Chapter 1: Communication as Problem-Solving

We all solve problems every day.

• Have you ever thought about trying out a new restaurant with an unfamiliar menu? What if the dishes were listed in a language that you don’t speak? What if they were made with ingredients that you’ve never tasted? Would you figure out a way to order something? Or would you go hungry?
• Have you ever taught a friend how to post on a social media app like Instagram or Twitter? If you or your friend isn’t skilled at coding, how could you teach such complex software?
• Have you ever said or texted something you didn’t really mean? Then tried to take it back? If you said the wrong thing the first time, what made you think you could “fix it” by saying more?

The fact is, we all face communication problems all the time. We face them at school, at work, and in our personal lives. Pause for a second and think about your day. You probably have at least one communication challenge that you need to overcome before the day is done. Maybe you’re facing a situation that you’ve never had to deal with before. Maybe the situation is familiar, but the person you’re communicating with is a stranger, or maybe the pressure of the moment intimidates you. Maybe neither the message or audience is complicated, but the maybe timing needs to be just right for your message to carry the intended significance.

Whatever the scenario, you almost certainly have a built-in, real-world-tested way of coming at it. This is true whether you’re aware of it or not. Every day, we are all constantly running small experiments in effective communication. If a strategy seems to work, we’ll most likely use it again. If a strategy seems ineffective, we won’t be inclined to repeat it. We all develop habits over time that we turn to when breaking down a challenge and figuring out the best way forward. For instance:

• If you went to a restaurant with an unfamiliar menu, you might use your phone to translate the name of a dish or ask the server for a recommendation. To put it another way, you use strategies of considering resources, researching, formulating questions, consulting an expert, and communicating with a purpose.
• If you were teaching someone how to use an app, maybe you would open it and demonstrate step-by-step. To put it another way, you assess audience needs and abilities, explain standard operating procedures, and demonstrate tasks with visual evidence.
• If you offended a friend and wanted to make it right, maybe you would ask to speak face-to-face or over the telephone to clear it up. To put it another way, you interpret feedback, revise word choice and tone, and strategically choose a communication channel.

Whatever your habits are, hopefully you see how all communication is essentially a form of problem-solving. The best part is, you’re already an expert.

So how does this resource help with that?

Once you graduate, you might not hit “pause” on life to pull up this textbook and look for specific solutions to specific scenarios. However, by learning what this course has to teach, you can become more aware of your communication options. Instead of relying instinctively on habits formed by problem-solving experiments you didn’t know your brain was running, you can make informed, empowered choices about the best strategies to apply in school and in your future career.

With this in mind, hopefully you don’t see communication as a problem, but as an opportunity to be faced!