As has been noted in previous blog posts and videos, our group this week has been experiencing some communication problems. We’ve all been hearing about Dev’s challenge, and we knew that this one would help us with communication skills. In fact, the challenge today did exactly that.
In the morning we met up and took the bus up the hill, found a hotel with a warm lobby, and sat down to start our challenge. We talked for a while about how to listen. We learned that often, when people verbally attack you or confront you, it’s almost never about you, it’s about them and what they’re going through. People usually get angry or upset about certain triggers they’ve developed from past experiences. After talking about how to get people to open up, we did a little opening up ourselves. We talked about things we have been going through as of recent, and I feel it has brought our group closer together. Understanding each other a little better, we took off back down the mountain.
After breaking for lunch, then scavenging cardboard for signs, we headed into town in groups of one and two. People don’t often want to talk to people who are just sitting on the street with cardboard signs. Most of those who walked by averted their eyes or curtly said hello, then hurriedly walked away. The few who stopped to talk to us gave us pretty short responses. While some of the conversations required us to use our new listening and communication skills, we learned the most from this challenge by listening to ourselves.