Do you ever wish that you had the skill to compose all your messages, both written and verbal, so that the recipients clearly understood what was wanted and acted immediately?
Arthur was an engineer, he saw everything as a linear progression: problem, diagnose, find cause, calculate solution, tell someone what to do.
The problem is that people are not machines, they can think. If you tell them what to do they may want to know why.
People are creatures of habit, so….
People are also creatures of habit. If they have always done something in a certain way they usually want to go on doing it in that way, because they know how to do it that way, and it is comfortable for them to do it that way. They tend not to like change.
People also have feelings, so when Arthur ordered them to do something, in his rather gruff manner, it often caused upset and resistance.
The result was that Arthur was often frustrated by the lack of cooperation he received from his team, and the team were often upset by Arthur’s autocratic leadership style.
In situations like I have just described something has to give. The motivation for change was Arthur’s ambition. He wanted to develop his career and move up the promotion ladder. He realised that he would need to become a better communicator.
A Google search led him to The Communication Cycle. He read the article avidly and decided that where he was going wrong was at the “Composition” stage. He just was not paying enough attention to the way he said things to people.
Transferring visions from your mind to other’s minds
He wasn’t very good at transferring from his mind the vision of what he wanted into the minds of others. However, the idea of transferring visions greatly appealed to his engineering way of thinking. To him it would be like showing people an engineering drawing, and that was something he could readily understand.
But when it came to the idea of pouring emotion into his communications Arthur got stuck. He worried over this point for many days. Eventually he went to see the old manager with whom he sometimes mulled over work problems and asked him: “It says in this Communication Cycle that I should pour emotion into my communications, but I am not an emotional man, how can I do this?”
The old manager laughed out loud. “What do you mean you’re not an emotional man? Have you ever heard yourself when you’re angry? Why the roof nearly comes off the building. Of course you’re emotional!”
“Ah, but that’s different,” Arthur protested. “That’s when I’m really angry.”
“Anger is an emotion and you can certainly let it pour out of you when you have a mind to.” He smiled, “it’s the opposite of happiness I suppose.” The old manager reached for his pipe and matches. “Let’s go outside for a smoke,” he suggested.
When they were walking on the lawn opposite the factory the old manager asked: “Do you ever go to football?”
“Not very often,” Arthur replied, with little enthusiasm.
Valuable lessons from sport
“Well you go this Saturday. And when you’re there, watch your team’s manager. You won’t be able to hear a word he says, but you watch what he does. When his team scores he shows delight. When the opposition scores he’ll look upset. When he replaces a player watch how he gives instructions to the player going on and how he consoles and encourages the player coming off. You’ll see more body language in one ninety minute game than in a whole week around here.”
“What will be the point of that?” Arthur looked puzzled.
Photo by Alexander Ottesen
Arthur did go to a football match the following Saturday. In fact he went to a lot more football matches. And he became such an avid “manager watcher” that he hardly saw a ball kicked. He noticed that the really successful managers studied the game very attentively, as if they were looking for patterns in the play. They only became animated over major incidents, the rest of the time they were analysing.
Arthur decided that he would become like a really good football manager. He would behave in a more “open” manner, analyse situations more calmly, befriend and get to know each member of his team; take a lot more care over explaining what he wanted and why. He decided to put more enthusiasm into his communications and to encourage people to ask questions so that he could be sure that they had clearly understood what needed to be done.
He knew that he wouldn’t be able to make all these changes overnight. The old manager also told him that he would inevitably backslide from time to time, but that one little slip didn’t meant that he shouldn’t go back and try again.
People notice the changes
People noticed the changes in Arthur’s behaviour, and they commented on them, this pleased and encouraged Arthur. He went on studying The Communication Cycle and he became a much better communicator.
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