Here’s a clue: The aren’t in communications.
More situations in business and life go off the rail due to ‘poor or mis’ communication rather than bad strategy or intentions. My experience suggests the main reason for this has to do with failure to pause between dialogues and ask a simple question:
Without the pause, I find myself captive to my historical beliefs and prejudices. Sometimes that great if a statement is coming from someone I like, trust, or admire. Sometimes the same statement from someone I have opposite feelings, and history triggers a very different response. Why?
When I interject “why” in my thinking prior to my response, I engage my full intellect as opposed to my habit formed automatic response. It forces me to think and that’s a good thing. I actually ‘hear “what the other person is saying in a deeper way. And I get the added benefit of a self-audit on my existing beliefs.
This does not automatically change my response. It does make my response more thoughtful and authentic.
This realization led to a wonderful self-examination exercise: THE 5 WHY’S
I took a belief about myself and asked WHY. The immediate answer led to the second WHY and so on to the 5th WHY. When I looked at the series of answers, I laughed. An incident when I was 5-7 years old created a belief that in no way mattered now. Yet, I let that belief drive some bad decisions and communications for 50 years. While I can’t change where I’ve been, I did change the direction I now head.
To borrow from Coca-Cola, Let WHY be “the pause that refreshes” your communications.
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