It was not — sadly — one of those with an engaging centre spread. In fact, this one didn’t have even one photograph between its 509 pages of tightly-packed wordage.

What The Playboy Interview, Volume II, had, though, was some observations about Gaddafi by Oriana Fallaci, the Italian journalist, who interviewed him in 1979 for the New York Times Magazine. Fallaci, known as much for her tempestuous personality as her dissecting line of questions, is admittedly not the most objective of observers. But her thoughts on her unpleasant encounter with the colonel, as expressed to Robert Scheer in a 1981 interview she gave Playboy (which, ironically, was unpleasant as well), are interesting all the same.

For one, Fallaci’s words shed some light on the man who is arguably the most popular hate-figure in the world today, and there aren’t many who have lasted a full, intimate round with the colonel and managed to tell the tale. Two, the encounter is revealing of the excitable personality and technique of one of the finest — and controversial — political interviewers the world has seen (or perhaps, in Fallaci’s case, her personality is her technique). Also, Scheer’s approach is a study in the art of interviewing. Though less aggressive than Fallaci in style, Scheer, famous for the Playboy interview he did with Jimmy Carter, is nonetheless persistent, refusing to be bullied by his more famous peer.

Here’s how Fallaci begins answering Scheer’s question about her encounter with Gaddafi: “That one was truly scary. Qaddafi (sic) is clinically sick, mentally ill, a certifiable idiot. You cannot deal with him.”

Fallaci was angered by the fact that Gaddafi made her wait “three and a half hours outside his offices in Libya”, and she was stranded in his library for a long time.

“After the first hour,” she tells her interviewer, “I wanted to go make the pee-pee, but they didn’t come to escort me to the bathroom”. So she got infuriated and, in true Fallaci style, “picked up the 1964 copy of Who’s Who and threw it against the wall to express my rage. Finally, Qaddafi came”.

Scheer presses Fallaci to justify her comment about Gaddafi. When, he asks her, did she become convinced Gaddafi was mentally sick?

“You should listen to my tape,” Fallacci responds. “For ten minutes, he is yelling like a broken record, ‘I am the gospel, I am the gospel.’ It’s terrible, because he never stops, never stops. His face — his face is so out of this world while this is going on that I nudge my photographer to take the picture then. But the photographer was scared he couldn’t move his hands, and the interpreter was trembling, too.”

Gaddafi is a good-looking man, is he not? Fallaci is not very charitable on that front either.

“No. They had told me that he was a good-looking man … But when you see him, he has this very stupid face. No matter what are the features, when the person is stupid, stupidity shows. He has very little, little eyes. In the photos, they are bigger. Then he has this enormous chin, enormous! His head is very narrow, because he has very little cerebral inside, very little. He is repellent. I have a physical hate for Qaddafi.”

Such comments about your interviewee, Scheer says, amount to character assassination. Fallaci had made similar comments about Yassar Arafat too, in the introduction she wrote for that interview. Is that fair?

“I don’t care if it was fair or not. I didn’t like Arafat. I think that Arafat is a phony!” And then, “What do you want to do? What do you want to do with me because I don’t like Arafat? I don’t like Arafat!”

What if the introduction to this interview said Oriana has crooked teeth, Scheer asks her.

Fallaci tries to claim her comments about Arafat was “amusing”, but Scheer keeps up the pressure, forcing — no, let me leave you to pick up a copy; let me not spoil the suspense.

But before I go, here is one more excerpt. This one is from Fallaci’s original encounter with Gaddafi in 1979, in the wake of the American embassy hostage crisis in Teheran. After a barrage of challenging questions about his “little hobby of financing international terrorism”, and plenty of taunts (at one point Fallaci tells him he should have lived when Hitler was killing the Jews, as “Hitler would have been a good friend for you”), Fallaci says she wants to ask one last thing. To which Gaddafi, who seemed to have been on the back foot for much of the interview, responds rather grandly:

“Sure, but be brief. The Iranian delegation is awaiting me. I have to get to work to organise the release of those hostages.”

“Do you believe in God?” Fallaci asks.

“Of course, why do you ask me such a question?”

The response is classic Fallaci: “Because I thought you were God.”

Image courtesy: Jan-Erik Ander, http://www.cartoonmovement.com/cartoon/1513

Let me present a clip or three of the unconventional thoughts therein. Here’s one about teaching dancesport:

“The strange thing about the dancing world is that it is the only world I know where the customer is always wrong … Don’t do this, don’t do that, you’ve to do this, you’ve have to do that… the customer is always wrong. Because when the customer is right, you have nothing else to say, your business is finished.”

