A fixed-term job, a few months long. On the other side, a contact who was there at the start and then, week after week, a little less. Calls kept slipping, and the messages were full of enthusiasm but never any decisions. I was covered, the contract spelled out the duration and the terms. And yet at some point the problem showed up anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A quick note before going on. The episodes in this post have been transposed, with the sector, the details and the timing changed, because I don\u2019t want anyone to be recognizable. The mechanism, though, is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had taken it for granted that he could feel the time running out too, even when we weren\u2019t meeting. I hadn\u2019t checked whether he understood what that duration meant. One message would have been enough, something like \u201cAt this rate we won\u2019t finish on time. If it suits you better, let\u2019s pause and restart, otherwise we\u2019ll need a few more months and I\u2019d hate that.\u201d I never sent it. Legally I was in the clear, but that \u201cbut\u201d is the real problem, and part of the blame was mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The further I go, the more I study and think, the more I notice how hard it is to communicate well. We\u2019ve talked and written about it before, but here I want to look at one thing. Communication mistakes aren\u2019t all the same, and I see two opposite ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first belongs to people who talk in order to get something. Frustration, speed, sometimes presumption, the idea of convincing at all costs, and often talking instead of listening. I\u2019m not thinking of the self-styled gurus who use rhetoric to manipulate. I\u2019m thinking of people who start out with the best intentions and who, under pressure and without enough clarity to stop and think, keep going convinced they\u2019re doing fine. Maybe they get the result, but at the end of the day, what state are they in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second mistake is mine, taking things for granted and staying silent. In both cases, when you think about it, listening is missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Communicating is the act of putting requests, thoughts and words in front of other people, aloud or in writing. But the message that leaves isn\u2019t the one that arrives, and what arrives builds perception. If we don\u2019t handle it well, a distorted picture forms of us, of our work, of whatever we\u2019re involved in. Asking \u201chow do they see me?\u201d helps more than it seems. Gadamer spoke of a fusion of horizons, the moment when understanding the other person changes how we see things too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started thinking about this in a volunteer association I belong to, where we\u2019re trying to understand why it\u2019s hard to bring in new people. Not every problem is objective or structural. It\u2019s a working hypothesis, but it starts partly from here, from how what we do reaches the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I think of a small town council, again with the details changed. Looking at what has been done, the work is there and it\u2019s well done. And yet people complain, don\u2019t take part, don\u2019t vote. It can be politics, but not always. To me it seems that sometimes it\u2019s communication that doesn\u2019t happen, that comes late, or that when it does come sounds like an excuse. I say \u201cto me it seems\u201d on purpose, because it\u2019s my own perception, and that\u2019s exactly the point. Perception forms even when the data say otherwise. And that\u2019s a shame for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The word rhetoric can make people wince, and I often ask myself whether I\u2019m crossing the line. For me it means care for the listener, choosing how to say something so that the other person can understand it. Cicero is my foundation. Cialdini is the modern appendix, and rereading his six principles I realized I apply most of them, to different degrees and always consciously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before an important conversation I simulate scenarios, questions and answers, so that I have a base even when things go somewhere else. It\u2019s what I call knowing the variables. And when needed I switch approach on the fly, reworking tone and manner for the person in front of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To work out which side I\u2019m on I use two questions. How would I feel receiving that message myself? And am I leading this person toward a shared goal or toward my own advantage? The second is almost Kant, treating the other as an end and never merely as a means. If the answer is my own advantage, for me it\u2019s no longer rhetoric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From mathematics I carry a practical habit, breaking things down. I separate what I said from what arrived, and before that I define the terms, because in mathematics you don\u2019t move forward if two people give different meanings to the same symbol. With everyday words it happens more often than we think, and here Wittgenstein helps, for whom the meaning of a word lies in its use. If the other person and I use it differently, it isn\u2019t the same word for us. I\u2019ve found that out afterwards more than once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It isn\u2019t easy and it isn\u2019t the solution to everything. If I had to name a first step, I\u2019d say listening, so often said and so rarely practiced. With a group of volunteers we\u2019re trying to start from there, in the teams, for a set period. We ask questions, a bit like Socrates, not to lead the other person where I want but to understand where they stand, and for now without judging and without advising. As a second step I\u2019d suggest what has worked for me and what I\u2019m still working on, reading and studying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent weeks, between work and volunteering, I\u2019ve been realizing how much there is to do. In some areas the road is right but long. Talking about it, and hearing whether something different reaches you too, in the channels you know well, would please me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On paper I was covered, and yet the problem showed up anyway. There was a message I had never sent. It made me wonder what communication and perception have in common. Some people talk to convince, others stay silent and take everything for granted, and what lands on the other side shapes the picture people have of us and of our work. <\/p>\n
Can we work on perception by starting from how we communicate?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,112],"tags":[2365,2369,1815,422,2367,1731],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-thoughts","category-pragmatism","tag-activelistening","tag-cicero","tag-communication","tag-perception","tag-rhetoric","tag-volunteering"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}