Complexity

 There is a tactic and game, if you will, used in teaching communication skills. Corporations used it years ago. Marketing companies and staffs made a point of this demonstration to help people realize how the words they say... in the sequence that they say them... can be perceived by the listener. Now, the listener. That's a whole other story. Culture. Experiences. Attitude. Ego. Willingness. Even profession. These and more all influence the interaction. I think willingness and attitude are most paramount and can override all the other influences and bring people together and create understanding. You can have all the tactics in the world, but the smartest of people, with marked successes, and take away the willingness or add an ego based attitude, and there is no conversation. Just words with an imaginary pointy finger.

So... this game. The first time I saw this, I thought it was going to be so simple, but found that it helps you realize that blank spaces within conversations are filled in, if not by you, then by the listener, and sometimes the conversation can take on a very different direction that intended. The man stood in front of the group of us. He took off his sports jacket, properly folded it and laid it neatly on the table beside him. Casually, he asked a person to teach him how to put the jacket on as if he had never worn one. Without asking him first to pick up the jacket, the participant started to instruct him to put his arm in the sleeve. So there he was...jacket on the table...wrong end of the sleeve...and a limp sleeve... laying on the table. And the hilarity started. New participants were calling out how they thought the man should go about the process. After being inside out, upside down, backwards, twisted and crumpled for at least fifteen minutes, he finally had the jacket on and buttoned. But there was not a direct path from the table to the proper way of wearing it.

This game can point out a lot of things. Sometimes too many words clog the conversation when the intent was to be thorough and informative. "You had me at hello." No need to go on and define hello. Or so few words that someone might misinterpret that as your disinterest in the whole thing.

Reading the daily communications, both verbal and physical that Jim gives can be very tricky. You really have to be careful not to interject your own interpretation or shortcomings on to him. Sit back. Pay attention. Apply some logic, but also think out of the box. If you only apply a labeled medical condition and Googled answers to Jim's actions or words, you could be missing the whole point. You could be trying to put on the jacket without first picking it up off the table, applying someone else's predictions and so-called knowing to an individual who will set his own medical records. There are libraries of books and studies and medical records, broken and explored by one individual or another... setting yet another precedence for the next guy, if you care to consider.

And, that listener? Maybe the entire conversation was adapted to the listener. Now... That is interesting.

There is nothing simple about this entire process and journey that we are on. It is layered complexity. There may be too many words or not enough, and lots of so-called conversations, but I know that the jacket will be worn properly. And, he will look good.