Aiden Norris

COMM 2110-502/3
Submitted To: Susan Knott
Submitted On: 4/21/2019
Final Report
Overview
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive outline of my Personal Change
Project, which was started at the beginning of the semester. The purpose of this project was to
determine communicative characteristics that I desired to change, utilizing the duration of the
semester to implement a variety of methods to elicit those changes. This paper covers those original
objectives and unwanted communication patterns and discusses the strategies that I had developed
to catalyze those changes. Furthermore, it discusses the constraints and challenges that I faced
during the semester-long project, the implementation of the aforementioned strategy through daily
actions, the results of this quest, and finally the recommendations and take-away’s from the
project.

Unwanted Communication Pattern

For a long time, I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to stay relatively disengaged from
conversations at work, at school, and at home. This comes primarily from a sense of personal
sensitivity, but also comes from a fear of commitment to a conversation or relationship of any
kind. I had noted at the beginning of the semester that this became so severe at times that I would
walk in a different direction from another person if it meant not having to converse with them.
A specific example involved two different conversations at work before the semester had
started. In the first example, a coworker approached me to ask me a work-related question. After
I had answered the question, they proceeded to politely ask me about how I was doing, asking how
my wife and I were doing and managing our lives as newlyweds. I turned my shoulders and didn’t
make eye contact through the entire conversation, and responded with short, terse sentences that
were fairly close-ended. Additionally, I didn’t ask any reciprocal questions of the inquisitor.
In the second example, I was talking to a friend on the phone who had called me. I had
gone on in the conversation for some odd number of minutes talking about myself and what was
going on in my life, but I neglected to ask them any questions about how they were doing or what
was going on in their life. I felt awful, but I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat on the phone,
awkwardly silent, until we decided to end the conversation and go about our days.
Accordingly, I feel that people perceive this as a lack of interest in them, and that I do not
value them in my life. I believed that if I could improve my ability to engage in conversations, that
I could enjoy a much more meaningful connection with each person that I communicated with,
while also improving my ability to be a more engaged and loving friend, family member, and
coworker by providing compassionate value to the lives of those around me.

