The Sisyphus Comments

Communication – Do You Habla Inglese?

Over the next few days, we will be taking a closer look at a subject that probably has more of an impact on productivity than any other factor – communication. On the most basic level, communication is the exchange of information; the conveying or sharing of ideas and feelings.

Speaking of “feelings”, do you ever get the “feeling” that you are speaking English but the people with whom you are trying to communicate don’t habla Inglese? You know the feeling – you speak in perfectly clear, properly structured sentences when you give your instructions but it appears that your audience is hearing impaired. Why can’t you get your message across? You normally don’t have problems communicating effectively with the other people in your life, so what’s up these folks?

Could it be that they are trying to sabotage you or your project? Probably not. There is an old saying that goes something like, “If you knew how little people thought of you, you wouldn’t worry about it.” . . . Stop! Please reread the previous sentence and ponder it for a minute . . . At the risk of damaging your self esteem, for the most part, you are probably not real important to other people. In fact, they are much more interested in doing things to benefit themselves than doing things for or to you. Remember, deep down, we are all a little self-centered and most of people don’t have enough the time or energy to waste abusing other people. It is much more probable that they are simply pursuing some self-serving goal and you just happen to be an obstacle that needs to be avoided or sidestepped.Basically, you may have to consider the possibility that your “lack of communication” has nothing to do with whether or not you clearly communicate your message. Instead, it may simply be the content of your message that caused your communications breakdown. I realize that this concept is heresy for the communications gurus but sometimes the receiver doesn’t receive your message because he simply chooses not to.In the next article, I will give you some tools to help overcome this type of communications block.