Relating that to an earlier quote in the same video, I get the impression that Burns is stressing something that many trainers (the lecture was meant for them), in their alacrity to achieve perfection in their couples, often forget:

The mind of the athlete. The need to nurture it.

Perhaps I am leaping to a conclusion here, but anecdotal evidence from a number of dancers I have spoken to about this suggests that the mental makeup of the trainee is not something most trainers see as a priority. Some time ago, on the eve of a big competition, I happen to speak to a professional couple who had just finished their final lessons. What the lady had to say illustrates my point:

“We had a rubbish day today. Our teachers were not happy. They say we are not dancing like champions.”

Some food for thought there for dancers and trainers alike, I think. If there is no positive frame of mind, there is no athlete.

Burns speaks more about the relationship between the trainer and the dancers – rather, the contribution of the trainer to the competitive success of a couple:

“No teacher is capable of telling the dancer enough information to win. I think that most people who win, it is 10, 20, maybe 40, maybe even 50 or 60 per cent is what they hear from the teacher in a lesson. And the rest is their own input. I don’t think teachers make champions, actually.”

What a teacher can do, Burns says, is contribute, help the couple along:

“I think some [teachers] are good at guiding people through the water, to avoid the rocks … I think most of the creativity is within that person. And the best I offer anybody is their own style.”

Towards the end, he returns to the power-of-the-mind theme, with a burst about imagery:

“I think the most important thing for a dancer and the couple is to visualise … have a fantasy about how they are going to dance that competition – all five dances. Now that is not something you teach really.”

Let me leave you with that. If you would like to pick up the commentary, the comment box is yours – enjoy.

Been thinking, a lot, also about Epicretold – suppose, just suppose, there were newspapers then, the equivalents of The Times of India and The Sun and The New York Times and the BBC. How would they have narrated the Kurukshetra war and the events that led to it?

I guess my interest in such a narrative is driven in the main by my fascination with ‘war journalism’. It is not difficult to see war coverage as serialised storytelling: episode after episode of drama, over weeks and months and years, with conflict, escalation and resolution, the same major characters weaving in and out accompanied by the same minor actors – all coming together to form an overarching narrative, which, I dare say, pretty well follows the shape of Freytag’s pyramid.

Interesting to think, then, of how the Mahabharata can be told as news. Can the story be strung together as a series of media reports? Would such storytelling make sense to a reader, particularly one not familiar with the storyline? Would it help him/her create own narrative of that ‘reality’?

Solely in the spirit of experiment, here’s a take. I see this as appearing in an ‘international’ newspaper – call it what you will (and drop me a line if you come up with an interesting name):

Pandu family returns
King welcomes Kunti, sons with ‘open arms’

By Our Royal Correspondent

HASTINAPUR:  The family of King Pandu, the renunciant royal who died in the Shatashringa forests in a mysterious accident last week, returned yesterday to a grand ceremony that spilled out on to the streets of the capital city.

The royal widow Kunti and her sons – Yudhishtira (7), Bhima (6), Arjuna (5) and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva (4) – were met at the city gates by Bhishma, the patron of the royal clan, and driven through the high street in a chariot drawn by seven horses at the head of a ceremonial procession.

Accompanied by a select group of palace officials and personal maids, Queen Gandhari welcomed Kunti at the palace gates.

“It is good to be in Hastinapur again,” Kunti said, wiping away tears. “My sons are finally back where they belong.”

At the palace, the family were taken straight to King Dhritarashtra for a private meeting. A palace official present on the occasion said the king was overcome with “tears of joy”.

“I welcome my brother’s family with open arms,” the king said in a statement released later. “This is their kingdom and I am glad they have returned. Now I have five more sons.”

While reports about the cause of Pandu’s death remain sketchy, palace sources confirmed that Madri, his second wife, had opted for the practice of Sati, stepping into his funeral pyre, as “befitting a princess and loving spouse”.

Pandu, though second in line to the Hastinapur kingdom, had ascended the throne 11 years ago, superseding his elder brother Dhritarashtra, who, owing to his blindness, had been deemed unfit by his elders. However, seven years ago, for reasons not yet clear, Pandu had renunciated the kingdom while on a hunting trip to the Shatashringa forests.

