Communication Roadblocks
I've always been curious about communication. My favourite quote is "The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion it has taken place." I use this on my signature block at work because 95% of my job is about communication. All of my jobs or roles: Theurapeutic Healthcare Yoga Instructor, Senior Manager in IT, Peer to Peer Worker, Author, wife, mother, sister, daughter.
Roadblocks One and Two: Cultural and Gender
I was also born and raised in the Netherlands. We have a completely different way of communicating than in North America. It's not better or worse, it is just different. Dutch people are direct. We try not to confuse people by being coy or softening words to maybe tell you that it's time you stopped being a sexist jerk. We state it outright. I know that's weird in North America where women have been told not to say bad things about someone even if they are being ignorant. Bite your tongue, smile, and seethe with rage inside instead. Yes, I am generalizing. And this is where emotion and communication fit in.
In essence, biting your tongue is the typical female reaction to being hit on, patronized, or marginalized. I cannot speak for men because I have not been one in this lifetime, however, I do understand the frustration of asking a person 'What's wrong', and being met with 'Nothing' and end up being in a silent rage hurricane, and not knowing why. For women, this is a defence mechanism or a passive aggressive response in order not to turn a potential harmless situation into a violent one.
Violence is a part of our daily lives. You just need to read the paper to know that; the leading cause of death of pregnant women is being murdered by their partner (2001 Isabelle Horon, PhD Maryland Dept of Health and Hygeine, Journal of the American Medical Association); a Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women in Canada report from Statistics Canada states that Aboriginal women are more likely to die violent deaths, and homicide rates were six times higher than non-Aboriginal women; women are four times as likely to be a victim of homicide by partner than their male counterparts (Stats Canada). So get it. I understand the reluctance of some women not to speak up, to appear to 'get' the joke and laugh about misogyny, to walk away rather than say what they want. That is one issue with communication. The silence. The building up of anger over being manipulated or being told we are too emotional or too sensitive, or we can't take a joke. Fortunately, as women age, we lose our filters.
But even in a non-violent situation at work studies have found that when women are in a group with men, they will typically not say anything or, if they do speak, are not heard. I used to call that talking in my girl voice again because it happened so often. Working in a male dominant environment, this will only get you pushed around. I saw that first hand when I had a young woman working for me who was meek and soft spoken. She was placed in more and more situations where work was forced upon her and she took it, even though it stressed her and she felt guilty for taking sick days or vacation time. She would work overtime and not tell me because she was not capable of doing everything she was told she had to do because of changing work structure. When I tried to intervene, she would become upset and claim I wasn't being nice or that I was mean. When I tried to understand her work load I was never given a straight answer.
Roadblock Three: Introversion Verses Extroversion
I am an introvert. Always have been. People suck the life out of me. I prefer the quiet, one-on-one deep discussions over meaningless prater and group events drain me completely. Weird, I know! Looking at my non-conformist standard of dress, hair colour and sense of humour, you would think I was a screaming Extrovert. But nope. I'm not. I am an INTJ for those of you that use Myers Briggs, part of the .08% of the female population. I'm a logical thinker, analyzer, like to ponder the ways of the world in solitude while drinking organic tea. You people that know me now can stop laughing. I am also super goofy (check out Facebook pix) and I see the world differently than most. I have studied human nature for almost five decades, up close and personal. And I've seen and dealt with many situations that most of the adult population never encounter.
As my son and I were driving home today we listened to "QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Very cool book if you are an Introvert in an Extravert world. I won't spoil it for you, but being an Introvert is pretty awesome and we make terrific leaders. We had a great discussion about communication. He is an autistic person. Communication is tough for him. I remember him as a child and he would never use the word 'I' because 'eye' sounded the same, but they couldn't have two different meanings. English language problems.....
From studying communication, people can become silent when they feel unheard or they can lash out. I used to stay silent and get angry, then become sarcastic (lashing out). I did not really understand why I was not understood. I would try to be as clear as possible, using as many or as few words as possible, and things would still go sideways. Then I would try and analyze where the train went off the rails.
Now, I read as many books as I can about communication and what can happen when communication doesn't happen. The results are not pretty; health decreases, productivity drops, turnover rates increase, the cost of doing business increases having to re-do jobs or projects, morale drops, people become sensitive and hoard information, gossip, and all sorts of angry beasts show up. It can happen as quick as a backdraft in a fire. One wrong word, phrase or look can turn a conversation from productive to destructive.
Roadblock Four: Being on the Spectrum of Autism.
