2. Essential Communication Skills for Promoting Behaviour Change

Keyword Search Tags

Project Phase:
Initiation Phase, Planning Phase, Implementation Phase, Exit and Evaluation Phase

Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach

Behavioural Drivers (COM-B):
Motivation

Stages of Behaviour Change:
Pre-contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage, Preparation Stage, Action Stage, Maintenance Stage

Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training

Specific Topics:  Outreach and Communications; Compassion/Empathy; Community Change Agents

2a. Promoting Effective Interpersonal Communication through Emotional Intelligence

The most important skills that can improve a community facilitator’s ability to be a catalyst for change and influence behaviour change are effective inter-personal communication skills, which are comprised by the skills people use to exchange information, feelings, and meaning through verbal and non-verbal messages. 

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a foundational competency in effective inter-personal communication defined as the ability to recognize and manage our own feelings, and recognize and respond effectively to those of others ^[94].  Emotions are one of the aspects to lookout under automatic motivation as positive or negative feelings can either encourage or discourage a particular behaviour. Emotional intelligence can enable community facilitators to respond to challenging situations in ways which improve rather than hinder collaborations and better support communities’ in changing their behaviour. 

EI is comprised of four competency domains related to understanding and managing one’s self (personal competencies), and relationships with others (social competencies) including: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. The figure below illustrates emotional intelligence in terms of these four competency domains, demonstrating how they influence each other and ultimately the community facilitators’ ability to be successful in their work ^{[94, 95]}. Emotional self-awareness is a precursor to the other three competencies, as the more we are aware of our feelings the easier they are to manage and in turn effectively interact with others.

2b. Transactional Analysis - Using Human Psychology to Improve Communications

Effective interpersonal communication and relations can be improved through an understanding of the concept of transactional analysis (TA) ^[97].  Transactional analysis is psychological model developed by Eric Berne to make sense of how people interact with one another (referred to as transactions) based on their feelings influencing their actions ^[98]. TA has proven a useful method for increasing emotional intelligence by helping one become aware of one’s emotions, exert greater self- control which are essential to ensuring the effectiveness of communication and associated positive interactions with others ^[98].

The key assumptions of TA are as follows ^{[99, 98]}:

• People are OK: all people are good and worthy when they enter the world.
• All people can think:  every person has the capacity to think, and are therefore responsible for the decisions they make.
• All people can change: as everyone is responsible for their decisions, change is possible and decisions need not be determined by one's past.

Key Influences on Inter-personal Communications

1. Ego States

TA defines the different “ways of being” or “personalities” people adopt in their interactions with others, and refers to these as ego states. Our interpersonal communications can be classified as falling into one of the three following ego states: the child ego state, the parent ego state, and the adult ego state ^[98]. Each of these ego states are comprised of consistent feelings and behaviours, and these activate (unconsciously) in our interactions. By enabling you to identify which ego state is activated when interacting with others, TA can help better manage your emotions and respond in ways which promote collaboration and improve your ability to influence behaviour change in others. The three ego states of parent, adult, and child are further described below ^[100]: 

1. Parent Ego State: the parent ego state is rooted in the past, and contains the attitudes, feelings, and behaviours taught/learned from our parents or other significant authority figures. It involves responding as one of our parents would have: saying what they would have said, feeling what they would have felt, behaving how they would have behaved. It can take one of two forms: 1) the critical parent (criticizing, censoring, punishing authority-based judgments or rules e.g. “You should”, “You must”), and 2) the nurturing parent (protective, loving, and encouraging). The parent state can negatively hinder our interactions when experienced as being judgemental, dominant, punishing, condescending, smothering, overprotective or stifling. Other examples which may indicate the unhelpful parent ego state is activated include: impatient body language, anger, judgemental comments, criticisms, providing unsolicited advice, ordering others, raised eyebrows, arms folded across chest, blaming others. 

The concepts of ego states and life positions are discussed below as they are key influencers on our inter-personal communications.

