1.10 Communication Crisis

The situation: You have a dear friend who is going through a very difficult time. Maybe they lost a job, there’s a crisis or illness in the family, but whatever the situation they need to talk on the phone, a lot.

True Service: On a particular day your friend calls and you joyfully answer. You want to connect and be of Service to your friend. However, you have other obligations can only talk for 20 minutes. You lovingly explain to your friend you can talk for 20 minutes. You listen compassionately to your friend and after 20 minutes you say goodbye. You feel good, your friend feels good and you have plenty of time to get to your appointment. All is well.

OR

On a particular day your friend calls and you joyfully answer. You want to connect and be of Service to your friend but you have other obligations and can only talk for 20 minutes. However, you do not communicate this to your friend. After 20 minutes you start to feel annoyed and used by your friend. You finally hang up and rush out the door

frustrated and angry. You blame your friend for being late to your appointment.

OR

On a particular day your friend calls and you joyfully answer. You want to connect and be of Service to your friend but you have other obligations and can only talk for 20 minutes. You lovingly explain to your friend you can only talk for 20 minutes. However, when the time is up and you try to close the conversation your friend get upset with you. You don’t want to feel like the bad guy, after all your friend is in a real crisis, so you continue and don’t end the phone call. You start to feel annoyed and used by your friend. You finally hang up and rush out the door frustrated and angry. You blame your friend to being late to your appointment.

Sound familiar? Do you see the Service errors?

Here’s another scenario.

True Service

You a member of the PTA at your child’s school. You decide to serve on a Committee to raise extra funds for the school. You agree be in charge of X and that’s exactly what you do. Suddenly there is a bit of a crisis because another committee member who committed to do Y, did not do it. And Y was really important! There is a special meeting to find a solution and you attend. Another member of the committee suggests that you do Y. You think about it but frankly you A) don’t want to be responsible for doing Y, or B) you look at your calendar and see you simply don’t have the time. You say no thank you, and offer alternative suggestions and somehow Y gets done. All is well.

OR

You’re a member of the PTA at your child’s school.

You decide to serve on a Committee to raise extra funds for the school. You agree be in charge of X and that’s exactly what you do. Suddenly there is a bit of a crisis because another committee member who committed to do Y, cannot do it. And Y was really important! There is a special meeting to find a solution and you attend. Another member of the committee suggests that you do Y. You think about it but frankly you A) don’t want to be responsible for doing Y, or B) you look at your calendar and see you simply don’t have the time. However, the other committee members keep saying how wonderful you are at doing Y, and they do not possibly have as much talent or the time to do Y. And there’s a tiny part of you that agrees, and it feels so good that other people respect you so much. And then you notice that others committee members keep handing you more and more things to do. You end up feeling overloaded and

overwhelmed.

OR

You are a member of the PTA at your child’s school. You decide to serve on a Committee to raise extra funds for the school. You agree be in charge of X and that’s exactly what you do. However, the committee member responsible for Y calls a special meeting because they cannot keep their commitment. At the special meeting you hardly allow anyone else to speak and almost demand to do not only Y but interfere with the person doing Z as well, they are not doing it right. After all who knows more about getting things done than you. You are surprised when it seems like other committee members resent you, really, after all you do