Pitfalls and Solutions

The Wall Street Journal

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Not Communicating With Your Boss?

Count Your Blessings

by Jared Sandberg

Let’s clear the air, clean the slate, have a sit-down, fade-to-face, heart-to-heart meeting of the minds in which we’ll at least agree to disagree. That’s part of the advice from seminars, books, coaches and consultants to communicate better.

It’s advice that George Franks took to heart. He says his mentor suggested that he start and end every conversation with his new boss, who never had time for him, by asking how he could help. The tactic, it turns out, offended his boss by implying he needed help.

It so infuriated him that he started dumping all the projects no one else wanted or was doing on me,” says Mr. Franks. “He became less available to meet me.”

Candy Friesen took advice about paraphrasing what a person says, indicating her understanding. That didn’t go over so well. Whenever she did it, she says, “I seemed to engender animosity or hostility.”

One small thing that was left out of all those advice books: “None of them ever said the person to whom you are speaking may not appreciate having his thoughts paraphrased one little bit.”

In the business-counseling industry, there’s a solution for almost everything. Often it’s to communicate better. Communication breakdowns are easy to spot – and are everywhere. Government commissions investigating problems find them all the time. So do parents, teens, toddlers. Wars are waged because of bad communications. Love is lost.