Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.
–Margaret Millar
I went to grad school to study communication theory, so I’ll do you a favor and save you some time by condensing all those courses into a single phrase: You’re not communicating unless you hear back.
There, now you have a master’s degree in communication. The tricky part isn’t in knowing that communication is a 2-way street, it’s in knowing what to take in and what to filter out. Here’s a story to help you remember:
A machine in a factory has malfunctioned, and the engineers on site can’t find the source of the problem.
So they call on a retired worker who had spent a long time working with the machine. He comes in, walks up to the machine, looks at it for a minute, pulls out a piece of chalk and draws a circle around the screw that needs to be tightened.
He then writes them a bill for $5,000.
“$5,000, that’s ridiculous, all you did was draw a circle around a screw!”
So he writes them a new bill:
- Drawing a circle around a screw: $1.
- Knowing where to draw it: $4999.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
That is a good one. I think I will use it at my Toastmasters meeting tonight! It illustrates a great point. We don’t pay for someones work as much as we pay for his/her expertise.
I concur, that was great and should be posted in a management office somewhere… for I am sure there is someones manager who is keeping the $.25 raise from an employee because they don’t see the value of “knowing where the screw is.”
It’s a good point, an obvious one that needs to be pointed out.
I guess it also lends itself to learning.
For example, I prefer hands on learning and workshops where there is constant communication and feedback throughout a session. Compared to someone standing at the front of a room talking *to* everyone and not engaging with them as much as they could.