Are you two-faced?

[firecat]

I made some comments about this in someone else's journal (the entry is friends-locked, so not identified) and it got me to wondering.

If you have a problem with how someone behaves--

• Under what circumstances do you tell them?
• Under what circumstances do you not tell them but tell other people who know them?
  
  • If you tell others, do you care whether those comments to get back to the person?
  • If you want that not to happen, do you do anything to prevent it?
  • Do your prevention mechanisms work?
• Under what circumstances do you not tell anyone (or only one or two confidants)?

If someone has a problem with how you behave--

• Under what circumstances do you want to be told?
• Under what circumstances do you not want to be told?
• Do you think people say things behind your back that are different from what they say to your face?
  • If so, does this bother you?
  • If it bothers you, do you do anything about it?
  • What do you do?

Comments

[crazed-lynn.livejournal.com]

If I have a problem with someone's behavior, I will tell them under and of the following conditions:

• Intended outcome of communication is to alter the results or stop the behavior.
  
  
  
  1. The behavior is causing a safety problem for others.
     
  2. The behavior is threatening, cruel or in other ways violent.
     
  3. I have coaching agreements with the person about the behaviors.
     
  
  
• Intended outcome is something other than stopping the behavior.
  
  
  
  1. The behavior is creating an emotional barrier between us AND I want to deepen my relationship with that person. Intention: To find some common ground that frees me from my judgments about the behavior.
     
  2. I am concerned that the behavior is in reaction to me. Intention is to discover if I am part of the problem in which case I alter who I am being for that person or if it is unrelated to me.
     
  3. The person is a member of a small community or group in which I am a member and their behavior is damaging the group. I will talk to the person engaged in the behavior and to those reacting to the behavior. Intention: to break the cycle of Drama.
     
  
  

If someone has a problem with my behavior, I want to be told ONCE unless I have coaching agreements with that person. I have preferences for when and how that communication is delivered, but I do want to be told. I will hear the comment and take from it what I find useful and leave the rest. For example, if I am trying to enlist the support of businesses for some humanitarian project, it is probably not useful for me to introduce myself as a kinky bisexual polyamorous pagan. I want to know if the person or people I am talking to will stop listening at that point. I want my communications to be effective, so I have to know what to and what not to say. Feedback is the only way to handle that.

The only way I can listen to the criticism, though, is to remember that it is their opinion and not an indictment of me. It is about them. I can then choose to use the new information or not.