I few days ago I hit a wall in terms of communications and faced communications breakdown with one of my colleagues. I was cracking my head thinking of a solution to this problem when I suddenly recalled one of the modules I took back in the National University of Singapore which had to do with International communications (by the way my colleague is from another culture).
The lecturer during one session showed us pictorial representations of how people from different cultures tend to adopt certain styles of communicate. Of course being unable to relate to it back then, I simply discarded it out of my mind shortly after I saw it.
Having traveled through a few territories since then, I had an inkling idea how people from those parts of the world communicate. However, the communication style of people not belonging to that group was still somewhat foreign to me. I had no idea what to expect.
In this scenario, I could have, had I been more observant to what was happening around me. On a few prior occasions I had the chance to observe the style of communication from quite a few other colleagues belonging to the same territories. I attribute this fault of mine to the fact that during those occasions I was on the receiving end of the message and not the transmitting end of the communications channel.
At the back of my mind during those occasions though, I always wondered to myself how come they have this tendency to keep repeating themselves on a point over and over again. And thus it came to pass that this exception came and hit me in the face resulting in the subsequent communications breakdown.
At first I felt extremely frustrated and being extremely puzzled why my messages were not getting through. I decided to take a break. I proceeded to east coast beach. I sat there staring at the clouds and listening to the crashing of waves for hours all the way till sunset. I was feeling somewhat refreshed and relaxed by then. It was during then that the pictorial representations shown to us by the lecturer years back flashed across my mind.
What this pictorial representations synthesized in my mind then was my recollection of my time back in 2001 when I was working as an administrator in the Singapore Armed Forces under two Defense Science Technology Association Officers. They were dealing with contractors all the time and quite a few contractors were from the same territory as my colleague. Amazingly, they were displaying the same style of communications as those group I had the chance to work with. Somehow, back then I always found it unsettling to be on the receiving end of this style of communication where a point that has been stated gets emphasized and re-emphasized from multiple different angles till the extent all possible angles are exhausted.
Right there then on the beach with the sun setting in the west, realization dawned on me. I was too self centered. How could I expect everyone to come all the way to accommodate my style of communication (sad to say it is a a subconscious tendency we Singaporeans all have to varying degrees).
As the saying goes “If the mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain. ”
Thus I decided right there and then, I will go to the mountain. Thus I did. Slowly but surely I see improvements happening with communications between the both of us. However, I strongly believe there is still lots of room for improvements, I am still in the midst of finding the path to the foot of the mountain.