25

Effective Communication
The Hub of Fayol’s Wheel

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what

it takes to sit down and listen.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965)

M any people talk about the art of handling people. Very few
of us actually know how to handle people well. It starts
with the family, expands to the neighbourhood and extends to
Copyright © 2014. SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

the corporation. Good human relations depend on two important

requirements—the ability to use empathy and the ability to com-
municate.
Most of us find it easy to be apathetic to people around us. It
is also convenient—‘I don’t care’, ‘What does it matter to me?’,
‘How am I concerned?’, ‘It’s better not to get involved’. Some of
us may be able to squeeze out some ‘sympathy’, to gush over with
great sorrow, perhaps even shed a few tears, bleary eyes filled with
sadness. But it is not easy to strike the balance in between—of
being empathetic.
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in the other person’s
shoes and to see the problem from his point of view. It is also
good, and sometimes necessary, to get the other person to see your

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 EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION 95

point of view. The old Red Indian prayer encapsulated the essence
so beautifully in a few lines:
Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticise my neighbour,
Until I have walked a mile in his mocassins.
The ability to communicate is also critical to ensuring good
human relations. We have made considerable progress in the
technology of communication: starting with the printing press,
going to the telegraph and telephone, radio and television, fac-
simile, Internet and now the use of satellite communication. But
it would seem that we have made very little progress in the essence
of communication.
The increased number of separations between husbands and
wives, estrangements between parents and children, the never-
ending quarrels between nations and between religions within the
same nation, and sects within the same religion are all indicators
of reduced or improper communication or a total breakdown of
communication.
And it is the same within corporations. Human relations
between colleagues or between bosses and subordinates can be
considerably increased with the use of empathy and better com-
munication. An excellent sense of humour, a humour shorn of
all sarcasm, helps greatly to improve the quality of communica-
tion provided care is taken to ensure that words make sense.
Copyright © 2014. SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

Here are some examples of the gap between ‘words’ and ‘sense’:
The Pharmacy College in Ahmadabad was hosting a recep-
tion on behalf of the Gujarat University for an eminent lady,
Miss Foster, the dean of an American university. The principal,
Dr Patel, got up to give the welcome address to Miss Foster, a
tall and stately lady well in her late-fifties. ‘Everyone here knows
that most of our students from the College of Pharmacy go abroad
for further specialisation!’ he said, ‘The average for the last five
years has been 80 per cent! And you all know that my relationship
with my students is that of a father and son. In fact, Miss Foster,
here, is the mother of my children in the US.’ What he meant
was quite different from what he said and what the audience un-
derstood. The packed hall with 500 students and faculty burst into

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 96 THE WINNING MANAGER

peals of laughter. Miss Foster blushed in embarrassment. However,

Dr Patel did not realise his faux pas. Finally, when the laughter
died down, he carried on with the rest of the speech but no one
listened. The bloomer had been made and now it was too late to
retrieve the situation.
Often, in the corporate world, we do not say what we mean. Or
having said what we mean, we are not understood in the manner
that we want our listener to understand. There is, therefore, great
merit in the old principle that we should count to five before we
speak, and perhaps ask for a clarification, or count to 10 before we
reply. Most of us fail to heed this warning. We begin by ‘shoot-
ing from the hip’ and, therefore, cause a problem a la Patel. Or,
respond in a manner which is completely different from what we
intend to mean.
Like the salesman who asked the prospective buyer’s family,
‘What do you want most to get out of your new car?’

(1) ‘Good looks,’ said the college-going daughter.

(2) ‘Dependability,’ replied Mom.
(3) ‘My teenage son,’ was Dad’s answer.

Some of the responses we get are because the question asked is

pointless in the first place. A silly question asked without think-
Copyright © 2014. SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

ing, elicits a silly answer. Like the truck driver who took a diver-
sion because the road was being repaired and came to a bridge too
low for his rig and got stuck. An onlooker came over and asked,
‘Are you stuck?’ The frustrated driver replied, ‘No, I’m trying to
deliver this bridge, but I can’t find the address.’
Again, when a customer requested for a good book to read,
the obliging librarian asked, ‘Do you want something light or do
you prefer heavier books?’ ‘It really doesn’t matter’, the reader an-
swered, ‘I have my car outside.’
There are so many cases of misunderstandings that books are
full of funny stories, of how the receiver and the sender of the
message are on completely different wavelengths. Like the boy who
kept sniffing in the bus, which irritated a woman sitting nearby.

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 EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION 97

‘Don’t you have a handkerchief?’ she asked him. ‘Yes, ma’am’, he

answered politely, ‘but I never lend it to strangers’.
Or, the story of the sergeant who asked, ‘Your name corpo-
ral?’ ‘Robert Jones’, came the answer. ‘When you talk to me you
say “Sir”,’ roared the sergeant, ‘Let’s try again. What’s your name,
corporal?’ ‘Sir Robert Jones!’
Or, the incident of the little boy who was following his father
out of church when he noticed a series of plaques on the wall.
When it was his turn to greet the pastor, he asked, ‘Who are
all these men?’ The pastor said, ‘Oh, they are men who died in
service.’ The puzzled boy responded, ‘Was that at the 9 o’clock
service or at the 10.30 service?’
Oscar Wilde was right when he ended a six-page letter with
the apology, ‘I would have written a shorter letter, darling, but I
did not have the time.’ It does appear contradictory. But it takes
more time to write one page of good sense, tightly packed, than
six pages of utter rubbish. And what goes for writing also goes for
speaking.
A look at many reports and minutes within corporations, in-
cluding the chairman’s speech, and an analysis of a good deal
of what is spoken in business conversation and at meetings will
indicate that there is little thinking and planning before writing
or, more often, before speaking. Indian mythology speaks about
Copyright © 2014. SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

words which once spoken, like arrows, cannot be controlled or

retrieved.
Therefore, the need to consciously follow all the rules, although
to most of us they only seem sterile theory: plan your commu-
nication, be on the same wavelength, say just enough, be brief,
watch your tone, be precise, consider the total physical and
emotional setting, remove all doubts, listen more than you talk,
show benefits and get action and much more.
It is important to remember that ‘building bridges of com-
munication’ is different from ‘repartee’. In a repartee, the receiver
of the message fully understands it. In fact, so well that he can
respond appropriately and fast. Winston Churchill was a master
of the art. A lady Member of Parliament complained to him and

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 98 THE WINNING MANAGER

said, ‘Sir Winston, it annoys me to see that you always fall asleep
when I speak in Parliament!’ ‘Lady Sandra,’ replied Sir Winston,
‘I fall asleep purely by choice.’
Or, on a more family-based note, the story of the well-known
speaker who was invited to give a talk at an important convention.
‘How was my speech? Did it go off well?’ he asked his wife later.
‘Yes, it was quite good. But you missed several good opportunities
to stop and sit down,’ she replied.
Communication is derived from the Latin communis. The word
means ‘sharing’. Communication is thus sharing of meaning. If this
sharing does not take place, the receiver (decoder) of the message does
not understand the sender (encoder) of the message. To make sense and
to get results, we need to have communis. Do you understand?
Copyright © 2014. SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

Vieira, W. (2014). The winning manager : Timeless principles for corporate success. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from kajaani-ebooks on 2020-03-10 03:59:29.