Breathe new life into your conversations. Learn what 4th order communications are and how to avoid them. Learn how to communicate closer to the higher 1st order.
Have you ever sent a text message telling someone you’re sick and they sent you a thumbs-up in reply? They were operating under the 4th order of communication. They “liked” your message without realizing that they were liking the content of the message and consequently liking that you are sick. Maybe they hope you will die. If so, it’s time for some new friends. All it takes to bring that thumb-heap up to a higher order of communication is for the thumbs-up person to think before they send anything. A lot of people are in the habit of sending the reaction emojis in reply to everything without thinking about what the reaction means in the end. Do they really like it when someone else is sick? Do they really approve of the sickness? Are they the Roger Ebert or the Gene Siskel of viruses? Probably not. At times it might even be better to just write out what you mean to say. Instead of a vague yellow thumb, send a quick, “My thoughts and prayers for you. Get well soon.”
Have you ever had someone ask a nebulous question like, “What are you doing with this thing?” Perhaps the thing in question is a unicycle. The unicycle is horizontal on the floor of your warehouse apartment. You haven’t ridden your unicycle in a while so it has a thin layer of dust on it. You notice a single string of a spider’s web extending from the seat to the floor, which prompts you to be clever with your response. “I’m raising spiders.” The person who asked gives you a sour expression and says, “That has nothing to do with my question.” So you apologize and tell them you aren’t really doing anything with it since you have a two-wheeled machine in mind and that two-wheeled machine takes up more of your time than any other vehicle at this juncture in your life, though that may change if you happen to want to join the circus and pick up the skill of juggling while riding the unicycle or perhaps riding the unicycle on a high wire. The person gets really frustrated then and claims you never have a straightforward answer to a question. You might admit they’re right and then you’ll ask, “What kind of answer were you aiming for anyway?” Then they tell you they just wanted to know if they could ride it. You slap your forehead and ask, “Why didn’t you ask that in the first place?” The answer, we know, is because they were operating in a lower order of communication, weren’t they? If you want a direct answer, ask a direct question.
Have you ever received a business email and then someone in your office resends that email to everyone? Aside from making everyone on the list wonder what exactly the job description of the email resender is, there is a measure of frustration because it looks like a new email, but it’s only a repackaging. Maybe you start reading—only to find you’ve already taken in the information. This is a lower order of communication, but it’s also a resource draw. It creates inefficiency. If you’re the boss, you need to discourage the email resender from resending.
Have you ever spoken to a homeless person and they replied to your normal conversation with a siege strike of profane proportions? It’s not the words which are conveying the message here. It’s the emotion behind the delivery. The person would probably be more civil if they didn’t have so many worries and struggles and trials. Their entire catalog of possessions is currently in a pack or a cart. Their bed is generally not in a permanent structure, nor is their bathroom. All of the bottled frustrations come out whenever they try to communicate with anyone. We might not blame them for the outburst, but we can definitely learn from it. Heavy emotions don’t often let anyone convey the real message. Instead of, “$@*!,” we mean to say, “I’m hurt, I’m tired, and I’m scared.” To get to a higher order, though, may require getting through the initial outburst.
Xenosthesia.com 