How Excellent Communication Can Transform Your Life

Sometimes, privilege is hidden in life. We confuse privilege with possessions or power, but it can lie in the mystery of the sphynx available to us all: good communication.

In Sydney recently, I attended a small dinner party at the home of a very successful retired businessman and his family. There were the older guests (like myself—did I say that?!), a visitor from Canada, and the more youthful children.

Let’s call the head of the family, Tim.

In the course of general conversation at the table over entrée, Tim told us about his father, who, before he died, in a state of advanced dementia, would organise the carers around him like a boardroom meeting. He would clarify each person’s given role, designate a minute taker, and the other actions of a board meeting before declaring the meeting open. Everyone played along.

It made me think what a magnificent upbringing it would be to have this language/behaviour in your surroundings within the family as a role model for success. Personally, my father died before I finished primary school. (My mother was in shock as she wasn’t even allowed to drive a car. Those were the days) @Julie, it would certainly save you a lot of time at work if everyone knew the rules of a board meeting before they were in the environment.

Even more astounding for me was this: As the evening moved on, the wine flowed (that wasn’t the astounding bit), and the conversation became heated (also not astounding); the discussion turned to the absurdity, or otherwise, of banning social media. We talked about the difficulty of the application when one guest claimed that a few youth suicides were the collateral of a modern world (Thanks for reading this far. That is the astounding bit). You can imagine that people became heated.

As the conversation railed on, Tim sat back and all eyes turned to him as he began the story about the boy and the baby turtles. He told us how, as the hundreds of baby turtles found their time to get to the sea, they stumbled towards the ocean, but the birds were waiting and picking them off one by one, taking them to the grizzly death of being eaten alive. The story continued that a young boy passing by began picking up little individual turtles, throwing them the long distance across the sand into the ocean, not allowing the birds to grab them as they lay open and helpless on the hot sand.

An old man sitting on a sandhill was astounded and called out to the boy asking him why he bothering to do this as there was no way he could save all the turtles. Holding a little turtle aloft, the boy called back “I can’t save all the turtles, but it will make a hell of difference to this little turtle”.

We all know this story, and we all get the metaphor, but we sit there transfixed. It totally changed the energy and the conversation moved on to other topics. Crisis averted.

I was in awe. These were the skills of the father. This was the learnt skill of a story, of a creative link of good communication. These are the skills of someone who has managed staff and boards and shareholders and driven an organisation forward to success.

While the obvious privilege when I arrived seemed to be substantial wealth, I was left thinking how this gentleman would have been successful in any environment as he had the gift of communication. He may have had a successful parent, but it’s not genetic. It’s not a gift of the privileged few. It is something we can all learn it and the time to learn it is now.

Let me know your thoughts.

Love, Dr Louise Mahler