" e m o t i o n s "

For a weirdo geek like me, inactions needs to be rationally explained, some how I am not good at forgiving or at forgetting, but yahoo I am harmless. I am not good at saying sorry, strange but my ego doesn’t allow me to do so, and people I am attached with know it very well. I avoid attachments, making friends, trusting the presence of omnipotent/ divine. Dark or black attracts me, the feeling of power and the fact that you are the one, “only one, alone”. I like me without my shadow, the only and only real companion of mine, believe that my mother was right when she said, "actions speak louder than words," and "that life goes on, that I count too;" that if I start to get frightened and think of running, I need to consider that maybe the words and actions I'm hearing seem inconsistent, and to run in the opposite direction if it hurts because these things isn't supposed to hurt.

Years ago a colleague left the organisation (Vertex) I was working with and went to work for the organisation I was trying hard to join (Google), so to speak, during a time of great personal challenge and difficulty for me. I was hurt and felt betrayed and unable to trust her. Months later we began working together again. But for me, every subsequent interaction with her occurred within the context of "I can't trust her." No matter what she was saying to me, the background commentary in my head ran, "She's not telling the truth, be careful, watch out, you can't trust her."

With my inbuilt curiosity, research analysis of such human behavioural psychology states, "the unsaid is the most important part of language when it comes to performance," they write. "What's already there prevents anything new from happening.” a human performance and development company, describes the phenomenon as "already-always" listening. It's counterproductive listening, in which you're not really listening to the other person at all. Instead, you're listening to what the voice in your head is saying about what the other person is saying. He or she gets trapped in the prison of your prejudice i.e. trapped in your "listening" and can never show up in another way to you. 

Two weeks ago, that colleague of mine and I got on the phone with a trainer schooled in the dynamics of these phenomena, and we each stated what our "already-always listening" voice told us when the other person was speaking. For me it was, as I said, "I can't trust you." For her, it was, "You think I'm a commodity, and you don't care about me as a person," which is the signal one would get from a person completely preoccupied with a sense of distrust. How could there be any space for me show concern about your life when I'm constantly worrying about being attacked from behind by you? It would be like the bull saying to the bullfighter, "You don't show any interest in me personally."

Even more interesting, my colleague revealed that, years ago, before the original incident happened, she'd felt the same way and that I didn't care about her. So it surprised her enormously to learn that I had felt hurt and betrayed when she left. I didn't even notice her, she believed, and certainly wouldn't consider her departure any kind of disloyalty.

A bright light dawned over the situation. Everything instantly made sense, and ever since that call, the "I can't trust her" background chatter has gone silent, and I see this colleague as a human being, not as a threat. Consequently I am able to show interest in her as a person. Our interactions have been richer and more productive.

Imagine this kind of misunderstanding multiplied across the range of relationships in any knowledge enterprise, and then multiplied by the number of years for which it has gone on, and consider the losses in productivity. So often we talk past one another, distracted by the voices in our own heads, unable to listen to what other people are saying, let alone what they might be feeling, all under the pretence of communication.

Now throw technology into the mix. We used to be able, at least, to feign "communication" face-to-face. But, more and more of us work virtually. We did not speak by phone or meet one another face to face until nearly a year after we began working together. Imagine the already-always listening that could develop inside the ambiguities of our e-mail exchanges: "Does she like me? Does she think my writing is smart? I don't think she does."

Modern "communication" tools just make things worse. We get on a free conference-call service with four other parties to begin discussing a major deal. We've never met one another. We don't start off the call trying to get to know anything about one another. We just jump into the agenda, because we're all busy. It's voice-over-IP, so the audio quality is degraded to begin with. Three of the people are on cell phones with lousy signals. One is on a headset, which makes her harder to hear still, and she's driving, so she's distracted. Another is on west coast time: It's early, he's at home, and the dog is barking. Two are using the speaker feature on their cell phones, so they sound like Neil Armstrong calling from the moon. Someone keeps dropping off and coming back on but no one knows who. No one can tell who's going to speak next, so people talk over one another jockeying for talk time. None of this is far-fetched. You and I get on conference calls like this all the time.

Opinions begin to form really fast in our heads: "Wow, what an aggressive jerk." "Why's she so uptight?" "That guy can't string two coherent words together." And then we all say, "We communicated by phone." No, we didn't. We did something by phone, but it definitely wasn't communicating. We didn't learn anything about the realities of one another's lives, about one another as people, or about what others' motivations or needs are in the deal. And on this basis we are supposed to begin a healthy relationship. It's absolutely inhuman.

Combine the perils of communication technology with our predisposition not to want to talk about the stuff that's in the middle of the room, and you have a perfect storm of anti-communication. It is the source of all misunderstanding, and misunderstanding is the source of 99% of our problems.

To me, there is no more important issue in business, or in life, than this, because it is the issue that underlies all others, and the good news is, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to fix it. Fixing it is as simple as the phone call my colleague and I had together. Whether it's in the construction of a conference call, or considering that there might be a point of view other than our own, the answer is very simple i.e. " human beings just have to be human to one another "

The best advice always is to not follow advice, try life by yourself, taking risks and learning daily from all around you. We are all on a pilgrimage, whether we like it or not and the target, or goal if you like is, "Death". Get as much as you can from the journey because in the end, "the journey" is all you have.

Trust me it's, " e m o t i o n s " with each space between those alphabets justifying . . . . .

This is some-what like, sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask "where have I gone wrong?" then a voice says to me, "this answer going to take more than one night"

- Surya Kant Jena -

soorajkiran1@gmail.com