What we have here, is a failure to communicate

I have to say that as time goes on, I grow more and more deeply concerned that the big gap affecting our nation is between the "have's" and the "have-nots".  The "having" though, isn't about money, or power or motivation.  What I am concerned with is our ability to communicate.

The vast majority of us really, really do not communicate well anymore.

For Bernie Sanders, the gap was money. I don't disagree with that.

For Ayn Rand, the gap was motivation. I don't disagree with that.

For Me, today, its communication.

Now, I'm not saying that communication trumps motivation or money, they are clearly interrelated. One isn't the king of the other, and so on, although depending on the situation at hand, priority will need to be given to one or the other.

I guess my intention here is to point out what I'm seeing. This week, I had the pleasure of helping a grown professional - older than me - organize his/her thoughts into something that the end user might actually find helpful.

This person actually objected to my comments on his/her original work, even at one point refusing to integrate my comments entirely or refusing to use any communication tool at all.  This "final" version was all jumbled up: Ideas interspersed with facts. Floating facts with no apparent connection to the general conversation. No goals.  No recommendations.  No summary piece.  References listed that weren't actually referenced. On top of that, it was esthetically ugly  The proposed presentation piece was a black print on white paper, two pages with a staple.

That someone would consider this work "final" made me wonder what this person's objectives actually were. This person is reasonably successful professional with a Master's level education and years of experience.

And then to have this person fight back and to defend the work; to insist that a re-work wasn't necessary. And then to position things in such a way that any failure would be mine to take.

It was embarrassing, really.

Maybe I just read into this person's work based on what I am seeing in the greater world. Being stuck on ideology really alleviates the need for communication. Maybe I have that backwards. Maybe our general inability to communicate makes ideology more attractive.

Either way, its no less embarrassing.