Divide Until Trivial

Here’s an old article about why communication skills don’t work. It reminds us that such skills are no use on their own. It’s obvious when you think about it, but having all the communications skills in the world mean nothing if you’re not actually doing something for the person you’re talking to.

The example they give is customer service skills; clearly, listening carefully, and making sure you’ve understood your customer is pointless unless you actually intend to fix their problem or otherwise take care of their issues.

In my experience, most technically minded people are actually very keen to help people. However, technical people often cloud that desire by communicating badly (either intentionally, or unintentionally). As a result, the person asking for help will probably feel that they’re being obtuse, or deliberately unhelpful. This is where the “cultures collide”, and all because of some basic misunderstandings.