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Chapter 1 |
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These Ask Yourself... items are designed to suggest situations for which you need to assess your communication options and then select the option you think best. In this they are like all communication situations, each requiring a thorough assessment of options and then a reasoned selection of the option deemed most likely to succeed.
Allow the situations depicted here to suggest alternative situations, perhaps even actual ones in which you participated, and ask yourself what you might do (or might have done) in these other situations as well.
Although these items are grouped into the 12 chapters of Messages and are arranged in about the same order as the topics discussed in the text, don’t restrict your analysis to the concepts and principles of that chapter. As in life, use all the information you have to help you make the more reasonable decision.
ASK YOURSELF... Communicating an Image
At work, a new position is opening and you want it. Your immediate supervisor is likely the one to make the final decision. Ask yourself: What can you do to help secure this new position?
ASK YOURSELF... Packaging Messages
You’re often reacted to with notions of disbelief or with questions such as "Do you mean that?" "Did that really happen?" You suspect that you may not be packaging your messages appropriately. Ask yourself: First, what might you be doing to present contradictory messages? Second, how you can more appropriately integrate your verbal and nonverbal messages to produce consistent meanings?
ASK YOURSELF... Making Relationships Exclusive
You’ve been dating someone for the last several months—almost every weekend—and you want to make the relationship exclusive. Ask yourself: What options do you have available to achieve this goal? What options would work best for you?
ASK YOURSELF... Encouraging Similarities
You’re dating this person you really like but you are both so different—in values, politics, religion, and just about everything else. But, you enjoy each other more than you do with any other person. Ask yourself: What can you do to encourage greater similarity?
ASK YOURSELF... Lessening the Negative Impact
You write a gossipy e-mail about Ellen (revealing things that you promised to keep secret) to your mutual friend Elle but inadvertently send it to Ellen herself. Ask yourself: What options do you have to correct this problem? What seems your best option?
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