He had lived there since, fathering five sons – Yudhishtira, Bhima and Arjuna with Kunti, and Nakula and Sahadeva with the younger Madri.

The Kuru Kingdom, which lies north of the Vindhyas bordering Panchala, is one of the largest in the region, and has been traditionally ruled from Hastinapur, ‘the city of elephants’. Though under King Dhritarashtra the kingdom has seen relative stability and peace, his ability to rule has always been questioned. The king, born blind, is seen as ‘unfit to rule’ by many, including Bhishma, his grandfather. Queen Gandhari’s self-imposed blindness – since the day she found out her betrothed was blind, the former princess of Gandhara has chosen to wear a black blindfold – has not helped his case.

The death of King Pandu and the unexpected return of his family have brought a feeling of unrest in the palace. A highly-placed source, who did not want to be identified, said the king had to be persuaded by Bhishma to invite Kunti and sons to Hastinapur.

“The royal politics is likely to be murkier in the coming years,” the source said.

Treat this as the equivalent of an ‘establishing’ shot, the beginning of this narrative. The next take could be from a Hastinapur-based newspaper – a human interest story perhaps, on the five little boys, the Pandavas. And, yes, there could a political commentary or a news analysis, which would expand on the last quote of the report above.

Guess I will be back with more.

ALSO SEE: The End of Childhood

Image courtesy http://bit.ly/9azpHi

IN THE EARLY 1950s, an American anthropologist named Ray Birdwhistell became seriously fascinated with the scene in a middleclass English pub in London. After studying recordings of the exchanges there long and hard, he came to an interesting conclusion:

Sixty-five per cent of the meaning in a human interaction is communicated nonverbally – by way of body motion (head position, posture, etc), facial expression, eye contact, tone of voice (pitch, inflection, that sort of thing), and paralanguage (the ‘ahem’, ‘aah’, ‘hmmm’ and the like that fill our everyday conversation).

Birdwhistell was convinced body movements form a communication system identical to verbal language (he called it kinesics, deliberately analogous to linguistics), which could be read as ‘phrases’, similar to spoken words and sentences. Albert Mehrabian, who followed a similar line of research, came to another dramatic conclusion more than a decade later: 93 per cent of the attitudinal message – the emotional or ‘relationship-level’ substance, as opposed to the factual or ‘content-level’ info (see Message from Mars 2 for an expansion) – is transmitted by nonverbal channels.

While scholars since have questioned the generalisability of the studies, and the findings themselves have been widely misrepresented (the Mehrabian formulation is often cited to overzealously claim 93 per cent of the total meaning is communicated nonverbally, for instance), this much can be said with some certainty: nonverbal channels contribute much to what meaning we gather from another’s communication.

Simply put, nonverbal signals determine to a significant extent how the receiver hears your message – positively or negatively, as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

Trouble is, humans are more tuned in to decode negative cues. For instance, a negative inflection will make a disproportionately stronger impact on the receiver than the verbal content. So the dancer who feeds back “You are rushing me” – which, on its own, is not bad – is likely to do more damage if s/he delivers that in the wrong tone of voice. And if the accompanying body language – facial expression, posture etc – is also negative, well, the couple certainly has another issue.

What if the verbal content is positive, but the nonverbal cues are not? In such cases, there is evidence that the nonverbal channels will triumph; the receiver is more likely to derive a negative meaning (particularly if the accompanying facial expression, the most potent of nonverbal channels, supports such a communication). Your verbal message, hence, could be something as positive as “That was better!” But if delivered with discrepant nonverbal signals (furrowed brow, set lips, any other cue that contributes to an ‘unhappy’ expression), your partner is unlikely to be thrilled. On the other hand, try it with an ‘in sync’ cue (a smile, vocal warmth). It would add to the positive verbal content and you just could make someone’s day.

Nonverbal communication, thus, can be seen to contextualise the verbal message in many cases. They accentuate, temper, even contradict the content, allowing the receiver to arrive at a ‘suitable’ judgement of meaning. Effective athlete-athlete communication calls for a respectful awareness of these channels. A good communicator chooses his/her words carefully; sufficient care needs to be taken with nonverbal cues as well for constructive communication.

Maintaining ‘integrity of purpose’

At times it is a good idea to step back and ask ourselves this: why did I just say/do what I just said/did?

