How to learn to understand the needs of another person.

You can often find incorrect communication structures when communicating with other people.

This could be a partner, our friend, girlfriend or close relative. When a person asks us to talk with him, it is important to understand what need he wants to fill in this dialogue.

For example , a partner comes to us to tell us what problems he had at work. He complains about his boss, who did not give him a bonus this month because our partner did not manage to close some project on time. On the one hand, we understand that our partner is to blame — he did not have time to close the project and was logically deprived of the bonus. But when he complains to us about how bad he feels, it is important to clarify what he wants us to do in the form of a reaction.

As often happens, our partner tells us this situation, and we immediately begin to give advice on what to do: “Listen, next time do the project on time. I would if I were you…”. We want to do a good deed and expect gratitude from the person, but he begins to get angry and says: “This is not what I expected from you, I won’t tell you anything more.”

This suggests that he probably reached out to get support, and we started giving him advice.

He addressed a completely different need. He didn’t need our advice, he turned to us for support.

Support and advice are two different things.