How We've Made Communicating Harder than it Has to Be

How We've Made Communicating Harder than it Has to Be

we spend too much time talking to the people in our offices. Of course, we can't stop talking to our co-workers— so what do we do ? ... 11:33

we spend too much time talking to the people in our offices. Of course, we can't stop talking to our co-workers—so what do we do?
To get a better understanding of communication, we need to spend more time genuinely communicating. When we spend all day staring at the same 5 or 10 or 50 people in our corner of the office, it’s easy to hear and not listen or to speak without saying anything.

Imagine a person with no knowledge of the English language. If this person were to find himself in southern Alabama, he would come to learn English, but it would be just one of a thousand brands of it. The same thing would happen if this guy only learned the English spoken in the north woods of Minnesota.
To understand the English language as a whole, you'd need to hear how it was spoken all over North America, Europe, and other parts of the world.
So if we want to understand how to communicate with the people in our small corner of the world, we need to experience communication in as many forms as we can.
When you take your car to get worked on, chat with the guy at the front desk. And don't just chat about the problems with your car, but about normal, human things. When you get your morning coffee, see if you can make a connection with the barista. If a plumber comes to fix a leak, ask him what he thinks about the latest news.
Often we think that these kinds of people exist only to fulfill their duty toward us and get out of the way. But if we will slow down, engage the people we come across, we’ll find that we get better and better at communicating.

So, how does this help corporate or business communication?

When we talk to people inside of our business world, it’s easy to rely on the unique, internal language that we're used to. So when you talk to people outside of your small world, you can't demand that people conform to your language. You get to create a new one.
Don't ask the girl at Starbucks about core competencies or tell the plumber that his work is synergized. That will get you socked in the mouth, or at least ignored.
Start talking to people with clear, interesting language. You will become a person who is easy to listen to, easy to talk to, and easy to communicate with. If it becomes how you communicate away from the office, soon enough you'll communicate like that at the office, too.
So the problem often isn’t what we say, it’s the limited number of people we say things to. Get out of the circle of peers you see most often and see if people who know nothing about you can understand the way you communicate. It will make you a friendlier person, and it will help you start talking like a human being, not a walking job title.
People are the key. They’re who we communicate with; so communicate with more of them.