One thing that I become more convinced of the longer I live is that, for the most part, people do not know how to listen. When I say “listen”, I really mean more than just hearing the audible noise coming from another person’s mouth. That certainly is part of it, but it involves much more than that, because words in and of themselves can sometimes be weak, and poorly constructed. You can’t really “listen” to a person if you do not know them, because if you do not know them, are not truly capable of understanding the intent of their heart when their spoken words are inadequate. You get to know someone by being around them, and watching their actions. “Actions speak louder than words” is a very true axiom.
Since “social media” has become such a thing in the last decade or two, it has become apparent to me that there is a lot of mindless, non-listening chatter that perpetually stirs up unnecessary controversy and strife. Social media has given everyone a platform, everyone a stump. The ironic thing is that everyone is talking, and no one is listening! I use social media too, and I am posting this on social media, so I am preaching to myself. Social media, like any other thing, is not a thing that is inherently bad. It can be used in a positive, and life-giving manner, and it can also be used in a destructive manner. But, like other forms of expression, it serves to expose what is in a person’s heart.
Back to the matter of listening. I want to share my own personal experience in my work to make a point, so bear with me. Part of my life’s work experience has been in Technical Support, first with IBM from 1996 to 2004, and now with HCL America for the last several years. The funny thing is, I have absolutely no formal education in computer technology. I hear a lot about how important it is to get certified in this or that in the field of computer technology. I have no certifications in anything IT related. All of my post high school education is theological in nature. I have a BA in Pastoral Ministry, and an M. Div. specific to chaplaincy, neither of which have been of any advantage to me in gaining employment in the field of paid ministry service. I work with a lot of people that are younger than me, younger people with lots of certifications, that look good on paper. They come to me for assistance with lots of technical issues. I am not saying any of this to brag. I am leading up to a bigger point, as I said.
There are lots of similarities I see in the way technical issues are often mishandled and in the way in which poor and nonconstructive communication occurs on Social Media, and other avenues through which human beings communicate.
1. The person reporting the problem does a poor job in describing what is really going on. They will often provide too much unnecessary and unrelated information, instead of simply describing the problem, or they will describe the problem in a manner that is difficult to understand. I feel compelled to share an old story that is a bit comical to illustrate this point. Shortly after Peggy and I got married, she came home from work one night, and told me that something was wrong with her car. She said that there was a picture of a helicopter lighting up on her dashboard. I thought to myself, “What the heck is she talking about?” That makes no sense. I told her to show it to me, and then realized that she was talking about the Check Engine light. The symbol was in the shape of an older car motor with the round breather on the top of the motor, that did vaguely resemble a helicopter propeller. That is sometimes the way people describe technical issues. If they are not technical, what they say can sometimes make no sense, so it is necessary to ask a lot of the right kinds of questions to understand what the real problem is.
2. The person who is listening to the caller, or reading their words in a self-generated problem ticket, has a preconceived idea about what the person is talking about, based on similar situations they have encountered in the past, so they are interpreting it within that context, without really listening to the specifics, and they are looking for a quick answer, based on that. Because of that, they often make a hasty, inaccurate diagnosis.
3. The analyst who is writing up the problem leaves out a lot of critical details, so if the issue must be escalated to the next level of support, the information the next level support receives is inaccurate and misleading. The problem escalation may get rejected because it appears that insufficient effort was made initially. That may be accurate, or it may be that the person writing it up just left out a lot of stuff that they did, so it appears that they did much less. As the old saying goes, “If it isn’t written down, or recorded, it didn’t happen.”
4. People tend to make things seem a lot more complicated than they really are. People tend to go into panic mode without thinking things out logically, and putting things within their right context. The truth is, some things are just more important than other things, and you must prioritize. Mole hills get turned into mountains.
In media, be it Social Media, TV news, newspapers, or whatever the media, I often see things that are worded in a manner in which it is obviously slanted in the attempt to sway the audience to interpret things in a certain way. Innuendo runs rampant. The words “alleged”, “accused”, and so forth are intentionally used to make people jump to certain conclusions quickly. The law of our land is supposed to be, “Innocent until proven guilty.” That is not how things are done in this day in time. It is more like, “Guilty when accused.”
To be honest, there are tons of people who have way more technical expertise than I do when it comes to really complicated computer issues. I think I have been successful to a degree because I have learned to listen, and read between the lines. Often, reading through problem tickets is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, because all the pieces have to be put together in the right place, when initially, it just looks like a big mess. A lot of social issues we hear about just look like a great big mess. And they are. However, if we, as a society would learn how to communicate better, learning how to listen to each other, I think we would find that, even though, it initially appears that we are at polar opposites at times, in reality, we are a lot more alike than we realize. I honestly think that human beings, no matter what our superficial differences are, (social, political, racial, etc.) are basically the same. We all want to feel like our lives have meaning, or purpose. We need to feel loved, and appreciated. The need to feel like someone cares. We need to have hope.
Let’s learn to stop all the mindless chatter, knee-jerk reaction to things, and listen to each other. It might be a pleasant outcome.
Danny's Stump 