Being a person with autism is incredibly difficult in terms of communication and emotion. As you can guess, not being able to read social cues, facial expressions, or understand sarcasm, can make someone a little gun shy when dealing with people. I am going to post my son's view on communication, with his permission.
How to Express Emotion and How Others Express Emotion by A.F.
I begin with this statement: I'm not good with emotion; I have extreme difficulty interpreting how I feel and interpreting how others feel. I never really know how my friends feel about me on any given day. I never know, without an outright statement, how others feel. I'm completely clueless, so I use a "best guess" mind set: people don't friend people they hate.
The dominate emotion I have is anger. That's the first emotion I feel when overwhelmed or scared. It's the "natural" mindset when cast into a new situation. Fear is a distant second. When I feel myself getting angry or when I am, I think to myself: "what is the actual emotion that I feel right now?" And "what is the cause of my anger?" And then I stop and think about these two things. I'll follow the strand of thought that makes me so upset and try to figure out the source of it.
Normally I get angry because I'm frustrated. This is usually where following that strand of thought takes me. I get angry because I can't stay long when I'm with a group of friends. I become withdrawn, more analytical and less humorous. This is an introversion thing. I cant change that. This is a classical source of frustration and therefore, anger, for me.
One of the first introspective journeys lead me to this conclusion. I would like to stay longer with groups of friends, to stay open and humorous. I used to, and I suppose, still do, become moody, sad, or depressed towards the end of our activity. But since I started thinking along these likes "what is the actual emotion that I feel right now" I can state outright: "Hey, I think I need to go now, I'm getting pretty tired" and that helps mitigate these feelings of frustration.
Knowing that anger is my dominant emotion and that frustration is a cause of anger, I have taken these steps to decrease the amount I feel in daily life. I feel like I am much happier as a result and have developed an positive outlook over all. I prefer this over being moody all the time.
Other feelings are much harder for me to analyze in this fashion. I never really know how I feel about my friends or if I have more intimate feelings for another person. These feelings never exist in isolation of each other. This makes if difficult for me to talk about these matters with other people or that person I like. I simply just don't know.
I feel: anger, frustration, closeness, kindness, belonging, isolation, confusion, when I sit and think about a person I think I like. This emotional fog is persistent and prevents me from talking about anything, I just label it all as confusion and assume friendship and carry on.
How I think others feel about me: annoyance, clinginess, friendly, kind, selfish, controlling, intelligent, dim witted; again, another patch of emotional fog.
I like knowing what's going on before I take action. I don't like being caught off guard by an unknown variable, I like clear and concise planning for everything. I know this is where I get labeled as controlling. But you can always tell me exactly what to do when to do it and why, and I'll be fine too. Basically, I like either being in control of what's going on or being controlled by someone else with respect to what's going on.
I am not selfish, I'm oblivious and absentminded. A selfish person knows the thoughts, feelings and expectations of others but chooses to ignore them. An oblivious person doesn't know the thoughts, feelings and expectations of others to begin with, and there for they act in their own interests or will act with what they think are the interests of others
I don't think people are bad and I don't hold grudges. But there are people who I will avoid because they make me feel angry or they are negative to be around. Other people's emotional state will influence mine, so if someone is negative it will effect me.
In social situations and out in public I look to others for how to feel. I take my emotional queues from the people I'm with. This way I don't need to constantly think about what the heck is going on, who all these people are or if I should feel threatened. If you're relaxed I'm relaxed. This is pretty much how I've gone out my entire life, always with a friend or loved one by my side. I think I've gone out alone maybe 10 times in 20 years. Most of that is buying me food that I need (which I can do because its getting food from the local Extra Foods place)
Overall, I have made the decision to be happy in daily life, which I say literally. Happiness does not come to me, its something that I choose to be. I choose to be around people that make me happy over all. I choose to make these people happy, I choose happy media; songs, TV shows, YouTube series, books etc. Being happy is the way in which I will live my life.
The only way this is possible is to identify how my own emotions work, figuring out what the cause of my frustrating and anger are. Then addressing these root causes and resolving them and finally choosing to be happy once that's satisfied.
This was based from a conversation I had with Malina at the lake.
Conclusion
It's no wonder we are in a state of constant stress and are exhausted at the end of a work day. The emotional toll of miscommunication makes it hard to enjoy your job, or your life, not to mention the cost of business and productivity.
How well do you communicate? Do you think you are effective? Do you understand the impact of your communication skills and how it sets the tone for your marriage? What about in the workplace? Do you know how to listen? Interpret? Are you getting all of the information you need in order to make a decision? Are you interpreting the information in the way it was intended, or are you filling in the gaps with guesses and judgement?
Wherever you are, we all need to understand and be understood.
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