BOOK
HOW TO COMMUNICATE
by Jackie Mackay
INTRODUCTION
This interview on BlogTalkRadio is an audio introduction in 15 minutes.
Original Air Date:
8 Steps Towards Perfect Communication
“The source of all conflict and the key to its solution lies in
Communication.” Join us this week with Jackie Mackay, author of “How to Communicate” as she leads us through the eight steps towards improved interaction and understanding with others. Find out how you can polish communication skills to get your message heard and become a more powerful voice in your home, office, and in the world”. – Marshall Zale
Can communication change the world? Yes. Seriously. This is a course, a system that is so simple that it takes maybe a half hour to understand and after that it is only a matter of application preferably on a daily basis. Could this book therefore change the world?
Really. Imagine perfect crisp warm highly effective communications behind negotiations, woven into documents of all kinds. Small imperceptible changes can effectively permeate the general tone. It’s already happening in the TED lectures many of which could be even better. (critique of selected TED talks could easily be an exercise on this course).
Imagine the Word powerful and effective starting tp proliferate in all media Could it enrich the net? even stop wars – yes let’s shoot for the stars.
It started when I wrote it all down and created the exercises for Kasia a friend from Poland who asked me to speak to her more so that she could learn the way I spoke English. With her permission I was able to correct words and phrases in the moment as she spoke. She spoke quite prettily and sweetly and I hoped she would retain her way of talking, – I enjoyed her style.
A we progressed – spending time together and chatting on the phone found that that she was relatively free of having a language problem – she picked up the corrections well enough, thus improving her English.
There was something else that made her feel her progress was stalling.
There were certain elements habitually missing from her communication.
As she knew English better she was starting to realise her difficulty in getting her point over in English the first time she said it. This resulted in a tendency to say it several times which in itself was slowing her down. People who do not feel heard tend to repeat themselves – sometimes insistently, even excitedly because they seek to communicate forever feeling just about to do it. They believe they have to try harder.
I was taught the 8 points of communication in a seminar and it is my experience of using it and applying it that has caused me to pass it on to Kasia. It assists us to observe the merest difference in intonation, emphasis, grammar and so forth.
The eight elements in communicating explore big concepts through examples, conversations and exercises.
This a course on a system that is very effective and will be more so if you pursue it through. Questions and observations, stories and comments are best shared on the So Act! social action network. The software gives a superior ability to interact effectively as a group.
Course work includes posting comments for public or private feedback on So Act ! Anyone on the course can post a video, essay or written speech to be published on this site as a post.
Here’s the story of how I came across the 8 points of communication.
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“Communication is sending an idea across space to a receiving point. That’s the form”. Said the teacher evenly and easily.
When I heard this definition for the first time I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. I was third row back at a seminar, sitting next to an intelligent man. I knew that, because he had something to say about everything. I glanced at him as he was glancing at the ceiling with a barely perceptible shake of his head. It appeared to me that he disagreed with the speaker. I determined to ask him why in the break. We made out way to the water table.
“Too simple” he said… ”or should I say simplistic?” But I wasn’t listening - My eyes were wandering around the room while he was talking to himself, without knowing that I was politely waiting for him to finish his 9th point. I learned from the introduction of the lecture because I saw straight away that this was more of a monologue than a communication in the first place. He felt to me as though this was a distinct case of autopilot we had been talking about just earlier..
While we drank water he squared his shoulders to mine and looked me in the eye .
“You have to understand “ he said “That communication is merely a series of processes of information transmission governed by the srructure of sign language, so communication, being a social interaction, is where one or more interacting agents (the emisors and the destinations) share a common set of signs and semiotic rules which override autocommunication and rely more on
intrapersonal diaries or self-talk, though they are normally secondary phenomena following the primary communicative competences that arise from social interactions”.
He reminded me of Dickens who could fill half a page of a book with one sentence. I felt it would only be polite to respond.
“What’s an emisor?” I asked. His eyes shot up to the ceiling again.
“an emisor is the sender who encodes the message so you could call him the encoder if you like, and he transmits to a destination or destinations who is the receiver or the decoder. You see the emisor and the destinations are – and here it can get quite complex - they are all linked reciprocally” He paused for a quick deep breath and continued talking urgently while we found our way back to our chairs.
“What we are doing now is called a ‘speech act’. The emisors personal filters and the destination’s personal filters obviously differ to some extent depending upon discrete regional traditions, cultures, age, peer groups or gender; which may alter the intended meaning of message contents”.
I silently determined to make my escape earlier from any more speech acts afterwords. Even so, during the talk I had to notice every point of disagreement being transmitted wordlessly by our emisor in the next chair. He wanted us to know that he had opinions of his own. His communication albeit wordless needed no decoding at all.
The trainer continued with the contex He said
“ The essence of communication is a feeling of being validated and affirmed.” He paused and looked around the room at the bemused faces – including mine. He went on to explain
“That’s how you know if the communication has worked. This is how to tell if it’s worked. This means that when a sound communication happens between you and someone else, it validates and affirms both of you together – you can feel it – in fact you can tell.”
