by Susan Johnston | May 22, 2007 | Rants, Ramblings and Riddles |
Here’s Part 2 of the condensed version of the arguments supporting giving face-to-face communication more attention. They are extracted from Real Conversation – the most powerful business tool your organization will ever use, my presentation at the recent Ragan Corporate Communications Conference.
Brain scientists speak: “Humans have to talk!”
Developments in neuroscience are showing us that conversation has tangible physical effects on us as human
beings.
In an era where people are paid to think, it’s probably no coincidence that there’s a lot of research examining how our brains work. Using new tools, graduate students everywhere are hooking folks up to functional MRIs to see which parts of their brains light up when they do or think
about various things.
There’s evidence that we’re genetically “hardwired” to communicate face-to-face. Moreover, we actually need the company of other humans. It keeps us
human.
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by Susan Johnston | May 22, 2007 | Get people talking, Get teams moving |
Earlier this month, I spoke at the excellent Ragan Corporate Communications Conference, in Chicago. My topic? Real Conversation – the most powerful business tool your organization will ever use.
One of the topics I tackled was how to convince leaders and managers to pay closer attention to conversation in the workplace. People found it useful, so I thought I’d share it with my regular readers. So here – in two installments – is the Reader’s Digest version of that section of my talk.
Making the Case for Face-To-Face
OK. Here we are, face-to-face, because that’s the way human beings were meant to communicate. We’re here to have a conversation about conversation. More precisely, we’ll discuss ways to get authentic, productive, valuable, human conversations going on in our organizations, instead of the same old bla bla bla – or worse – silence. It’s a quest organizations have been on for a long time.
I recently read a story from the 1950s. Before he founded WL Gore & Associates and started making GoreTex, Bill Gore, worked for chemical giant DuPont. He observed that there were only two places at work he ever heard a meaningful conversation. One was on task forces, where people have a clear and important short term purpose. The other was the car pool. In the car, everyone was equal, everyone was smart and the conversations were brilliant. Unfortunately, when they reached the parking lot, everyone straightened their ties, put on their work faces, stepped into the hierarchy and – conversation over.
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by Susan Johnston | Feb 21, 2007 | Rants, Ramblings and Riddles |
It’s hard to be a Help Desk person. We customers only call when we’re angry or confused or both. If only we could just learn to enjoy:
- waiting (Kenny G is Top Of The Pops on “Hold” this week)
- listening to long multilingual messages that don’t make sense in any language
- bouncing between service people (I suspect they have a [Random] button to send us to other departments where we will hear, “That’s not my job,” immediately before they ask the obligatory question, “Is there anything more I help you with today?”)
- getting nowhere and taking forever to get there
In a bid to be the “ideal customer,” I have started to use my problems as entertainment, for both myself and Help Desk employees. I had a great chat, this morning, with someone at Bell Canada. He was wonderful and had the customer service spirit so often missing in call centres.
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by Susan Johnston | Feb 18, 2007 | Build your own skills, Get people talking |
I have invested far too many hours, this weekend, trying to sort out a communication mess. A member of a volunteer board, on which I serve, has, effectively punched the rest of us in the head.
We probably deserve it.
There are sins of commission and sins of omission. Both forms are present on both sides of this particular communication mess.
The sin commtted is that of working up a good sense of outrage, sending off the e-mail equivalent of a nuclear attack on the entire world, and sitting back to watch the explosion.
I confess. In my younger, stupider days, I committed that very sin, myself, though on a smaller scale (and using cleaner, crisper, clearer language). I loved being outraged and articulate about it. Later, I became a journalist, and was paid to commit that sin.
In the situation this group faces, today, it’s the sins of omission that are more disturbing.
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by Susan Johnston | Feb 16, 2007 | Uncategorized |
Many of you will know that I am in the throes of authoring a book about workplace communication. You may not know that I’m trying to complete it by the end of February, just 13 short days and nights from this moment.
Talk To Me – Workplace Conversations That Work, blends fiction and nonfiction, weaving a story around and through the communication ideas to put them in a ‘real world’ context. It’s a book with an accompanying learning program and a slew of downloadable recordings and worksheets to support it. Mercifully, these extra bits are not due by month’s end.
This morning, as I was trying to write one of five chapters required this week, I interrupted myself to coach a young entrepreneur of unusual talent. Today was not her best day. She acknowledged that she’s trying to be a certain way. And she’ll try to think bigger. And she’ll try to put some ideas together. And she’ll try to do something about it.
And all of a sudden, I could hear the great Jedi guru, Yoda, screaming at me, at her, and at the world, just as he screamed at Luke Skywalker. “Try? There is no Try! There is only Do and Not Do.”
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