2. Adult Ego State: the adult ego state is the only ego state rooted in the present and contains the attitudes, feelings and behaviours we have learned to help us interpret reality based on our rational, objective appraisals. A person behaving or interacting with their adult ego will properly seek information and use their reasoning skills to evaluate it before making decisions. Interacting from the adult ego state is always the ideal as it promotes clear, effective communication because responses are logical and appropriate to the situation or present, and this ego state is able to keep the parent and child ego state under control. A good way to know if your adult ego state is activated is to examine whether your questions/comments are fuelled by compassion and curiosity, or irritable emotions, the desire to blame, criticize, and/or prove a point. Other example indicators the adult ego state is activated may include: being/feeling relaxed/composed, calm, open, reasoned statements, unemotional, thoughtful, leaning in to listen/look, clear confident tone, taking responsibility, focused on facts not opinions, discussing alternatives or results, seeking information, evaluating pros-and-cons, questioning: “why?, how?, who?, what?, where?, how?”

3. Child Ego State: the child ego state is rooted in the past, and contains the attitudes, feelings, and behaviours we felt in our childhood related to avoiding perceived painful experiences or pursuing pleasurable experiences. It involves responding instinctually in the present as we would have as a child seeking to meet its basic needs: saying what we would have said, feeling what we would have felt, and behaving how we would have behaved as a child. The child ego can present in one of two forms: 1) the adapted/rebellious child (defiant, complaining, compliant, and/or passive). 2) free child (curious, creative, spontaneous, affectionate and fun-loving). The child ego state may negatively hinder interactions when anger or despair dominates an individuals’ reasoning. Other indicators the unhelpful child ego state is activated may include: feeling/being resistant, defensive, uncompromising, withdrawn, disengaged, helpless, dejected, sullen, manipulative, subservient, obstructive, destructive, wanting one’s own way, feeling like a victim/persecuted, shoulder shrugging, irritable, monotone, fidgeting.

In TA, interactions are referred to as complementary when the ego states of the interacting parties are the same/sympathetic to one another (e.g. child-child, adult-adult, parent-parent). This means there is alignment between what an individual says and expects to receive as a response, and what they actually receive as a response, and results in more clear and effective communication ^[100].  Alternatively, when transactions occur between individuals communicating with each other from different ego states (e.g. parent-child, adult-parent etc.) they are referred to as crossed transactions, which can lead to breakdowns in communication, misunderstanding, and associated conflict.

Examples of complementary transactions: 

• Parent-Parent (See Example 1):  “What a terrible meeting!” -  “One of the worst I’ve been to!” 
• Adult-Adult (See Example 2): “I noticed you weren’t able to take action since we last spoke, can we talk about what’s been going on for you?” - “You’re right, I’ve been really busy with illness in the family, however plan to take action now that things have calmed down” 
• Child-Child “I’m not going to try these recommendations as the people who made them don’t even understand our lives!” - “Yeah, I’m not going to bother trying any of them either.”

Examples of crossed transactions: 

• Parent-Child (See Example 3): “You should be careful or your animal won’t be able to continuing to earn money for you” - “What do you care?”
• Adult-Child (See Example 4): “We haven’t spoken for a while and I’d be interested to hear your experiences trialling the solutions we discussed when we last met.” -  “I feel like giving up as nothing is working!” 
• Adult-Parent: “I noticed you attended the training, what were key learnings for you?” - “They should have provided that training ages ago when we really needed it!” 

The goal of TA is to have all parties involved converse in the idealized state of adult-adult because these are the only interactions informed by rational appraisals of reality in the present (vs  feelings or learnings from the past), and thus result in clear and effective communication, decision making, and problem solving. However, as we go about our daily lives, we move from one ego state to another in reaction to different interactions without any thought, and our (perceived) ego state can also elicit different ego states in others that can either help or hinder communications and relations. Operating in the idealized adult-adult state can therefore be challenging, particularly when we are faced with emotionally difficult situations or interactions with people who have not yet developed an ability to manage their emotions and behaviours. 

The following example illustrates how ego states inform the nature of our transactions:

When a community member feels like their needs are not being met e.g. does not feel understood, or like they are being judged by the community facilitator, their “child” ego state of mind may intervene to influence their interaction causing them act uncooperatively in defiance. This child ego state response may in turn arouse frustration in the facilitator, arousing an annoyed “parent” ego state response which can further break down relations as a sense of disdain takes over their interactions. This example illustrates how the parent and child ego states interact to create crossed transactions and undesirable outcomes. However with an understanding of TA, the community facilitator can identify ego states activated in themselves and others, and manage their emotions to effectively communicate from their adult ego state without undermining relations with community members that can hinder desired behaviour change and animal welfare improvements.