Keep in mind on such occasions there is more to interpersonal communication than the obvious purpose of disclosing and gaining information. Psychologist William Schutz saw communication as serving three fundamental human needs: inclusion (to establish an identity with the other involved, a standing), affection (to build a relationship, to be liked), and control (to prove one’s ability, exercise leadership). My impression is that most partners see their talk as nothing but information exchange, directly aimed at improving their performance.

But it is rarely that. Underlying that is a human need – and it is here that some soul-searching could come in useful. Was your message really aimed at educating the partnership (“Shaping away before that step-hop could help me follow better”)? Was it an instruction, an attribution of blame – something aimed at gaining control (“Take your head away from my space!”/”We are off-balance because your head weight is in the wrong place!”)? Perhaps it is a form of defensive aggression, an attempt to protect yourself from a possible critique by getting in a word first (interpretable as falling into the identity categorisation, an attempt to negotiate a standing)? Or a stress-relieving tactic, just venting your frustration?

This goes for nonverbal communication as well. Every facial expression, every gesticulation can be taken to be a subconscious – in some cases, conscious – negotiation of identity, an attempt at control, a quest for affection, perhaps a mix thereof.

An understanding of our real communication motives, thus, is important. Reflecting on why we say/do what we say/do allows us to strive for what we could call ‘integrity of purpose’ (the assumption is that most dancers’ actions are aimed at improving performance), protecting us to some extent from the ‘dishonest’ motives our very human needs push us into.

Widen coach-athletes communication

It is common in dancesport for couples to have more than one trainer. This poses an interesting question regarding the constitution of their competitive team: who all does it include?

The couple? The couple and their main trainer? The couple and all their trainers?

What impact does the absence of a dedicated trainer (even the one who a couple considers their main trainer often teaches their competitors as well), and the utilisation of shared trainers, have on a partnership – specifically on their communication demands?

I am sticking my neck out here, but my hypothesis is that given the situation, most couples ‘close ranks’, containing the team membership to own selves, perhaps with a limited provision for the main trainer.

While this is eminently pragmatic, it could also lead to a constrained communication situation. The feeling the trainer is ‘shared’ – and consequently not-so-much part of the team – provides for a less-than-wholesome communication from the athletes. This is compounded by the trainer’s knowledge that the couple concerned also has other trainers, including rival coaches. The multiple personalities involved in the training process arguably produce a more complex situation, which requires better communication – but as the athletes are likely to see only themselves as the team, there is a good chance they share less with the ‘outsider’ (trainer).

Perhaps a conscious effort need to be made by the athletes to involve the trainers – particularly the main trainer – more, to ‘talk over’ issues so they are better positioned to contribute. As involvement spurs interest, this could pay strategic dividends.

Strive for motivational communication

The link between motivation and performance is well-established in sports psychology, but very often the contribution of communication to that equation is ill-addressed. Think of the times you have seen your partner dejected at training — could you have said something that might have helped?

This is another area that competitive couples could – should, I would argue – take a more awakened interest in. Dancesport creates a unique situation, where motivational sources are limited (no dedicated coach or manager, for instance, and no other team members to step in) — which places the onus of keeping each other’s spirit alive squarely on the dancers themselves.

Easier said than done, but a basic exercise would be to avoid communication that is demotivating. Not always possible, but being conscious your partner is considerably dependent on your feedback – as there are no baskets to sink or goals to score, an important measure of performance is how it ‘felt’ to you – for his/her optimism is a good start. Though you might have the best intentions at heart, communication that stresses continually on what is not working can be demotivating, and your partner could well get locked in the ‘there’s-no-pleasing-this-person-so-why-bother’ zone.

The trick could be to ensure there is enough positive feedback – stuff that is motivational – as well, so that some kind of balance is achieved. A simple exercise: for every problem you want to bring to your partner’s attention, think of two things that have gone well. And – this is important – deliver the ‘good’ news in a way that will make your partner believe it, with ‘in sync’ nonverbal cues. That will certainly make a difference.

For the project ‘Communication in Dancesport’, we are looking to interview/share ideas with dancesport athletes, trainers and enthusiasts. If you would like to be involved, please leave a note. More contact details here.

Image courtesy: http://tiny.cc/B8yhm

Stumbled across Richard Jinman’s post, The ugly face of social networking, about the site that caters only to beautiful people (he definitely is NOT beautiful), and I just couldn’t resist engaging in a bit of social comparison myself.

