Communicating Clearly

My father used to tell me to 'speak the Queen's English' as he suffered through yet one more Valley Girl conversation sprinkled with the words, like, as if, duh, and um. I didn't know it then, but I was using verbal crutches to express myself and give me time to think. Unfortunately, to him, like meant something completely different and I was using the term in a manner unfamiliar to him.

Fast forward to today. I wonder what kids are learning in school. Really, I do. With programs like Dragon making sure they have no idea how to spell what they are speaking, and texting and Twitter encouraging everyone to take shortcuts, I really wonder if we look or sound like a literate society. Am I isolated and this is an American phenomenon, or is it a worldwide occurrence?

Whatever it is, it impacts me, my clients and my friends pretty much the same way. We've all learned to interpret shortcuts. The issue becomes when my interpretation of the shortcut is different than yours. It's kind of like the water closet v toilet discussion.

Drama Central - Avoid It by Communicating!

So I just got a phone call from a guy I work with. His request was simple - please stop sending email. One of the recipients called him to tell him what she thought. Not surprisingly, what she thought was completely incorrect because she hadn't attended any of the meetings she was invited to.

My first question? Why didn't she call me and ask for clarification. Kind of a moot question, really.

My second question? Why didn't he just tell her to call me and ask. Seems easy to me. We're all adults, in theory, and if there is an issue or question, just call the person that wrote the email. I thought communication skills like that were learned in high school and college, although sometimes I'm not great at it myself.

The third question, and the real kicker for me, was why stop using email as a communication tool? Sometimes it's not my issue if you can't have a conversation with someone who is sending you email. Yes, I get that some people send email when angry, and that's an email best addressed face-to-face to iron out all of the communication issues. Other types of email that make for communication challenges are those that require a response that won't make the recipient very happy, daily emails with a lot of extraneous information you don't really need, and emails about relationship details. However, to stop communicating by email because one recipient refuses to communicate directly or participate in the discussion in a meaningful way is just wrong.

Lesson for the day? There are some people who cannot or will not respond to an email because they have already made assumptions about the intent of the email. The resulting confusion created by multiple phone calls and texts to everyone except the sender causes drama and dissension within the group of recipients. And sometimes that can't be helped, but you can do your part to stamp out drama central by picking up the phone yourself and calling the individual causing the drama.

Life lesson: if you spend time in drama central on a regular basis, and it's caused by the people around you, the relationship may be toxic. If it's a work situation, there's not much you can do, but if it's a personal situation, say when you are volunteering your time or with your friends and/or family, do a cost benefit analysis and make sure at the end of the day, the aggravation is worth the energy you put into it. If you spend time in drama central on a regular basis, and the people around you are everchanging, consider the fact that you may be the drama.