The importance of effective communication.
I learned a bit about communication this week. It isn’t that I don’t know how to communicate, but there were some stark reminders about the consequences of ineffective communication. In the world of social media, Dick Tracy watches, hand-held computers, and You tube subscriptions coming in on your TV; we are being blasted constantly with everyone’s views, news and blues. Someone on a Facebook page asked a vague, open ended question for advice. We never really understood what they wanted to start, in what medium or genre; only that they needed help. It turns out that they were following the advice of someone who told them to ask this open-ended question. I hope that they finally got a vague answer that sent them in a good direction.
I went and looked into a space for rent and the person couldn’t tell me the size of the space only that it was going to be a significant amount and will be going up in a month or two by $25 or $50 a month. I got a look at it and it wasn’t what I was going to be interested in for the price (It was too small and I need windows, period). Now, I would have paid half again as much for the rooftop loft just because of the windows.
There has been a lot of different videos posted on Social Media since the new administration took office and in the chaos of the government shutdown; we couldn’t tell when any of the videos we were watching were actually filmed and originally posted. The only way that I can tell is to see how long people have been commenting and even then; you don’t know if the footage was recycled from a week ago, a month ago or even a few years ago. What I think we have all learned is that all sorts of agencies are trying to manipulate a narrative to achieve their goals.
Finally, a friend of mine has been dashing to the hospital and Dr’s office with their child over and over again for something that is rather scary but apparently minor. They were told that if it didn’t solve itself or if they couldn’t manually correct it, to bring the child in. Finally they brought the child to Sacred Heart last night and was given the appropriate information and some incredibly helpful advice involving a car seat solution, duration of time to consider before a trip to see a medical provider and physical indicators of a serious advance of the situation. They and their spouse were so relieved when they left, never mind the over 100 miles they drove their child to get the helpful advice.
Sometimes we can’t get the information we are looking for because we aren’t asking the correct questions, but most of the time; our current lifestyle just doesn’t slow down enough to encourage us to seek out the proper information or even share it. We are so excited to get the information out there, we don’t recognize we need to source it. You might suggest AI, but even that can be manipulated by the sources it gets the information from. Oh, for the lowly card file at the library and microfiche; hard copy sources were documented and if you wanted to remember them, we wrote them down.
Is it that we are so eager to reach so many people quickly that we are speeding up and not taking the time to truly consider our talking points? Some times, when I have an important thing to say; I will grow quiet for a second or 5 and think. I consider a few things before I speak; 1, What is the purpose of this conversation? 2, How receptive is the person I am talking to on a scale of 1-5. 1 being very receptive - 5 being highly reactive to my question or information. 3, What is the best direction to approach the subject? 4, Is this conversation really going to be constructive? If #4 is no, then I quietly extract myself. There have been several conversations of late that I have just simply changed the subject on because I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere.
If the media is going to keep pushing information at us like water through a firehose; perhaps we should consider slowing down when we are face to face and take a second or two to consider what we want to convey; Joy, anger, frustration, anticipation, hope or even love. This holiday season is hectic, let’s be honest, it is always hectic. Let us all slow down for a few and take the time to communicate clearly face to face. Time moves faster than the internet and you can look up from your phone and find that opportunities with your loved ones have slipped you by.