Communication Theory

I read the section "Communication Theory" on pages 467 -470 and appreciated how Griffin outlined the strengths/weaknesses of all theories by sharing Karl Weick's clock to illustrate the trade-offs. One sentence summed it up well: "As you can see, no one position can combine the three ideals, and to move closer to one is to move farther away from at least one other." The three criteria that Karl Weick speaks of for his "Clock Face Model" are general, accurate and simple. If a theory is general and accurate, it cannot be simple. Likewise if it is general and simple, it will be less accurate. And, if it is accurate and simple, it will not be general.

Chapter 36

I enjoyed reading Griffin's "cause for pause" at the end of every thread in this last chapter. He throws in his candid two-cents worth and comments on his own experience or background in dealing with the certain thread.

The one that stood out to me today was "Dialogue," because Griffin admits that he did his best to capture what it really is but struggled because of the complexity and depth of the term. Dialogue as defined on page 482 is " Transparent conversation that often creates unanticipated relational outcomes due to parties' profound respect for disparate voices."

The thing that blew my mind the most was in his "Cause for Pause" at the end of this thread's section when Griffin states that "probably less that 1 in 1,000 conversations would qualify as dialogue." I was surprised by that at first, but not so much as I thought about it further. The US is a very independent culture and sticks to a lot of surface level communication. Only with the people that are truly close to us or people that we have an interest in talking to for some specific reason do we open up and get beyond superficial topics.

I think it gave me a different perspective on relationships as a whole; I bet that if we have more meaningful "dialogue" on a regular basis we would enrich our relationships across the board.