The Importance of Communication Skills
In very plain English, poor communication skills can be directly associated with so many of our worlds ills. In our interior world.. the conversation we have with ourselves, which gives meaning to all other conversations..if my communication with myself is trapped in anger, frustration, dislike, violence..then my relationship with self and others will be one of anger..violence...hate.. At the personal level... breakdowns in marriage, families, friendships...I say, you say...I am right, you are wrong...you just don’t understand me...when will you ever listen..... In our work place... the enormous loss of time, energy, resources, money...that is the result of poor communication, mis-communication, communicating across different world views without awareness, not being clear about expectations, roles, thinking only of the immediate now without considering the consequence, speaking to someone without any awareness of the response we are creating in them, bringing our own agenda or emotions to the communication without respect for the other, not providing context....... In our communities... the the inability to bridge multi-stakeholder agenda’s, to be able to communicate messages that inspire people to do the right thing, rising above their own petty grievances, demands, expectations, entitlements. ..the distorted, out of context, untruthful and mixed messages from our media and advertising, able to seduce us into false worlds, to buy stuff we do not need...... At the level of our interior...the importance of communication skills that we have in our self talk, and the words we then speak out into the world, creates and reflects the world we inhabit. The mystical Sufi poet Hafiz said..
What We speak
Becomes the house we live in.
In San Francisco there is an incredibly successful program for hardened prisoners called Delancey Street. For more than 35 years this highly successful program has been run by Dr. Mimi Silbert. Dr. Silbert is 4 feet eleven, weighs all of 95 pounds and is 63 years old. She lives on the premises. The felons run the place themselves, without guards or supervision other than Dr. Silbert. All 500 of them, all with serious addictions, many of them the third generation of their families who have known only poverty, crime and drugs. After staying at Delancey Street for 4 years, most of felons “graduate” and go out into greater society. Nearly 60% of them make it through and sustain productive lives on the outside. There are many reasons the program is so successful. One of them is because during their stay at Delancey Street, where they work in the Delancey Street restaurant, or the various other for-profit industries developed by Dr. Silbert, they have to learn to speak and live in a “normal” middle class world. The language and communication of the middle class is far different from the one on the streets. The importance of communication skills as a path to integration into a sustainable life on the outside is a cornerstone of Delancey Streets success. If we live in a world of slang and swearing, street talk, without the skill of being able to speak “middle class” then the street, and all that brings, becomes our home. This same theme highlighting the importance of communications skills is expressed in the play “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw, also known by its film adaptation, “My Fair Lady.” Of course communication skills is not limited to words. Everything we do, say, how we dress, what we eat, who we spend time with, what we read, our work, our relationships... communicates messages. Many people are completely unaware of the messages they communicate through their state of being. Being willing to be open to feedback from many sources is critical if we want to evolve the message we are communicating by our presence. The importance of communication skills becomes ever more significant as our work evolves to managing and leading people. In our Dare to Care program, we not only teach communication skills, but we clearly distinguish who we are communicating with. Using the Integral Model , a great communicator will adapt their communication to their audience. If I am speaking to a 7 year old, I will not use the same language and style as I would when I speak to most 40 year old's. (I must admit a do know a few 40 plus year old's who need 7 year old language, not because of their intellectual development, but because of their emotional and social intelligence, but that is another story.) Similarly, I would not speak to someone with very fixed fundamentalist views in the same way as I would speak to someone who has a more inclusive, egalitarian world view. In order to know how to speak to different stages of development within people, I need to know what those stages are. I also need to be able to adapt to people’s stories and metaphors. The more I can speak in “their language, meeting their world view” the more likely I am to get the message I am communicating across in the way I intended. Becoming a powerful
conscious communicator
is a life journey. There is no end point. Recognising the importance of communication skills and applying time and effort to their development will add value to every aspect of our life. I have many articles on this subject already available for free. Some of those include..
Clean Communication
If we examine people who have been true Positive Deviants and changed the world, all of them have been able to communicate well. They do not need a sophisticated vocabulary, but they do need to speak with total alignment, clarity, and authority, caring more about their message and the audience than they do about themselves. It is the ability to transcend our own self-centered world and to be of service to the other in our communication that accelerates our pathway to galvanizing the right action with our communication. This is the essence behind the Dare to Care program. If we want to be the difference that matters, then the importance of communication skills is integral to who we are and what we do....indeed, the more aligned we are as people, the more we work within our own integrity, the more our communication will be cleaner and clearer, as a natural, precessional outcome. If your life or work is not working as well as you would like, consider the importance of communication skills and how upgrading your skills may make the difference. To Return from Conscious Communication to the Importance of Communication Skills
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