At first glance, the situation seemed normal.
I was on the floor of an apartment bedroom, with another kid on the other side of the room. Between us lay some toys — miniature dinosaurs, trains, and cars.
It was the kind of scene that was commonplace when children spent time together. But this was no normal encounter.
For one thing, this apartment was in China. The place was comfortable enough, but still rather rudimentary.
And that kid I was hanging out with? He was the nephew of a family friend. Just like me, he was 10 years old. But he spoke no English. And I spoke no Chinese.
We stared at each other in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Both of us were perplexed by the situation we were in.
Then, the boy took one of the dinosaurs from the floor and guided it across the bed. As he did, I made dinosaur noises.
Of course, I didn’t really know what a dinosaur sounded like. The real ones predated me by millions of years.
But it didn’t matter. My sound effects made the boy smile, and then chuckle. Soon enough, we were having a blast, without sharing a single word.
Much has been made about the keys to success.
Some have pointed to talent and opportunity. Others champion focus and grit.
These are important attributes. But I think they all play second fiddle.
Communication is the most skill there is. And yet, it seems to be the most overlooked one.
We have all kinds of acronyms to describe our performance — IQ (Intelligence Quotient) for smarts, EQ (Emotional Quotient) for social acuity, AQ (Adversity Quotient) for resilience. But all too often, we fail to assess our CQ — or communication quotient.
Perhaps we struggle to quantify the benefits. After all, the smartest people can solve the most pressing problems. The most socially affable people can draw a crowd. And the most resilient people turn setbacks into triumphs.
What awaits the best communicators? It’s hard to come up with concrete examples.
And yet, we know the devastating impacts of poor communication all too well. Failed communication can torpedo even the most promising venture. It can damage relationships, corrode trust and vaporize goodwill.
These are major issues. But we like to pretend we’re immune to them.
We’re not.
Not long ago, I went back to school to earn an MBA (Master’s degree in Business Administration).
My business school coursework gave me several new talents — the ability to read financial statements, to understand economic theory, and to enact pricing strategy, for instance. But the most impactful course I took was on business presentations.
At first glance, this seems strange. I already had a college degree in communications, and I’d spent three years working in the news media. Plus, I’d put together several PowerPoints in my marketing career and I’d written plenty of articles here on Words of the West.
But even with all this communication experience, I knew I had room for improvement. There were plenty of times where I had been called to the carpet for a work email that didn’t land the way I intended. And I often struggled to make the desired impact when speaking up at staff meetings.
This course wasn’t designed to address any of that. It was simply a primer on how to present to business executives. And yet, I found it transformative.
For the course didn’t just address the all-too-common fear of public speaking. It delved into the intricacies of eye contact. It established guidelines for speaking cadence. And it provided instructions on how to create a slide deck that tells a story.
These tips were more focused on the audience than the presenter. They were meant to ensure that the message landed properly.
That, of course, is the most important aspect of communication. Messages are only effective if others can decode them in the way we intended. The audience reaction is everything.
I had learned that skill, by necessity, on that day in China. Even with a language barrier in my midst, I’d managed to forge a friendship with a boy my age.
And yet, I had seemed to forget what I’d learned over all the intervening years. But that changed once I took the business presentations class.
I left the course on a mission to be a more effective communicator. I wanted to ensure that my messages landed with precision moving forward, no matter the medium.
This mission is still ongoing. But I’m encouraged by the progress I’ve made thus far.
Still, I wish this wasn’t a solitary quest.
For millennia, humans have evolved their communication techniques.
We started by making standardized noises, which evolved into language. Oral storytelling, cave paintings, and hieroglyphics came next, followed by the written word.
The advent of the printing press and — much later — the microphone spawned mass communication. Radio and television spread these messages ever wider. And ultimately, the Internet made communication both global and simultaneous.
Communication has never been more convenient. Today, we literally have the tools for it at our fingertips. And yet, we fail to use those tools properly.
This is particularly noticeable at our current moment of strife.
A health crisis has cost the world millions of lives. And an economic crisis has cost America millions of jobs. But it’s an ongoing communication crisis that is perhaps most profound.
A world connected as never before has, paradoxically, never seemed further apart. And as the dialogue breaks down, polarization only deepens.
I understand the temptation to eschew open lines of communication. Engaging with others can be tough work, particularly when we have little in common. And the risk of a blunder seems to outweigh the rewards of avoiding communication altogether.
But this laissez-faire attitude has its costs. We’re seeing these broadly now, through the radicalization of society. But we’re seeing them individually as well.
No, not all of us will end up in a room with someone who doesn’t speak our language. But many of us will find ourselves outside our depth at some point. Perhaps we already have.
Basic communication skills can aid us in these unsettling circumstances. But if we’ve let those skills atrophy, there’s no guarantee they’ll come back to us in time. We could quickly find ourselves up a creek without a paddle.
Fortunately, the power still lies in our hands. But it’s our obligation to do something about it.
So, let’s give communication the priority it deserves. Let’s make a choice to engage, even when it seems inconvenient. And let’s ensure our messages stick the landing.
The challenges we face are substantial. But if we communicate with precision, we stand a better chance of rising to the occasion.
Let’s get to it.