THE TELEPHONE GAME

Some time ago when I was teaching a college class on responsible leadership, I asked the class to play the "Telephone Game."  The "Telephone Game" is a classic communication game in which the person in the front of the room is given a short phrase to remember and then whispers the phrase into the ear of the person next to them. The process continues until the phrase reaches the last person in the room.  The phrase I used that day was, "Great teams become great when each team member does more than their role, and each team member delivers their absolute best." 

After about 5 minutes and twenty-five college students whispering the phrase to each other, the last person in the room to receive the phrase was asked to say what they heard out loud:

"Great teams are the best.  Let's get on the bus."

As I shared the original phrase with the class, we all laughed.  Then, I asked the group their thoughts on why the final phrase was so different from the original phrase.  Students in the class called out,

• "It was too much to remember."
• "I just told the person next to me what I thought was most important."
• "I guess I didn't listen carefully enough."
• "I should have had the person repeat it several times."
• "I think someone purposely changed it!"

The "Telephone Game" is a game that is played each day at work.  If we do not hear something directly from the source, the message tends to get distorted in translation.  This is particularly important when something is summarized, relayed from a third party, or contains only the most dramatic and stunning parts of the story.

To avoid being an accomplice to the Telephone Game and getting the message all wrong, make it a practice to go the original source, get the facts, and ask follow-up questions.  This way, you will not get hung-up (pun intended) with the wrong facts and the wrong conclusions.

Being a responsible leader is just that ... understanding the situation to the fullest extent possible, and then acting up those facts to communicate what must be done and what must be repeated.

Until Next Friday,