So on I logged to www.beautifulpeople.com and had a look around. This is what it is about:

BeautifulPeople.com is an exclusively beautiful community, founded for the purpose of creating personal and professional relationships.
…

BeautifulPeople is the first community of its kind. To become a member, applicants are required to be voted in by existing members of the opposite sex. Members rate all new applicants over a 48 hour period based on whether or not they find the applicant ‘beautiful’. Should applicants secure enough positive votes from members, they will be granted a full membership to the BeautifulPeople Network.

The vote is fair and democratic.

BeautifulPeople does not define beauty it simply gives an accurate representation of what society’s ideal of beauty is.

Applicants can upload a complimentary profile. They are able contact members while being rated thereby giving insight into the character behind the appearance.

BeautifulPeople simply removes the ‘first hurdle’ as every member is exactly that; ‘Beautiful’ as deemed so by their peers.

Since it is all about peer assessment, you get pleas on your profile page (and though my beauty is yet to be validated, I do get to vote). Sample these:

Hi sexy people… would appreciate it if you would rate me…

Visit me and vote… and I will do the same for you.

I have got a lovely bunch of coconuts… diddle diddledeee!

comon ladies what do you think.. rate my pics .. you could just make my day..

I have upped my pix. Now I wait, I wait.

Image courtesy: anotherart.ning.com

THIS BIT IS OBVIOUS: the quality of communication depends to a large extent on the ability of the communicators involved. Essentially, on their clarity of thought, information processing and analytical capabilities, strength of articulation, listening skills, respect for communication cues such as turn-taking, etc. We all know people who are a ‘pleasure to talk to’ and people we struggle to hold a half-decent conversation with – also, those we think of as ‘difficult’, ‘argumentative’, ‘confrontational’.

Whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’ communication takes place depends to a large extent, thus, on the participants. And their awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses as communicators, their self-reflexiveness about their verbal and non-verbal contributions, is a fundamental step in facilitating better interaction.

The relation is also kind of cyclical: productive communication produces a supportive climate where meaningful and problem-orientated exchanges can take place, and sets the stage for more of the same. Ditto, negative communication. It encourages a defensive climate, leading to more of counterproductive communication and conflict.

Tips for the athlete? Five actionable points stand out.

One, try to be more aware of your ‘communicative self’.  Analyse own weaknesses, strengths. Ask others. And ask your partner. When does s/he ‘get’ you? When not? A self-awareness of this sort will serve as a ‘mind the gap’ in difficult situations.

Two, think before you speak. What you are about to say, is that significant enough to communicate? Is it actionable? That is, will it serve a positive purpose? Remember, you do not have to voice every thought, every feeling you have on the floor. ‘Information overload’ is tough on your partner, so pick and choose sensibly. You don’t want to be the boy/girl who cried ‘wolf’. You want to be listened to seriously every time you speak.

Three, think how you will speak. What we need to remind ourselves here is that communication occurs at the ‘content’ (the factual information, the ‘what’ of the message) and ‘relationship’ (the emotional info, the ‘how’ of the message) levels. The latter links to the delivery of the former; it is the dressing, the presentation, and can distract from – and corrupt – the real substance of the message. So right, that feather step was terrible. But perhaps you can get that point across without quite saying, “You are rushing me through, you dunderhead! You are not giving me time to lower.” Conventional wisdom advocates us to avoid the finger-pointing ‘you’ in such situations (I would modify that and say, reserve the ‘you statements’ for special occasions, but even there take the bite out of it with a smile, a softer tone). Bring in the ‘I’, instead. Rather than assign blame for what went wrong, describe the problem. Say what you felt, what could be done differently. “I feel quite rushed there and need more time to lower” is a lot less damaging than the first version.

Four, reserve definitive statements for definitive occasions (this is in a way an amplification of the point above, mind). The danger here is that cut-and-dry statements often ascribe blame and come across as quite aggressive. “That didn’t work because you were in the wrong position” constrains productive communication. For one, it is most likely to put your partner on the defensive, which is never a good start. Also, you may be setting yourself up for a knock down. There is a good chance your analysis is only partially correct, or even incorrect; there could easily be factors you have overlooked (perhaps your partner was in the wrong position because you had overturned – whatever). So hold your horses, repeat the figure a few times before you arrive at a conclusion. And even then, leave yourself elbow room – else, if challenged, you risk loss of face (and the consequential negative emotional responses, which could end with a ‘lash out’ to regain ‘face’).

