Coaching by James Flaherty

Author:James Flaherty
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2010-05-13T14:00:00+00:00

Sincerity: Even though we’re not aware of it, whenever someone asks us to do something, we evaluate how serious the speaker is; especially when we are busy or jammed, we listen to determine how important the request is to the speaker. We’re very unlikely to take something on if it seems trivial or procedural to the requester.

This situation comes up a lot in organizations when someone who is not committed to an activity passes along its component actions to others. Even if the form of the request is in every other way perfect, if the speaker is not personally committed to the outcome, the listener will likely detect that and hold back her own full commitment. This little bit of insight may shed light on when you ask for something to be done and it doesn’t get accomplished. After a while of being with someone, we can readily discern his level of commitment to what he is saying. A speaker who is merely going through the motions will find himself disappointed when the intended results are not achieved.

This point around sincerity brings into relief an aspect of speaking that we rarely study. Even though many people think so, language is not a freestanding tool that we use to describe reality. Rather, in every case, language is the way we humans bring forth a shared world so that we can together coordinate actions and build the world together. Attempting to hide behind the meaning of words or construction of sentences will not be sufficient to camouflage the speaker. What we are up to is revealed every time we speak.

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