I read a survey result somewhere sometimes a go (pardon my vague clue, I am just not good in remembering reference), that most of organizational grievance rooted in delicate thing so called communication. It’s non technical, it’s soft skill, it’s something that can be developed and yet it does not always work.

It takes (at least) two parties to communicate (otherwise it would be monologue). Both parties’ communication skills can be developed and trained, many tools and technique can be used, and yet we still see many companies failed or at least, struggle to get it right. Why?

Well, each party usually have different objective. If we are talking about employee and management relations, clearly they are two different objectives. Whenever there’s a negotiation, the aim is always to bring these two different objectives closer. We are in the same boat anyway. Management can not run the company without the employee and employee will not get income if the company does not make profit. As simple as that in theory. In reality? In some big companies, event like the preparation of Company Policy or Working Agreement can take months. Some companies ’shipped’ their Human Resources Professionals, Management Representatives and Employee Representatives to some place else outside the office to sit and negotiate. Sequestered to be precised.

A colleague of mine told me that usually the Representatives sent by the Employee are those who can communicate properly or to be precised…diplomatically. Those who are hot headed or passive agressive type usually will not be chosen. That’s good news. It means that both parties have willingness to have a win win negotiation. Willing to listen, argue and yet keep the discussion going until it resulted into a conclusion. There is no bigger failure in a discussion other than dead lock.

What about in personal relationship?

Well, if there are only two people to communicate and if they are family who grew up together and knew each other for almost all of their life, it should be easier, right? No. I heard stories about son who does not speak to his father, mother who condemned her daughter in public, a marriage councellor who got divorce…so what caused all this?

Communication break down.

Back to my training about the Myers Type Preferences, the different character of people and the way they interact with each other usually is the one who triggered communication break down. And when I look into my self, I see the evidence everywhere.

My Mom and I are constantly in argument simply because she’s a feeler and I am a thinker. Some of my thoughts are considered cold, calculative and too rational for her. According to her judgement, I have no emotion. I see things in black and white. I do not have feelings. According to me, she is too emotional. Never in the middle. Either very happy or very upset. Pay attention too much on details or to other’s feelings. I am a strong believer that you are responsible to how you feel. She is a strong believer that you can not control how you feel towards something. It’s heart, heart and heart. Whereas to me, no, it’s brain, brain, brain. Feelings is something resulted from thinking. I think therefore I feel. No wonder that we are in constant argument. But that’s fine, as long as it was civilized argument and resulted in a conclusion, it’s a flowing discussion. And a flowing discussion is a good discussion. If this is keep on happening, I don’t think that I ever will in a situation where I don’t speak with my Mom.

A good communication always happened when all parties involved is still interested to speak and listen to each other with open mind. Trust each other that you are communicating to find the best conclusion for all parties involved.

But what if the other party does not trust you? Think that everything you said was a lie, bullsh*tt and theory. All jargons and not fact. To be honest, I don’t know. Trust must be gain and not given. And there must have been a problem even deeper than communication if the parties that are suppose to be communicating are not communicating properly because of lack of trust.

Trust came from experience. If you have been constantly lied to, or being shown to that the person who talk to you contantly does not walk his talk…it was difficult to gain trust. And without trust, I believe it will be very difficult to have an honest & constructive communication.

But what if the spoke person is actually trustworthy but the other party was already cloud by judgement? I believe it will be very frustrating for the spoke person to gain trust. He can do whatever he can to show that he is committed but if the other party’s paradigm is already set, this will also lead to a dead lock.

Open your mind. Don’t be too suspicious. There are people who meant what they say and sincere. Be positive. Be supportive. Wouldn’t life be easier that way? Personally yes. Professionally, it will make the process of choosing a negotiator is very crucial and critical. You need to choose somebody with integrity. Somebody that the other party would trust.

What will you do if you are in a situation where the trust is low and the communication don’t work.

In a company where you found that the level of trust is very low, you can either quit your job or put your head in a sand. Pretend that you see nothing, hear nothing and speak nothing. Passive agressive or apathy. That’s usually the beginning of organization problem. Enron was the classic case. And now to gain trust from the stake holders towards the Corporates, US Government is very strict about transparancy. FCPA (Foreign Corruption Practise Act). Auditors swarming around like mad to ensure transparancy. Transparancy leads to honesty. Honesty leads to trust. Trust leads to constructive communication. Good communication leads to productivity because then people will not have to waste their energy in entertaining rumours and office politics.

What about in personal relationship?

You can either walk away - if you are married you can get divorce if it is permitted by your religion, if you are a child you can move out of your parents house (Indonesian proverb said that keluarga kalau jauh bau wangi kalau dekat bau tai - relatives if living far away will smell wonderfully, if living closely will smell sh*tt or you can simply limit your interaction with that annoying relatives/friends.

You can also put your head in a sand. Being ignorant and pretend that nothing happened. But by doing this, you were simply swept the dust under the rug. You are sitting in a time bomb. If you are married - usually this will lead into an affair.

Human are social creature. The failure of unable to communicate with the loved one, will not diminish the need to communicate. And usually an affair started innocently. It started from a chat over a coffee followed by emotional bond. An affair does not always mean sleeping together or making dates behind spouse’s back. If you are emotionally tied so somebody else other than your spouse, to me, it’s already an affair. And at this time you should have seen red flag everywhere. You are heading into a marriage disaster. And with or without divorce, if you have children already, they will always be the innocent victims of your communication failure. Would you prefer that over trying to fix your trust and restore communication with your spouse?

How’s that for today fruit for thought?

