Are You Working with Worn Out Tools?
A job - any job - is infinitely easier when done with the right tools. It's perhaps not completely impossible to paint a wall with a screwdriver, but it is a great deal easier to do it with a paint brush, and not just any old paint brush either, but a quality paint brush designed for the kind of paint your are using and the nature of the surface...
WORK SMART...
OK, nobody but a fool would try to paint a wall with a screwdriver, but it's amazing how much hard work is actually really inefficient work caused at least in part by applying incomplete or inappropriate skills to a task (i.e. using blunt tools, if not just the wrong tools). And there's one thing we all do almost constantly, but often with tools that are at best dull, if not completely maladapted...
YOU'RE A LANGUAGE ADDICT...
Think back over your last couple of days at work. How many moments do you recall when you were not doing something that involved language? Reading a document, reading something on your computer, reading your email, talking on the phone, talking to a colleague, writing that report, thinking about what you were going to say to someone the next time you saw them... I'd be willing to bet that unless you are familiar with some form of meditation, you would be hard-pressed to think of very many moments of your professional (and for that matter private) life that aren't soaked in language.
COMPULSIVE COMMUNICATORS?
The great British Naturalist Sir David Attenborough called our species (as the heading to the last chapter of his 1979 book Life on Earth) "Compulsive Communicators" - a great epithet. However, with all due respect to Sir David, although the "compulsive" bit was right on the money, suggesting that we are (always) "communicators" is actually a little generous: there is no doubt that we use language compulsively, almost constantly, but ironically we do not always communicate very well...
Why is that? Simply, because our language skills are blunt. We use language so often that we fall into habits and patterns which are fine (maybe?) for most day-to-day non-critical exchanges, but which are problematic when we are called upon to do something a little more critical, delicate or unusual.
And professionally we are called upon to do this frequently: team building, leadership, inspiring others, managing people, managing change, conflict resolution, public speaking, publicity and external communications, writing in plain English, writing effective emails... The list goes on.
Many of these things we think of as specific, even expert skills, but all of them are dependant upon good #HumanCommunication.
WALK BEFORE YOU RUN
Expecting someone to be an effective manager when they lack basic communication skills is like asking someone to learn wood carving with a blunt chisel. Sharpening the chisel first is essential and not particularly difficult if you know how.
Unfortunately many of us get a dodgy set of tools to begin with, and are never taught how to sharpen them.
That’s where #HumanCommunication professionals can help.
