Communication Rules

Wow.. check out the heading….

Did I mean "Communication Rules/Laws." , or was I talking about "Communication Rules/Rocks!"

Communication is an ever evolving and often underestimated medium.We have so many means of communicating these days, from our good old snail mails to video chats, these are all ways of supposedly bridging us closer together.

Yet in this torrent of information overload, I often fear for myself; that what I hear may not be the message that I am supposed to get, or even the message I am giving may not be the message that my receiver is getting.

I am hungry. In my mind I want nothing more than a plain burger, and I ask my friend for something filling and satisfying; he may be from china and may interpret it as a bowl full of soup followed by noodles and rice. The cultural gap.

I want better estimates for projects, more time for example, and I tell my manager. He thinks that I am annoyed with working more than 8 hours a day and can’t understand why that is a problem, cause that is how the job is done. All that time I am thinking, if I have more time to code and test, I will catch more bugs and this way, there will be lesser number of defects and our productivity can be directed else where. The we-live-on-different-planes gap.

I am talking to a friend on some mundane and everyday subject, but all I am thinking about is dinner. The you-are-so-not-reading-my-body-language gap.( Yup! I think about food a lot.. being the perennial gorger )

I am talking to the client about the recent fall in hit rates on their website, which might have to do with the obsolete version of XXX software that is running their web servers and the heavy java applications that don’t really help the speed. I am in other words, trying to give them the “hint” that they should consider a newer faster version of XXX. However the client is thinking “I don’t get this. Let me just shake my head and say Uhh-huh”. The Classic.

So what do we do?I mean, imagine this, there you are standing pretty and patiently explaining and talking to the receiver, who is so not getting it! So what’s the point about losing the point?

Well, for one, why do we communicate?Sometimes (or is it mostly) we talk about ourselves, we want to talk about our joys, sorrows, fears and all.

Other times it’s for others. To ask them, make them appreciate or understand something about us or about some other third item. Occasionally we even try to tell them about themselves.

Sometimes, we want them to hear what we say, agree with it and if needed, go ahead and do it.( Oh my! That’s quite a tall order ain’t it?)Other times it may be to offer empathy, joy or to share relief with the other person (people).The ones I like best are when we all share a laugh

So is the other receiver “getting” you?Well, there is only one trick I know on how to find out.Change the receiver state to active participator. Ask him/her questions. Make sure there are questions exchanged the other way round too. It just helps wake people up when I talk many times

Or of course, the other times, just speak to the point. Like, “I want a Burger… with loads of cheese”.

Do you have any great ideas on making the other person “get” what you are trying to “pass”?