The Secret to Better Communication (Part 1)

Introduction

I’d like to start this blog off with a quote from one of my all-time favorite movies.

This quote from ‘Cool Hand Luke’ sums up the topic of communication quite nicely.“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” If you have good communication with another person, your likelihood of being able to establish a connection to them is much higher Regardless of whether you know this person, work with them, or are meeting them for the first time, it is important to have good communication.

Communication really is the key to appropriately collaborating and engaging with other human beings. 

Electronic Devices

I’ve talked about the topic of electronic devices on many different occasions across many of the different platforms that I post content on.

Don’t get me wrong, electronic devices are great tools. But they have become so essential to the lives of people on a day-to-day basis that we seemingly have become dependent on them.

Phones, for example, are something that we all have in this day in age and have been the cause of a major change over the past few decades. They have completely changed the way that we communicate with other people.

Despite the many benefits that are coupled with phones, they have become major distractions in our lives. Many people waste hours and hours scrolling through their social media feeds and texting. I’ve even found that many of my friends would rather text me instead of holding a conversation over the phone.

These devices are causing us to lose our human touch when it comes to communication. Phones, in particular, have simply become scapegoats for us to get out of having quality conversations with other people. 

Dependency on Devices

I know that I’m sitting here talking about how other people have subjected themselves to the control of electronic devices. It can almost seem like I’m critical of others because of this, but even I do this.

It’s scary to see, but I even find myself doing this on a consistent basis.

Once I started recognizing that, I began to realize how dependent on electronic devices we have become as a collective whole.

A great example of this is my software companies. We use Slack as one of our primary communication tools. It helps us to seamlessly communicate and is highly convenient whenever I am out of the office or issues arise after hours. It is very beneficial and helps our team to properly communicate.

Or does it?

Well, yes. It definitely serves its purpose and is convenient. While I recognize this, it also goes against everything that I’ve said in this article up to this point.

I’ve noticed that people would rather quickly message a person over Slack that is not even 20 feet away from their office instead of actually holding a conversation. 

Start Making an Effort to Communicate

I understand that it has become increasingly difficult to make time to communicate via face-to-face meetings or even just calls over the phone.

But in order for you to establish strong relationships and ultimately communicate in the most effective way, you need to find a balance so that you can take advantage of these kinds of opportunities.

At the end of the day, your phone is a communication device. Start making efforts to actually communicate instead of wasting your time.