This afternoon, I sat in a teleconferenced workshop about how to communicate with finesse and tact. I don’t know if I learned anything or if I will be a better communicator; I guess time will tell. I did notice something though that made me wonder what kind of person I am.
Among the pages of the workbook we had to print out prior to the workshop was a quadrant chart. Along the top was “openâ€, along the bottom was “closedâ€, and “direct†and “indirect†were on the left and right respectively.
As the speaker continued with this part of her presentation, I realized the examples she had on the left and right quadrants were transposed: the two on the bottom and top right should have been on the left, and the two on the bottom and top left should have been on the right.
Over the next 5–10 minutes, everyone else in the room picked up on the error. Now here comes the interesting part.
As far as I could tell, everyone in the room fixed it by prefixing “direct†with “in†and removing “in†from “indirectâ€. When I looked at my chart, I had used arrows to indicate each example should be on the opposite side.
So what does that say about me that I made my change graphically while everyone else in the room did it by editing words on the page?
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