8

Communication Meets Miss Communication

Communication had hardly said a word at the meeting with Leadership. Now, in her own office, she put on noise-reducing headphones and looked out the window, in which she could see her faint reflection. No music played. She just needed silence, silence to think.

“What has happened to my concentration?” she wondered. “I used to be much better at it. I could listen intently. I listened with my brain, my eyes, and my ears. I picked up on body language. I maintained eye contact, and I was able to truly understand what everyone was saying. And I was articulate when it was time for me to speak. I made my message personal. I made sure that everyone heard a message that was clear and easily understood. And no one ever walked away without understanding what the next steps would be. I could focus back then.”

As she sat at her desk surrounded by silence, Communication became sleepy. Closing her eyes, she thought, “This is what I passed on to the employees—this ability to listen earnestly and speak with clarity. This is what helped bring Excellence to our company.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” a soft voice whispered. At first, Communication thought she must be dreaming, so she was not startled, but then the voice said much more loudly, “You can talk yourself into just about anything if you want to believe it badly enough.”

Communication opened her eyes to see a woman sitting just inches away from her. Although she was now alarmed, she could not help but notice how much the woman looked like her. The person looked like a younger and smaller version of herself.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Smiling, the woman replied, “Name’s Miss Communication. Pleasure to meet you. My friends just call me Missy. Please, you must call me Missy,” she said pleasantly.

“Well, Missy,” Communication said, trying to sound authoritative, “now that I know your name, what do you want? Why did you sneak up on me?”

“A bit paranoid, are we?” Missy intoned softly. “Nobody’s sneaking up on you. You had your eyes closed.”

“What did you mean when you said, ‘Maybe. Maybe not. You can talk yourself into just about anything if you want to believe it badly enough’?”

“I was just answering you. Self-deception is a strong anesthetic,” Missy said nonchalantly.

“Answering me?”

Missy chuckled. “I suppose you were talking in your sleep,” she replied. “Anyway, the state that you seek does not exist.”

“State? What state?” Communication asked with interest.

“The state of clarity,” Missy replied earnestly. “Doesn’t exist.”

“Of course it exists,” Communication scoffed. “I’ve been there many times.”

Missy laughed sarcastically and said, “The only state you have been in is a state of denial.”

Communication was taken aback that someone this young could be so brazen. “Now see here!” she said.

“Easy now,” Missy crooned. “I’m not trying to get you angry, but I do want to make sure that I have your attention.” After Communication settled back to listen, Missy continued, “I’m just here to tell you that you are putting way too much energy into this Excellence.”

“Meaning?” Communication asked.

“Meaning that the messaging that results in excellence ought to come naturally—you know, spontaneously. You concern yourself with eye contact, body language, filters, biases, and ambiguity.” Missy paused and then exclaimed, “Rubbish! It’s all rubbish!”

“It’s not!” Communication said defensively.

“I tell you it is rubbish!” Missy asserted. “What people really want is authenticity. They don’t want to be around someone who is overly concerned with their body language or their eye contact. When you are constantly trying to find the exact right word for every moment, you come across as being phony. And when you come across as phony,” Missy added, “you block your meaningless little quest for clarity right out of the gate.”

As much as she did not like Missy, Communication could not dispute that authenticity was what most people wanted. However, she said, “You talk as if the ability to be authentic and the basic concepts of discourse are mutually exclusive or, even better said, diametrically opposed.”

“Would you listen to yourself?” Missy interrupted. “You are making another point for me,” she said, smiling.

“Point?” Communication inquired.

“Yes, a major point!” Mimicking Communication, she said, “‘You talk as if the ability to be authentic and the basic concepts of discourse are mutually exclusive or, even better said, diametrically opposed.’ Come on. Who talks like that? Save that rhetoric for the academic journals.”

Communication was silent.

“Nobody talks like that,” Missy continued. “Maybe more important, nobody listens to people talking like that.” She suddenly seemed to check herself, and she took a different tack. “Look, the frontline people don’t really care about all the rationalizations going into decisions and changes. They don’t care about the business case and all this management stuff about listening to them and getting their buy-in. It’s just rubbish.”

Communication stared silently at Missy.

“Quit bugging them with all the details of the strategic plan, mission, vision, and values of the company,” she said. “They don’t care! That is management’s job. The front-liners just need to know what they have to know, so that they can do their jobs and go home. Do you understand?”

Communication did not respond. It was growing dark, and she could now only see her own fading reflection in the window. She was alone. She took off her headphones. Had she been dreaming, or had she just had a conversation with Miss Communication? She shook her head back and forth quickly as if to shake the cobwebs from her brain. It didn’t help; she was still unclear about what had just happened. But what was clear to her, however, was that the organization could not afford confusion. She must get Excellence back. “I am going to give it my best!” she exclaimed so loudly that she surprised herself.

Special Delivery: COMMUNICATION

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. —George Bernard Shaw

As Dave arrived at his last client’s office, his mind drifted to the idea of communication. He wondered how much poor or faulty communication had to do with the absence of a connection with his wife. “It’s my communication,” he decided. “A major part of my disconnection with Mary is my communication.” At breakfast that morning, Mary had informed him that he needed to listen more closely to his son. “What do you mean, listen to him more closely?” he had responded in surprise. “I listen to Jonathan.”

Topping off his coffee, she said, “Last night, Jonathan tried to tell you about his school project, but you were too busy to listen to him.”

“I heard him,” Dave said defensively.

Sitting down, she smiled and said, “So, tell me about his project.”

“It’s a civil rights thing,” he said.

Mary sat patiently, waiting for him to tell her more, but he couldn’t.

She took his hand and said softly, “Jonathan is doing a paper on Martin Luther King Jr. and his influence today on African American adolescents. He is reading an overview of the paper to his class next Friday, and he asked you if you could come.”

Bewildered, Dave asked, “He asked me if I could come? When?”

“While you were working on the shelves,” she replied.

“What did I say?”

“You said, ‘Good job. Keep up the good work. Can you hand me that screwdriver?’”

Now, sitting in his delivery truck in the parking lot, Dave thought, “How could I have been that insensitive?” He thought about his wife, daughter, and son and how much he loved them. “I am really missing the boat with communication,” he realized.

Dave smiled as he thought about his family’s recent trip to Disney World. He remembered Mickey Mouse and his big ears, and he came to a decision. He said to himself, “I’ll ask my family for their help. When they perceive I’m not giving them my full attention, they need to ask me to put my ‘big ears’ on. That will be our signal that they really need me to listen. I’ll try to be a good listener, but if I am failing, this is how they can help me.”