I want to hear
it from the horse’s mouth (a thinly veiled reference to Mr. Ed), and I want to
speak with him face to face. There are alot of old sayings like these, all basically referring to the same thing; person to person honest communication. Do I still have this in business, with my older children, or with
siblings? Not so much.
Electronic communication is great. It allows you to read this blog, but
you don’t know what my intent is just by reading, do you? It works better if
you know me, if you know my character.
Humor is subtle and easier to catch when you are face to face. Hearing voice
inflection helps you determine my mood, intent and inference. And looking me right
in the eye is a strong indicator of truth (for most people.) I still try to use
these old school tools in my life, but that begs the question: What about web
2.0?
Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and hundreds of
others are quickly becoming the preferred methods of communication. I just
spent thirty minutes on Skype IM with my son in Amsterdam. I could not see him
eye-to-eye. His ten point type gave me no face time. Horse sounds were
nowhere to be heard. Just type on a screen and conjecture about meaning, intent
and motive. I don’t think this is a good way to communicate with your children.
As a matter of fact, as soon as I get done writing this, I am going to give my
youngest girls a good twittering about it all.
There is something about eyes, facial expressions, hand
shakes and humor that give you a sense of who you are connecting with. You use
three of your five senses (four if you know them well!) It’s the way
communication was created to be. I am not totally down on all electronic
communication, things like Microsoft Word and email have made life much easier.
I am saying this only to serve as a reminder. I will always be
challenged to establish trust if I don’t have real contact. This is true
about the work place, my family, my spouse and God.
I’m old-school functioning in “new school”. I write and post, and you read. I hit enter and my words arrive in Holland immediately. I'm not sure about trusting this medium, though. I want eyes and face; humor and body language. I
want to feel as though someone is trustworthy because I have had first hand
intuition to draw such a conclusion. I want to know that it is really Mr. Ed
saying Oh Willllber.
The cornerstone of all trust is communication.
It needs to be authentic, honest and real. And it’s alright if that's tough, hard
and uncomfortable. Real life is like that you know.