12 Improve your Communication Skills
As
managers, we tend to focus on action as the reason for
communicating. Yet, as
people, we usually communicate for
quite another reason. And here is a vital clue to explain why
communication in organisations so often goes wrong.
Relationship: the big issue of small talk
The first and most important reason
for communicating is to
build relationships with other people. Recent research
(commissioned from the Social Issues Research Centre by British
Telecom) suggests that about two thirds of our conversation time
is entirely devoted to social topics:
personal relationships; who is
doing what with whom; who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’, and why.
There must be a good reason for that.
According to psychologist Robin Dunbar,
language evolved
as the human equivalent of grooming, the primary means of
social bonding among other primates. As social groups among
humans became larger (the average human network is about 150,
Relationship
Information
Action
Figure 1.4
The three
levels of understanding
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.
13 What is Communication?
compared to groups of about 50 among other primates), we
needed a less time-consuming form of social interaction. We
invented language as a way to square the circle. In Dunbar’s
words: ‘language evolved to allow us to gossip’ (
Grooming,
Gossip and the Evolution of Language
, Faber and Faber, London,
1996).
Gossip is good for us. It tells us
where we sit in the social
network. And that makes us relax. Physical grooming stimulates
production of endorphins – the body’s natural painkilling
opiates – reducing heart rate and lowering stress. Gossip
probably has a similar effect. In fact,
the research suggests that
gossip is essential to our social, psychological and physical
well-being.
We ignore this fundamental quality of conversation at our
peril. If we fail to establish
a relaxed relationship, everything else
in the conversation will become more difficult.
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