Better Conversations Create Better Relationships
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Maureen_C_Collins]Maureen C Collins
Summary
The diverse, democratic societies of today require communication that is more thoughtful, tolerant of difference and open to negotiated solutions. Communications technology has got smarter, but our communication is less effective than ever.
In Business Day, 25 January 2012, Bobby Godsell writes that successful societies in the 21st century need rapid and sustained economic growth, combined with effective social cohesion. This is true wealth, unlike the wealth that took us into the economic implosion of 2008/9.
Social cohesion starts with individuals and the way they relate to each other.
Personal success used to come from being clever, being right, and being able to push others to agree with your point of view or action plan. In families, social groups, organizations and governments, people used power and control to get things done. There was little real personal or social cohesion. When you’ve got power, you don’t have to worry too much about creating it.
It doesn’t work like that any longer: today, no-one can have it all their own way. Today’s society is democratic, as well as socially and culturally diverse. The most successful people will be those who are able to find common goals and help people listen openly to various points of view; then negotiate solutions and obtain real commitment to action.
The stakes are high; the potential for at best, disagreement and at worst outright conflict, is enormous. If ever we needed all the emotional intelligence we can muster, it is now. Good relationships are vital; between individuals, within groups, and across continents. It’s not to say that having personal characteristics such as intelligence, technical ability, creativity, and perseverance are unimportant. They still matter. What is undeniable is that the effectiveness with which we are able to apply these characteristics depends more and more on how well we build relationships and work with others.
Relationships are built conversation by conversation. They take place between individuals, often in groups, increasingly in writing. The quality of the conversations determines the quality of the relationships.
You would think that as communications technology gets better and faster the quality of our communication would improve. In practice it seems to be having the opposite effect. We’re becoming more adept at uploading, messaging, networking and typing with our thumbs. But while we communicate more widely, we do so less thoughtfully. We use electronic mail and messaging instead of taking time to meet with people. And there’s so much of it, often going on simultaneously, that almost nothing gets our full attention.
It’s no better when it comes to the content of what we communicate. We continue to cling to old familiar styles. We go into conversations knowing that we know what is going on, what is right, what is wrong, and what we want other people to do to fix it. We tune out or shut down the contrary opinions of others and then use persuasion, power, and if necessary threats, to get our own way.
The outcomes are predictable. Arguments become endless, but they resolve nothing and relationships are damaged. Eventually, people shut down and opt out. We mistake their compliance for commitment and then wonder why, a little way down the track, we’re back where we started.
If we continue communicating like this, we’ll have even poorer relationships and the notion of a cohesive society will be farther away than ever.
Maureen Collins has a B.Sc. degree in Psychology from Edinburgh University and over 25 years of management and consulting experience in the corporate world. She specialises in communication skills in various contexts: leading and managing, teambuilding, handling change, and performance management. Her consulting practice, Straight Talk, trains people in the skills to handle difficult conversations, on difficult topics, with difficult people.
Read more on http://www.straight-talk.co.za
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Better-Conversations-Create-Better-Relationships&id=6853413] Better Conversations Create Better Relationships