Strategies
As I delved into the topics in the textbook provided, I looked for content that seemed to
pinpoint the characteristics most unwanted in my communication style. In particular, I was looking
for strategies that I could utilize that enhance and deepen my engagement in conversations. To this
end, I found three primary sources that were encouraging, which were Confirming and
Disconfirming Responses, Providing Helpful Social Support, and Improving Listening
Comprehension Skills.
First, Confirming Responses include “... other-oriented statements that cause others to
value themselves more,” (Beebe, 7e, pp.148). These responses show interest, compassion, and
empathy for the other person, and include the following methods described by Beebe:
● Direct Acknowledgement, in which our acknowledgment of the person’s message
indicates that we feel they are worth the time it takes to accept and acknowledge.
This concept is important because it helps the other person feel valued in
conversation.
● Agreement About Judgements, in which we confirm another party’s evaluation
of something, validating their stance and supporting their beliefs. This is important
because it shows that we care about what they care about.
● Supportive Responses, in which we provide reassurance and an expression of
understanding to the other party to acknowledge their feelings and their right to feel
their feelings. This is important because it allows the other person to feel
emotionally open with you, which has a positive effect on the relationship.
● Clarifying Responses, in which we engage in further questioning about a person’s
statement to help them feel valued and supported with encouraging them to further
explore their feelings on the subject at hand.
● Expressions of Positive Feeling, in which we acknowledge and agree with
somebody’s expression by exhibiting a mirrored positive response. This helps the
other person feel emotionally engaged and validated.
● Compliments, which goes without saying, make people feel good. They make
people feel noticed, and they make people feel like they are important. It indicates
to them that you are paying attention to them enough to notice something worth
complimenting.
These confirming responses are used in place of disconfirming responses and provide
emotional engagement and interest in the conversation at hand. I felt that these kinds of responses
would work for improving my communicative shortcomings because they require that I pay greater
attention to other people. This, in turn, enhances my sense of other-orientation, and provides
greater value to the other person by showing them that I value them and what they have to say/feel.
As the vocabulary suggests, these are utilized as responses to statements made by others, and are
subsequently used when engaging in regular conversation. These methods are hard to use for that
very same reason; it can be difficult to remember to use these skills when you are in the actual
conversation, which is why it’s important to develop patterns to remember them.
Disconfirming responses are the antithesis to confirming responses because they
disengage us from the conversation with the other person and don’t display adequate other-
orientation. The types of disconfirming responses are listed by Beebe as follows (Beebe, 7e, pp.
150-151):
● Impervious responses, which is when we fail to even respond to a remark,
statement, or comment. This is usually met with no response whatsoever, and
indicates that what we have to say isn’t even important enough to acknowledge.
● Interrupting responses, which is when we interrupt what another person is saying,
which indicates that what we have to say is more important than anything that they
have to say. This is harsh, because it is so demeaning.
 ● Irrelevant responses, in which we respond to a statement or conversational item
with something that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, almost as
if we are trying to change the topic. This is so disconfirming because it suggests
that we are bored and disinterested in the other communicator and the overall
conversation.
● Tangential responses, which take a statement that somebody else makes and
highlights our role in the statement, such as “We’ll make some great profits!” to
which you say “Yeah, I’ll finally be rich!”
● Impersonal responses, in which we respond to another person in the third person
and through the use of intellectualization. This, too, is very demeaning and suggests
that the other person is too “lowly” for us to speak with them.
● Incoherent responses, in which we respond to a communication with something
relatively incoherent and scrambled. This makes the communicator wonder if what
they said had any actual value.
● Incongruous responses, in which we respond to a message with inadequate tone,
volume, or otherwise. An example of this is when somebody asks a question and
we respond by yelling; this only confuses everybody and makes the other person
offended.
These disconfirming responses generally refrain from helping the other communicator
feel valued and validated in their communications, and they also refrain from offering any
opportunity for further conversation. I used several of these methods frequently to quickly
disengage from conversations so that I could attend to my own business, which was seen by the
other person as rude and disinterested.
The next major strategy that I decided to pursue involved providing helpful social
support. Beebe describes these communicative behaviors occurring when “... you offer positive,
sincere, supportive messages, both verbal and nonverbal, when helping others deal with stress,
anxiety, or uncertainty,” (7e, pp. 146). One of the primary reasons for my interest in this topic is