My neighbor’s hand shot up.
“ Well supposing the person is putting over a disagreeable idea – how can you feel validated and affirmed?…. which is an agreeable feeling is it not?”. The trainer said,
“What a good point – a nice feeling and a bad message don’t logically go together do they? Consider this example. You may at some time have clearly said something that didn’t make sense to the other person. Now you know that all the things you said were perfectly correct , individually validated by scholarly works that you personally read from a source you trusted. – Tell me John has this ever happened to you?” John nodded enthusiastically so the trainer continued,
“So, knowing you are right – yet they are confused, the communication has missed it’s mark wouldn’t you say?”
“Of course it has” said John “It feels very uncomfortable when that happens.”
“Then do you believe that the feeling of discomfort was because the thing you were getting across contained unwelcome news?”
John answered
“If your statement is correct it should not matter if the news was good bad or indifferent – we should all be feeling validated and affirmed. After all nobody likes being opposed or criticised and however well you do it you can’t get through the cultural conditioning – or can you?” The trainer waited and said nothing for a second or two.
“Are you asking me a question John? I heard the point about how you should be feeling, I heard the point about being opposed or criticised (two very different things in themselves). I heard the point about cultural conditioning. So what would you like me to answer?”
John was silent for just long enough for the trainer to add -
“John you have illustrated the first thing we are going to cover this evening about communication. Excuse me if we all move straight on to it” John sat down with a small smile beginning to form on his face. I was delighted – remembering my conversation with John, I felt like an insider and validated AND affirmed.
This converstion with an intelligent man showed me then and there that something was wrong there. He was so passionate about communication to the extent that he had learned a lot and wanted to express it.
I thought about the man in the seminar as another teacher of the principles being discussed. So is everyone you listen to.
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Doing What Comes Naturally
Like anything we do naturally - walking, loving and breathing – as soon as analysts get busy the excess of words belie the meaning. Analysis usually leads to paralysis, it really does – however understanding helps.
It was not easy putting it into practice – maybe the original authors were ahead of their time. My fascination with communication, information and meaning led me to observe that the majority of communications miss the mark – even in writing.
I have seen how one missed mark can breed others.. I have seen how reckless rambling, monologues, and even quips cloaked as humour can pollute the atmosphere leaving little meaning behind in a turbulent wake of a whole lot of talking.
I understand completely how hard it is to form new habits. Have those who slouch, ever tried to mantain a perfect posture for longer than a few minutes? The Victorians strapped on shoulder braces to sort out their posture. They seldom worked either.
In this book I aim to clear up some misconceptions about what
communication is and how improving it can make a profund difference to anyone’s life. As a multitude of diffrent races and cultures are mingling and working together the time is ripe to perfect the art of communication. It is easy if you want to.
This book is intended to bring communication up to date and to offer insights as to what goes wrong and how to get it right.
As a tiny child I spent much of my time with ‘babysitters’ families in compounds in Africa. I loved it. People listened to my every word and I was mostly the centre of attention for the whole morning until rest time. There was a lot of laughter which I was used to also from my own parents – Without a hint of mocking – it was the laughter of joy.
I remember two big people squatting down to be at my level and talking to me. One of them would say something and I had to tell the other one what he said. To me it was a game. Another game was telling them the word for certain objects. Often I did not know and had to ask my parents when I got home.
These word games may have given me my interest in communication. I was equally at home with the various dialects and understood and imitated the words.
In retrospect realise I was translating without knowing that I was learning to be multilingual. When I played with the children I played in African. Even now I seldom have a problem hearing and undersstanding some pretty obscure dialects from different parts of England and Scotland.
In the aspects that we cover, there is a timeline and a sequence however the order of the points is hardly based on importance. Each of them could be the most important. That’s why, when only one of the points is missing the communication misses the mark.
The thing about communication. is – It can so easily miss the mark.
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The first chapter starts with the first element in communicating – the IDEA.
I want to fill the book with beautiful illustrations and diagrams and symbols – that comes later though. Now it’s much better to use your own imagination – influenced by the most fascinating mind of all – your own.
Thus you can read yourself and change your mind and command your thoughts any which way you want. Now that’s freedom.
I can’t do it properly yet myself. I want to end the prologue with a story.
I once lived in the country. About a mile or so away was the village shop up a gentle incline and then up a hill.
I took the bike and was a third of the way when I was overtaken by my neighbour Mrs Man. She was old and bent and looked even frail. She glided easily past me with a cheerful wave.
I watched as she continued up the steep bit without slowing down. I asked her the next morning over our cup of tea at eleven.
‘Please tell Mrs Man how do you do it?’ She answered
“I’ve done it all my life – tell me how many times have you cycled up that hill? ”
“Three or four times” she nodded sagely
“Do it every day for a few months and we can ride up side by side” She smiled – more tea dear?”
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