2. Life Positions

In addition to the ego states that define our personality state in any given moment, TA also defines “life positions” which are the basic beliefs about ourselves and others which act as the frame of reference through which we experience our interactions with others ^[101]. These beliefs refer to our sense of feeling “OK or “not-OK” about ourselves and those we’re interacting with, and ultimately influence the nature of our social interactions. In this context, being “OK” refers the innate value, goodness, worth, and equal right to live and meet needs we perceive ourselves and other parties in the interaction to have. The TA model assumes that everyone is born viewing themselves and others as “OK”; however it also recognizes our childhood experiences shape can change our perception of ourselves and/or others as “not OK”. Life positions therefore may change and adapt throughout life as we learn in develop, and can also be influenced by our/others’ states of being (ego states). As we interact with others, we take one of four life positions, which in turn result in one of four specific social interaction reactions or outcomes as illustrated in the below matrix and described further below ^{[102, 99, 103, 101]}:

1. Healthy Position = I am OK, you are OK 

• This is the healthiest position, with people occupying this position holding the belief they and anyone else in the interaction are innately worthy and valuable. This position is grounded in the belief in one’s own abilities, and is characterized by mutual respect and seeing the best in the other person, thereby allowing parties to find a constructive approach to issues. This healthy position is expressed in the adult ego state, and results in the individual wanting to continue interacting with the other party (I get on with you).To adopt this way of thinking requires self-awareness and the ability to manage one’s emotions (automatic motivation). In addition, this position benefits from having positive beliefs about self (reflective motivation) e.g. confidence, self-esteem, self-efficacy, perceived competencies, sense of empowerment, and behavioural control. It also requires feeling one’s role and identity are valuable, even in the face of factors which may render one disadvantaged or marginalized. As such, this position may be a challenge for community members to adopt, particularly if they are marginalized and lack this self-belief. However, by communicating from this position using the adult ego state, community facilitators can demonstrate their belief in community members’ worth and value, which can contribute to improving community members’ own belief in their ability to make desired changes. 

2. Better than you/One Up Position = I am OK, you are not OK 

• In this position the individual is at an advantage or feels superior or right  (“I’m OK”) and projects anger, disgust, or disdain onto the person with whom they are interacting who they perceive to be wrong, inferior, or a scapegoat (“You’re not OK”).  As a result of this projection of anger, blame, and/or criticism, the other party may get angry in response. This position can be expressed in the critical parent or rebellious child ego state, and results in an individual blaming or feeling hostile towards the other party (I get rid of you). When community facilitators operate from this position they can undermine community members’ self-efficacy when they don’t seek to understand community members’ lived experiences or recognize them as experts in their own lives and instead act as the expert or limit their meaningful participation, which can give the impression they don’t believe community members are capable of change or finding solutions to their own issues. 

3. Helpless/One Down Position = I am not OK, you are OK 

• In this position, the individual feels disadvantaged, helpless and disempowered in comparison with others they are interacting with and may experience themselves as victims. This position is often expressed in the rebellious child ego, and creates a sense of wanting to withdraw from others in the interaction (e.g. I get away from you) due to not feeling as worthy as others in the interaction, often as a result of existing limiting self-beliefs (e.g. individuals who are marginalized or discriminated against may not believe they have anything valuable to contribute, or believe in their capability to affect change).

4. Hopeless Position = I am not OK, you are not OK 

• In this position, the individual perceives themselves and the other party as not good, worthy, or having equal rights. It is essentially a hopeless and frustrating situation where effective communication is very difficult. This position if often expressed in the rebellious child ego, and results in the individual feeling that their interactions with the other party are futile (I get nowhere with you). For example, individuals who have experienced discrimination may have developed limiting self beliefs as well as a lack of trust in others/social systems, which cause them to feel hopeless about working with others or trying to affect change.

In the previous example where the community member interacts from a child ego state and community facilitator from their parent ego-state, the community member perceived the interaction from a hopeless life position as they don’t feel “OK” about themselves or the community facilitator, which results in their child ego state influencing the community facilitator’s to perceive the interaction and respond from a Better than you/One up life position. As this example shows, it is important to understand how your ego state and life positions may be triggered when faced with emotional situations and interactions with community members, as well be aware their ego states, so you can manage your feelings, thoughts, and actions and respond in ways that not to hinder your influence and ability to collaborate. Additional examples of how TA can aid your role as a community facilitator include:  

