Tag Archives: communication

The eyes have it!

10 Monday Oct 2011

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Strange thoughts occur during the waking moments of the day. This morning, various pairs of eyes paraded across the blank screen of my mind, as if awaiting assessment (or were they assessing?) – inviting, daring, willing me to read them. Here is a sampling – the dream state eyes are replicated by some cropped images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each set of eyes carries its own silent language. Is it a soul language? Contemplate the different pairs of eyes and you receive something different from each – innocence, beauty, wisdom, hope, trust, discernment – and stereotyping not withstanding , it is possible to attribute these characteristics across generation and gender.

What a gift we give each other if we use our eyes when communicating. When in teaching or mentoring mode, I will sometimes say in good humour, “Show me the colour of your eyes!” Such a startling demand banishes coy, deferential or defiant avoidance of eye contact and paves the way for some good locking of rapport.

This is why I am often bemused by those, who, from behind dark eye-shades, lobby for the banning of the hijab “because it hides the ability to communicate.” Try reading a face hidden by a pair of Gucci sunshades! Far easier to communicate with eyes peeking over a veil.

The language of the eyes is no new discovery – it has been around a long time.

Cicero (106-43 B.C.) is believed to have said, Ut imago est animi voltus sic indices oculi – ‘The face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its interpreter.’

Jesus, in Matthew’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, declares,  Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!
Matthew 6:22-23  (Eugene Peterson, The Message)

It was the French, however, who coined the phrase, Les yeux sont le miroir de l’âme. ‘The eyes are the mirror of the soul.’

So, ain’t it a pity that this blog can’t show you a pair of eyes so you can read its soul! But then it could read yours – and you may not be ready or willing for that!

15 Thursday Oct 2009

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9781741669046Just bought Don Watson’s new title, Bendable Learnings (Random House). Watson continues his crusade against the pervasive lingo of modern management speak. He’s at his best when he’s poking fun at it. Humour is often the most effective instrument for bursting bubbles of hubris, pomposity and camouflage that uses faux competence to hide mediocrity.

I wonder how Jesus and his disciples would have conversed using contemporary management argot?  Mark 10:35-45 presents an opportunity. See if you can translate it back into everyday English!

The Submission of staff operatives, James and John

Staff operatives James and John, moved forward, and proposed, “Training facilitator, please action a request we will select from a broad range of parameters and submit for approval. “ And he said to them, “What do you want me to action in terms of benefits?” And they said to him,” Create a Key Performance Indicator that grants us an outcome of becoming prime staff operatives when strategy accomplishments are realised.” But Jesus said to them, “Your comprehension platform is sub-standard. Are you able to overcome the comparative tables of potablity and immersion in key performance indicators that are incompatible with management principles.” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “You will indeed meet the KPIs of potability and immersion, but outcomes of the appointment of prime staff operatives must remain accessible to our total staff and customer base.

When the ten heard this, they began to exercise leverage against James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You assess that amongst the customer base of very broad value pools that chief executive officers regulate entire end-to end governance and that managers pinpoint quality/process outputs with views to strategic termination. But it is not so amongst my staff operatives. Whoever wishes to be a prime staff operative must be a deliverer of basic commodities. For the Progeny of Human Resources came not to receive basic commodities but to deliver basic commodities, and to donate his energies as bonus compensation for the customer base.”

What are weasel words then?

24 Monday Oct 2005

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Don Watson, author of Death Sentence of the English Language, has published Watson’s Dictionary of Weasel Words: contemporary cliches, cant and management jargon. Like a weasel sucking the yolk from an egg while leaving the shell intact, the champions of “weasel words” suck the meaning out of a word.

I received my 2006 diary from Watson’s stable, except its called an “Event Empowerment Tool.”

Read more about this fascinating topic at http://www.weaselwords.com.au/

How would the great commandment sound in weasel-wordese?

23 Sunday Oct 2005

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Perhaps something like this:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

“Persons shall adopt measures of high positive regard to the primal executive consultant with maximised internal resources, including all material and notional sources of motivation, and all intellectual capital. This is the prime and initial directive. In addition, a non-primal directive carries similar parameters. Persons shall adopt the same measures of high positive regard in favour of persons of adjacent proximity as for their autonomous investments.”

If this had been the case – no wonder “they dared not ask any more questions!”

Saying What I Mean

11 Tuesday Oct 2005

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This has always been a challenge – finding the words to say what my mind is churning over at a very rapid rate! This is when it’s so easy to lapse into jargon. And the reason I’m thinking about this is because of another strange conjunction of several episodes today – another instance of synchronicity (see earlier post!) I completed a unit on “communication” with the 10-11 year olds down at the local school this morning. It had a lot to do with clarity in sending a message and attentiveness in receiving it, examining the techniques used by Jesus in his teaching. Then came Harry Hayward’s letter in today’s issue of The Australian Christian lamenting the lack of clarity in new church buzzwords such as “missional” and “incarnational.” Soon after, passing a book store, I noticed a special deal on Don Watson’s book against “weasel words” and packaged with a “Weasel Words” 2006 diary! Most of Don Watson’s objection is to fashionable managerial language – much of which has even found its way into church administration. I have a few retired teachers in my congregation who pull me up when I use words that are beyond the call of duty, and I think I am grateful to them. After all, if no-one knows what I’m talking about, why bother to talk?