We will always be talking about communication because it is an inescapable part of working with other people. We are forced to get our message across, or interpret someone else’s message through a fog of imprecise language, dialect, body language, tone of voice, eye contact and various layers of cultural norms . Just this week, Fran and I were talking about an all day session that we facilitated and how we could have made it more effective. Several times during the day we had to give directions to groups of people. We vocalized the directions, reviewed them using graphics and words on a flip chart, gave examples, used printed materials, worked with small groups one-on-one and discovered that one or two people still completely misinterpreted our meaning. The answer is persistence and vigilance. Communication is difficult and any process must have feedback loops to improve the message and check the interpretation.

This issue has a great deal of information about how to improve communication, we encourage you to try some of these ideas and tell us your experiences. —Art Boulay, Editor. Email Art.