What comes to mind if I mention beautiful white beach sands? What if I enticed you with promises of the sunshine of the French coast and even included a trip to Paris? No doubt the majority of us would be excitedly imagining a fantastic holiday. This week we were reminded of the terrible loss of life of thousands of Allied troops who stormed the beaches of Normandy on 6 June 1944. No doubt for the few hundred thousand people who experienced the terrible consequences of that heroic invasion - that arguably was the single most important event in ending the second world war – the thoughts and memories of a sun soaked beach in Northern France, are anything but pretty.
There is often a debate about whether the red I see, is the same as the red you see. How would we ever know? When we communicate with other people, we try to impart what an event means to us, but how do we know what it looks like in their world? Key words will trigger memories of the past or assumptions about the future, that dictate how the other person will react to our message. I watched with interest this week when two managers reacted in opposite ways to the same idea in a brainstorming session. One saw a fantastic opportunity to improve staff engagement, the other saw an unnecessary expense that would indirectly have a negative impact on staff. There is no easy answer here. One way to be sure that what we are intending to communicate is understood in the right way by the other party is to ask them. Listen and observe carefully to learn more about the context of your message. Good communication is both an art and a skill and demands our full attention. Just announcing the good news that we are all going to Paris via the beach will not always have the reaction you may expect!
There is often a debate about whether the red I see, is the same as the red you see. How would we ever know? When we communicate with other people, we try to impart what an event means to us, but how do we know what it looks like in their world? Key words will trigger memories of the past or assumptions about the future, that dictate how the other person will react to our message. I watched with interest this week when two managers reacted in opposite ways to the same idea in a brainstorming session. One saw a fantastic opportunity to improve staff engagement, the other saw an unnecessary expense that would indirectly have a negative impact on staff. There is no easy answer here. One way to be sure that what we are intending to communicate is understood in the right way by the other party is to ask them. Listen and observe carefully to learn more about the context of your message. Good communication is both an art and a skill and demands our full attention. Just announcing the good news that we are all going to Paris via the beach will not always have the reaction you may expect!
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