Now fly my little facts, fly
We all get taught that “communication is a two-way street”. But at some point, we also get taught that “you can't change others, you can only change yourself”. Welcome predicament!
I feel complaints incoming.
A colleague and me, we gave a presentation at work, trying to persuade some important people. We had collected the facts, arranged them, and gave the presentation. But to our big surprise, we couldn't persuade anyone.
Well then you didn't present them well enough, did you? If your facts aren't persuasive enough, you won't persuade anyone. Pretty simple actually...
And so,we thought for quite a while. Even when we were asked the same questions again, we answered again. We tried our best to rearrange the facts, highlight the important bits. And yet:
To no effect and at some point, the same questions were asked again.
If communication is indeed a “two-way street”, are really only we to blame?
So it's about a blame game then? You want to bring a point across and you failed. And you want to blame your audience for not understanding? That's hardly how a civilised conversation works, is it? Grow up!
And so, we thought for quite a while. And then it dawned on us: What if they understood our point all along but hoped to get a different answer by asking again?
Am I allowed to blame them for pretending to not understand?
And what should I do then?
“Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game.”
But is it truly that simple? And: is it even simple? Hating the game you play is not exactly the road to zen-level happiness!
You get it: you hate the game, you hate the players. Congratulation, you hate yourself! If you want, I hate you as well. Happy now?
We refused to play as much as we can. We explained it once from the bottom of our hearts. Benefit of the doubt.
Questions coming back? Barely the minimum of effort to answer again. Let it be a standoff.
Not ideal but less head-scratching frustration. Unfortunately, it came for a price.
The knowledge that you didn't stop playing but actually started playing by the rules...
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