• It is important for community facilitators to understand that different communities and social groups may respond or behave differently as a result of their unique social and cultural experiences and learnings influencing their ways of being (ego states) and relating (life positions). TA can help you understand, appreciate and accept this diversity amongst community members, and help reduce unconscious bias from hindering your efforts to promote inclusivity, diversity and equality, and achievement of desired behaviour change outcomes [104].
• When one is exposed to situations where the welfare of animals or people is compromised, community facilitators can experience negative feelings such as anger and hostility which can be challenging to manage (e.g. child or parent ego state). When these negative emotions influence community facilitator’s perceptions of, or are directed towards community members, the ability be an effective community servant can be compromised as rapport and trust break down [104]. Being aware of how and when your ego state and life position influence your interactions in these situations can enable you to regain control of your feelings, thoughts and actions so you can respond appropriately from your adult ego state.

How to Apply Transactional Analysis in Practice

Two models which help to understand how our roles in social interaction, which are influenced by our ego states and life positions, can produce ineffective and effective communication are referred to as the Drama Triangle and Winner’s Triangle which are illustrated in the figures below. 

The Drama Triangle is a model which describes conflicted or drama intense relationship transactions ^[105]. The drama triangle defines the three unconscious roles people take on (and can switch between) in stressful, emotional, or high conflict situations. When two people enter an interaction in one of the three roles on the drama triangle, their interactions will be characterized by drama, stress, conflict, or rescuing people from their responsibilities to solution problems for themselves. These interactions are unhelpful, and interfere with problem solving and effective communication. The three roles of the drama triangle which are further described below are Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer; and people are likely to have a preference for playing one of these roles.

• Victim Role: people who play this role feel oppressed, hopeless, and helpless. They may complain of unmet needs, and be unable to make decisions, solve problems, take pleasure in life, or achieve insight. The payoff for individuals who take this role is that they can avoid dealing with things that are unpleasant or difficult. The problem with the victim role is that individuals discount themselves, and typically seek out a persecutor and a rescuer who they think will save them but who in fact just disempowers them by perpetuating the victim’s negative feelings and/or creating dependency e.g. nothing is my fault, I’m not capable, poor me. The victim role is aligned with the hopeless (I am not OK, You are Not OK) or helpless/one down life positions (I am not OK, you are OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the victim role include: complaining, being helpless, withdrawing, catastrophizing, pretending to be incompetent. 
• Rescuer Role: people who play this role tend to be enablers, will feel guilty if they don’t come to rescue, can be over-helpful, self-sacrificing. The payoff of this role is to be needed, wanted or liked. The problem with the rescuer role is that rescuing discounts others’ ability to think for themselves, keeps those in the victim role dependent, and gives the victim permission to fail e.g. you need me, let me help. The rescuer role is very prevalent amongst helping and caring professions, and is aligned with better than you/one up position (I am OK, you are not OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the rescuer role include: fixing, telling, giving solutions, taking over, martyrdom.
• Persecutor Role:  people who play this role tend to blame, criticise, and can be oppressive, controlling, rigid, authoritative, angry, and unpleasant. The payoff for persecutors is that they get what they want. However the issue with this role is that they tend to discount others’ value and integrity, don’t enable others to show their full potential, and keep the victim feeling oppressed by their demanding and inflexible behaviour. Persecutors will seek to control and criticize while failing to solve any problems or help anyone else solve the problem e.g. its all your fault, you got it wrong, and  people tend to want to get away from them whenever they can. The persecutor role is aligned with the better than you/one up life position (I am OK, you are not OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the persecutor role include: criticizing, blaming, labelling, putting others down, feeling inadequate.

While the Drama triangle describes the above roles in their most extreme form, we often encounter milder versions of these roles in our work and personal lives. When people are caught up in a drama triangle, they will switch roles, and a rescuer may become a victim or a victim may become a rescuer, and these roles can change as the dynamics of the interactions change and develop. 

As an alternative to the problematic drama triangle, the winner’s triangle was developed as a model for more productive social interactions that lead to a win-win situation for everyone involved ^[106].The roles within the winner’s triangle reflect the positive aspects of the three drama triangle roles and include: Assertive (vs. persecutor), Caring (vs. rescuer), and Vulnerable (vs. victim), which are further defined below ^{[106, 107]}:

• Vulnerable Role: people who play this role may be suffering however express their real feelings, accept themselves, use their thinking and problem solving, and take action to care for themselves.
• Caring Role: people who play this role have genuine concern for people which they demonstrate by: giving help when asked, trusting the other person has their own answers, accepting and encouraging others’ to think for themselves, actively listening (without trying to solve the problem), having clear boundaries, doing their share, and not doing things they don’t want to do (unless absolutely necessary). They are caring, understanding, and don’t need to be needed by others. 
• Assertive Role: people who play this role are aware of their own feelings, needs and wants, and act in their own best interests by: asking for what they want, saying no to what they don’t want, being flexible in order to get their own needs met, and don’t punish or others feel wrong. They often use “I” statements (vs. you statements), are non-judgemental, and accept others’ value and integrity.

