For more than one hour, the argument continued. Each of the two boys wanted an orange. The only problem was that there was only one orange to be had. Just before they got to the point of exchanging fisticuffs, an adult showed up and asked what the problem was. Each of the boys went to great lengths to explain their positions.
“I am older than he,” said the bigger boy. “Besides, I was the first to say that I wanted the orange”
“That is how he always takes advantage of me every time using his age as a weapon. This time, I will not agree. I also want the whole orange,” retorted the younger boy.
Eager to resolve the problem, the adult offered them a compromise solution. How about splitting the orange in two? The boys agreed and the orange was promptly split in two with each of the boys having half. The younger boy wasted no time in eating the fruit of his own half and throwing away the peel. Meanwhile, the elder boy peeled his own orange, threw away the fruit and used the peel to bake a pie!
As it turned out, if each of the two of them had actually taken the pains to understand what the intention of the other was, they each could have had the whole orange with one having all the fruit and the other having the entire peel!
On the 4th of November 1979, during the Islamic Revolution, some Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 embassy staff hostage in a siege that lasted for 444 days. In early 1980, Kurt Waldheim, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations went to Iran with the aim of negotiating the release of the hostages. On arrival in Tehran, he made a remark, “I am here as a mediator to work out a compromise”. No sooner had that statement hit the airwaves of Iranian media, Kurt Waldheim’s convoy was being pelted with stones by ordinary Iranians.
What went wrong? How could a cause so noble be met with such hostility? The word “compromise” implies a middle-of-the-road solution that everyone in a conflict can live with. However, in some languages, especially in Persian cultures, the meaning is negative and implies a cowardly yielding of ground to an adversary or an abandonment of integrity. In contemporary English, the word “mediator” means an intermediary or go-between serving the interests of everyone in a conflict. However, in the Persian contexts, the word is interpreted to mean a busybody or meddlesome interloper!
When his house caught fire, the university lecturer was perplexed. But he had enough presence of mind to dial the Fire Service. When the call was picked at the other end, he shouted into the receiver, “I believe I am on to the incendiary matters department. I want to report that a conflagration of insidious magnitude is consuming my domicile. Please come and give succour”. Not understanding a word that was said by the desperate don, the person at the other end was convinced that someone was playing pranks, so he dropped the call. A few moments later, as the fire raged unabated, the don called again and used no less bombastic language. He got the same reaction he got earlier. By the time he called the third time and said, “I need help. My house is on fire”, the fire had done incalculable damage. Before the fire fighters arrived, the house was already a heap of rubble!
Communication is an essential aspect of human interactions and those who have mastered the art of effective communication have greater chances of getting what they want in life. To be effective, communication takes into account three essential factors; a message which is the code of information being transmitted, a transmitter and a receiver. Of these three factors, the receiver is the most important. Simply put, it is not so much about what is said or who said it as it is about what is heard or understood! Very often, as we have seen from the stories above, what is perceived is miles apart from what was intended.
People respond to every message, not by the words spoken but by the meanings they attach to those words. Suffice it to say however that communication can be verbal or non-verbal. Between seventy to ninety percent of all communication is non-verbal. What this implies is that while we speak words, people are also interpreting what we are saying by our facial expressions, gesticulations, intonation, pitch, body movement etc. Consequently, the words “Good morning” can sometimes mean more than a mere well-intentioned greeting! So, more often than not, we look at people in the face when they are talking to us because what they are saying may not exactly be what we are interpreting from their expressions.
There are three major problems in communication. Have you heard two people in a shouting match? Did you think that anyone of them could actually make sense of what the other was saying? In such a scenario, both parties are simply playing to the gallery and are either trying to outshout each other or are speaking to garner the sympathy of bystanders! Neither of them is talking for the other party to understand, no matter who shouts the louder of the two!
The second challenge is when there is a misunderstanding and thus a misinterpretation of the message as in the case of the Iranian hostage scenario. Connotations differ from culture to culture and with such differences comes the problem of interpretation. A boy calling a full-grown man by his first name and stretching out a hand for a handshake with someone old enough to be his father with a “Hi” greeting may be norm in a Western society but it is a no-no in Africa because such is considered a gross insult and a reflection of an uncultured upbringing! If you spoke French to someone who did not understand the language, he hears words but cannot decipher what is being said.
The third challenge occurs when one is talking and the other party is not listening to understand or is not seen to be listening at all. Have you found yourself in conversation with someone who hardly looks at you but spends most of the time fiddling with his phone or replying to chats on it? Or you are on the phone with someone talking about something you consider important while they suddenly blank out while you are wondering if the line had been cut off, only to discover later that they were in a supermarket trying to pay for their purchases while they were encouraging you to keep talking? Ask them what you said thereafter and they can hardly remember anything significant from what you thought was an important conversation!
Communication only takes place when the transmitter of a message can effectively connect it to the inner eye or understanding of the receiver. We hear words but understand in pictures. If you cannot effectively paint a picture with what you say, don’t blame the man who cannot ‘see’ what you are saying!
Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
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