Communication: Part 1
Listen to the five-minute Communication: Part 1 audio program from Coach’s Corner.
One of my favorite expressions about communication is
I can’t hear what you’re saying because your actions are too loud.
Universities spend four years teaching communication to students majoring in communications. I’m going to attempt it in just a few blog posts. Cool challenge! Also ironic, communicating with you about communication without being able to show you my face, or see your expressions, or listen to your comments or questions. Truly a challenging form for effective communication.
In this series I’ll talk about four aspects of communication:
- What communication is
- Why it’s so important
- Why it’s so difficult
- Some of the ways it’s done well… and not so well.
What is this thing called communication? Communication is the transfer of information or emotions from one person to another or to many others. Effective communication depends on one’s willingness to share well or to receive well. Let me make that point again, it depends on one’s willingness to share or receive well.
Before I dive in to some of the details, here are some classic examples of how difficult communication can be. Please think about how you would answer each of these four questions:
- How many birthdays does the average man have?
- How many months have twenty-eight days?
- Do they have a fourth of July in England?
- What was the president’s name in 1970?
After thinking over these for a moment, take a look at the answers:
- How many birthdays does the average man have? Depends on what I meant by that. Seventy-three or one?
- How many months have twenty-eight days? Depends on what I meant by that. One or twelve?
- Do they have a fourth of July in England? Depends on what I meant by that. No because it’s our independence from them holiday, or yes because it’s just a date.
- What was the president’s name in 1970? Depends on what I meant by that. Nixon was president in 1970, and Barak Obama’s name was still Barak Obama in 1970.
I could go on and on. Communication can be so confusing and challenging if you really care about the effectiveness of it. Communicating well is hard work!
Why is communicating effectively important? Several thoughts come to mind when I think of this question:
First: I’ve worked with many organizations over the years and it’s very common for communication to be reported as a top problem. I believe over 80 percent of organizations would report this as a problem if they asked their staff.
Second: People need to clearly understand what you expect of them if they are to meet those expectations, and often these expectations are left unclear.
Third: People need to know how you think, how you operate, and what you believe and value if they are going to trust you. Trust is critical to any group in pursuit of a mission.
Fourth: People have a psychological need to feel in on things. It’s just the way humans are.
Finally: As Lee Iacoccoa said:
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.
Ronald Reagan wasn’t known for his brilliant ideas, but most experts would say he was a great communicator. Maybe a formula for overall impact would be ideas X communication = impact, or leadership.
When it comes to communication, I believe most people think first and foremost about speaking. This week I want you to think about one of the following wonderings:
- Maybe listening well is more important than speaking well. After all, we have two ears and only one mouth. We probably should listen twice as much as we speak.
- Maybe behaving well is more important than speaking well. Thus my favorite expression about communication is I can’t hear what you’re saying because your actions are too loud.
- What would happen in our world if both the sender and the receiver believed they are 100 percent responsible for effective communication?
Think about these wonderings this week. In the next post in this series, I’ll share my thoughts on each of them and write more about how to communicate effectively.
Until then I pray that you experience God’s rich blessings.
Post by Rodger.
Image by Sean McGrath.
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