Laugh at Life @ ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

Sometimes, our words got distorted and our intention got twisted. What can you do about it? Should you stop communicating at all?

One day, while I was responding an email, my boss came by to discuss that exact email with me. I was somewhat surprised to find out that our interpretations of the email were totally different. I called up the person who sent the email to get clarification. It turned out that neither my boss nor I had a complete understanding of the message. We were both half right about it. Isn’t that something, the difference in communication style, factoring into cultural differences. My boss is a Caucasian. The person who sent the email is an Indian, not a Native American.

Sometimes, we encountered situations where words were put into our mouths. What should we do about it? Should we stop communicating?

Our company has been encouraging the employees to discuss issues in person or over the phone rather than the back-and-forth email communication. Written communication is more likely to get twisted and goes down to the wrong path that creates a more damaging issue. One time, my boss told me that an analyst on my project team felt that I was blaming her for failing to communicate an issue. I was shocked to hear how things turned out when what I pointed out was only the fact that an issue wasn’t raised in time which had the potential impact on our ability to implement the project on time. Sometimes, people read too much into a message and bring unnecessary vexation upon themselves. Anyway, it was good that we cleared things up.

Now, back to the question, what should we do if our words got twisted? The best way would be to get clarification from the source in addition to improving your communication skill. However, if that still does not help, learn from the old saying “Silence is gold”. We cannot always predict how things would turn out. Just like the World Cultural Event that I co-chaired, I was planning to introduce Taiwan but it got cut at the last minute without my consent. Life is short. There are more important things in life. We are all just strangers passing by in life. Everything is constantly evolving. Nothing stays stagnant and is one hundred percent absolute. Just stay true to yourself and try to look at the world in a kid’s eyes with an open and creative mind. A good alternative is to walk away. Don’t take things too seriously. Just have a laugh and continue on your journey through life. We can’t all be perfect. I recently read an article about the author's embarrassing moments. It is so true that what we insist to be right now can be wrong later.