The drama triangle can be transformed into the winner’s triangle through development of one’ self-awareness, managing one’s emotions, and communicate effectively [107]. Once we understand these drama patterns and become aware we are no longer operating in the adult ego state, we can break free and choose to step off the drama triangle and consciously seek to operate from our adult ego state. 

As facilitators of behaviour change, it is therefore helpful to understand which role you tend to play on the Drama triangle. For example, as a community facilitator you may have a tendency to step on to the drama triangle in the role of rescuer, or potentially persecutor, and perceive community members as the victim who either are to blame for the welfare issues of their animals or who need your help to address observed welfare issues. Or you may perceive other community members or stakeholders within the role of persecutor, for example the animal health service provider who provides poor treatment and puts animals at risk may be perceived as the persecutor. These roles may then change if after your initial interactions, you find community members are not following your advice on how to improve animal welfare and are instead following the advice of the poorly trained animal health service provider. In this example, you may find yourself moving from rescuer to persecutor and start feeling negative feelings towards the animal owner. These feelings and associated responses and interactions are unhelpful to problem solving and achievement of the goal for improved animal welfare. Alternatively, if you perceived the animal health service provider in the role of persecutor, this would be similarly unhelpful to promoting a collaborative approach to addressing animal welfare issues. 

When our professional interactions don’t seem authentic, or when we find ourselves confused or frustrated by conversations with others, we probably we have entered into one of the roles on the drama triangle. So how can you become free of all that could be holding you back so you can relate to people with congruence and authentic influence?

Use the following steps when interacting with community members to support effective inter-personal communication to promote collaboration and improve your ability to influence behaviour change: 

1. Notice how you feel: the first thing to do when you feel a sense of confusion, irritation frustration, or helplessness is simply to notice this is actually happening. Ask yourself the following questions to improve your self-awareness:

• Are we frustrated, confused, irritated, do we feel it's somebody else's fault? 
• Does that mean that we might be operating from a parent or child role? 
• Are we feeling “not ok” about ourselves or the other person? 
• Do we feel as if we're in our adult ego state?  
• Are we experiencing crossed transactions (where either our and/or another person’s non-adult ego state is operating). 

2. Think about what might be happening for you, and also for the other person?
3. Listen - in order to communicate effectively we first need to listen (for additional guidance re to section on active listening below)
4. Move to your adult ego state 
5. Soothe the child or parent ego state (yours or the other’s)

• Enabling someone to move to their adult ego state so they can communicate from their best self is easily done by giving a few meaningful and positive comments e.g. empathetic responses or positive affirmations (for additional guidance refer to sections on empathy and active listening below). For example, you can say “That must be difficult for you”, “I understand how stressful that is for you”, “I know its frustrating when things don’t go as you believe they should” which helps the person then move back to their adult ego state so you can interact in a congruent adult-adult ego state.  

6. Feel/show: it is important to authentically feel, and to show qualities of respect, vulnerability, authenticity, and empathy.

By understanding TA and being aware of the different ego states, you can learn not to respond based on unhelpful ways of being (e.g. from parent or child ego states, unhealthy life positions), and instead choose to respond consciously to improve communication, collaboration, and your ability to influence human behaviour change. TA therefore lends itself to strengthening emotional intelligence and inter-personal communication in the following ways: 

• Improves self-awareness through enabling identification and understanding of our/others’ emotional state and how this is influenced by/influences inter-personal interactions
• Enables self-management as we can learn to keep our emotions under control once we are aware of them, thereby enabling us to choose to react consciously and in ways which are congruent with our values and objectives even in the face of challenges
• Improves social awareness by enabling us to understand how others are feeling and why they reacting as they are, 
• Increases social skills by enabling us to respond effectively and with empathy, based on an understanding of our self and others, which also helps mitigate potential for conflict and break downs in interpersonal relations. 

