The man hears what he want to hear and disregards the rest…

This lyric from Simon & Garfunkel’s great song The Boxer reflects the challenge that we all face today.

The listening of the current generation, most of who were born since the advent of wall to wall TV, music and PC entertainment 24/7, is generally very poor. Attention spans often last a nanosecond and impatience drives them to demand the answer or solution without the rationale. Instead they insert what they want to hear and disregard the rest.

The old wisdom was that we take in 20 per cent of what we hear. I believe it is far less than that now.

At the same time, instinctive defensive reactions to situations are rife.  Many people stop listening to jump in with a defensive statement without waiting to hear if they are actually being criticised!  It’s a challenge to #PR skills.

With millions of people, effective verbal #communication of even a brief message has become very difficult. It’s a challenge to #PR skills.

The solution? Carefully crafted concise writing can command attention. It even gives the man who READS what he wants to READ the chance to re-read and take the real message eventually – verbal messages are rarely repeated.

Even now that we receive so many emails, we can still use this route to reach those we know well and so will read messages from us. They will select messages from their full in-box.

To communicate with those we don’t know – try an old fashioned posted letter, a brief clear message in a handwritten envelope; it’s now so rare that it stands out when it arrives!