INTERACTION AGENDAS
During a interaction there are four kinds of agendas people will typically follow. These agendas include venting, requesting, negotiating, and limit setting.
Both people bring their own agendas into the interaction. Misunderstanding the other person's agenda can lead to problems.
Understanding these agendas and determining which ones are at play during an interaction will
help you respond more effectively.
Venting
Venting involves the sharing of your thoughts and feelings. You have opinions and emotions about the problem. The listeners job is to listen, understand, and care.
The person who is venting is not seeking a decision or problem solving; they only need to express themselves. Your listener only needs to employ communication skills like reflection, empathy, and validation.
Of course, the listener is also free to respond with her or his own thoughts and feelings, but it is not a necessity.
Just venting in an interaction can allow respect and caring to be exchanged, generate understanding for future problem solving, and enrich the relationship.
Requesting
In requesting, you are asking a question---which others may choose to answer as they wish. You may want an opinion or emotional response. You may want a favor or agreement with a policy. You may want help or cooperation in setting limits. All your listener needs to do is to understand the request and respond to it.
Individuals who fail to understand the difference between venting and a request often end up hurt, angry and confused.
Example: My spouse came home at midnight and reported that the window in the bathroom is stuck. I, being a typical male, start heading for my toolbox. “Where are you going?!” she asks, “It's midnight! I don’t want you to start working on the window.” I might retort “then why did you bring it up?’ and she would say “I was was just sharing . . .” So venting is a different agenda than requesting.
Negotiating
A third communication agenda is negotiating. This is a more complex process, but is central to maintaining equal respect and power while effectively solving the problems that life presents.
When you are negotiating, you have raised a subject in which you both have a vested interest. You are offering to look for a solution to a situation that is both adequate to answer the question at hand and acceptable to both opinions and feelings, and gets the job done.
This is not exactly the same as a compromise. In compromise, there is an assumption that each party will give things to reach an agreement. In the negotiation you are looking for a solution that will meet the needs of both people.
It is more of a win-win scenario that you are creating together. Putting your heads and hearts together will often produce a finer solution than either of you would have reached separately.
Limit Setting
Limit setting involves describing a boundary and offering a consequence for crossing that boundary. It means presenting an item that is not negotiable.
The most significant difference between limit setting and other communication agendas is that exceeding a limit always has a consequence. And when a limit is set, it is necessary to follow through on the consequence.
It is important to set consequences carefully.
