Communication through talking is a activity that takes more than one person. Alright, we do talk to ourselves but that’s not what I want to discuss. For our purposes today, we want to discuss speaking with another person or group of people. This activity takes speaking AND listening. Most of the time, the roles change during the activity. One person speaks while the other listens. Then the roles switch.
This all seems straightforward and you are probably asking why I wanted to write about this subject. It seems to me, that as human beings we do a whole lot of noise making with our mouths, we say a lot of words, but we are really lousy communicators. As a group, humans do not get their messages across very well.
Think about it in your own life. I’ll bet, that even today you have experienced one or more of the following… misunderstanding, confusion, hurt feelings, forgetfulness.
Misunderstandings run rampant. Confusion is a mainstay. Anxiety, hurt feelings and anger are common. Even not remembering conversations that occurred happens.
This subject is actually a VERY HUGE subject. Humans have been talking for thousands of years and we still haven’t figured out how to do it well. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject. Classes, courses and training is abundant (and here we are diving in and creating one more…). Whole industries exist such as counselors and therapists because people don’t know how to talk to each other.
Personally, I think this is one of the most important skills we can focus on and learn how to do better. I believe that probably 80% of our challenges at work and in life (in general), are self-induced. I believe that we cause a lot of our own difficulties and heartache. I believe that poor communication is a major contributing factor.
This is a subject that is definitely worthy of us desiring to Pursue Great! Admittedly, I am not a very good communicator through talking or listening. But I try really hard to improve at it. I will be instructing myself through these articles as I try to Pursue Great! in this area.
Join me in this journey of learning tools and skills that can help us become better at talking AND listening. In life we control very little. But, we can control our decisions and our actions. To make a change in our lives and then in the world, we have to be that change. We have to make ourselves better first.
Let’s Pursue Great! together and become better communicators!