Five, listen. Honestly listen. To be a good communicator, you need to be a good listener. Theorists call it active listening, which they differentiate from superficial (where you tune out as soon as you think you have enough information to decipher the speaker’s meaning) and arrogant listening (simply put, where you listen for pauses so you can say what you want to say). Active listening is about dedicating your attention – as complete of it as possible – to the speaker, to the factual and emotional substance of the message. It goes beyond allowing the speaker to finish his/her say (which is always a good start, mind). It is about proactively setting up what I would call a listening ground, creating a communicative space for your partner to fill (verbal silence could be a good tool; there can only be so much space for ‘talk’ on the floor, so if you keep a steady stream of statements, you would have little to listen to), aiding the transmission of the message (‘minimal encouragers’ such as ‘Mmm’, ‘Okay’, nods, eye contact), questioning to clarify (“So you would like me to angle it a bit more?”), and verbal (‘Let’s try that then’) or non-verbal responses (dancing out the change your partner requested, for instance) that will make the listener feel listened to. Not an easy skill, but it could save your partnership a lot of trouble.

Continuing reading this article: Why we should mind the non-verbals

Read part 1 of this article

For the project ‘Communication in Dancesport’, we are looking to interview/share ideas with dancesport athletes, trainers and enthusiasts. If you would like to be involved, please leave a note. More contact details here.

Image: kind courtesy www.paulabecker.com

ONE OF THE burning regrets in my life is that I do not speak fluent Venusian. The nuances of the language have eluded me despite my best efforts, and I am slowly beginning to accept that I will never fully comprehend it.

I have also realised the average Venusian has little knowledge of the language of Mars – for the length of this intro, let’s take John Gray’s sweeping generalisation founded on the gender differences hypothesis without the mandatory sack of salt – and absorbs a lot less of her partner’s communication than is ideal.

Which can be a recipe for disaster in competitive ballroom.

The extreme interdependency in dancesport – after marriage, it is the highest form of contact sport, I believe – produces a different kind of team dynamics, requiring a more sensitive and demanding communicative chemistry. My own research into this – mostly by way of proactive eavesdropping on the practice floor – stresses the need for better verbal and non-verbal interaction, particularly during the extended practice sessions most competitive couples tend to put in. Just count the number of times you have seen malevolent stares and rolling eyes on the floor this week, and heard “You are dragging me!”, “What are you trying to do?” and “You are too high!”, and you begin to get the picture.

Fortunately, ‘good’ partnerships manage to work through this somehow. The high levels of intrinsic motivation – the degree to which a participant’s engagement in the sport is driven by his/her inherent interest in it – and task orientation – the pleasure s/he derives from acquiring the ability to perform the activity in question effectively – that most successful athletes seem to have arguably help them tide over it, and partners evolve their own ways of negotiating the situation.

That is great. But counterproductive athlete-athlete communication – and I use it as an umbrella term to include non- and mis-communication as well – is still limiting. At best, it is a frustrating irritant; at worst, a major drag on the performance resources of the partnership.

Again, as many scholars would agree, so long as there is continuing communication, there is bound to be miscommunication; perfect communication is as much a rarity as the perfect dance (and that, as we know, happens only on Strictly). Still, there is plenty dancers can do to bridge the communication gap and encourage better performance.

Which brings us to this column. The idea is to present some broad thoughts that competitive dancers might find useful. This comes very early in a research project that sports psychologist Amanda Wilding and I are engaged in at the Bournemouth University, into a need gap we have identified – surprising how little academic attention dancesport has received despite its popularity – and is in no way exhaustive, but, hopefully, it is a beginning, some food for thought…

Recognise the centrality of communication

Communication is the glue that holds together a partnership (for that matter, any group, big or small), yet it is not something we consciously focus on or work at improving. An excellent piece of indicative evidence is the space most sports texts fail to dedicate to this crucial aspect. By and large, sports psychologists and coaches write about concepts supported by communication (motivation, goal-setting, leadership, teambuilding, that sort of thing), relegating communication itself to the backyard, a small section tucked away somewhere deep inside.

In the practical sphere, elite athletes seem to comprehend the significance of communication. But this comprehension, I get the feeling, is rather peripheral, leading to not much concrete action on it. Most dancers reflect on the positives and negatives of a training session, but how many actually analyse his/her communication and think, “Shucks, I shouldn’t have put it that way when I fed back on that running weave. Next time I will phrase it differently!”

