Md. Abdullah Al Mamoon, PMP
Many a times we tumble into the trap of evoking agonizing sentiments to others that often turn into an uncontrollable debacle in our personal, social and professional life due to the failure of identifying the sheer impacts of a complaint on a person. The art of expressing and communicating a complaint plays the most crucial role in regard to impacting the emotional mind of a person against whom a complaint is expressed.
Recently I read an excellent formula (well, my rating of course!) recommended by Psychologist Haim Ginott, known to be the grandfather of effective communication programs, while reading a book of Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence). Haim suggested the formula for expressing complaint is ‘XYZ’ that can be expressed as ‘when you did X, it made me feel Y and I expected rather you did Z instead’. To articulate this formula more explicitly, for example, ‘when you did not inform me that you would be late (X), I felt disregarded and angry (Y). I wished you would call and let me know that you would be late (Z)’; instead of attacking the person by saying ‘you are thoughtless, irresponsible, self-centered idiot’. Complaint should not be directed as a personal attack; rather should state that an action is distressing/incorrect that could have been avoided/corrected. This way, a complaint is not a complaint rather would trigger the sense of improvement rather than injecting hatred, disregard, anger or demotivation.
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