Do You Know What Leads to Communication Failure?
It isn’t how well or how poorly you speak.
Communication is vital for many reasons. This isn’t just well known, it’s obvious. As vital as it is, it’s difficult to do well.
Language is often a hindrance to good communication but not nearly as much as other common culprits. Things like pride, arrogance, and stubbornness are major factors in poor communication.
This is illustrated well by a short dialog from the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke. Captain, the boss of the chain-gang says, “What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate.”
It’s funny in a satirical way but not that funny. It also underscores the current national discussion—if we can call it that—on injustice and racism.
What’s the most important element for good communication?
Contrary to what you might think, our words, or how we say our words, are not the most important part of communicating well with others.
By communication, I mean dialog between two or more people—an exchange of information, including ideas, thoughts, feelings, issues, opinions, and other human concerns through mutual conversation.
