The Fog Bank It is a technique that can help us to get out of a situation that is somewhat embarrassing in itself, such as: when they are criticizing us, or when the other person is looking for some reason in us to start a conflict, we do not want see ourselves involved in that dynamic and we prefer to postpone that discussion for another time.
As the name of the technique indicates the "Bank of Fog"It can be compared to the feeling that occurs when we are driving on the road and we find a dense layer of fog. What do we do in this case? This fog forces us to slow down, brake and slow down.
Well, this is exactly what it consists of at the communicative level, what we are going to do when faced with a verbal attack, a criticism or an argument. What we will have to do is find something in which we can agree on the criticism that they are making us, even in a small part, give the reason in that to the interlocutor and postpone it for the moment that we decide, moment in which let's be calmer, let's have more time […] And therefore we want to address that criticism. Later we will see what we do with it; if we accept it, if not, if we decide to explore it or if we simply want to defend ourselves. To all this, we can agree or not with the criticism.
What this technique aims to do is help us postpone the moment and cool down the discussion.. For example: let's imagine a person who is reproaching another who never listens to him.
Well, at that moment we can answer him: "I understand that you are angry if you think that I never listen to you"With this we are not entering to assess whether we listen to him or not, we are not entering to discuss, or justify anything, we are simply looking for a point of agreement in the other person's speech; that will make him calm down, now that you will feel that your criticism is being collected at least in part, and we will postpone the discussion for another time.
Personally, I think it is very important to make use of this social skills technique, because normally if we go straight in to respond to a negative criticism, we will probably do it in an angry way that ends up producing an argument and that does not lead to any conclusion. So, if at that moment we don't want to do that, then we can use the "Fog Bank" to slow down the speed of the scolding, temper the weather a bit and postpone it in order to obtain less toxic and more assertive results..
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