Purposeful communication is key

From my experience, nearly all human interaction problems stem from an inability to communicate to the required level.

My wife and I had a small fight this weekend that directly stemmed from my inability to communicate how I was feeling when the issue was still small.

This is something that I work on a lot but is still something that I struggle with. As a husband, father and team leader, I need to be better.

It’s not hard to see that same struggle everywhere; workplaces, teams, parenting, families, everywhere that there is a group of humans, issues arise that stem from a lack of communication somewhere along the process.

The caveat is that just more communication for the sake of communication is as bad as no communication. What we need is more purposeful communication.

The few points I’ve worked on over the last few years are this:

• Purposefully seeking out ways to improve my communication skills. Books, podcasts and courses are a great way to improve your knowledge in communication.
• Purposefully actioning the knowledge I’ve gained. Knowledge without action is pointless and just an ego trip. I reflect on most of my interactions afterwards to look for good and bad points that I can improve upon in the future.
• Perspective. I try to take time before each meaningful interaction to work through the perspective of the other side. Our reality is ours alone. It’s not the reality of other parties. The quicker we all figure that out, the better our teams will be.

Purposeful communication is key.

Inspired Lion