Communication Can Unite Us Or Destroy Us
Today, I want to continue the dialogue around communication. For me, I value deep meaningful connection with people. My biggest pet peeve is small talk. When I ask a friend, how are you doing? I really want to know. I’ll be honest in saying, I get frustrated with surface pleasantries. Don’t get me wrong, if I’m out for a walk, I’m not going to have deep conversations with every person out walking their dog, but when I have the opportunity to connect with people, I honor those moments.
Communication is such a powerful tool. It has the ability to unite and the ability to destroy. When I look at the current landscape of this country and many others, we are polarized by our views, our stance, our feelings. We are either for or against, pro or anti, conservative or liberal, black lives or blue lives. There are so many important topics in today’s world that are at the forefront of our lives. The thing is, instead of talking about them, openly, we choose to either be polite and not discuss it or we only discuss where we know it’s “safe” with people who have a similar ideology. This type of communication separates us and causes the topics to polarize us – for or against.
Issues like equality, racism, homophobia are issues that impact all of us professionally and personally. How can we grow as a society if we’re not willing to talk about it? We have to learn to communicate. It’s not just the societal conversations, but the smaller ones that we need to start having. We’ve come to be this society where we create these microcosms where we only identify with people who agree with us, and that’s dangerous. It limits our thinking and our ability to grow, tremendously. I’m thankful for my inner circle, and I love that we are different. We all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences; and therefore the lens through which we see life is different. When you have a group of friends or colleagues who are diverse, you have a unique opportunity to learn.
What if the following statement was true. Everyone you meet in life is your teacher and your student? How would your conversations change? If by not talking about sensitive topics, we create further division. What could talking about them do? If we held true to the statement that everyone is our teacher and our student, we realize that we can learn from everyone, and vice versa, they can learn from us. Let’s think about that for a moment. If we begin to communicate in an effort to learn, we seek to understand. Understanding is the key message. Understanding and learning should be the objective of our conversations. Notice what I didn’t say is the objective? Agreement. We don’t have to agree with other people. If that is true, then the inverse must be true, they don’t have to agree with us. So if the objective becomes understanding, and we know that agreement is not important, can we then just listen to understand? What then begins to happen, is that we stop defending our position, because at this moment, it doesn’t matter. If were engaging in communication, our goal is to listen. It’s to seek understanding. Once we seek understanding, we have an opportunity….we can understand and exercise empathy, and then we can look at options. Once we understand one point of view, and share our own, the reverse can happen. That same person with a different viewpoint, can learn from you. They can gain understanding and be empathetic to your point of view, and at the end of the day, neither one of you have to agree, but you can respect one another and gain deeper understanding then you had before. Not everything in life is black and white, there are always shades of grey.
Families, co-workers, nations, churches, are divided every day over serious topics like equality, or workplace topics like transformation. The reality is that we don’t have to continuously contribute to the dysfunction. Seek understanding and not agreement. You cannot control other people’s thoughts and beliefs, you can only control your own. You may find that thru seeking understanding, you will learn so much more, and be able to bring creation instead of division.
Are you struggling to have meaningful conversations? In your personal and professional relationships, is your circle homogeneous, and suffering from group think? Let’s chat and start to create diversity and growth.