Dr. Stan J. Tharp, MBA

I coined a phrase years ago that I find rings true throughout much of life: “Communication is a strange and wonderful thing.” I usually say it when once again, I’m reminded that I’m not the perfect sender or receiver of messages, nor is the person I’m talking with.

Whether it be in your home, marriage, workplace, church, sports league, neighborhood…what we say, what we mean, what they heard, and how they reacted is always a very fluid process. When communication goes well, life is good; but when misunderstandings or miscues happen, wow, it can be a mess.

I’ve presented some workshops on communication lately that reminded me of the importance of communicating well at work. I spoke to some very different organizations. One was an international company in the energy industry, one was a non-profit that provides care services for cancer patients, and the other was a church leadership team.

What do they all have in common? Probably something you deal with too…good communication takes intentionality. Good communication doesn’t just happen, and the more difficult the message, the more reluctant we are to express it.

I shared some of Joesph Grenny’s work on “Crucial Conversations.” (His work available on YouTube and podcasts is worth your time.) One phrase he says about tough conversations applies to every relationship of our lives when it comes to tough talks: “Talk it out or Act it out.”

We tend to shy away from telling people what we fear they don’t want to hear or won’t hear in a good way. We stress about confronting people with tough issues. When it is a tough truth, we hesitate to say it, even though the best path is “speak the truth in love.”

Grenny reminds us that we don’t have much choice but to get good at having the hard talks. If you don’t say it , chances are high that you will internalize the issue/stress…but it doesn’t stop there. That tension will likely leak out in some behavior or attitude. Hence, talk it out, or act it out...perhaps you act it out with the silent treatment, or passive aggressive resistance, or instead of talking it out, you gossip it out with someone other than the person who needs the talk.

Regardless of the way you avoid the tough conversations, re-think your approach, and resolve to model compassionate, intentional, difficult conversations even when the subject matter is challenging. You can help shape the communication culture in your workplace, your home, your neighborhood…etc. and we’ll all be better for it.