Those who had experienced the pains of failed communications are pushed by the situation to search — with their brains, with their alternating mix of anger and despair, and with their souls — for answers to the pregnant KM question “What went wrong and why?”
- Was there failure in listening?
- Were assumptions different, and each side thinks he or she is right and the other is wrong?
- Were one or both sides unwitting and unconscious victims of their own assumptions?
- Concepts, values, standards, judgments and expectations replaced reality checks?
- Was there no acceptance and respect?
- One or both sides were governed by their long-ingrained habits of automatic unthinking defensive reactions?
- Anger controlled the person, instead of the person having controlled the anger?
- Communication boundaries were not announced, or if they were announced, the other side failed to hear it correctly, or if was heard correctly, the other side refused to respect it?
- Transparency was lacking from one or both sides?
- Memories from the past about a person or an idea or mental model of a person weighed more heavily than the present reality, the person you are talking with now?
- There was sheer incompetence in how to communicate?
- Was goodwill, or at least respect, absent?
- One or both sides does not truly look within himself or herself?
- An agenda, conscious or unconscious, drives communication behavior, and the other side senses it and resists it?
- Etc. etc.?
Failure is a source of energy. How to use this energy is our choice.
Most millionaires have experienced failures. Masters of life have risen from many failures. The energy from failure can be channeled to spur greater learning. Barbra Streisand, in her song “Lessons to be Learned” sang:
- “There are no mistakes, just lessons to be learned.”
Harvard Professor David Bohm and Mark Edwards, in their book “Changing Consciousness: Exploring the Hidden Source of the Social, Political, and Environmental Crises Facing Our World,” said
- “Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or to conform to those of others and without distortion and self deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture?”
DAVID BOHM
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Tags: anger management, Barbra Streisand, communication agenda, communication boundary, communication failure, conscious living, David Bohm, energy, expectations, internal listening, judgment, knowledge management, listening, Mark Edwards, mental models, personal KM, personal knowledge management, respect, standards, transparency, values
