Send Your Own Message! The growth and dispersion of some many forms of technological communication have provided, what some would argue as, a practical convenience to an, already, busy life. We can text faster than we can talk, download music at the moment we can remember the artists name or the title of the one-hit song that gave them 15 cyber seconds of fame, or email a thought-for-the-day to everyone in our database with the hope that they will forward it to everyone in their database. The fact that most of us did not want a thought-for-the-day is beside the point. The message has been imposed and, if it has been forwarded often enough, you may never figure out who was the original sender, therefore never knowing what was the, original, intent. The efficiencies gained, as a result of technology, are welcomed and embraced from the corporate boardroom to the personal family room and have, consequently, altered the direct forms of communication in ways that impact the effectiveness of how messages are interpreted. The human brain, still, needs the face-to-face interaction in order to see the ‘whole’ picture of a message and to be clear about the intent of the sender. There was a telling scene in the movie, ‘Up In The Air’, in which the new employee, being mentored by the George Clooney character about life on the road, is upset because her fiancée decided they needed to see other people and did so by sending her a text message. While this was a poignant moment on the screen, the ability to suspend disbelief at such an act was tempered by the number of, actual, situations in which employees have quit, or otherwise left, their places of employment and informed their immediate supervisors by way of a text message. Even more interesting are the number of employees who have an issue with their immediate supervisor and express it by sending a text message to their friend and/or colleague, who then, forwards the message to that person’s boss. Not to mention the number of workplace romances gone bad that escalate due to the office ‘textament’ that only stops because one person can text faster than the other. While many would argue that the chosen methods of communication are ‘workplace generational’ issues, there is something to be said for the importance of being the one to carry your own message to the source to insure clarity and minimize subjective interpretation, hearsay innuendo, or the ‘he say/she say’ soap opera. Long before we became enamored with the visual charm of communication technology, the day-to-day, face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, communication in the an organizational setting was, eventually, recognized as a skill to be developed as opposed to it being a natural gift from one’s genetic code. The efficiencies of the day demanded closer interaction and a firm commitment to being, clearly, understood. The individual communicator was responsible for their own message and how it was conveyed. Minus the distance of a text message, you had to, talk, with other organizational members in order to get things done. While the process was, seemingly, arduous and plodding, there was ample opportunity to make sure the message was clear and the outcome was understood. In the event there was a misinterpretation, there was a chance to get clarification. In a global environment in which information moves, across boundaries, at incredible speed, there is a greater risk of messages being misinterpreted, a response sent and counter sent, before anyone has time to ask, ‘What was meant by the message?’ It is far too easy to take the efficient path of sending a message without taking into account its consequences. Important messages pertaining to relationships, employee to supervisor, fiancée to fiancée, friend to friend, friend to enemy or supervisor to team, should be delivered by you, through you and for you since you are the one with something to say.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 23:06:55 +0000