Have you ever had an idea, or just something that you wanted someone to understand from your point of view, but by the time you were done creating what you thought was a masterful explanation of what you were thinking about  the other participant of the conversation was completely lost? Then for a minute you stand there, frustrated; trying to explain what you meant with other, more descriptive, words, often times making the situation even more confusing. This is either because the person you were talking to did not understand what you were trying to let them know in the first place, or because you did not understand it yourself. Communicating correctly is a two way street. There has to be a central idea that can be communicated and received correctly.  If both parties are not on the same page, no matter how clear the communication is, the point of the conversation will not be accomplished. To communicate effectively one must have time, understanding, and patience.

            My friend Bob Nichols and I were flown to a Management Training seminar in Atlanta.  We were two of about forty people there. During the class there was a discussion about proper training and how good communication can be a great benefit for both the trainee and the employer. There was an exercise that started this discussion where everyone in the group had to pair up. By chance Bob and I became partners for this exercise. We were then told to designate a describer, and a drawer. I was the describer, Bob the drawer. The leaders of the training seminar then made the drawers turn away from the lit projection screen and the describers turn and look at the lit projection screen. So there Bob and I were, back to back, me looking at the screen and Bob holding a sheet of paper attached to a clip board with a pencil in his hand. An image was then shown on the wall. This image made no sense at all. It was just lines and circles mixed up in a mosaic of ugliness and mass confusion. The group was told that the describers had to try and verbally lead the drawers in an attempt to copy the image without the drawers looking at it. We had to whisper so that the other pairs of people could not over-hear.  I do not remember how I told Bob to draw the jumbled image, but I do remember what I told him just before we were about so start. I said “Bob,” in a whisper “this is not going to make any sense to you at all but please do exactly what I say.” Bob agreed and we proceeded. After about ten minutes the exercise was over and the drawers were allowed to compare their drawings with the image up on the wall. Immediately laughter broke out among the participants and there was about half an hour of comparing and small conversation about the confusing details of this image and how it was described. Bob and I just sat there. We looked at our image and at the one on the wall. Then we laughed also, but because of a different reason; we had almost copied the image perfectly.

            The point of the exercise was not to try and duplicate the image, but to impress the difficulty in understanding a goal without knowing what the goal is. The instructors of the course went on to say that if the person receiving the instruction does not know what is expected of them then how can they possibly produce the desired result. And they were right.  When two people who are having a conversation, no matter if it is between an employee and employer or if it is between two friends, the potential outcome of the conversation must be understood.  But this does not mean that the outcome has to be laid in stone. I often think that this is where people get confused when it comes to having a good, constructive conversation. Whether the conversation is with their boss, a co-worker, a guy at a bar, or a long time friend:  not all conversations have to be structured. I think that this is one thing the instructors of the Management Training course missed. A person has to be able to tailor the points they want to make for the other participants in the conversation, or be strategically flexible.

            The first lesson that Hybels and Weaver tried to put across in to their text book, “Communicating Effectively,” is strategic flexibility. Strategic flexibility means “expanding your communication repertoire…to enable you to use the best skill or behavior available for a particular situation” (Hybels, Weaver, 2007, p. 6). The reason that Bob and I were able to replicate the picture on the wall was because we both have great strategic flexibility. When we were assigned the communication task, we both understood immediately what we would have to do to complete that task in a timely manner with little delay in what was going to be said and how things were going to be interpreted. Bob, drawing from his previous experiences in life, knew that this was a time to listen carefully and not to get confused about what I was instructing him to do. Me, I knew that I would have to be clear and concise; careful not to use too many words that might clutter our working area with noise.  There was no arguing; there were no misunderstandings. We both fell in to our roles and did what the other expected us to do.

Strategic flexibility is more than just a good skill to have in life and in business.; it is a vital skill.  There are a number of ways that having good strategic flexibility has benefited my life. The one that sticks out most is my ability to grasp what a person is telling me and adapt it to my situation creatively. Because of this I am a quick learner and often times get promoted very quickly in companies that I work for. In my personal life strategic flexibility has allowed me to carry on conversations with people who are not from my generation, who do not have the same background as me, or who have different political and religious views without being outraged, becoming offended, or trying to imply that they are wrong and that my way is better (ethnocentric).

            People who do not have very good strategic flexibility skills are more likely to be set in the way they communicate with others. These people often complain a lot that they would not have done a task from work a certain way. They tend to stay inside their own culture and are very ethnocentric in their views. People without good strategic flexibility skills also are not one to take criticism well and can often miss interpret what is being told to them. This was brought to my attention in the conversations after the Management Trainee communicating exercise.  The describers were trying to explain what they saw in the projection using very vague and loose terms. Instead of saying “go to the top, right hand side of your paper and draw a line to the center of your paper,” they would say “there is a line that goes down the right of your paper.” Also, the drawers would not ask for clarification if the instructions were too vague. The participants in the exercise were set in their roles as managers, and to them a manager does not have to explain themselves clearly (because the employee should know what the manager is talking about), and a manager does not need to listen with full attention (because a manager knows everything). Often time’s egos can get in the way of effective communicating.

