‘Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.’
Oscar Wilde
At this time of year, communication flourishes in many respects. Here in the United Kingdom, we have the Edinburgh Festival and the Notting Hill Carnival, and there are fêtes and local celebrations across the country. The performing arts provide a wonderful platform for communication, whether by music, theatre or dancing, and audiences celebrate live events in a way that is rarely found in cinemas.
They also provide a set of life skills for young people which build confidence through social relationships, leadership and enthusiasm. However, as reported in last Thursday’s Radio 4 Today programme, the performing arts have been denied a place in state education; playwright James Graham said in a speech last week that only 8% of people currently working in TV productions come from a working class background.
We shouldn’t overlook the value of dialogue in live conversation as social relationships develop, which both performers and audience can enjoy — for example, one of the delights of pantomime is audience participation, and that can be encouraged and nurtured by stage-based skills of interaction.
Modern forms of communication are generally very uni-directional: emails, text messages and social media are all designed for a delayed, rather than live, response. This changes not just the requirement to ‘think on your feet’ but also to stay focused on the issue at hand. These days it's comparatively rare to pick up the phone and speak with someone in business, and delayed responses must surely result in less efficient outcomes. Virtual meeting technology such as Zoom (see this week’s Motley Fool podcast), Teams and Google Meet go some way to address this need for dialogue, but only on a pre-planned basis.
So how can we nurture the art of communication?
For young people, nurturing the art of communication is a big issue. The combination of addiction to mobile technology together with isolation caused by the pandemic has led to a real reduction in the extent of conversational dialogue. In addition, the fact that so many older, experienced people are not often in the workplace but working from home presents a major challenge for young people starting their working career. Recent research from the Institute of Directors shows that 91% of businesses are offering remote working.
Conversational dialogue may be relatively straightforward within gatherings of family or friends, but it's much more challenging with strangers. Many of our episodes of The Hypnotist seek to help people to build confidence and resilience in interacting with others, both in business and pleasure. The challenges of engaging effectively with others are often loosely gathered within the general area of mental health — before the modern era, it was more properly described as being shy or introvert.
But it's really quite simple to open up conversations with strangers. One of the most effective approaches is simply to ask about the other person’s life and perspectives, because people generally find it easier to talk about themselves. Of course, this shouldn't involve probing into areas where people might find the conversation intrusive, but a proactive stance invariably breaks down the initial awkwardness of opening a conversation. Try it on the bus one day — this form of public transport is one of the best places to have informal conversations.
It's particularly important to help young people build this confidence for opening and continuing a discussion, because of their range of challenges referred to earlier. The art of opening a conversation may not come naturally, so helpful techniques can be useful. You might find this YouTube sketch amusing in this respect: drawn to my attention by Simon when he was reviewing this commentary!
There are, of course, many other situations where listening to others is also important: as a genre, politicians are particularly challenged in this respect. The extraordinary thing about them is that they often appear to go backwards: hence one of my favourite sayings, ‘Arrogance is the Achilles’ heel of the politician’, and it tends to build as their parliamentary career develops.
Kamala Harris is making a good start in listening to what others want to hear — her emphasis on young people and her more positive outlook on the future are clearly winning many friends, and it will be interesting to see how she copes with the challenging TV debate with Donald Trump in September.
While developing the art of communication may appear somewhat esoteric at first sight, its absence does have a very serious impact in holding back economic progress. The BBC reported official estimates last week that 872,000 young people age 16-24 are not in education employment or training, and their website article went on to describe relationship problems in some detail. The most harrowing quote from a young person who had struggled hard with unemployment was, ‘The world is not built for people like me’.
We do, of course, have to work hard to put in place the support services that such young people need, but building more confidence and resilience by learning the art of communication should be central among them.
Gavin Oldham OBE
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