because of how many people are going through difficult times. If we really take time to think about
it, just about everybody that we know is going through something that they deem a “life challenge.”
If we treat every person that we meet as if they are going through the most difficult time of their
life, we will almost always be right.
Most of the suggestions that Beebe made to this end required a basic understanding that
everything we say must come from a sense of other-orientation. If we are trying to speak with
other people that are enduring through difficult times for our own reasons, we are doing it for the
wrong reasons. Thus, Beebe suggests that we approach these people with the desire to help them,
clearly expressing our desire to help, how we are feeling about them, and providing them the
validation, support, and room to feel their feelings - verbally or otherwise.
Of all of these things, however, the most critical component is to just listen to what other
people have to say. Ask your question, and just listen. People who are struggling through difficult
times aren’t interested in your advice unless they specifically ask for it. They also don’t care what
you think or what you have to say unless it has to do with allowing them to open up. This is
primarily because the people that are suffering are coming from a place of vulnerability, and any
statements directed towards them can easily harm their soft, emotionally human center. We must
act accordingly by listening, confirming, asking questions, and supporting them no matter what.
I was interested in pursuing this because I quickly became surprised at how many people
are just begging for validation and love in everyday conversation. After doing some contemplation,
I realized that I wasn’t offering any opportunities for others to open up or feel safe around me, and
that’s something that really disengaged people from me. I wanted to change this so that I could
provide greater help to those around me, and to engage with others more deeply on a more personal
and emotional level (which I am not good at doing in person).
The last strategy that I decided to utilize, and likely one of the most important, was
improving listening comprehension skills; Beebe also describes this as “... becoming a more
other-oriented listener,” (7e, pp. 131). From day to day conversations to deep and hour-long
conversations, I recognized that I had a really bad habit of forgetting what the other person was
saying - even recognizing, at some points, that I wasn’t even listening to them as I attended to my
own personal cranial drama.
Beebe suggested the Stop-Look-Listen method to enhance our listening comprehension
skills (Beebe, 7e, pp. 131-132). This is, perhaps, the most significant series of steps that we can
take to become a more active listener for the purpose of developing enhanced listening
comprehension skills. This first involves that we STOP what we are doing when a conversation
begins, putting away our distractions and other motives to focus completely on the conversation at
hand. Following this, we LOOK at the other person and engage in healthy eye contact and provide
positive, affirming body language to show them that we are ready and willing to listen to what
they have to say. Lastly, we LISTEN to the actual message by allowing the other person to talk,
and utilizing these additional methods:
● Determine Your Listening Goal. This begins the conversation by making a
commitment to listen through the setting of a goal. When I enter a conversation, for
example, I make a mental note that “I am going to focus on what they have to say
so that I can summarize and repeat it back to them by the end.” This clarifies our
purpose - not so that the communication becomes transactional, but so that we are
dedicated to ensuring we truly comprehend what they are trying to say.
● Transform Listening Barriers into Listening Goals. This step involves
minimizing the barriers to communication and listening by putting away mental
chatter, refraining from tangential thought, and by creating mental summaries
throughout the conversation to keep yourself on track.
● Mentally Summarize the Details of the Message. As mentioned in the last point,
this step involves the continuous summarization of what the conversation entails.
This permits a short-term encoding of the conversation into our working memory
that enhances our recall and permits greater engagement in the conversation itself.
● Mentally Weave These Summaries into a Focused Major Point or a Series of
Major Ideas. As we are listening and communicating back and forth, we can create
a narrative of the major topic or topics at hand and how the conversation has
progressed. For example, we might say “Okay, the topic is ceiling fans, and we’ve
covered the major points of what material they’re made of and what motors to put
into the units.”
● Practice Listening to Challenging Material. What is a better way to enhance our
listening skills than to exercise them? We can do this by listening to audiobooks,
podcasts, or online videos that have challenging material in them. If we are able to
summarize difficult content presented in this manner and comprehend it well, we
are very likely to be able to listen to and process simple day-to-day conversations
with much greater ease.
 I believe that this strategy and series of steps will help engage my ability to listen actively
by forcing me to turn my entire attention to the other communicator, and requiring me to constantly
summarize the conversations as they progress.
Overall, these strategies all involve developing my abilities in interpersonal
communication methods through further engagement and the development of other-orientation.