            One thing that Bob and I had going for us was we knew each other.  I know that if we had not been paired together the outcome for the exercise for the both of us would not have been so good.  This class had a mixture of people from Atlanta, Texas, and Arizona; three distinctly different areas of the country with amazingly different cultures and backgrounds. A misunderstanding of backgrounds is one of the reasons that intercultural communication is so often one of the hardest parts about communication. It takes time and patience to try and understand where a person is coming from, what they are getting at, and why they may do things a certain way. Language is one reason for a lot of the misunderstandings but once the language barrier is broken communication becomes easier, but this does not mean that it is easy by any means. There are so many ways words can be misconstrued that even if two people have a fundamental grasp of a common language there can still be barriers that will inhibit the correct passage of ideas to be shared among them. A person who grew up in Mississippi might have a different interpretation of the verbiage used when trying to decipher what the guy from Northern Maine is telling him. This problem is not limited to Americans alone. Think about all the problems that happen when that same gentleman from Mississippi is trying to explain a computer problem to a man in India. Yes they may be using the same Basic English, but fundamentally their languages are different and so their understanding of what the other person is trying to say can easily be misconstrued.

Going back to my example with Bob, I think that the reason so many of the participants in the exercise failed to properly explain what they saw in the image was because the two team members did not have understand the other persons language. The words that they would have used to describe the length of a line, when compared to the last line that they drew, may not have been the same choice of words the receiver would have used.  Not only would the words, with their meanings, have been different but the emphasis on what words were important could have also had an impact on why there was a barrier in the communication. If the two participants were talking about a topic that was familiar to both of them, baseball for example, the outcome may have been different. Baseball has very basic and understandable terms that do not change from culture to culture. A bunt is a bunt, a strikeout a strikeout, and a home run is a home run. This is understood. The problem was that the participants were placed into a situation where no rules on how to converse with this new person you barely know were established, and so they resorted back to a way of communicating that was familiar to them, but not to their partner in most cases. If just one of the participants in the exercise had a better understanding of how to talk to their partner outside of the work environment, or how they talk with their friends or family, there would have been less confusion.

Are there any ways to solve these issues that inhibit communication between people either from similar backgrounds or from completely different backgrounds? Yes. The answer to this question involves a complicated process that could take years of education, practice, and application. But it can be done.

If I were to teach a course on communication one thing that I would stress be learned by all in the class is how to listen effectively by using paraphrasing. The reason paraphrasing works is it gives the chance for the listener to tell the speaker how they interpreted the information they received. This also gives the listener a chance to ask questions that could clarify any misunderstandings that may have occurred. The person being paraphrased also has the benefit of being satisfied that the listener understood the message and could act accordingly.  This skill also transfers well outside of the work place. If a person is in an argument with their spouse, paraphrasing can help that person understand where the spouse’s complaints are founded. With this knowledge the two of them can approach, with complete understanding, an effective way of solving the issue at hand. I know that when Bob and I were participating in that exercise, when Bob had a question about what I was asking of him he would first restate what I just said then ask me for clarification on what he was confused about. When I answered his question he would repeat it back to me and I would confirm it.  

The simplest and most basic way of improving communication skill is to understand what you can and cannot do. In the Management seminar that I attended, this was not talked about. It was expected that everyone be able to communicate with and train their employees in the same way, and that the pre-established way would produce the same outcome...a great employee.  If I were to lead a communication seminar one of the first things I would teach is that everyone has a different set of circumstances and behaviors that will affect the way that they communicate (strategic flexibility). I would have the participants in my class reflect on the way that they not only mange, but how they talk with people outside of work. This would be to help them understand that the reason work can seem so hard and life outside of work seem so easy; because in work you are trying to do things to a standard set by someone else, and in life you set that standard. They are trying so hard to communicate to a rigid form that the idea they are trying to present gets lost in the conversation.  And yet, outside of work the ideas and communications flow with ease; there is no need for lengthy explanations because the people you are talking to are familiar with the way that you present your ideas and you have accepted these ideas as your own.

I would also require that the participants in my class learned to get outside their communication box. This would require them to interact with individuals from different cultures. These cultures do not need to be as extreme as moving to rural Iowa to learn where the product you are selling comes from. But the reach does need to be significant. If one of my class participants was an entry level manager that liked to spend her weekends with her sorority sisters drinking and having a good time, I would urge her to reach out to an elderly neighbor that lives in her apartment complex by taking her some muffins and sitting with her to talk about things that are going on around the apartment building. Not only would this type of exchange broaden her views on life, but it would place an empathetic view on the struggles that a person with her neighbor’s circumstances may be having.

Understanding is one of the simplest ways of improving communication skills. When Bob was sitting in that chair, pencil in his hand, I knew that he had no idea what he was trying to draw. When I explained what I wanted him to do, I did it with that understanding. My instructions were not overly complicated, and I always made sure that Bob felt he understood what I was asking him to do. When I listen to people, I do it with an understanding that their life has also been filled with hardships, joys, pains, and just plain different events that shaped their views.  This way, if they say something that I do not agree with, instead of getting upset or making the assumption that everything they say is going to be slanted towards their beliefs, I can accept them for who they are, get to know them better, and try and understand why it is they feel the way they do. 

To communicate effectively one must have time, understanding and patience. To communicate with new people is tough. There are ways that you can increase the quality of the conversations but when it comes down to brass tax, there has to be an understanding of where the conversation is headed. There are ways that communication skills can be honed. Paraphrasing and other skills can be used to create further dialogue between the people communicating that will strengthen the understanding of the two parties. There are always going to be times when miscommunication is going to happen because the language used is not shared by both parties. This is inevitable. But through constant practice, education and proper application of a few good techniques the communications skills of the average person can be greatly enhanced. And when the times comes that average person has to tell his friend to copy a picture without seeing what the picture looks like, the friend will be able to; not because he knows what the picture looks like, but because he understands what is being said, trusts that the directions being given will be clear and in the end the big picture will be seen for what it is. A discombobulated mess of lines and circles used to confuse bad communicators…but not you.

References

Hybels, S. & and Weaver, R.L., (2007). Communicating effectively (8th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.