Communicating Across Differences

It doesn’t take much to see that we have major challenges communicating across differences.

Just take a look at the news - from around the world. Story after story about the breakdown of communication across all manner of differences - race, gender, religion, politics, generation, and on and on. And while they may not make the news, it’s common in organizations to see breakdowns in communication across less visible differences such as personality, education level, personal background, and all kinds of other factors.

Here’s the problem: At some point, we will have differences with everyone!

If we don’t learn how to courageously initiate effective communication across differences, then we’re left with the only option of increasing division and decreasing capacity to work together effectively to achieve results.