As with any profession, effective communication is essential to the success of small business. Whether you are meeting with a client, emailing an employee or phoning a vendor, you need to give great care to the quality of your communications to ensure that all parties comprehend the intended message. Below are two points to consider in the back of your mind with all of your communications.
Communication is a process, not an event
Communication is the process of sending and receiving information. That's it. It's no more complicated than that. So, what makes communication seem so difficult, or even impossible, sometimes? The difficulties relate to the complexities that human beings bring to communication, such as:
- Environmental distractions
- Personal distractions
- Hidden agendas
- Internal filters
- Lack of interest or motivation
- Emotional distractions or self-talk
- Indirect or unintended forms of communication, such as body movement and facial expressions
Communication is both a simple process (i.e., send and receive information) and a highly complex, multi-dimensional process. By understanding some of these complexities and by relying on a basic set of skills, effective communication can occur fairly easily (but not without effort).
Each Person Must Take 100% Responsibility
Every time you communicate, you are 100% responsible for effective communication, even when others are not taking their 100% responsibility.
Notice that the concept is NOT that Person A is 50% responsible and Person B is 50% responsible. Being 50% responsible is qualitatively different than being 100% responsible. Imagine a setting where two people are having a conflict. And imagine that each person is only 50% responsible for communicating effectively. This leaves room for Person A to blame Person B for whatever is not working.
Now imagine that each person is 100% responsible for communicating effectively. If each person takes 100% responsibility, there is no room to blame the other person. It is each person's responsibility to find a way to make communication work.
100% responsibility does not mean that each person must communicate perfectly. Communication is an imperfect process. Perfection, no matter how badly it is wanted, is impossible. Without 100% responsibility, it would be too easy to say, "Person B is a terrible communicator. She needs help."Instead, 100% responsibility means that Person A must not only strive to communicate effectively with Person B, but also must look within him/herself to see what he/she could have done differently.
