I’m in the back of a police car and…

It’s not what you think.

A detective was driving me to headquarters, to lead a communication workshop for a group of detectives in a special victims unit.

I asked the officer driving: “You’ve been dealing with people for 30 years, what do you think about communication?”

His answer was enlightening.

He said, there’s two kinds of people. Some people are just in it for themselves. The’re selfish and don’t care about anything but themselves.

Then there is everybody else. Most people are thoughtful. They want to help others. They listen and cooperate.

Most of us don’t have to communicate the way a police officer does, but we can learn something from this.

People communicate at their level of consciousness. Some have no or low self awareness. Some have empathy and understanding. Some want others to succeed because they understand it makes them feel good themeslves. The higher someone’s consciousness, the more they understand that all things are connected.

In the workplace, we can’t change people, but we can influence them with our attempts to connect.

With difficult people, I’ve found success comes from planting one small seed of connection after another, keeping them watered with my openness and attempts to connect. Some of those seeds whither and die without the sunlight of the other person’s consciousness, but some will sprout and grow.