Recently I happened to be in a club type atmosphere at an event where lots of folks sat around in comfortable chairs and swapped stories.

One conversation in particular caught my attention.  The topic was important, but the variance in emotional intensity was riveting.

A veteran reservist was talking with a younger serviceman about his two deployments in Iraq.  At first, the conversation was highly interactive, with the elder sharing the details of his assignments and the personalities he’d encountered.

Suddenly, he looked down and his pace slowed.  He got very focused on something he could see in his head, and totally detached from the place he was sitting.

He paused and looked up at his companion, crock shaking on his twitching foot. “I know I was lucky a couple of times over there and you know that at some point your luck runs out. There were the same brown sandals and the same brown hair. The children aren’t children.  The women aren’t women. It was like being on another planet.  They weren’t human to me. We weren’t human to them. It was Gimme chocolate. Gimme football mister. I didn’t see where we built up any goodwill over there. Just take take take.”

Then he broke out of his trance, and the conversation went on like it had before.

My take, other than seeing an example of the enormous strain on our servicemen and women, is how global communication disconnects are.

There is absolutely no political intent here, it’s a marketing blog.  I just wanted to relay a story.

But, the inability to see one another’s real goals consistently seems to lead to grave misunderstandings and devastating effects on life and business relationships.

Posted by: Steve Banis