Page 81 - Effective Communication Skills by Dalton Kehoe

Dialogue—Ethical Choices behind Our Talk
Lecture 24

Although much talk is performed unthinkingly, we must choose to
override this tendency in critical moments and make practical choices
to deal positively with the dif¿culties we face. There are ethical

implications in the practice of effective communication, not just
practical ones.

e want to be effective communicators because that’s how we’ll
get what we want out of every conversation—but we also want to
Wmaintain a good relationship with the other person. If we get what
we want but leave a spouse feeling overwhelmed or an employee feeling
unappreciated, then we haven’t gotten what we could have gotten. Effective
communication consists of getting at least some of what you wanted and
also keeping the relationship intact. In the process of getting what we want,
we have to manage our part of the talk so the other person also gets what he
or she wants and we can both leave the moment feeling positive about the

process. So the ¿rst ethical implication of effective communication is that
both of us have to have gotten what we wanted.

Most of the time, our nonconscious mind is running the show—and it can
get us into some very dif¿cult communication situations. To be fully aware

of the present moment, and the person in it, we have to be acting out of
our fully conscious mind: engaged with the details of the moment, noticing
new things, and being sensitive to changes in the context. In other words, we
have to be engaged the way we were the ¿rst time we met the other—using

connect talk to arouse the other’s interest in us, paying close attention to the
other and his or her reactions to our words and gestures, and learning about
the other as he or she responds to what we say. This is another component of
ethical communication: Every time you talk to someone, listen as carefully
as if you were meeting him or her for the ¿ rst time.

Calming our feelings and thinking more clearly about the importance of the
relationship can help us to manage more effectively in dif¿ cult situations.
This is more than a practical choice to solve a communication problem; it’s an

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