dilbert-over-communicate

Effective communication in the workplace is very important.  Employees usually work within teams and thus it is very critical for them to be able to communicate their ideas to their colleagues clearly and effectively.  Any shortcomings could lead to vast losses in organizations; thus training centers are glad to provide companies with great effective communication and team building workshops.  An ideal workplace with effective communication leads to one clear of misunderstandings, problems, and issues that could have been avoided.

How many times did you look someone and ask, “why didn’t you just TELL me?”

That was  the issue.

Lack of communication.  The inability to find the recipient.  The inability to find the method to communicate.  The inability to formulate and articulate the words to be sent.  Messages in bottles thrown at sea, a woman waiting for a telegram from her fiance, a mother not knowing her daughter is giving birth because no-one was there to run out and tell her, dates arranged weeks in advance, and letters written and sent out by messengers on horses.

In effective communication is not just an issue at work, it is also an issue at a social level; be it between spouses, friends, a parent and her child, and so forth.

So with the introduction of Emails, companies embraced Blackberries and were glad to invest in a device for each employee to ensure that they can be reached at all times.  That was the end of work-life-balance for a lot of people.  Managers took for granted the sacred home of employees and thought themselves entitled to time away from work.  The whole idea of leaving work’s issues at the doorstep of your home ceased to exist.

Enter the smart phone and social networking apps.

The line between work and home got so blurred there is no line!  Work gets taken home, the employee’s mind keeps thinking of issues at work while he’s on the dinner table with his family, checking his email because, come on, China’s market just opened and the middle east work on Sundays.  Globalization going viral, pressing pause is no longer an option.

Or is it?

The amount of words coming at us from our device is astounding!  The emails, the messages, the social chats, the game requests (aaargh!!), the friend requests, the Youtube subscriptions, the podcasts, birthday notifications, meeting notifications, any notifications!!  Where…did…my…time…go?

We no longer work an eight hour day, we don’t even have a continuous hour at work without being interrupted.  We no longer focus at work, we no longer focus at home, we no longer have vacations without checking our mail because our spouses are being “unreasonable” for asking us to be out of sync with the world.

But are we in-sync when we go for our devices or are we in-sync when we ignore them?

Over communicating.  Don’t accept it and stop doing it.

I do not need to see your every meal.  I do not need to see what decision you need to make when it comes to your nail polish.  I do not need to know what you did last week at work and what you will be doing this week, I am not even in your department.  I do not need to see your children run up the beach, YOU need to see your children run up the beach.  You need to be focusing on the project.  You need to be focusing on the numbers.  You need to be ignoring spam emails.  We need to uninstall these wonderfully time-consuming instant messaging apps.  We need to keep the phone in the car and go out with our friends.  We need to filter over communication and keep the place quiet.  Our minds are not used to being wound up all the time, we need some time to think, to meditate (which is why meditation is so popular nowadays), we need some time to breathe.  To speak to people who we need to only.

Please stop over communicating.  This is going out of control and we are allowing it.

I-robot???