Did You Know There's an App For That?
06 Jun 16
Human Factors
It is a beautiful example of how generations have brought about change, even in the military. Whenever I was on a training course back in the 80’s (greatest decade of all time for music by the way!) and we had a tea break, I and my colleagues used that time to make a cup of tea and have a bit of banter. These days, students get out their smart phones quicker than a gunslinger could draw his pistol in the Wild West when we split for tea.
Image: Frederick Deligne
I appreciate the convenience and the wider way of keeping in touch with disparate friends, but think we are missing something in the pure eye to eye interaction that the Human Race has excelled at for thousands of years. Electronic screens, e-mails, Twitterbook (I can see my youngest daughter storming off right now as she saw that last one) cannot hope to convey the range of emotions that one imperceptible movement of an eyebrow can capture during a debrief of a complicated mission, and I fear that we will lose our personal skills if we use a tech substitute each day. Of course the irony of writing a blog isn’t lost on me, but there are some things I am contracted to do!
I do, of course, play up to the Dinosaur tag that my daughter has given me, but when delivering a course I think it is important to give my all to the audience, heart and soul, hence I don’t even switch my phone on during the day. And by the way, that is an old Nokia that makes phone calls and does texts (“For goodness sake Dad!”).
Each generation evolves its communication skills to meet the demands of its environment, and it is interesting to see that Emoji is the fastest growing language in the UK right now. I should be horrified, but that goes along with what we teach about pictures. Pictures are the universal language, and if you can build people a picture in their minds then you stand a better chance of getting your message across. So maybe there is something I can learn from the latest generation’s views of communication? (of course there is). However, as we constantly preach in our courses on communication – don’t throw out all the old skills just because there is something new out there. We have been communicating for thousands of years in one form or another and some things have always worked such as facial body language.
If you don’t believe me, think back to the last time you had a serious reprimand. Did you listen to any of the words that were said? Probably not. So how did you know you were being reprimanded? Firstly you were indoors with a hat on in your best uniform I guess. But that aside, you could see in the face of the person reprimanding you that you were in trouble. Their tone of voice probably gave it away too.
As a final point – I never use the word reprimand, but the blog won’t let me use the word that rhymes with rollocking. Apparently there’s an App that stops me from swearing on here. Of course there ####### is!
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