When I facilitate workshops, I sometimes kick off a session by asking this question. What is communication for? Why do we need it?
Usually this question is met with total silence. I can practically hear them thinking: Is she for real? What kind of question is that?
Partly I’m asking to start a conversation, and partly, honestly, I’m looking for interesting answers. I’m fascinated by the process and dynamics of human interaction—how and when it works, and even more, when it doesn’t.
After a few seconds of silence, the answers start to come. “To educate.” “To inform.” “To warn someone of danger.”
What else? I ask.
Finally someone will say “To connect. To feel seen, to get what you need.”
We initiate and respond to communication all day long. We talk, email, text, shrug, and sigh. We carefully calibrate some things we say, and we toss other things off un-thought-about. Our lives are a barrage of communication, opportunities to connect, but research is showing that we feel more lonely than ever.
If what we want, ultimately, is to connect, to be seen and heard, why does it backfire so often? How can we change how we think about connecting with other people so that we have a better chance of being understood?
