No. 526, August 15, 2005

A thought provoking insight

The inner broadband and interpersonal modem

Our inner communication with ourselves goes at tremendous – broadband – speed. In every moment we have access to an amazing visual overview, all surrounding sounds, sensory receptors on the skin as well as smell and taste. But as soon as we try to convey this information to others we communicate at modem speed, slow and ineffective.

The consequences for everyday life is enormous. Even simple information can sometimes be difficult to communicate to others so that they understand the way we understand. Using body language, facial expression and pictures improves communication but it is still slow compared to our inner broadband.

The management tool of delegating builds on the facts above. Better delegate responsibility to someone with first hand information at broadband speed than receiving information with "modem" speed – through someone else.

Money is, for better and worse, a great easily communicated measure suitable for modem speed. Whenever we can transform our inner broadband experience to a value in currency this is easily communicated to others even at modem speed.

Humanities greatest inventions to tackle this challenge is the dialogue, the story and the book. Recognizing another person’s experience as your own is a powerful experience. Even if every person has a unique story to tell there are common human themes.

Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game Of Tennis, discovered that too much verbal instruction was worse than no instruction. Also, better show than tell. In many cases what was most successful was to encourage practise. In this way his pupils accessed their inner broadband to learn a new skill in the art of tennis.

This phenomena is, of course, also the basis for the famous words: You can never teach anyone anything. You can only help them to discover it within themselves.

Creative regards! Jonas Himmelstrand

© 2005 Strategies to Learn & Grow Newsletter • Printable version