Welcome to the Making Conversations Easier podcast. In this episode, our hosts Professor Peter Gillen and Wini Ryan are joined by Cathy MacDonald to discuss Core Emotional Concerns. Cathy joined Tayside Police in 1983 and for 32 years proudly served as an operational officer throughout Scotland. A significant part of her career was dedicated to the world of hostage and crisis negotiation and Cathy was involved in all aspects of negotiation work deploying to kidnaps, extortion, sieges, protests, suicide interventions and any incident that required focused and precise communication. She advised Commanders in relation to negotiation tactics and was responsible for training negotiators both nationally and internationally. On completion of her police career in 2015, Cathy created The Art of Communication and now runs her own business sharing powerful and effective communication skills to individuals, teams and businesses. Cathy is on Twitter and Instagram as @CathyAofC, on Facebook (Art of Communication) and her website is www.artofcommunication.co.uk. Tune in while she shares her insights on core emotional concerns and how we might use these in healthcare.

Key Takeaways:

• Core Emotional Concerns are fundamental, universal, human motives that drive behaviour, cognition, and emotion. Supporting each other’s core concerns leads to positive emotions, which can foster and enhance relationships, build rapport and encourage effective communication. 
• Fisher and Shapiro (two psychologists who worked on the Harvard International Negotiation Project) tell us we all have five core concerns: appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status, and role. Individuals and groups across all cultures need to feel appreciated by others, to affiliate with others, to have autonomy, to have others recognise their status, and to have a meaningful role. 
• When emotion changes, Core Emotional Concerns are at work. The quickest and most effective way to support someone’s core concerns is to listen to understand.
• Being able to identify and respond to the clues people share when Core Emotional Concerns are being challenged or supported is key.
• Core Emotional Concerns can be altered by words and actions which means we can consciously influence emotion by what we say and do. 
• Finding the right words and actions to support Core Emotional Concerns saves time, effort and energy and encourages efficient and effective communication in healthcare.

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