ValueCheck! — The Art of Valuable Communication by ’Oma’. Or: Change the Way of Thinking!

 

 

By Yajing Huang, Mainz/Germany

 

Two weeks ago, mid of July 2014, there was loud club music being played in the late night very often around our building. One day morning, I met my neighbor who lives next to my door. I call her „Oma“ [nice german word for grandma], because she always gives me the warm feeling in this foreign country. She is at the age of beginning 70, silver hair and very slim. Compared to the people at her age, she is very active and open minded. We get alone with each other very well after I moved there. I told her these days there is always loud music playing during the midnight.

She told me that is the new neighbor who lives above her, she already asked that neighbor to turn down the volume however it seems not working… Perhaps due to I live  long time enough in Germany, my reaction to her was that we should call the police to stop such behavior. However, she smiled at me slightly and told me that she will do something differently. A week later after that conversation we met on the floor of our building. I asked her, if that neighbor moved out, there was no more loud music playing during the late night. She told me every early morning she turned her radio on with loud tone. That young neighbor might have many short nights to sleep and changed the habit!

All of sudden, I was inspired by her charming way of handle the situation. During our daily private and work life, we get used to the certain way of thinking and conducting but not thinking about the better way to handle it with innovative method. To me, charming strategy of Oma to solve such common issue during the daily life is kind of art. It stopped the stupid behavior of showing no respect to the other neighbors and it achieved the great result. Isn’t it amazing?!

Now, when I recall what I have experienced these days about ‘value check’ project and the media event. There is no doubt to realize how much we can inspire each other by communicating with each other. As Mrs. Malu Dreyer, who I had the pleasure to meet face to face at „Pressefest der Ministerpräsidentin 2014“ mentioned during the ValueTalk! interview, ‘communication has very high value, without it, problems cannot be solved’. 

Nowadays, the common phenomenon exists in the companies: valuable communication only happens after problems appear. Why not to avoid the problems in advance by communicating at earlier stage? Therefore, in my opinion, ‘value check’ project provides great opportunity for the companies to review their daily communication process and being inspired by checked. Don’t wait, just check it J !