by Jason Marquez
Imagine being approached by your boss, who believes you’re the best employee to take on the next big project for the company. But when he delivers the news to you, your response is less than enthusiastic. Ask yourself, why? Your boss saw something in you that helped them make this decision. Perhaps it was your strength of creativity that prompted them to seek you out. Maybe it was your strengths of teamwork, leadership, and perspective—because this project needs a true leader. When presented with opportunities, don’t show hesitation or fear. Instead, embrace them with excitement! Sharing in the excitement will demonstrate your value to your boss and teammates and validate their belief in you.
Responding authentically using excitement
Many people find it challenging to respond with genuine interest in situations like the one above. Thankfully, there are tools to help us all better engage in conversations. One technique, called Active Constructive Responding (ACR), helps people respond with authenticity to the stories, instructions, or any other information that’s shared with them. The goal here is to be an excitement magnifier—someone who demonstrates enthusiastic and genuine support and elicits details from the person sharing information. When you contribute to conversation in a positive way, you can develop relationships and build trust, whether with family, friends, colleagues, teachers, coaches, teammates, etc.
What you don’t want to be during a conversation is an excitement extinguisher, problem detector, or one-upper. These response types are a recipe for a variety of unwanted and unfavorable outcomes, including communication problems, hurt feelings, resentment, and the other person no longer interested in sharing their news with you. When your best friend comes to you to share information about getting a promotion, you shouldn’t respond in a manner that shows minimal interest, as an excitement extinguisher would do. Instead, be excited for them! After all, this is your best friend! You also don’t want to be a problem detector, or someone who’s skeptical and tries to poke holes in the information being shared. And who wants to be around a one-upper who shows no interest in what’s being shared and instead hijacks the conversation to bring attention to something they did. These types of communication don't lead to or support healthy, productive relationships.
What can you do?
First, pay attention and be present in the conversation. Most people have strengths that can help them to be better engaged, and therefore, better responders. Take a look at the Values in Action (VIA) Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues for a list of strengths that we all have to some degree. Once you take the free VIA survey (registration required), you’ll be able to see your top strengths, also known as your signature strengths.
Then, reflect and recall past conversations or experiences when you’ve used those strengths to help you in the current moment. Using the example of an ecstatic boss who wants to share exciting news with you, you could use your strength of leadership that they saw in you. Show excitement in this project. Tell them you’re excited to be chosen for this opportunity. Using your strength of leadership, share with them your initial thoughts of how to carry out this assignment, and ask if you’ll be able to put together a team to assist. Asking them for further details will put your strength of curiosity to use. Thanking your boss for being chosen over the competition will reinforce your strength of gratitude. These thoughtful replies and inquiries can solidify in your boss’s mind that they made the right decision in choosing you for the task, and quite possibly, could boost their strengths of perspective and judgement.
Change yourself and change the world
Now that you understand how you can use your strengths with Active Constructive Responding, I encourage you to have more meaningful conversations to build trusting relationships that grow into the future. A change in how you communicate with one person can positively affect how that person makes connections, and this infectious form of responding over time can change the world, one person at a time.
