So what do those types of conversations look like? If I was able to diagram it out, what would it look like? It would look like this. So in this diagram, on the left-hand side, you see cooperative. On the right-hand side, you see competitive.
On the top, you see two-way, meaning there's a back and forth. It doesn't necessarily mean there are only two participants. And on the bottom, we see one-way, which means there's only one person who's using language to communicate at a time instead of just nonverbals.
or both. So you look at, if you look at dialogue, that means that it's cooperative and it's two-way, meaning that it's back and forth, we're going to speak, and participants are going to exchange information and build relationships with each other. Remember, we co-create reality with our communication partners, and dialogue is a big part of how we do that. Now, if you look on the right side, where it's competitive with a two-way, we have debate.
Win an argument or persuade someone to change their thoughts, values, beliefs, and behaviors. With this, there's a back and forth, but because there's a competitive nature, we're trying to show our perspective and that our thoughts, our feelings, our values, our beliefs are superior to the one that we're going back on forth on. A lot of times we're making decisions. It can be problem solving or it can be just the idea of making a decision on what should we do. In my personal life, that's always, what do you want to eat?
There's definitely always going to be a debate, and four hours later, we will figure something out. Then we get to the bottom with the one-way conversations. On the left, we have discourse, which is cooperative, but it's one-way. With discourse, we know that the sender is going to transmit information to the receiver. The other person knows that they're playing the role of the listener.
They're doing it in a cooperative way. Remember, there's at least two participants in a conversation. So I'm choosing to be a listener.
You're choosing to be a listener. You're choosing to hear someone out. And when we have relationships that really matter to us, we are really amazing listeners. On the right-hand side, we have a diatribe.
This is competitive in one way. This is when we express emotions, browbeat those who disagree, and or inspire others with the same perspective. Meaning that...
I already know what I think and believe. I'm not going to hear another person out. I'm probably going to speak to myself more than the other person. I'm going to go on a diatribe. I'm going to explain why I'm correct about something or why my decision might be the best or my problem solving idea might be superior, but I'm not necessarily waiting for the other person to jump in or to hear their perspective because I'm pretty set in my way.
about what I believe to be true. And I'm really communicating to persuade more than anything.