2c. Key Communication Skills

Empathy: Understanding Others’ Perspective

Empathy is a foundational skill which underpins emotional intelligence. The ability to communicate (send and receive messages) and lead by understanding others' thoughts, views, and feelings (being empathetic) is one of the most important means through which community facilitators enhance the quality of their interactions with community members to influence transformation and change.

Definition of Empathy: empathy is the ability to see things from another person’s point of view or from their frame of reference and feel what they feel.  It involves understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another person without making judgements [108]. In terms of communication, being empathetic involves communicating your sense of the other person’s experiences and feelings from your understanding of their perspective.

Benefits of Being Empathetic 

Empathy involves being able to understand what a person is feeling in a given moment and also why their behaviours or actions make sense to them and we can use these insights to appropriately frame our communications with others, build trust and strengthen our relationships, and ultimately be more effective leading and inspiring desired change. The benefits of empathy are further described below:   

1. Rapport Building: when facilitators express understanding of community members’ experience and feelings, and community members in turn feel they are accurately understood, accepted, and feel secure, rapport is built which is critical to a facilitator’s ability to influence behaviour change.
2. Improved Understanding and Awareness: responding with empathy provides community facilitators the opportunity to better organize and reflect back the meaning of the information community members are processing and communicating. This enables the facilitator to:
   • Demonstrate and check their own understanding of community members’ experiences and feelings, and
   • Evoke community members’ own reflections to support them in identifying problematic behaviours and solutions for themselves, as opposed to telling them or providing personal opinions or judgements which can cause defensiveness and a break down in relations. This is helpful to facilitating community members’ to move through the stages of change.

Guidance on Being Empathetic 

Factors Influencing Empathy: People tend to be more empathetic toward some people and less so toward others ^[108]. As a community facilitator, it important to understand some of the factors that may influence your empathy so you can mitigate them and ensure your empathy is consistent across people you interact with. Factors influencing empathy include ^[108]:

• How you perceive the other person
• How you attribute the other individual's behaviours
• What you blame for the other person's predicament
• Your past experiences and expectations

You can mitigate these factors’ potential negative influence and improve your ability to be empathetic  through an understanding and application of transactional analysis, particularly in relation to its assumptions, ego states, and life positions. Furthermore, the following points provide suggestions for how to be empathetic with others [109]: 

• Actively listen: effective listening must be active, which requires listening attentively to a speaker, understanding what they're saying, responding and reflecting on what's being said (refer to section below for guidance on active listening). It can also be demonstrated by providing appropriate feedback through body language e.g. nodding, smiling to encourage them continue, leaning forward, eye contact etc. Active listening encourages both the listener and speaker to remain actively engaged in the conversation.
• Imagine yourself in the other person’s situation and accept their interpretation of it: By Imagining being in same situation as the person enables you to connect with their emotions and perspective and help ensure you don’t draw incorrect conclusions, comment and/or judge from your perspective without knowing the full details of what a person is experiencing e.g. “this is no big deal”, “you should try harder”, “you’re overreacting” etc.  It is important to accept their interpretation of their experiences/situation without judging it, even if you do not agree and have a different interpretation.  
• Show care and concern: when someone tells you about their challenges or issues, show care and concern by asking how they are doing, if they would like your support, and/or let them know you are there to listen and support them in the ways you can/as appropriate.  
• Acknowledge the person’s feelings: it is important to validate people’s experiences and feelings as a means to build trust and rapport before working with them to address issues. Acknowledging means to recognize the importance of how they are feeling. Ensure you do no brush off or dismiss their feelings, avoid the topic, say something irrelevant, or attempt to move the conversation on before acknowledging and respecting how they feel. 
• Ask questions: ask people questions to learn more about them and their lives and help encourage people to share more (refer to section below on open questions). 
• Don’t Rush the Conversation: a common mistake in community facilitation is trying to rush conversations to reach a certain end point or achieve a predetermined objective. When someone is sharing about their situation or issues, glossing over what they are feeling to rush towards the desired end point without acknowledging their feelings is invalidating and undermines the potential for collaboration. The more empathetic thing to do is connect with them based on their current emotional state by understanding their perspective and how they feel, and then seek to move them forward with questions. For example, a conversation like this may flow like this: “That sounds really frustrating” → “What happened that made it so difficult?” → “How are you feeling about it now?” → “What are your ideas about how to move forward?”. You can better build rapport by pacing the conversation and matching a person’s emotional state rather than trying to rush a conversation to a specific end point.
• Don’t Judge: it is important to not to express judgement on an issue or person, nor form one before you understand the situation. Instead always give people the benefit of the doubt and understand they are doing the best they can and likely have their own justified reasons for their decisions, thoughts, and actions. It is also important to remember that all people have the ability to change and to uphold this belief regardless of their current actions.  
• Mirroring: mirroring is about connecting authentically with others by imitating their nonverbal signals as a means to build rapport e.g. their gestures, speech patterns, or attitude etc. The goal is not to copy someone’s mannerisms blindly but rather to adjust your behaviour to match their tone and vibe to create a sense of congruence with them. 
• Show emotional support: emotional support means giving people your trust, affirmation and encouragement (refer to section below on affirmations). Let them know that you will support them in whatever they choose to do and do not judge them. An example of a supportive statement is: “Knowing you, you always consider things very carefully. You know your situation best and I am supportive of whatever you choose to do.” Sometimes, what people are looking for is not answers or not solutions, but rather are looking for empathy and support.

