Wednesday, September 07, 2011

what? I can't hear you!

Sometimes there's things that just have to be said.
Sometimes the right thing to do is to be a bearer of bad news.
Sometimes you are going to be the messenger that someone wants to shoot.

It can be really hard to tell a person something they don't want to hear.  If it's particularly ugly, they'll probably go through the Kubler-Ross defined cycle of  shock-anger-denial-depression (or bargaining)-acceptance.

You will probably get told that you're not very good at communicating.

Now, it could be true.  You might not be a good communicator - but it's just as likely that the person you're communicating with is not communicating so well at that time either.   That's because there's a good chance that your message isn't really sinking in.  And after all, why would it - the recipient is being told something they don't want to hear.

I reckon this applies to kids, to customers, to significant others, to just about every situation in our lives when we are having to deliver, or receive, a bit of news we don't want to face.

But the fact remains, that sometimes the truth hurts.  And just because you don't like the message you're being given, that doesn't mean that the person giving it to you is doing a bad job of getting it across.


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