Mueller College Core Value #6- Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
Post by Dan Roberts, Director of Admissions
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
-Epictetus, Greek sage and Stoic philosopher
“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.”
-Mayatma Ghandi
“Be prepared and be honest.”
-John Wooden
Perhaps the easiest core value to understand yet is the hardest one to consistently practice. Volumes upon volumes have been written about the value of communication. Academia even confers degrees on the subject matter.
We have even written about the topic before on this very blog; my favorite excerpt reads:
When I talk about communication, I don’t just mean the words coming out of our mouths or the text messages we send to our family and friends but the meaning and messages behind them. We communicate with our body language, our actions or inactions.
It is interesting to me how we all have to constantly remind ourselves that communication is a skill-set that must be practiced and honed on a daily basis. The quote by Epictetus is pretty accurate, although I would amend it to read something like this:
We have two ears, two eyes and one mouth so that we can listen and observe twice as much as we speak.
Communication is as much about listening to someone, observing those non-verbal cues from their facial expression and body language as it is speaking. And we, as a people, tend to muck it up more often than not by trying to be polite, politically correct, or just plain obscure.
That is why Core Value #6 is so important in all its simplicity: Build open and honest relationships with communication. This approach is appropriate with co-workers, friends, family members and spouses.
So, in other words, be kind but direct in our communication with the goal building a strong relationship. In the end, everybody wins.