In addition to the above, other things you can do to strengthen your empathy skills include [108]: 

• Work on listening to people without interrupting.
• Pay attention to body language and other types of nonverbal communication.
• Seek to learn more about how others feel to strengthen your connection with them.
• Seek to identify your biases to understand and mitigate how they affect your perceptions of others.
• Look for ways in which you are similar to others versus focusing on your differences.
• Be willing to be vulnerable and open about how you feel.
• Engage in new experiences to improve your understanding of how others in that situation may feel.

Examples of Responding with Empathy

Example Scenario: a community member expresses the following:  “I’d like to meet my livestock’s welfare needs and am worried that I won’t be able to continue to rely them to earn a living if I don’t; but I don’t know what I can do given how busy I am and how limited my resources are. It’s overwhelming.”

Examples of empathetic responses: 

• “You rely on your animals and care about their wellbeing, and face challenges in meeting their needs which leaves you feeling very overwhelmed and not sure what to do.”
• “It is understandable that you are worried about your animals and your livelihood which depends on them, and feel a sense of powerlessness.”
• “There’s a looming uncertainty and risk if you don’t meet your animals’ welfare needs, and it feels like there’s a wall in front of you which prevents you from being able to take action to improve their welfare.”
• “So, on the one hand, you want to take action and improve your animals’ welfare, but on the other, you worry you won’t be able to do anything even though you have the desire to.” 

Applying Empathy to Improve Communications 

When you are communicating it is important to adapt your communication to what will be most effective for the interaction from the perspective of the person you are engaging with. The following two step sequence outline how you can take the concept of empathy and apply it to your communication practices ^[110]:

1. Attribution:  attribution is the act of gathering information concerning where your audience or recipient is and how they will best receive your message. You can do this by seeking to understand the perspective of the person receiving your communication and see the world from their eyes and understand how they feel. This will enable you to make some “attributions” about where they are, what they want, and how they may need something conveyed to them. 
2. Accommodation: once you have taken into account the perspective of the person receiving your communication, you will then need to accommodate their perspective and feelings by adapting your behaviour and communication to their perspective.  Adapting to a context and speaking empathically doesn’t mean you have to tell people whatever they want, but rather when you know where people are at, you can be more effective in compelling them into a different future. To help you adapt your communications to be empathetic, consider the following questions from the perspective of your audience ^[110]: 

• What communication do they need to hear (e.g. choosing the right words that make the most sense in the situation to fit their perspective)? 
• How do they need to hear it?
• Where do they need to hear it?
• What is the style they need to hear it in?
• Why they are interested in hearing it in the first place?

Active Listening - open ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, summarizing

The core skill associated with effective communication is active listening which includes: asking open questions, and providing affirmations, reflections and summaries. This can be remembered by the acronym OARS.

Listening is different to hearing what someone says. It is a very active process and can achieve the empathy, deep curiosity and exploration of someone’s perspective needed in the change process. This can also be vital to overcome any challenges regarding the interpersonal relationship between listener and speaker. 

OPEN QUESTIONS

Open questions are questions that encourage more than a yes or no answer. They elicit understanding, encourage talking and facilitate abstract thinking skills.

The goal: use more open than closed questions. 

Open Question Examples:

• “How are you today?” 
• “What’s made you speak to me about this?” 
• “Can you tell me more about that?” 
• “Why do you want to make this change?”

