Inside Delphian

No "failure to communicate"

I've been talking to a few people recently about one of my favourite topics--overriding almost--and my message has been simple: overcome distance. By distance I don't mean geography. I mean any distance that is between you and anyone else you seek to understand.

Many of us mouth things like "I hear you", or "I'm listening", but in fact we may have placed our biases or upbringing or training or indoctrinations ahead of our ears. If we're guilty of that (and yes, I've been), chances are we will not hear the full message, nor the most important part: the cause or intent.

Here's a case in point that happened to me.

In one of the college classes I taught this past winter, I was setting out ground rules for an upcoming test, and one of my students outed me in front of class. It was too much to study, too much to learn, and there wasn't enough time. At that moment, all I could think of (far too logical, I know) were things like wasn't it true that the test date had been announced earlier, and that the general content had already been taught, and so forth. All eyes on me [something you need to get used to if you're in front of a class often enough], I had to sternly, but politely, tell her I'd be available to talk about this further during break or after class.

She approached me at break, and as she walked up, I consciously tried to open myself up to her, and to close down the frustration I'd felt earlier on. Whether it was her or me, the energies changed, and before she'd said anything I said to her something like "you're stressed, aren't you?" Well, that was it. Happy ending. Sounds simple doesn't it? And it was. I had been guilty of not reading her, or not being open to what was really going on. Until I could remove my blockages--the distance that *I* had put between us--we weren't communicating effectively.

Working hard to remove barriers and distance may not always pan out (after all, the other person has to do the same thing), but more often than not it leads to the most wonderful rewards. Many potentially failed communications succeed because we 'go the distance' to remove distance.

FoVA 2009

It's Saturday, June 13th. Last Saturday, we were in wind-down mode at FoVA 2009. I had just finished a delightful and interesting conversation with Stacy Brice, and was waiting to head to the final night's reception. It had been an interesting weekend. In addition to learning more about the industry (from expert panel members, and from various individual virtual assistants), I had the good fortune of the aforementioned conversation with Stacy, plus had lengthy conversations and connections with Dawn Goldberg, Barbara Lang, Pat Williams, and others. Great; all great.

What's the value in networking with virtual assistants? Incalculable. Immense. Most of all ... personal touch. The Internet will never replace the people behind it, or those who populate it. Thank you, everyone. And a special shout out to those of you who took the time to attend my workshop on Windows Vista and Office 2007.