I am always intrigued and confused by the
way these two words have been defined and understood by many. Often
asked…Direct or Diplomatic…and we all are very prompt to name the legally correct
answer and say “Direct”…
Fair enough…however few things popped up
in my mind whenever I hear about this debate…
·
How
do we define Direct and diplomat?... this is obviously the benchmark that we
must decide before we move ahead.
·
Direct
vs. diplomat…is this choice big and sensitive enough that we should forget the
objective and outcome of the situation?
·
And
on a funny note if diplomacy has got such a bad and hated sense, why the IFS
officers representing our nations are called diplomat??
These questions have been troubling me
lately and more after I just read one of the blog…Let’s explore and analyze the
above pop-ups with a hope that we may end up with some sensible conclusion.
Define
Direct and diplomat?
Out of the several meaning we assumed of
these two contentious words, let us better adhered to the Oxford dictionary
where Direct is defined as “Clear and
Explicit “ and Diplomacy is “a skill and tact in dealing with people”
and digging more ‘tact’ is defined as “Skill in dealing with difficult
situations”…
So in Oxford words, Diplomacy is a skill in dealing with difficult
situation with people, which of course nowhere suggest it to be an out
rightly negative word and that two words are antonyms.
Direct
vs. diplomat…is this choice big enough
The choice is obviously not that big that
we should ignore the objective of discussion. There is a reason in every
discussion and talk and you want to reach at some constructive (or destructive)
conclusion at the end. So you speak and express yourself accordingly.
In personal relationship, since the level
of trust, care and commitment is too high that you are never concerned about
what to speak what not to…you speak what you feel is right and correct and
that’s what is called Direct, clear
and explicit. And I strongly believe that we should be direct-always with our loved
ones and speak from the heart without concerned about the classification of
your sentence.
But life is not always personal; you have to
deal with some normal-friends and some not-so-normal-friends as well and of
course your professional colleagues, with whom you spend up to 65% of your
waking time.
And as in professional communication, a
command of language definitely adds variety and modulation to the
communication, but the overall communication is still calculated by how
effectively you put across your right ideas and exact sense. And to achieve
this, you need a blend of every communication tools. And when you speak, you
have to be wise enough to decide what will help you in your communication; a
direct/curt/rude/honest sentence or a diplomatic/indirect sentence. And the
perfect professional is one who understands the right blend of these two tools.
In a broader sense, I feel these two are
very important aspect of our communication channel. Let me call it a tool rather
which everyone should be proficiently able to integrate into his/her
communication at will to achieve the objective he is aiming for. Life is so
pragmatically designed that we can’t dare ourself to be strictly adhere to just
one school of thought. Or in simple words, we can’t be direct-always or
diplomat-always
diplomacy
has got such a bad and hated sense??
Of course not. If you have agreed with my
thoughts so far, you can easily answer this question.
Constructive criticism is welcome.
(2008)