Constraints
The primary constraints involved in this project related to the spur-of-the-moment nature
of all of my conversations. It can be easy to conceptualize these topics and strategies before a
meeting, but it’s very difficult to remember them in the moment, such as when I’m engaged in
conversation during work.
To overcome this first barrier, I would always begin my conversations with stop-look-
listen, which would cause a domino effect upon my interaction with that person. It helped me to
realize what I needed to do as I remembered the strategies above.
Another constraint that I faced was the nature of my work, because my job requires me to
constantly move from one part of the workspace to another throughout the day, which makes it
very difficult to have a full conversation.
To overcome this barrier, I would again begin the conversation with the stop-look-listen
method, and would also implement that as I asked a question, or said something akin to “Hold that
thought! I want to hear what you have to say, but I’ll be right back.” This also utilized the some of
the methods I learned in my study of providing helpful social support by saying such things as
“I want to hear what you have to say,” “What you have to say is important to me,” “I’m curious to
know more,” and so on, all of which are responses that indicate interest and open the floor for them
to continue speaking on the topic without bluntly cutting them off to do my job.

Implementation
It’s difficult to thoroughly explain my implementation, because it primarily involved
remembering points in the conversation during which I was cognizant of my ability to choose a
response (which is difficult because conversation can be so rapid-fire and spur of the moment).
During these times, my thoughts were immediately turned to the topics that are mentioned above,
and the implementation thereof was relatively seamless when it occurred.
When people came to talk to me, I engaged in the Stop-Look-Listen strategy (Beebe, 7e,
pp. 131-132) to give them my full attention and cognitive efforts. This was particularly difficult at
work because, as mentioned above, my work environment is very, very busy; any time spent not
working causes your individual workload to increase. I did my best to do this, but ensured that if
I had something to do that was pressing I provided an adequate response, verbal or non- verbal,
that indicated my desire to return to the conversation at a later date. To make this happen, I used
the confirming responses (Beebe, 7e, pp. 149-151) to provide feedback and ensure them that I
cared about what they said; in this way, I was able to begin avoiding the use of disconfirming
responses (Beebe, 7e, pp 149-151) that indicated a lack of interest. This happened so many times
throughout the semester that I can hardly count them. Of course, I didn’t start off on a great note,
but I progressively improved throughout the semester.
Once I was able to really devote some effort to the conversation at hand, I went through
great efforts to ensure I was totally engaged in active listening and working on my active listening
comprehension skills to boost my engagement (Beebe, 7e, pp 131-134). Some days, the first thing
that I would do when I woke up is grab a pen and paper and write down what I was going to do
differently than the day before. Over time, my ability to really understand what people were talking
about -especially during long conversation - improved greatly.
However, once engaged in conversation there was usually an opportunity to provide
helpful social support as others opened up and disclosed difficult times, difficult thoughts, or
difficult situations in which I was able to offer support in their emotional burdens (Beebe, 7e, pp.
146-147). It was hard for me to know how to respond at first because I just wasn’t sure what people
needed. It turns out, I knew what to do all along - and the responses came naturally. I could feel
the love and support that these people needed, and I was more than willing to listen, to empathize,
and to give them the room to talk and disclose, just as suggested by Beebe. Among the variety of
helpful tools listed, it was easy for me to learn how to disengage from my self-concern to listen to
others as they worked through their challenges via disclosure (Beebe, 7e, pp. 147).
Again, it is hard to pinpoint specific conversations because this happened so frequently,
almost constantly throughout any given day (because my work environment is filled with a variety
of ever-dynamic interactions, chit-chat, and small talk).

Results
As the semester comes to a close, I am very satisfied with the progress that I have made in
such a short amount of time! It is spectacular to see how much I’ve developed, particularly when
I’ve really put my mind to the task.
I notice that I’m not as afraid to engage others in conversation, and sometimes I’m even
excited to do so. I also notice that others are more willing to engage me in conversation, which is
a new experience.
Because my entire strategy was all about developing a greater sense of other-orientation,
it totally enhanced my sense of engagement with others. This happened particularly because I
made such a diligent, focused effort to enhance my interpersonal communication skills (Beebe,
7e, pp. 119-221) which was even further focused on my listening and responding skills (Beebe,
7e, pp. 119-154). I believe that this was so effective because listening and responding comprise
almost all of our interactions, besides the initial engagement in conversation. Thus, by enhancing
these skills I was allowing myself to become more engaged and, thus, a more proficient
communicator.

Recommendations
As I move forward, I intend to continue utilizing the above methods that I have been
practicing for the past several months. Through focused, diligent effort, I know that I can improve
my proficiency as a communicator as I learn to develop a greater sense of other-orientation.
In particular, however, I’d like to continue improving my skills by working on my
interpersonal communications in relationships (Beebe, 7e, chpt. 9-12), because the skills that I
have worked on throughout the year thus far are effective for small-talk and business-related
conversation, but could use some clarification and refinement for use in my interpersonal
relationships.
I know that, overall, this will include much further work on the development of other-
orientation which can be so difficult to develop, especially because we, as humans, are so prone
to egocentric behaviors and thought processes. I know that relational dialectics theory postulates
that relationships develop as two parties learn to manage the tensions that pull them in different or
similar directions (Beebe, 7e, pp. 271). Beebe mentions that our management of these tensions
determine whether or not we have healthy relationships; I tend to enter a lot of relationships, even
in the workplace, with a very high desire for autonomy, predictability, and openness, which
means that I have a difficult time with relationships that pull me away from my sense of personal
autonomy (Beebe, 7e, pp. 271). This makes it very difficult for me to feel comfortable and
vulnerable around others, yet I still crave that sense of openness and connection.
As I work through the future, my endeavors will be put towards finding ways to continue
my engagement with others as I overcome the barriers postulated in relational dialectics theory.

Works Cited
Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond. (2014). Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others. Boston:
Pearson.