Communicating with 'the others'

So you’re having a hard time communicating with colleagues who are the same project with you.

Or you don’t know how where to begin with a ‘problem employee’.

Or you are working on ‘confronting’ people, but the exchange runs flat.

Let me introduce you to a work titled “The Courage to Teach” (Palmer, 1999) in which Palmer understands there is a gap when people over ‘here’ cannot connect, or communicate properly, with people over ‘there’. (Palmer, pg.7).

Now, for context, it is important to note that Palmer is interested in social movements - and writing about what prompts and ignites a social movement amongst the masses.

However, I read his work with a different perspective. I read it to understand how people think, why people act, and how people communicate in difficult and different situations.

“What happens in a movement is that people abandon the logic of organizations in order to find a new center for their lives so that they can return to alter the logic of organizations” (Palmer, 1999, pg. 8).

Last week I conducted a seminar with individuals who are eager to learn more about civil communication, who are frustrated with the lack of participation in the outside world, and who are confused about how to be the facilitator of this new practice.

In other words - the people over ‘here’ (in the room I was in) were trying to understand people over ‘there’ (the outside world) and that was frustrating and confusing for them.

I spoke about the fact that everyone sees communication as the skill of the century but that I believe communication has become an arbitrary word.

I am on a mission to redefine civil communication.

Civil communication is communicating productively. Period.

“Civil speech is engaging in ethical discussions in difficult situations” (Cloud, 2009).

Civil Communication is understanding that we all come from different backgrounds, different cultures, different households, different experiences. Civil Communication is suspending judgement while exchanging ideas. Civil Communication goes beyond the notion of being polite as it values another individual’s humanity. Civil Communication is listening not to respond, but to be challenged (Arnston, 2019).

It is hard - and it is new - but it is what makes our workplace, and our communities, a better and more productive place.

References -

+ Lozano-Reich, N.M., & Cloud, D. L (2009) The uncivil tongue: Invitational rhetoric and the problem of inequality, Western Journal of Communication, 73:2, 220-226.

+ Palmer, P. J. (1999). The courage to teach. College Composition and Communication, 51(1), 135. doi:10.2307/35897