“This is a direct result of my team’s lack of communication!” – Tony Westerberg

Talent for Communication

“I’ve been building the wrong financial model this whole time!”  Tony Westerberg exclaimed toward the end of a long, long conference call.  “I’ve never been in a meeting where our desired partners are so angry with us before.  This is a direct result of my team’s lack of communication!”

The meeting we were in was coming to an end after a long four hours.  I dragged my right hand through the hair on my tired, hurting head.  Tony’s statement was progress enough for the moment.  And, it pushed me toward the recollection of another hard moment in which my ability to communication was also deficient.

It was in 2015.  My father, Paul Butterfield, was lying in a care facility bed before me.  He was dying.  His eyes were open and he was trying to communicate.  He just couldn’t.  Neither could I!  It was a moment of frustration until a hospice worker walked in and changed the room.

She had a bright, cheery demeanor from the moment she came through the door.  Upon entering, she walked right to my Dad’s side and took his hand, while looking deeply into his eyes.  His response was immediate and telling.

“Oh my,” I said to myself in amazement.  “I can see their communication.  His eyes have brightened and he’s understanding a meaning far beyond the words she’s speaking to him!”

I watched their interaction in awe.  He abilities were both instinctive and verbal.  She seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.  She knew how to soothe his yearning soul in an all-embracing manner.  She had a talent for communication that I’d never imagined to be possible.  And, because it was foreign to me, it was also personally impossible during this significant, life culminating moment.

She is, perhaps, the greatest of the two best communicators I’ve ever personally met in my life.  The other, Ronald Reagan, was much more famous.  Yet, her work is, in many ways, more vital.  Because, while in terms of fortune and fame its rewards are meager compared to those proffered to the “leader of the free world,” her communication skills touch people more deeply, because her compassion and caring are freely given on a one-to-one basis.  She communicates in and out of pure love.

“Communicating in and out of pure love!”  I thought much later, a day later, “is still a valuable and much needed talent.”  It was a consideration that allowed the memory of the conference call with Tony and others to morph.  

That singular variation in thought began to work its own specific magic.  It was as if that one particular caregiver had opened another door and was standing as an example by my side for the continuing calls I was involved in with Tony’s team on that day, and the next.

“I’ve been building the wrong financial model this whole time!”  Tony Westerberg exclaimed toward the end of a previous long, long conference call.  “I’ve never been in a meeting where our desired partners are so angry with us before.  This is a direct result my team’s lack of communication!”

Because that one particular caregiver was, emblematically, communicating with me for the after calls and is remaining, in the front of my heart, for those to come.  My ability to communicate is improving, becoming a talent.

Hopefully, I, and all of us, will continue to progress toward offering our own particular, peculiar, talent for communication; one based in compassion and caring, freely given to others on a one-to-one basis.