Taking responsibility for communication

We all know that communication skills are very very important to
succeed in our careers and in life. However, only a few of us make a
sustained effort to improve our communication skills in a disciplined
manner. The key reason is that improved communication yields results
over a long period of time and most of us want “instant results”.

The key objective of communication is to get the other party
(recipient) to be on the same page and understanding on the topic of
communication. Many times, I have someone come and complain to me “I
have told him in so many different ways but he won’t understand”. 
As long as we have this attitude, we can’t improve on our communication
as we are not even acknowledging the fact that we have a problem. We
have moved the problem to the recipient. This may make us feel good but
it won’t solve the problem.

What if we shift our response to “I have told him in so many different
ways but he won’t understand. I have to learn how to communicate in a
way that he will get it”. With this approach, we are still taking
responsibility for the communication and we can start looking for new
ways to communicate.

If we don’t acknowledge that we have a problem, we may never look for a solution.