A more awakened recognition of the centrality of communication is needed if dancers are to proactively work on improving it. Think of communication the same way you think of maintaining a strong ‘centre’ while dancing. Imagine letting your core muscles go as you begin your routine. Will you survive? Not. Soon everything collapses – your frame, your posture, your connection, your footwork. Communication serves the same central purpose in a partnership, and needs to be recognised – and worked on – as much.

Expect to misunderstand – and be misunderstood

Also known as ‘Be prepared to clarify – and listen to clarification’. Osmo Wiio, a Finnish communications scholar, has an interesting take on this, which can be summarised thus: if communication can fail, it will. Now that may be an overtly pessimistic view – Wiio has come up with the equivalent of Murphy’s law for communications, a set of seven-plus statements, every single one as discouraging as its fellows (read a commentary on it here) – but it is telling on the issues we face in our interpersonal interactions.

Fact is, communication is never simple. The thought we ‘encode’ (formulate our message into words) and ‘transmit’ (speak or write or telephone or email that message) to the listener is rarely received and ‘decoded’ (reconstructed into a message from the words received) the way we meant it to be.

There is too much ‘noise’ – anything that distracts, interferes – going on as we encode, as we transmit, as we decode (articulation or language issues, bias and preconceptions, personality, attention span, whether your boss yelled at you that day; besides of course ‘external’ interferences such as someone calling for your attention, your partner’s verbal or non-verbal cues, bad ‘turn-taking’, loud music, etc, etc), too many variables to wrestle with. Proof? Just think of the times you hear “No, that’s not what I meant!” or “You are twisting my words!” as you go about your business.

So, in essence, expect to be misunderstood – and be prepared to remedy that misunderstanding, to rearticulate your message in a different way. Equally important, expect to misunderstand. Be aware of the danger, and – this is crucial – cultivate the patience to hear the partner out when s/he says the magic words (or the equivalent thereof), “Let me clarify that…” Take it at face value, then reanalyse, modify your own earlier response. Not much purpose will be served if you stick to your guns and go, “No, that’s not what you just said!”

Continue reading this article: Message from Mars 2

Image: Kind courtesy clipart.com

The anti-war bit was perhaps expected, given the occasion and the hullabaloo in his own country about accepting Israeli hospitality at a time of battle in Gaza. Murakami projects war as the product of the System, which victimises its very creators, us, fragile-as-egg individuals. Here’s a clip:

I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called the System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong — and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together.

Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow the System to exploit us. We must not allow the System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: We made the System. That is all I have to say to you.

In all this, a writer’s job? To lay out the truth on a bed of magnificent lies – so it is visible to the world. To sound an alarm, thus, to the System. Quote:

I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.

Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics.

And why should that be? Murakami’s answer:

…by telling skillful lies — which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true — the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.

More:

I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories — stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.

Read the complete speech here.

So the present, for this prep school 90 minutes west of Boston, is a library without books.

Not one.

But there will be three large flat-screen TVs worth $42,000 to project data from the Internet, some $20,000 worth of special laptop-friendly study carrels (whatever those are) at the new learning centre in Cushing Academy. And there will be a $50,000 coffee shop, with — hold your breath – a $12,000 cappuccino machine.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,” Dr James Tracy, the headmaster in question told The Boston Globe.

Wow.

Personally, I think Dr Tracy is a genius. Not for the idea – not sure what to make of it at this point, except go, once again, ‘wow’ – but because of his persuasive powers. The man took over just three years ago, but in that three years he has managed to get the administrators of a 144-year-old institution – yes, that’s correct, Cushing Academy is not your average here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of school – to actually act on a thought that can easily be described as radical. Now here is a man most CEOs can learn from.

Without further comments, let me pass you on to the full report here…

Image courtesy: clipartof.com

So very easy to miss out the ‘l’ in it, and, boy, are you in trouble. ‘Gordon Brown addresses pubic meeting’. How nice.

Looks like there is another we better start paying more attention to. ‘Finally’. Substitute an ‘a’ for the ‘f’ and ‘i’, and you get something quite, um, different.

Admittedly, that is a rather thick feat for any sub under normal circumstances, and quite unheard of till now, but someone did manage that at the Daily Express last week. Result, this headline:

‘Can Dec anally match Ant?’

Here’s the how and why of that story on MediaMonkey. Yep, definitely one for the scrapbook.