Spring has brought frisbees, grilling, and playing in the
front yard to the Deutmeyer home. On a blue
skied sixty degree day I was outside firing up the grill while watching Caleb (our 4 year old) and Hannah (our 6 year old) play with a frisbee. It didn’t take long before frisbee rule
number one became reality (Frisbee Rule
Number One: it will end up on the roof or under a car). Caleb was quickly on the ground trying to
crawl under the van but he was unable to reach the Frisbee. Thinking on my feet I picked up a red plastic
snow shovel that Isaac (our 2 year old)
had drug out of the garage for the twelfth time that day. Handing it to Hannah I said, “Have Caleb use
this,” with the thought that he could push the Frisbee out with the
shovel. A few seconds passed before I
caught a glimpse of red flash out of the corner of my eye as I was struck by a
flying snow shovel. Turning to Caleb I
yelled, “Why are you throwing the snow shovel in the air!” Shocked and a bit confused by my reaction Caleb
responds by stuttering, “Dad you told Hannah that I should use the shovel not
the frisbee.”
Clarity in my communication and Caleb’s understanding were
not in sync. While I meant he should use
the shovel as a tool to get the frisbee he assumed that he should use it in
place of the frisbee and throw it around the yard. As I think about this I laugh, which is often
the case with so many Caleb stories.
However, I also realize there are three underlying points that could
have made my communication much clearer.
By eliminating middle people, using concise specific language, and
checking for understanding we can ensure that our communication is wrapped in
clarity.
My guess is that we have all at some point or another played
the game telephone with a group of people.
The basic object is to line people up and whisper a message from one
person to another with the hopes that it doesn’t change by the time it reaches
the last person. I have never seen this
carried out where the original message wasn’t added to or subtracted from by
the time it reached the last person.
This same thing happens in our daily communication, and often the errors
and changes with the message might be worse as we may wait several minutes,
hours, or days before relaying a message.
Anytime that we can, we should
eliminate the middle man! If I would
have spoken directly to Caleb I would have had a much better read of his
understanding and he would have received the full message. So often we receive second hand information
and find ourselves struggling to put together the full message. When we eliminate the middle people in our
conversations we allow for a more direct line of communication which
drastically improves clarity.
Often times in conversations we may receive a message that
is long, drawn out, and simply hard to follow.
My guess is that when a lot of us are in these situations we are making
the sound of Charlie Brown’s teacher in our heads. In no means do I feel we are being
purposefully uncaring we just want the information. We
want communication to be concise and specific. In no way did I do this with Caleb. I left my communication to him open to many
different interpretations and he did what made sense to him (flying shovels). I should have said to him, “Caleb, you need
to use this shovel to push the frisbee from under the van. Then you can go back to throwing the
frisbee.” Our words carry a lot of power
and weight. It is important that when we
are communicating with others that we leverage this power in ways that convey
our message in clear ways.
One of my common statements both in professional and
personal life is, “Does this make sense?”
I use this a lot and there was one day last year at work that two separate
people finished this question before I did.
As mundane as this maybe I am pretty confident that if I asked Caleb
this prior to giving him the shovel I would not have been hit by a flying shovel
(Frisbee in Caleb’s mind). We can
guarantee clarity when we directly ask if what we said was understood. In situations where the communication is
important it is always better to check for understanding prior to ending the
conversation.
Our communication is the foundation to the relationships
that we have. Through eliminating middle
men, using specific concise language, and checking for understanding we can do
a much better job of communicating with clarity. If nothing else utilizing these three points
will insure that my head doesn’t have any unwanted meetings with snow shovels.
