate was playing loud music while I was
studying in my room. I am the type of person who
cannot concentrate when there is too much noise.
I expected him to be more self-conscious of his
actions and was angry with him. I did not tell
him to turn down the music because I was afraid
he would feel I was too demanding.
2. What were the results of these actions? How
did it impact yourself and others?
I continued working in the loud environment and
could not get much quality work accomplished.
I remained angry with him, sensing that he was
selfish and inconsiderate. He continued playing
loud music and was unaware of the fact that it
bothered me.
3. How do you look at it now? How do you feel
about it now?
It was naïve of me to feel that he should
look at the situation from the same perspective
as me. As I later found out, he works perfectly
fine in a loud environment and probably felt that
I would be comfortable working in that type of
environment as well. By not explaining to him
my perspective, I was trying to ignore a problem
that could not have been ignored. In fact, I made
it worse by keeping my frustrations bottled up
and for a long time, I felt bitter towards my
roommate. Perhaps, if I was more open with him,
we could have come to an agreement that would
make both of us happy.
Here is another example showing how I used
the technique to maintain a strong long-distance
relationship with my family.
1. What did you do? What did you do?
I decided that I would try to call my parents
every night. I am their only child and for me
to leave them, it put an enormous amount of emotional
strain on both of them. I kept them informed about
everything that was going on, and I would try
to show evidence that I was able to take care
of myself.
2. What were the results of these actions? How
did it impact yourself and others?
While at first they continued to feel a sense
of withdrawal, after a month or so, they began
to sense that I am taking good care of myself
– I am happy here in my new environment.
They looked forward each day to my phone call.
3. How do you look at it now? How do you feel
about it now?
I’m very glad that I chose to call them
everyday. It has obviously turned out very well,
both for my parents and myself. I am glad that
I can continue to receive advice from my parents.
Since each call is not extremely long, I still
have that important sense of distance –
that yes, I am away from my parents and that I
am independent.
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It must be stressed that it is not what I am saying
that is important to you, the reader, but rather how
I am using the spiral of experience as my guide and
tool. Naturally, I would expect that you would have
different circumstances in your life. For instance,
perhaps you are not the only child in your family and
your parents have already had experience with other
children –- your brothers and sisters –
going away to university. In that case, it may not be
that important for you to call your parents every night.
However, you can use the spiral of experience technique
to analyze events in your own life, to evaluate the
soundness of your own decisions and see how it has affected
others and yourself. Through a collection of experience
evaluations, you may begin to notice patterns in your
thought process, and from these patterns, even more
profound observations can be made.
Cooperation Assessment
In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,”
Stephen Covey outlines a powerful cooperation paradigm
in viewing human interactions. His approach to interaction,
as you will later learn, is based on a model of leadership
known as Transformational Leadership. In his approach
to human interaction, Covey outlines three basic, fundamental
skills that are important in getting along with others:
Negotiation – There are several paradigms of
negotiation that people seem to adopt.
(1) Win/Win Paradigm – One tries to come to an
agreement that is generally beneficial to both parties
(2) Win/Lose Paradigm – One tries to win at the
expense of another
(3) Lose/Win Paradigm – One tries to give up
own expectations to please another
(4) Win Paradigm – One’s ultimate goal
is to gain for himself or herself; it is irrelevant
what happens to others
(5) Lose/Lose Paradigm – One tries to harm another,
even if it means harming himself or herself in the process
(6) No deal option – There is always the option
that a negotiation does not have to take place
Covey suggests that the “best” approach
for cooperative living is to live and negotiate by the
Win/Win or No Deal paradigm: Always try to end a disagreement
so that one achieves something that is beneficial to
both sides. However, to be uniform with the philosophy
of the interpersonal development that I have outlined,
I will consider that it is up to you to decide which
paradigm is most useful to you.
Listening to Understand – Covey feels that listening
is a crucial skill that is lacking in many people: “We
have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with
good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose,
to really, deeply understand the problem first.”
Part of the reason may be that we are taught “active
listening” or “reflective listening”
instead of “empathetic listening.” The difference
is that when we listen, most of our efforts are spent
trying to associate what is said to our own life and
so we respond by giving some one our autobiography.
Covey argues that empathetic listening brings listening
to a higher level: It is only after we understand the
perspective of another that we can offer him or her
advice. Gilbert W. Fairholm, author of “Values
of Leadership – Toward a New Philosophy of Leadership”
agrees with the importance of understanding the paradigms
of others: “Understanding the needs of both parties
in the leader-follower relationship is essential to
success. [Modern] leaders can no longer be content…
to learn only about their side of the equation.”
Covey outlines the types of “Active Listening”
as follows:
(1) Evaluating: You quickly agree or disagree with
the speaker.
(2) Probing: You ask for questions from your own frame
of reference.
(3) Advising: You give counsel based on an interpretation
of your point of view – you tell about your experience.
(4) Interpreting: You try to “figure out”
the speaker, analyzing his or her motives and behaviour
based on your own motives and behaviour
Empathetic listening is something that is quite different:
You are truly trying to understand the point of view
of another. To help this process of understanding, Covey
suggests that you restrain from passing judgement –
i.e. seeing the situation from your point of view –
but try to understand the logic and feelings of the
speaker through rephrasing the content that is being
said and reflecting the feelings of the speaker. The
suggestion is that active listening is not necessarily
“bad,” but the “empathetic listening”
should come first. Again, in the spirit of letting you
find your own way, I think the responsibility is up
to you to discover for yourself if you should improve
on empathetic listening in your life. What you get out
of the reflection process is dependent on you!
Synergy – Covey coined this term to describe
a process of fusing several different paradigms into
a single paradigm that is greater than its precursors.
It is the product of the win/win philosophy combined
with empathetic listening. For instance, if individual
A (who has opinion A) and individual B (who has opinion
B) effectively listens and negotiates, the result is
opinion C that is more accurate and beneficial than
both opinion A or B.
Summary for Understanding Your Experiences
Three techniques have been introduced that help you
reflect upon and hopefully understand your own interpersonal
experiences. Each of these techniques have their own
advantages and disadvantages; often, you may find that
one technique works well for one situation but not another.
The techniques are not answers but guides; they are
tools rather than crutches. In the end, the responsibility
is up to you on how well you use these tools, how honestly
and critically you can evaluate yourself.
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