How to Really Garble Communication

Sometimes I can talk all day about how to improve communication and people never get it. In the spirit of fun, here are some handy tongue-in-cheek tips for people who strive to be bad communicators, to stay unclear, and to keep creating quagmires and confusion in their lives.
Use these six little secrets to keep your life in chaos. Use them in business and at home to keep things in turmoil. These are also handy ways to ensure a high employee turnover.

Raise your voice
If you really don’t want to get your point across, just begin shouting or scolding. Either response prevents any further intelligent discourse. This rule is particularly important when a language barrier prevents someone from understanding you. When someone doesn’t understand your language, just talk louder. Loud communicates the same message to people all around the world. Loud is disrespectful. Loud characterizes someone you don’t want to do business with.

Leave out details
Details let the other person know exactly what you want or need. Leave the message fuzzy if you want to continue having bad communication. Details take time. You can shave valuable minutes off the average communication by leaving out the details. After all, it only takes a few hours to clean up most messes created by such an omission.

Don’t check to see if you were understood
This rule is very important for would-be bad communicators. If you spend time checking to see whether you were understood, all the other efforts you make to be a bad communicator can be thrown out the window. Don’t give the other person a chance to say, “I didn’t understand xyz.” Otherwise, you’ll have to clarify. If you want to be unclear, do your deed and skedaddle before anybody can ask any questions.

Walk away and talk at the same time
Toss your request, instruction, or demand flippantly over your shoulder as you are walking away from the person to whom you are speaking. Preferably, avoid looking at the other person during conversation. This technique denies virtually any possibility of being understood. And you haven’t wasted those precious seconds required to face the person you are talking to and make eye contact.

Assume that everyone understands you
If you are a bad communicator, you already know about the dangers of assuming information, but we thought we would remind you anyway about the most popular tool of the unclarity trade. Just send an old-fashion telegram when a detailed letter is needed.

Don’t permit any objections or questions
Heck, don’t permit any response. The other person may be taking up your time to understand the niggling information. Toss out whatever you have to say and cut off the discussion. Anything further would just help clarify what you are saying.

A slur of any kind

We are well into the 21st century and, in the United States at least, negative comments about the race, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin of another person are no longer widely tolerated. Many people are concerned with being “politically correct.” There are those who are offended at any inquiry that could even identify these traits, such as “What kind of a name is that?” Unless you know differently for sure, steer clear of the most innocent of references unless they are relevant.
If the information is irrelevant, you should even avoid neutral statements such as, “The person was a woman” or “The man was from China.” You may receive an angry response, such as “Just what is that supposed to mean?” “Why did you mention that?” Worse yet, the person you are speaking to may think those thoughts without verbalizing them. This situation raises a barrier to communication that you won’t even know exists. Even if you are with a group that seems to be quite open about expressing whatever they happen to think or feel about another group, don’t join in. Be discreet. You never know who may be suffering in silence — feeling outnumbered and helpless.
Oh sure, you may be able to disparage all members of a certain group in the privacy of your own home with impunity. But even there, I urge you to curtail such comments. Those attitudes are too easily passed on to the young, and the slurs have a nasty way of showing up in conversation outside the home. The last thing you want in a tough negotiation is to let an offensive phrase slip out just when you want to close. You can lose the deal you are working on and the trust and confidence of your counterpart in the negotiation. Unwitting slurs can stop a negotiation in its tracks. You may be pegged forever as a bigot; and some people don’t negotiate with bigots. If you have some bad habits in this area, work on cleaning up your language.

“You’ll never work in this town again”

This is a bully’s threat. Everyone has observed this bullying behavior. Once is enough. Threats never win the hearts and minds of the person you are attempting to persuade. In today’s litigious society, threats are not smart. “You’ll never work in this town again” used to be a stock phrase in the entertainment industry, uttered furiously by the tirading studio executive dealing with a recalcitrant actor or writer. An executive at Twentieth Century Fox once issued this threat to an actor who refused to accept a lesser credit than his contract guaranteed for work on a television series. The series ultimately failed, and, guess what? The actor was unemployed for several years. The actor sued Twentieth Century Fox, attributing his long period of unemployment to the studio’s threat. Who knows, he may have been out of work anyway, but given the threat, the jury sided with the actor and awarded an enormous judgment.
People in positions of power often get frustrated when someone of lesser status refuses what they view as a simple and reasonable request. Usually, the next step is a plea to “play ball.” Then some avuncular advice follows, such as “You know, you really would be better off helping us out of this one,” or “We’ll make it up to you on the next one.” When the person isn’t persuaded, the power player often pops a cork.
Good manners, common sense, and the growing body of employment law all favor the threatened person. Don’t resort to this tactic. You could lose the farm.