Quotes About Communication

The danger of total propaganda is not that propaganda will be believed. The danger is that nothing will be believed and that every communication becomes suspect. In the end, no communication is being recieved anymore. Everything anyone says is considered a demand and is resisted, resented, and in effect not heard at all. The end results of total propaganda are not fanatics, but cynics - but this, of course, may be even greater and more dangerous corruption. (p. 20)

But above all, meetings have to be the exception rather than the rule. An organization in which everybody meets all the time is an organization in which no one gets anything done.

It is incumbent on the people who work with them to observe them, to find out how they work, and to adapt themselves to what makes their bosses most effective. This, in fact, is the secret of "managing" the boss.

The basic problem with the computer in business is not that computer technicians do not understand the managers' needs. It is that the managers do not take the time and trouble to think through their needs and to communicate them to the computer people.6 How the computer people satisfy the needs of the manager is their business. What the needs are is the manager's business. To expect the computer people to define the information needs of the managers is abdication.

Indeed, everyone familiar with business today has seen situations in which a manager's attempt to avoid misdirection through changing his manners has converted a fairly satisfactory relationship into a nightmare of embarrassment and misunderstanding. The manager himself becomes so self-conscious as to lose all easy relationship with his men. And the men in turn react with: "So help us, the old man has read a book; we used to know what he wanted of us, now ,we have to guess.

A decision has not been made until people know: • the name of the person accountable for carrying it out; • the deadline; • the names of the people who will be affected by the decision and therefore have to know about, understand, and approve it—or at least not be strongly opposed to it; and • the names of the people who have to be informed of the decision, even if they are not directly affected by it.

The Functions of the Executive, that organizations are held together by information rather than by ownership or command.

Good follow-up is just as important as the meeting itself.

Even a conversation with only one other person is a meeting. Hence, if they are to be effective, executives must make meetings productive.

Make meetings productive

Listen first, speak last.

They asked, "What needs to be done?" • They asked, "What is right for the enterprise?" • They developed action plans. • They took responsibility for decisions. • They took responsibility for communicating. • They were focused on opportunities rather than problems. • They ran productive meetings. • They thought and said "we" rather than "I.

German greeting

Nancy took her tiny little baby and held him down toward Norton. Look Norton, she said, This is a baby. Norton looked up at Charlie, took him in, and sort of nodded as if assimilating the information. There was a very long pause, and then I heard Nancy gulp. You've finally done it, she said to me. What? I wanted to know. Most mothers would have said, 'Look, Charlie, this is a cat.' I started to laugh. Not with Norton, I said.

Inner speech seems to be an important part of System 2 thinking.

speech has a role in what is now called executive control.

Legs and fins don't necessarily show that one animal was interacting with others. Claws, in contrast, have little ambiguity.

Once the same chemicals are being sensed and produced, there is the possibility of coordination between cells. We have reached the birth of social behavior.

the window for hours. He wouldn't talk to anyone. The players whispered that Joe and his first wife, Dorothy, had been dating, trying to get back together

We have to remember that we are not just giving students feedback; we are also teaching them to provide it.

Cheryl: When you don't understand what someone said, remember, it's your job to ask them to explain.

When you added dialogue to your piece, I really understood how Amy [the character] felt." This is not so much praise as a causal statement—you did this [added dialogue], with this consequence [I understood how the character felt]. Causal process statements are at the heart of building agency.

There is no question that "discourse penetrates a fair way into the perceptual system" (Harre and Gillet 1994, p. 169).

Feelings, too, are socialized—we learn what they are, or rather, we acquire meanings for them.