By Kelley Reynolds

The impetus for this article was having recently returned home from an extended family vacation in Europe (yes, extended described both the family and the vacation).

While on the plane home, I reflected on the trip, experiences and adventures. We had some wonderful adventures exploring Spain and France. Tasting tapas; climbing castles; chewing croissants; boarding bullet trains (I couldn’t think of any appropriate ‘w’ verb to describe wine activity, probably just as well).

Looks fantastic, doesn’t it? Lest, you think my family is comprised of the characters from the Stepford Wives, where we all sit under rainbows and hug, we experienced some, um, unpleasant adventures, too.

In an effort to identify opportunities to improve future vacations, I reflected on some of the challenges we faced. After some thought, there was a consistent issue: communication. Sure, there are those communication challenges that will naturally occur with jet lag and a nine-hour time difference; not to mention the two different languages none of us spoke. Language was really an issue when we had to learn how to say: “Endodontist, I need an emergency root canal” in Spanish. However, we also experienced other communication challenges as described in Tim Schneider’s book, Lead Well: The 10 Competencies of Outstanding Leadership.

I can share with you the importance of good communication (or would have been).

Richness of communication can be described degree of emotional connectivity to the message. The greatest richness is achieved by in-person communication, followed by telephone, written and finally text. Oh, Richness, how I missed you. Lobert (the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and mostly because I have to see them during the holidays) did not coordinate when he booked his family’s accommodations. Lobert and his family ended up staying in another village, 30 minutes away from the rest of us! This impacted our ability to communicate face to face.

Prior to leaving the states, Lobert decided he did not want to pay extra to use his cellphone while in Europe. His plan was to communicate with us via the internet utilizing a messaging app. Unfortunately, in order to do this, the app required access to the internet which was not always available to Lobert. His plan was to locate cafes and bistros that offered free WiFi. This may have worked had Lobert remembered to bring his cellphone when he left his hotel. Maybe he was relying on his telepathic abilities? Hopefully, Lobert was not able to read the minds of the rest of the family who waited and searched for him.

To recap, we lost richness without in-person communication. Richness eroded further when we were unable to call each other. Written word was dependent upon the elusive free WiFi.

Clarity of communication is another challenge. ‘Too many words’ creates not enough understanding. Active Listening can go hand in hand with clarity. If someone is using a lot of words, we tend to stop listening and jump to what we think they are saying. So, we finally meet up with Lobert at one of the amazing 14th century castles/obvious landmarks of this particular city. Lobert begins to chat about the castle.

And talks and talks and talks. We nod and say “Uh huh”. Naturally, now the group of 15 of us are in line, with Euros in hand, to purchase the castle tour and audio guides. About 3/4ths the way through this castle, the 7th castle we visited on our extended vacation, a member of the family, who has honed her leadership skills, to quite possibly the Greatest Of All Time, who we will refer to as GOAT for short, finally asked a few of the other family members if they had wanted to tour the castle. None of them had been even the slightest bit interested. Not even Lobert, whom we had assumed wanted to explore the castle, had any interest in touring the castle. Ugh.

If we had clarity, the message might not have gotten lost in the words. Or, if we had practiced active listening skills instead of “Uh huh” we might have gone canoeing instead of wandering around another dank old castle.

After leaving the castle, GOAT noticed everyone was a little cranky and irritable. Well, they were all annoying her, so they must have been cranky. In a master stroke of leadership, she gathered everyone in a circle and made the suggestion to find a place to eat. To gain buy-in, everyone was given an opportunity to say where they wanted to eat. She used her active listening skills, asked appropriate questions and paid attention.

Dinner was a delicious triple scoop cone of pistachio gelato!

Oh, and the emergency root canal. You guessed it. Lobert’s!