Not Quite a Manifesto

Someone said this, but the other person understood that. We’ve all tripped over this disconnect. We’ve had those misunderstandings, the wasted conversations, and the inevitable disagreements.

Think Create Communicate is the place that talks about how we communicate, how that communication goes awry, and how the gap between differing perceptions can be bridged.

But There’s More to Language

Beyond simply making ourselves understood, the words we choose subtly reveal much about our underlying attitudes and preconceptions not to mention our prejudices and biases.

We use language to describe how we understand the world—how we choose to deploy that language often communicates more than the actual words themselves. What we are transmitting may be unconsciously sent, but the person receiving the message will be very conscious of those unintended aspects.

A Mirror of Our Thought Process

At a basic level, language is also a reflection of our thought processes—a map of how we store information and an explanation of how we perceive facts.

Each time we apply a label—if we ascribe something as “good” or “bad”—then we harden our attitude. As our thinking hardens, the difference between how we view something and how that something really is, gets marginally wider.

Making a Choice

When we don’t get what we expect from an interaction, it’s always easier to blame the other person for their misunderstanding. Somehow we always seem to start by expecting the other person to work harder to understand us. Rarely is our instinct to take responsibility and so refine what we are saying or writing.

Think Create Communicate is—in part—about looking at how we interact and communicate:

• recognizing when we have a choice
• considering our range of options
• recognizing how each decisions has an impact
• looking at how those choices might be received and could lead to a different outcome
• considering different decisions

What’s Next?

This introductory post on Think Create Communicate is the first step. It’s not so much a manifesto as a general hint as to one of the directions I’ll be pointing in this journey to talk about how we interact and how we communicate. And as I go I’ll be adding, but also refining and, of course, correcting my thoughts.

Have you got something to say? Please come and join the conversation.

This post was last updated on 30 August 2023