…I believe it is the most difficult job if you want to do it accurately. Naturally there’s always battle on how you view your self vs how others viewed you. Being a painfully practical and insensitive person (that’s how I viewed my self, at least) I took a course where we suppose to develop an intuition in guessing people character. The final test was guessing the other participants character and confirm it with them whether they think our guess is close to how they think they are. You’ll be amazed at the difference on what you think about a person and how that particular person viewed them selves. It is quite expected though as we’ve met for only few days but that’s the course is all about, how you made a snapshot on one character and came close to the real one. In the recruitment world, you don’t have time to socialize with the candidate, mind you!

Anyway, the reason why I suddenly recall this course was a colleague and also a dear friend of mine (read: a person who spend her time with me for at least 40 hours a week - working hours permitted by the government in a week) said to me today, “It must feel good to be you, you are so plain, you never angry, you never panic, you never worry…just plain, plain, plain and plain!” I laughed my head off, secretely amused on how could she think I am plain. The truth is, of course I am not! I am a human being after all. Of course there were times when I really angry, I was so angry I threw my fist to the window and crushed it - my hand was bleeding so badly I had to be taken to the hospital to get it stitched (yup, that’s me, surprise?), there was time when I was panic when I suddenly found my self unable to breath and must grasp something to stay standing and there were many times when I worried, I worried so sickly my stomach churned and I felt as if my heart stop beating. But the truth is, I seldom feel that way. It will take a lot of things to bring me up to that level and I guess that’s why I was viewed as a plain person. Always happy and smiling, never carried grudge and seemed to have thousand of excuses to forgive someone. But am I really? (or in your case, are you?) Of course I am not. But I think what differentiate me with that dear friend of mine is I am a strong believer that you can control how you feel towards something. I fully believed that you hold full control of your own emotions. And believe me, when you have Lupus, you won’t have time to steam up negative emotions as stress is one of the thing that triggered inflamatation most. I learned the secret of it when I was 17. I learned it hard and quick.

I’ve learned that once you let something upset you, your lungs close down. First you’d feel difficult to breath. Second, your legs and arms are numbed. And third, your face turn blue and somebody will need to put oxygen mask on you. Not nice, eh?

I had 2 options, let my feelings get the better of me or train my self to choose how I felt towards something. For the sake of my own health, I chosed the later. And it works!

The implementation is close to this: a jerk said something awful about you. Take a deep breath, look him (or her) in the eye and vowed silently that you won’t let it ruin your day. It is he (or she) who has problem so hear what he (or she) said, scan for some self assesment (just in case there are some truth in it - you must not be THAT thick either and have perfect illusion about your self) and if it is not, put it in your delete folder. You can’t control somebody not to be a jerk but you can control your response to it. By doing that you are not only saved your self from having a bad day but also teach that jerk a lesson that you can’t be provoked to go down to his (or her) level. Easy, right?

The result is astonishing. Once I accepted the fact that there are many unpleasant things would happen to me and stop questioning why it should happen to me (and not to somebody else), life seemed a bit lighter in that respect. My Lupus even went into remission for years when I came to acceptance that I may die any minute because of it just like everybody else who is breathing, am I not correct?. So, why should we overly worried about something that will happen anyway? Why should we question somebody else’s action (as a matter of fact I still do sometimes, however, out of curiosity of the motivation rather than feeling hurt) if we can ‘taylor’ our response?

Now back to my friend and the way she judged me, I am sure if she spend her time with me 24/7 365 days a year she would see that other side of me. It is impossible to be happy all the time but when you optimise the ability of creating your own happiness, you’ll be surprise how fun this life actually is.

One of the fun I have been having consist of trying to understand other’s character by listening to what they said and see things that they do, comprehend the reason of their action, see the facts, check it with what they said, contemplating whether the character in the surface match the fact finding and if not what is the real motives beneath it then hopefully I will be able to understand their values as motivation driven by values and values is what you really are.

Am I being painfully analytical again? I guess I need a cup of warm milk to put my mind to rest…

 Please provide knives so your guest can slice the sections into individual own needs…

 Ingredients 

1. The sauce of weak leadership

• Mix a large bowl of indecisiveness with 2-3 tablespoons of personal interest. The best brand of personal interest is the famous WIFM (What’s In It For Me) ketchup available in every heart store in the deepest corner. It contained: big bonus, more perks, promotion and political acceptance. Warning: too many WIFM sauce will cause lost of conscience and could lead to stony heart.
• When the sauce change its color, add a little bit of easily bruised ego and withdraw sympathy (if any).

2. 500 grams of good people who do nothing

• Place 500 grams of good people who see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil in a plate. Saturate them with the fear of unemployment mixed with golden handcuffs program namely long term loan and retention program.
• When you see the critical mind set dissappear, load them with jargons until they are properly brainwashed and ready to be cooked. Remember, things happened because good people do nothing. Repeat this over and over until it became the mantra of your life.

3. 1/2 ounce of discretion

• Select 1/2 ounce of discretion and passed them among the most demanding and not necessarily the best seeds. Don’t forget to by pass several lines to create optimum result.
• Leave it for a while in an open space and heat up room temperature.
• No need to do anything with the quiet seeds until it looks as if they are going to change their nature. Just keep it in the pantry corner within their lines.

4. Serving

• Put discretion on top of 500 grams of good people who do nothing and decorate it with secrecy.
• Moisten with souce of weak leadership on top of it.
• Sprinkle with tension and some corporate bullies.
• Serve it whilst it hot. Shred whatever left to avoid auditor.

Per serving: 720 headaches, 562 ulcers, 382 nervous breakdown and 10 manic depressive.

 Nutritional breakdown: greed, megalomaniac and ignorance.

Reference List:

- Enron

- Arthur Andersen