There is a huge deficit in our society and it starts with what we teach our kids, or rather I should say, what we don't teach our kids. My career has largely been centered on the manifestations of this deficit, that is to say, when kids become adults and end up in the workplace.
I speak, teach, coach and write about the phenomenon of our fundamental failure to communicate. People are paralyzed when it comes to expressing themselves, especially with topics they perceive as “negative.” In the workforce it generally means a fear of delivering bad news or giving honest feedback. In personal lives, it usually involves discussing feelings. Either way, on both fronts, people avoid doing it, more often than not, like the plague.
It was a pattern I watched develop and emerge over many years in both my professional and personal lives: people were scared to death to speak the truth. It made no sense, although over time, I came to understand that a few things were at work.
One problem is that there is an assumption, and I’ve been guilty of making it myself, that people are clear about how they feel. They’re not. And without that awareness, there is a disconnect in the process of communication before one even opens his or her mouth.
It was in a French class recently where I saw some interesting similarities between learning to speak a foreign language and learning to speak in a way that connects a person to his or her own words. In practice, theory and process, they are really no different from one another. Admittedly, it does seem strange that the idea of communicating while knowing how you feel could be considered as foreign as an alien tongue. But it is. In both cases, the brain is trying to process something new and unknown.
Having come from a dance background, I tend to think of everything as an exercise in understanding first, coordination second and practice third, that is if mastery is the end game. But because our system makes no room for emotional understanding and development during formative years, children don’t typically learn to process, let alone become comfortable with who they are and how they feel. The focus is on the external world at the expense of their inner lives, and so here we are. Fast forward.
The kids are now adults and trying to function in relationships both at work and at home, yet they are completely unprepared to speak fluently from a place of authenticity. Love relationships suffer, starved for emotional connection, and the workplace does nothing to encourage employees being whole at work. In fact, often the message is that you’re better off “hiding” yourself and marching along to the beat of the proverbial corporate drum, which only exacerbates the problem further by preventing the very understanding, coordination and practice needed to master the skills never developed in the first place.
Wouldn’t it be something if in addition to math, English and extracurricular activities, schools and families devoted a little time to helping children shape their identities by supporting emotional development and the communication skills that go along with it? If only we weren’t such an emotionally phobic society.
I hope you'll join me on: