Communication Sins


Communication ˜˜Sins

There are several ˜˜sins in communication that belong to the family of value judgments . They are all one or more steps away from the facts. For example, its a fact that my colleague submitted a report to a client containing six spelling mistakes. Lets look at ways that I could embellish that fact with an unharnessed meta-level consciousness. To do so, well consider three dimensions: the concept itself, the person, and time.

  1. Conceptual exaggeration would involve my saying, ˜˜My colleague makes a lot of mistakes, or ˜˜She communicates poorly. In both cases, something presumably related to spelling skills has been extended beyond the facts at hand. I could even go so far as to say, ˜˜My colleague is unprofessional. The key is that I have applied a pejorative generalization pertaining to the topic of making spelling mistakes.

  2. Personalization of value judgments is the most hurtful of all. In this example, I would say specifically of the colleague, ˜˜This colleague is a bad speller , or ˜˜This colleague is unprofessional. These sorts of generalizations are the most hurtful because they are begging for some kind of identification of the person with the sin. The use of the verb to be is what causes the problem. To say somebody is anything in particular is not only incomplete, it might irrationally pigeonhole that person and cause damage to her reputation.

  3. Temporal exaggeration is about time. If I said, ˜˜She always makes spelling mistakes, then I would have suggested that this is a recurring phenomenon . I might make this an observation about the past, a prediction of the future, or both.

All of the above judgments qualify as value judgments because they allude to some undesirable aspect of what is being judged. They would also have been value judgments if they had alluded only to favorable aspects of the person and behavior. Negative value judgments not only hurt people but they also can get the person who is casting the judgment into trouble. Most managers know that when you criticize someone it is important not to label or generalize.

It is not necessarily irrational, or inappropriate, to make such statements, however. Sometimes we need to point out patterns to people so they get the point. The key is to remain focused on what is necessarily or very likely true. It is probably not true that my colleague is unprofessional simply because of several spelling mistakes on submitted documents. It may be appropriate to say that there is an ˜˜emerging spelling issue that needs attention. After all, the job of a leader includes the development of the people being led.

What we are interested in under the heading of managing our tendency to worry, control, fake, seek attention, deflect blame, or imprison ourselves is how we make judgments that push our own buttons . These kinds of value judgments also extend over space, time, and the individual, regardless of whether we utter them or not. For example, if I become worried every time a prospective client chooses another supplier instead of my own firm, it is probably because I am extending the single rejection into the future. I may be taking the one rejection and extending it temporally by saying, ˜˜Well never get a new client. Or, I may extend such rejection conceptually and say, ˜˜Whenever we try to get new business we fail. Finally, under the context of personalization, I may say to myself , ˜˜The truth is, we are no good; we are failures.

Some people blow things way out of proportion by combining their exaggerations. For example, regarding the consecutive spelling mistakes, I might say, ˜˜This woman is an idiot who cant spell and cant communicate professionallyshe never could and she never will. In this statement I have moved from spelling mistakes to aspersions about the woman s intelligence, competence, and professional future.

As a matter of fact, there are various factors that determine how much a person will generalize: how emotional he feels at the time, his stress levels, his personal habits, and the habits of the people around him doing the generalizing. It is easy to generalize. It is difficult to stay with specifics.




Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
ISBN: 814408354
EAN: N/A
Year: 2002
Pages: 134

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