In the second of his articles, Kevin Munt, Principle Consultant at KMgC says that asking your colleagues to “get those
bl**dy greens cut faster” may not be the best approach!
Photograph © Cathy Wester
TALK TO
ME!
“If knowledge is princely and wisdom makes a king of man, then communication must be his domain”
V
ery grandiose I hear you say; well yes it may be. In the year 2000, whilst the CEO of Impact Europe,
an Audio Visual communications company, I was asked to write an article on communication and the above words of wisdom are what I led the article with. I repeat it here, as I believe that the sentiment within it is even more relevant today and highly relevant to the audience reading this article. Communication is a basic function of life, human interaction is difficult without it and its importance in business cannot be overemphasised; yet it is surprising how often it is the main cause of failure in the management of organisations.
Small Talk Goes A Long Way…
This spring I was at Walton Heath Golf Club with Ian McMillan and it really
struck me how he went out of his way to approach both members and guests, asking them how they were enjoying their day and the golf course. Remember, this is with me in tow, so if they had any grievances he was exposing himself to me being a party to them. Of course there weren’t any moans only praise. Ian was doing what good communicators do, engaging, listening and responding. In effect breaking down barriers, barriers that can become very big without small talk.
When I started out in golf course maintenance in the early seventies, there were a lot of greenkepers who would run to the deepest rough rather than having to communicate with people of authority or, for that matter, the wage payers. Well time, thankfully, has changed all that and now good Course Managers and Turf Managers generally are, by definition,
good communicators. Soft Skills, Hard Facts
If you want to get into the science of communication there is a myriad of technical psychobabble on the topic available to you. For example you could start by understanding the ‘Communication Transmission Processes’. Message > Encoding > Channel > Decoding > Receiver > Feedback > Or get an encompassing definition,
like this reasonably succinct one taken from the Web: ‘Communication is only successful when the intended result is achieved. This effectiveness is dependent on the choice of recipient, the clarity of the message and the choice of communication medium’. There are also very qualified people
like Frank Newberry, who can help you develop your ‘soft skills’ in this area.
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