I started learning to play the guitar when I was around 17 years old. Back in Junior College, I would grab the communal guitar that was in the council room, and promptly proceeded to strum and sing my heart out, much to the horror of my follow councillors. I won’t get past 3 minutes before someone would politely ask me to stop. One of the reasons I suppose was that I didn’t know how to tune the guitar. Fortunately, one of my friend taught me how to tune my guitar to preserve everyone’s sanity.
In those days, before electronic tuners become more popular, I was taught to use a tuning fork. The most common tuning fork we can find is that of the “A” Note. We strike it on our knee, causing it to vibrate, and place on the body of the guitar which will produce the sound of the “A” Note. The other way, was to place the tuning fork on the 5th String (which is the “A” note) and if it was tuned correctly, the string will vibrate in resonance with the tuning fork. And once we have one string tuned, we can tune the rest of the strings on the guitar relative to the tuned string. In essence, the tuning fork allowed us to help the guitar play well through resonance.
Like Guitars, Resonance Helps People To Play Well
In many ways, people are like guitars. If you are in tune with others, we seem to play well together, the sounds we produce are able to harmonise. When we are not, we feel like cringing the way a wrong note destroys a beautiful piece of music. But people are complex, and finding a way to be in tune with others can be challenging. What are some ways that we can tune into other people so that we can be more in sync?
Identify and Establish Commonalities
There’s a saying, “People like people who are like themselves”. That’s precisely the principle of resonance, when there is commonality, what someone else says or does creates a response within us that we can identify. That helps us to think that we are alike, and that creates the impression that this person (who is like me) is likely to be safe.
Some areas of commonalities that we can establish are: Interests, Hobbies, Passion, Mission, Intent, Goals.
Managing Conflicts with Mutual Goals
When we are having a conflict with someone, One of the great ways to approach it is to take a step back and establish a mutual goal (yes, create one if it doesn’t exist).
Ask:
- What do you want for yourself?
- What do you want for me?
Tell:
- What do I want for you?
- What do I want for myself?
Explore:
- How can we come together to co-create a mutual goal that would benefit the both of us and meet our mutual needs?
Win-Win, or No Deal
We always make our best efforts to identify a way to mutually benefit each other, and this can usually be achieved when there is mutual respect for each other and a willingness to explore and make changes.
There sometimes comes a time when mutual goals seem impossible to achieve, though more often than not, we can. When such a time comes, I apply one of principles from the 7 Habits of Highlight Effective People – Think Win-Win, or No Deal. It is an extremely mature response to be able to (a) be willing to work out alternatives with the other person, and when no appropriate solution is found, to (b) walk away from it agreeably (and amicably).
StrengthsFinder Talent Themes as Tuning Forks
For those of us who love StrengthsFinder, I’ll like to suggest that our StrengthsFinder Talent Themes are like tuning forks allowing us to identify what would resonate with the people we are communicating with. Here’s how we do it:
- Ask ourselves, what are the signature themes of this person?
- For each of the other person’s talent theme, ask
- What drives / motivates this talent theme?
- What does this talent theme need?
- For each of these needs, ask
- What talent theme do I have that can resonate with these drivers/motivators?
- How do I use my talent themes to meet these needs?
Let’s say I’m encouraging someone to stick to their plans to meet their fitness goals, for the person with Futuristic, I would use my Strategic Talent Theme appeal to a future vision of what achieving their fitness goals would look like, and how it would impact other important areas of his life and what that would look like. Strategic is also wonderful for painting how alternative futures could look like if he didn’t meet his goals. If the person has Maximiser as his Signature theme, I could use my Learner Theme to explore what excellence looks like for this person in terms of the fitness goals, and what excellence looks like in terms of behaviour towards achieving these goals. (Once a person with Maximiser gets clarity on a picture of excellence, they are often naturally drawn towards that level of performance).
Other Areas of Resonance in Relationships
I can’t complete talking about resonance in relationships without making mention of the 5 Love Languages. Gary Chapman describes that there are five different love languages – Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service and Gifts. Each of us generally has 2 dominant languages, and if someone speaks our love language, we would feel loved, if the person doesn’t, we can feel unloved even when the person does care.
An understanding of the 5 Love Languages for yourself and your loved one can help you tune-in to each other, and take active steps in your demonstration of love towards each other. If this is new to you, I highly recommend you visit the website, and read his book.
Reflection & Application
Which part of the article did you find more useful?
Which relationship in your life could use more resonance right now?
How would you create this resonance?
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
