OBJECTIVES BASED COMMUNICATION

Have you ever returned from a meeting feeling exhausted and still immersed in thoughts on what have
you done which led to things the way they turned out to be. Or have you ever felt jealous of people who
always find a way to guide almost all the conversations in their own way without appearing to be pushy,
direct or overpowering. If you are an individual who has spent more than 18 years on this planet, you
would have definitely experienced one of the above two mentioned, situations in your life by now.

We are in a state of constant communication, even when we were infants we were communicating with
people around us in our own ways, although the others were still trying to decipher it using the lens of
their own accumulated experience. You would have observed in your own families and in your personal
life, there are always some children who get more attention, care and love compared to others because of
how they interact with people around them (families and even non-family members) and we label them
with certain characteristics like being emotionally intelligent or empathetic, even though the kids are not
aware of such labels, they still play along as long as they are allowed to do what they like. The roots of
objective based communication thus begin to take definite shape when we are still an infant, and continue
to become stronger with practice, as we grow older. A child who is adamant about getting something will
ultimately find a way to get it, either by smiling or by nagging, by being obedient or by revolting against
the established norms. Whatever gets the children what they want, will make them repeat those actions,
actions which subsequently become a pattern and as these patterns continue to grow stronger turn into a
habit which finally becomes the behaviour of the child. This behaviour remains imprinted well into our
adult lives until and unless explicitly noticed and forced to modify voluntarily by the individual
himself/herself.

Most of the time parents do not even notice or purposely ignore how their children have begun to behave
and attribute it to the factors outside their own control, although it is their own constant encouragement
and acceptance or non-acceptance of certain actions which moulded them to behave in that particular
way. All of us learn and begin to exhibit our own unique way of communication as children’s and we keep
on refining/modifying it with the new learning’s, experimentation and novel experiences and it goes on
for our entire lifetime.

A lot of us would have read umpteen numbers of articles, books, and papers and attended numerous
lectures on communication. It is one of that ubiquitous skill on which all of us have been trained
extensively. And we still find a plethora of new articles, ideas; information as well as new theories and
practical aspects on communication which keep flooding our senses with consistent regularity.

So one of the basic question is, why do we communicate?

On the face of it, the question sounds very naïve and obvious. We communicate to let others know what
we feel, think and want and to also know the same about other people or groups. We give and receive
feedback while also putting across our thoughts and ideas, and to achieve all this, communication is
required. However, we also do communicate with non-humans, with our pets, some people talk to
animals and birds and although we do not know their language and a lot of times, don’t even use language
(spoken words) while communicating, we still do communicate. The way we communicate with these
birds and animals and with others who do not share a common language with us is primarily affected by
the unique culture of the place we come from or live in, the environment around us, our history, our inter
communal relationships and the previous experiences we have with people outside of our own
community. All of these factors affect how we perceive our self, others, and also define the framework
which we use to establish different methods of communication with others.
I will come back to my earlier question of why we communicate again. Now, if I tell you that we
communicate to get something, to achieve an objective will you agree? Let me give you a very simple
example to buttress my argument. Let’s say you are feeding your child who is just not willing to eat on
her own and everyday your conversations with her while feeding is to distract her, what we talk about is
not even related to food, and it is still aimed at achieving the objective of ensuring she eats her supper.
The conversation may be about random stuff, but the objective in the mind of the parent is clear and thus
the objective is achieved most of the time, barring a few exceptions, when at times other household
chores take more importance and you focus waver from the primary objective of feeding the child to
something else in the house.

Another example is of we meeting someone for the first time and here too even though we do not want
the other person to do anything for us, the conversation or interaction has a subtle objective of creating a
favorable opinion of ours in their mind. We can think of any or almost all the interactions and each of
those conversations would be driven by an objective, sometimes obvious, at times subtle and a lot of
times hidden in the minds of the participants engaged in that conversation in a conscious way, although
subconsciously our mind is still working towards achieving some objective there as well, which can be for
example to get rid of boredom or to even procreate.

Now, when we are all aware of the fact that our conversations are guided by (mostly) certain objectives
what we can do to make them more effective and relevant?

A lot of conversations may at first seem to be altruistic in nature and without any explicitly stated
objective and we may feel and think that this concept of having an objective for all conversations cannot
be universal, however let me point out that even though the interaction may not be transactional in
nature and is loaded towards being emotional or empathetic, it still retains the objective of making others
feel better about themselves.(altruistic conversations) And this is achieved using varied forms of
communication such as, verbal, non-verbal and at times written as well. Thus, objectives based
communication has universal application even though at times we may not want to put it across that way
as it sounds and feels very mechanical and artificial. We humans are still afraid of putting measuring
labels to our emotions and thus it is very difficult to consciously accept this fact.

One counter argument which can be put against this supposition is gossip and rumours. Here again, I
would like to emphasize the fact that we as humans have engaged in gossips and rumour mongering since
ages and one of the first and obvious reasons to engage in it was to develop camaraderie and
interpersonal relations with other members of the group. When two people gossip, their body language
mirror each other and they enter in a very high state of rapport building which is challenging to achieve
even by people with a very high degree of familiarity. Imagine two people smoking or drinking together
and engaged in a meaningless chatter. The conversation may seem devoid of any sense (don’t want to use
‘nonsense’ here), however the discussion allows them to achieve much better interpersonal
companionship which otherwise is very testing and difficult even for seasoned professionals. Thus,
people who really want to build rapport have found smoking and drinking as an easy way to build strong
affinity for each other. Eating together also provides similar benefits. (I do not endorse smoking or
drinking and would in fact suggest eating together rather than to smoke or drink.)

