On Communicating: Hubris

There's a special kind of hubris that assures bad communicating.It’s hard to find even a hint of it with the best communicators. It’s not even present in average communicators that believe they have the gift but clearly don’t. It eventually gets back around to them that they're average, and if they desire to be good, they forge creative ways to better convey their message. No, the hubris that I’m talking about has almost no correlation to oratory capabilities. It’s the belief that communicating flows in one direction, and it’s the demise of a communicator.Never time for questions. Never opportunities for brainstorming. Never room for conversation at the table. Never feedback cards.These communicators have failed to understand two things: 1) most learning happens in exploratory conversation, and 2) how little it appears they really buy into their own message.The first is obvious. To not know it requires intentional ignorance. Or an inflated ego.The second is the most damning. The subtle message—the subtext of the sales pitch, if you will—is that they are unwilling to submit the product to public exploration, investigation, even scrutiny because they don’t trust the product can withstand it. Their message is at least in part that they don’t buy their own message.Get out of your own way (and prove that you buy your own message).Encourage discussion!