{"id":179,"date":"2015-07-12T13:09:26","date_gmt":"2015-07-12T13:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/?p=179"},"modified":"2015-09-27T13:41:15","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T13:41:15","slug":"communicating-using-advice-from-lao-tzu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/?p=179","title":{"rendered":"Communicating: some wise advice from Lao Tzu"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a leader one of the toughest challenges is communicating. Getting right the what<\/em> and the how<\/em>, the who <\/em>and the when<\/em> and even the where <\/em>isn\u2019t easy. \u00a0In certain situations, there is no perfect way. \u00a0Sometimes it’s not just what is said or how it’s said, but who is saying it that matters the most. \u00a0 Effective communication starts with the speaker, the leader: their credibility and the level of trust the team or organization has in the leader.<\/p>\n

Over the years I\u2019ve worked hard at improving the effectiveness of my communication. With patients and families I’m effective most of the time, but there is always room to improve – the approach to communicating needs to be tailored to the individual, as well as the situation and circumstances – and that’s hard to get right every time.\u00a0\u00a0 Even within one episode of communication, the approach needs to be fluid. \u00a0This takes emotional intelligence and practice.<\/p>\n

Lao Tau has some advice for communicators. \u00a0Lao Tau said, \u201cHe who knows does not speak.\u201d He also said, \u201cPractice doing \u2018not doing\u2019.\u201d These two tenets of Daoism need to be front of mind when a leader is communicating. \u00a0He is telling us to listen – do more listening than speaking.<\/p>\n

One can gain many lessons about communicating from Daoism. Daoism encourages one to consider that the whole is real and the divisive is perceptual. \u00a0A single idea or opinion cannot be good or bad, because that would place judgment, which is a comparative and perceptual approach not a synergistic or uniting one. To throw out an idea would threaten the balance of the whole. \u00a0Lao Tzu said, \u201cLong and short complement each other.\u201d Meaning you can\u2019t have long unless you have short. \u00a0In communicating, one would do well to remember that nothing is really new, or better, or old or bad, it simply is, and whatever it is complements and colors the conversation, making it more whole, more real. \u00a0To do this takes listening.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless speaking must be done. It\u2019s what people expect from leaders. My first goal when I speak is to drive common values and principles, to align thinking and actions, and to motivate effort towards a shared vision. \u00a0In other words: be inspiring. \u00a0My second goal is to be a sensemaker.<\/p>\n

It is the job of the leader to bring order to the whole in order to influence the group to reach their shared vision. This is called sensemaking. A leader must do it well and communicate it well to be a good leader. Lao Tzu said, \u201cWhat is a wise man\u2019s job, but to make another wise.\u201d A leader’s job is to create wisdom for all. Great communicating requires a\u00a0humanistic approach, which results in an increase in collective wisdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a leader one of the toughest challenges is communicating. Getting right the what and the how, the who and the when and even the where isn\u2019t easy. \u00a0In certain situations, there is no perfect way. \u00a0Sometimes it’s not just what is said or how it’s said, but who is saying it that matters the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}