Quotes About Communication

The biggest problem with communication is the assumption that it has taken place.

No team can communicate successfully without highly developed listening skills among team members. Most experts would agree that listening is the most overlooked and underused component of communication. Although listening comprises about 45 percent of the communication process, we have little or no formal training in this important skill.

Further, we often make the mistake of treating listening as merely waiting for our turn to talk. While other team members are making their points, we're preparing our rebuttal. It takes practice and discipline to withhold the urge to jump in with our opinion and really concentrate on what the other person is saying.

High performance teams have six characteristics that allow them to consistently achieve exceptional levels of results: Common Purpose Crystal Clear Roles Accepted Leadership Effective Processes Solid Relationships Excellent Communication

Groupthink stifles the possibility of suspending one's assumptions. In fact, its whole purpose is to elevate and protect those assumptions from any assault by logic. Creative and synergistic communication is doomed within groups infected with the symptoms of groupthink. Any new or unusual notions quickly fall victim to the group's terminal sense of certainty.

Differences in personal style can impose formidable barriers to communication.

Therefore, we need to choose the right medium for our message, remembering that face-to-face communication is the richest form because we can draw on the resources of words, body language, voice, or even the physical arena itself to deliver our ideas. At the same time, we can receive a constant update on how the audience is receiving our message and can make midcourse corrections if we're going astray.

It's all too easy to hit the "send" button before we've really had the chance to think about the effect on the audience.

When groupthink occurs, the group isolates itself from the outside world and the information it contains.

High performance teams escape the gravitational force of group-think. They develop high levels of trust among team members as well as in their communication processes. Defensive mechanisms are left behind in the pursuit of the most creative and productive courses of action.

Clear communication always leads to conflict, and the clearer the communication the faster we arrive at it. Most people sense this intuitively. When there is the potential for disagreement, they create a gap between how they feel versus what they say. If we see conflict as a negative force to be avoided, and most people do, then we tend to "murk" up the communication.

If the group has an unhealthy view of conflict or doesn't have the skills or process by which to manage it constructively, they will never attain the realm of synergistic communication and the exceptional levels of performance it supports.

Confused communication and unity of purpose cannot live together.

As a leader, remember that one of the most significant strategies for building the qualities of solid relationships into the relational fabric of the team is for you, the team leader, to model them. Let team members see them in practice.

George Bernard Shaw summed it up well when he observed that the biggest problem with communication is the assumption that it has taken place.

If a person does not trust another, they will not be vulnerable and transparent and the possibility of misunderstanding and misinterpretation increases. Low trust situations weaken the connection between what we feel and what we say. Other team members pick up on this lack of trust on their intuitive radar screens, raise their defensive shields, and respond in kind. Trust and communication spiral down together.

If I could explain a head in a barrel to the King, he thought, I can explain a man in a tanpit to a Bishop. But I'd sooner be more certain of the facts.

I knew of this: Provost Lockhart sent word. You'd think we dwelt in the Marches.

A horse doesn't care how much you know, until he knows how much you care.

If your horse says no, you either asked the wrong question, or asked the question wrong.

When i make love to you i try with each stroke of my tongue to say i love you to tease i love you to hammer i love you to melt i love you and your sounds drift down oh god! oh jesus! and i think here it is, some dude's getting credit for what a woman has done again.

Management must speak with one voice. When it doesn't management itself becomes a peripheral opponent to the team's mission.

Both writing and praying are acts of deep vulnerability.

Writing is often a struggle between the personal and the universal, and the way writers deal with that struggle varies.