Mobius Communication

A Mobius strip is a one-sided surface formed by joining the ends of a narrow rectangle after twisting one end through 180°. It was discovered in the mid 1800s.

What does this have to do with the price of eggs, you say or the way this Blog is heading….a great deal!

I use a bright red Mobius strip as the symbol of my workshops and use an exercise of building one, as a management wake up. Why do I do this? Well, I have found it creates a super impact for nearly asleep managers around the world. It is the key to change management, the key to management itself, in fact -- says she who has watched with great fascination as the light goes on in someone’s eyes who finally gets it -- it is also the key to good and lasting relationships of any and all kinds.

I started writing out all the instructions for this exercise, but decided after about a page full with illustrations that it makes a far better live demonstration to ensure it gets made correctly. Just trust me on this -- it works and you have something to look forward to, should we ever meet.

Once the Mobius strip is built they learn about how FEAR and COMMUNICATION are linked. When there is no communication there is fear, when there is fear, you can take it to the bank, there is not enough communication.

What stops good communication? Lots of stuff, but basically 7 things:

1. Lack of desire to communicate
2. Lack of time to have healthy, quality communications
3. Fear you will be misunderstood
4. Fear you will be understood
5. NOT LISTENING TO THE OTHER PERSON
6. Lack of the words to describe your thoughts (that’s when you must break out the crayons and flip-chart paper and just draw something)
7. A hidden agenda

How many of us have tried to describe something and been completely and totally misunderstood and your efforts to “make it right again” is fruitless effort? Or how many of us have had our words misquoted and used against us?

They say the average person’s vocabulary is about 5,000 words and that includes all the “the”, “a”, “an” type of words too. So is it any wonder we are misunderstood or that a war begins someplace in the world every 20 minutes!

Even if you live with a dictionary in one hand (like I do), "understood" communication (as opposed to understandable communication) is tough work.

One of the most impactful books I have ever read about communication is called, An Imaginary Life, by David Maloof, an amazing and thought-provoking Australian author and poet. This book is the first-person story of the Roman poet Ovid’s exile in the distant, frosty wastes, where is condemned to live as punishment among barbarians who have no language. How can he survive with no one to talk with?

All day long we write or speak our thoughts, exposing our hearts and our minds and our souls to strangers and those we hope care for us, even love us. And how many times we are misunderstood!

Effectiveness of Communication

Research into nonverbal aspects of verbal, face-to-face communication by Albert Mehrabian, looks in depth at how our messages come across. His finding showed that only:

- 7% of interpersonal communication is traceable to the words we use
- 38% comes from "para-language" - or how we use our voice (inflection, tone, etc.)
- 55% is the result of facial expression and other body language signals

Heart Language

Language, however well crafted or used, always seems to fail our hearts….always. Why else would there be so many books, so much poetry, so much music and art? We ache to communicate so we are understood….not just to speak.

((PS: and not once did I mention the great Turner !!!))