Additional tips for framing open-ended questions to be authentic and situationally appropriate:  

• During initial discussions, ask questions which first seek to identify a person’s own understanding of situation/problem e.g. ask what they know about the issue. This will enable you to focus your discussion with them on areas where they may lack understanding or awareness. 
• Remain curious to learn and focus on evoking more change talk through open ended questions and reflections.
• Keep in mind which stage of change a person is in at a given point in time, and tailor your questions depending on their stage of change/how they respond. For example you can tailor questions or elicit change talk in  pre-contemplation, contemplation stage, or tailor questions to evoke ideas about how to plan/solutions in preparation stage. How to use open ended questions within the four facilitation processes for facilitating progress through the stages are described below: 

• Process of Engagement: use open ended questions when starting to build a foundational relationship to gain sense of what is important to community members and help build rapport 
• Process of Focusing: after rapport has been built, use open ended questions to begin identifying the priority issues community members are interested in to set a clear direction for working together moving forward.
• Process of Evoking: use open ended questions here to elicit change talk change talk and draw out their own reasons and motivations for change.  
• Process of Planning: once community members are aware of the issue and have expressed a desire to change to behaviour, use open ended questions to ask about what they think they can do/what solutions they can implement to achieve desired change. 

AFFIRMATIONS

Affirming means to actively listen for a client’s positive strengths, skills, values, efforts, accomplishments, aspirations and traits, and to reflect those to the client.

The goal: be in a mind-set of consciously ‘looking out for’ these positive qualities, and, if genuinely appreciated, to reflect them back to community members. 

Affirmation Examples: 

• “You came up with a lot of great ideas to address your animal’s welfare needs. Great brainstorming today.”
• “It’s important to you to be a good animal owner.” 
• “You are the kind of person who takes their responsibilities seriously, and want to do the right thing.”
• “You’re investing a lot of effort and really trying to make this change.”

Additional tips on giving affirmations: 

• Affirmations should be framed in terms of “You” and never include the word “I”. This is because “I” reflects your opinion rather than affirms an innate quality or strength in the person e.g. “You clearly have through about this care a lot” vs. “I think you care a lot.”
• Focus affirmations on reflecting a person’s efforts rather than their results as a means to encourage and motivate them and promote their self efficacy and confidence.
• Avoid using words like good, bad, great etc. when making affirmations as they imply judgement. When such positive words are used they act more like praise rather than affirmations e.g. “It is good you are supporting your animals” (praise) vs. “Caring for your animals is important to you” (affirming).
• Focus affirmations on positive aspects as a means to express empathy for what and why they want to change e.g. focusing on their strengths, efforts, who they are as a person/animal owner etc. 

REFLECTIONS

Reflections are statements rather than questions, and are based on having listened to what someone said, and making a guess as to what they meant. Often a question statement can be turned into a reflection by removing the inflection at the end and any query words at the beginning.  Reflections can be simple or complex. Try to use complex reflections at least half of the time.

The goal: 

• Remember that what we think a speaker means may not be correct, and that we must ‘hypothesis test’ our thoughts with reflections to ensure common purpose
• Reflect more often than you ask questions.

Reflection Examples: Consider the statement: “If I was happier monitoring my animal’s welfare, I would do it”. Possible reflections include: 

• “You would like to be more confident in monitoring your animal’s welfare.” 
• “You feel unsure about whether you’re monitoring your animal’s welfare correctly.” 
• “Observing your animals’ welfare issues is upsetting for you.”

SUMMARIES

A summary is a special type of reflection that brings together content from two or more statements made by someone. They encourage us to listen very carefully to what a person says throughout a session, and, when offered, show a person that you remember and value what they say. They also give the person we are speaking with an opportunity to point out if we have missed something important in the discussion, so they can fill in the gaps. 

The goal: listen attentively to a person’s thoughts and feelings throughout, ready to use a ‘basket of reflections’ to thoughtfully collect, link or transition client statements as needed. For example, you may wish to form a collecting summary to bring together all the reasons for change someone has offered in an interaction. 

Summary Example: 

“So one thing you hope will be different a year from now is that you will have some better buildings on the farm, that will help make your daily routine easier and be more positive for the cows. You’ve been finding it easier to keep on top of the shelter cleaning recently, and you’d like that to continue. You also said you’d like to learn a little more about nutritional feed composition. What else comes to mind when you think of where you’d like things to be a year from now?”

This resource was developed with support of Human Behaviour Change for Animal (HBCA) and Alison Bard

Link to References Cited