Find the Golden Ticket
The first axiom (of five axioms) of basic communication theory is that you cannot not communicate. No matter what, you are always sending some kind of message. As a person with both degrees in communication studies, this axiom has been drilled into my head – it’s even on the back of three t-shirts I own from being part of the speech honorary. Anyway, as I’ve gotten out into the “real world”, it’s come to my attention that everyone wants to know is how to communicate effectively; they want to know how to control what they’re saying and they want it to be universal so that everyone understands – that’s what is effective. Effective communication is like the golden ticket to tour the chocolate factory – everyone wants it, but only a few actually figure it out.
In the world of accountants (in which I work), while this skill is very important to have it’s still deemed to be a “soft skill.” However, the more I’m exposed to this the more evolved my thinking becomes. I originally started out thinking “Really? This is what these people want? I studied this for 6 years, I think I can give them a thing or two” to what I discovered tonight after stumbling upon an article suggested by the Harvard Business Journal’s twitter account and that is this: Effective communication really is the golden ticket to tour the chocolate factory in that it doesn’t ACTUALLY exist; it’s a pipe dream, a piece of fiction that everyone is chasing, but will never, ever have.
In the meantime, people are making millions of dollars trying to sell people a glimpse of what they could have. When in reality, people are different – they speak different languages, they come from different families, they have different cultures and traditions, they have different value sets. This will always result in differences in communication. Thus, there will always be misunderstandings from too little or too much is said or it’s said the same way with different meanings or different ways with the same meanings.
And that, that is the true beauty of language.
Instead of constantly trying to make things the same in hopes of making it effective, why can’t there be articles written and seminars held on learning to be more tolerant and to embrace the differences? Let people communicate how they want to communicate and in ways they don’t even know they’re communicating – this should be axiom number six.