Now, when we believe objectives based communication can help us in achieving better results, it’s
prudent to use a framework while engaging with others to ensure consistent positive results from all of
our conversations. A lot of us might already be following it and for those who are not, a conscious
attention to some of these steps initially can build long term unconscious competence leading to much
happier and satisfying interactions.

Imagine a situation where we are always aware of why we are communicating. When we get into
arguments, we tend to forget or at times purposely ignore the actual intention or objective of ours and we
tend to gravitate towards a situation which has arisen as a result of our lack of understanding. Let’s say in
a business scenario, a discussion is initiated to ascertain the feasibility of changing the existing inventory
management system and we begin the meeting with the premise that the other party or person need to
know about the negative repercussions of continued use of the existing outdated inventory management
system which is causing huge losses and customer complaints which can be reduced or even obviated
with the implementation of the new inventory management system which is now being used by majority
of the companies operating in that industry.

We however begin the discussion by questioning the intelligence and business acumen of the advocates of
the existing system on its continued use and their support for the old systems which according to us is
just so very stupid and uneconomical way of managing the inventory. We thus want them to immediately
rectify this situation by implementing what we propose. And here, although we may be factually and
logically correct in what we recommend, the way the information and facts have been presented will lead
the other party to show resistance and question the efficacy of the proposed new systems, even though
rationally they too agree with our facts and logic but are emotionally, so deeply hurt with the language we
use that they are not willing to accept anything we say, no matter how correct we are. Here, instead of
focusing on the problems and its solutions, we made the mistake of mixing people with the problems
which has lead us to a dead end.

An ideal situation would be to separate people from problems and make a recommendation using a
solutions focused approach keeping the problem, and not the people in our mind and in our speech
(words).

An astute communicator will always keep this fact in mind and try to safeguard the personal interest of
the people before launching an all-out attack on the problem while also involving the other individuals in
the proposed solution and decision making.

Objectives based communication will allow us to keep the bigger picture in mind while also putting us on
alert to tiny disturbances which might need instant goal setting and ensure the bigger picture never goes
out of sight at any time.

This is easier said than done and thus, I propose a framework which will help us in achieving better
results by following these five principles;

1. Keeping an Active Mental Objective;

- This will help us in steering our conversations towards what we want to achieve together and
guard our attention from wandering in all the directions, which normally happens after the initial
few minutes. The objective will also act as a sort of a conscience keeper pushing us back to the
heart of the reason for which we initiated that interaction and resist our mind from losing the
attention and focus required at that time to stay in the present. Asking our self why we are
having this conversation, at the start, and keeping in mind what we would be able to achieve after
the conversation will ensure we keep on track and do not digress from our path.

2. Preparation;
- I have put preparation after the objective as our preparation will be defined by what we want to
achieve. The objective will be central to whatever we do; even our preparation should revolve
around that objective. Preparation should focus on;
o Interests and desires of the other person (to build rapport)
o His/her mental state – Positive, Negative, Hopeful, Cheerful, Sad, Agitated, Calm, Excited
o Our relationship – Good, Bad, Neutral
- This information will help in ensuring we have a conversation which is not only stimulating but
also exciting for all involved, keeping the interest level high and motivate people to be open
about their thought and feelings.
 3. Listening Attentively;
- This is a cliché and needs no explicit explanation; however it still is one aspect of the
conversation that we tend to perform the worst in. We all want to become great speakers but
seldom do we practice to become even average listeners. Objectives based communication works
best when we spend a major part of our time in listening and using the information thus collected
to accomplish our objectives. This also gives us an opportunity to not only acknowledge and
resolve the new minute needs which may crop up suddenly and derail the entire discussion but
also helps us in generating the necessary trust which is not only critical but essential in any form
of communication.

4. Be Honest;
- Now honesty just like integrity is a precious virtue and a lot of people lack it. A lot of us are
willing to go to any extent to become successful, however even a little compromise on our
integrity and honesty will not only sabotage all our conversations but will also create constant
suspicion in the mind of other people about trusting others too and unfortunately this lack of
trust and honesty ultimately can derail any possible frank interaction amongst human beings.
We can achieve short term success by cheating people, however if we wish to and want to
achieve long term success and greatness, it can only be achieved with an honest attitude towards
our-self and everyone we interact with. This may also involve stating our objectives clearly in the
beginning itself and spelling out how it benefits both the parties involved.

5. Being Optimistic and Empathetic;

- These two values and skills go hand in hand. When we are in a dialogue with someone, we
cannot suddenly become optimistic or empathetic; this has to be a part of our character and
constant nurturing can only help it develop into a long lasting habit which will be one of the keys
to become an accomplished communicator. A simple analogy would be the movies. We all know
the people in the movies are actors and it is an imaginary world and not a reality, however we
still crave for a happy ending. We also want all these actors to act with sincerity and dedication.
Even a slight dip in any of this is felt by us and we tend to reject such movies. This all happens
because of the presence of empathy in us and happy ending is craved by all optimistic souls. So, if
we expect all this in a short 120 minutes movie, we definitely expect it in our lifelong
conversations too. Both optimism and empathy should be the souls of our conversations.

These are just the basic five steps or mantras we can use as a part of our daily routine to have more
effective conversations. As we continue to use these tools and learning’s we will definitely see a gradual
change in the way we converse with others and they too will be able to see the honesty and integrity of
our conversation which will help us in positively influencing them to achieve better results.

One more thing I would like to add over here which I sincerely believe is not only a critical part of any
conversation but of our life; the presence of smile on our face. The more we have the better it is and the
more effective we will become.

So keep smiling.

I would love to hear your feedback on this article and invite your suggestions and criticism. Also, if you
would like to share your own experiences, I would be ecstatic to read and receive them. I can be reached
at – deepaksharmahere@gmail.com