Communication is important, particularly as an anger management tool. The better you can communicate the less anger you will have.
It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of communication. Good communication whether in the workplace, the home, or the bar makes a lot of difference. Things don’t go wrong between strangers who don’t talk to each other, at least they don’t go wrong frequently. Communication breakdowns happen between friends and family members, sometimes with disastrous results. Communication skills need to be looked at as an abily just like reading or wring, something that you need to survive in today’s society.
The importance of good communication was really brought home to me if last time I went to visit my parents. There was a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a long time in town. We had been on the rocks recently over an elaborate misunderstanding. Nonetheless, both of us had had our feelings hurt. We could have just pretend nothing happened, but instead we decided to sit down and talk about it. By talking things out we mended a lot of hurt feelings. We came out of it better friends than ever, and we haven’t had any problems since.
Of course, the importance of communication in the workplace is every bit as significant. I was reminded of the importance of public relations communication the other day. Our company recently went through a minor scandal. It seemed that nepotism was affecting the way the board was elected, and although this isn’t uncommon, for some reason it became very public in our case. We have good spin doctors, however, and they were able to correct things. Basically, by recasting nepotism as a process of carefully courting and hand-selecting qualified candidates, they were able to diffuse the whole situation. They didn’t deny anything, they just reinterpreted. This is what communication skills are all about.
Of course, although everyone is willing to talk about the importance of communication, few people are willing to really go over what good communication means. It seems like everyone has a different view. Some people think that is making your opinion heard while other people think is compromising and being aware of other people’s feelings. Some people think that good communication always ends up with everyone getting along, whereas other people think that can lead to people deciding to not work with each other anymore. What is clear is that the dialog about the importance of communication needs to continue. In this age of information, we need to be more aware of our own language than ever before.