Clarence "Sparr" Risher

"Who fails to communicate to someone more often, you or her?"

"You fail to communicate your meaning 80% of the time"

"Almost every time I see you trying to communicate to someone, you are failing"

 

I get a lot of flak for deficiencies in my communication style and ability. I also get a lot of accusations that, in general, I am [very] bad at communication, [much] worse than other [typical or specific] people. All of the quotes above are amalgamations and paraphrases of real things people have said to me. Most of them refer to [their perception of] the frequency of my failure to communicate an idea or concept to someone.

 

I explain this phenomenon in three ways:

 

1. I attempt to communicate, at all, more things and more often than most people.

 

2. I attempt to communicate specific things and topics that most people would avoid attempting for reasons unrelated to communication skill (e.g. taboo, awkward, shy, illegal, etc).

 

3. I continue attempting long after most people would give up out of frustration or exhaustion.

 

None of these things indicate a deficiency in my communication skills, and I think these things account for almost all of the negative observations people make about my communication skills relative to the average or to a typical/normal person.

 

If you think I am a worse communicator than Pat, consider the following scenarios:

 

1. I try twice as often as Pat, so you see me fail twice as often as Pat, even if our level of skill is equal.

 

2. I talk about things Pat refuses to talk about, so on those topics you see me fail infinitely more often than Pat, even if my skill level is much higher, even if I were the best communicator in the world.

 

3. I try twice as long as Pat, so for a topic on which we both fail, you will see my failure twice as often/much, even if our skill is equal. Further, even for things I communicate successfully and Pat does not, you will have more opportunity to encounter my attempt in the middle where it appears unsuccessful up to that point, similar in effect to #1.

 

If it helps, ask yourself whether you would prefer someone succeed 90% of the time, or they not try at all. Most of the arguments I hear about my own communication failures would align with wanting the best communicator in the world to not try at all, lest they inevitably fail even once.

 

Of course, there are also arguments to be made about the relative value of failure vs success, and about my ability as the recipient of communication, but I'll save those for another post. This post is specifically about whether conclusions can be reached about my communication skill based on observations of communication failure from me to someone else.