How to Pass communication for Change?

An elderly man lived with his four sons in a village.

The elderly man was disturbed.

The three sons were hard workers. But, they quarreled all the time.

He had tried telling them many times to avoid quarreling. But his sons would not listen to him.

The elderly man struggled a lot to unify them, but he failed.

He was pondering about what will happen to them after his death. All other individuals in the village were taking advantage of their quarreling. Though the villagers appreciated their hard work and efforts, they made fun of them in their fights.

The elderly man was constantly seeking this problem and solutions with many outstanding individuals in the village and figuring out how he should modify the mindset of these children. Nothing was working, all the techniques were failing.

One day, one monk offered him a recommendation that his communication style has to alter. The message was not traveling to a legitimate manner and he presented a structure to communicate with his children.

The elderly man planned to apply the techniques and miracle to arise.

Months passed by and the elderly man fell sick. He ordered his sons to remain united, but they didn’t listen to him.

One day, he called his four sons. He told all his sons that let us do an experiment. The sons were wondering what experiment they are going to do now. As their father kept trying many other experiments.

And again they started to quarrel among themselves as to who came first.

He gave them a small bundle of sticks and asked them to break the bundle into two. The bundle was made of four sticks. “It’s child’s play,” said the eldest son. He took the bundle and tried to break it. He was surprised that the sticks in the bundle remained intact. He used more force. He tried again and again. He started panting for breath. The bundle would not break. He gave up.

Then his brothers tried to break the bundle of four sticks without success.

Their father smiled and asked them to untie the bundle.

He asked each brother to take one stick and try to break it.

Each of the sons took a stick in hand. In no time, the sticks were bent and broken.

“A single stick is easily broken. If four sticks come together it is impossible to break them, But you keep quarreling, you will be broken by anyone” said the elderly man, giving his sons a meaningful look.

This time the lesson went home. The brothers stopped fighting each other. They would work together as a team and succeed in doing whatever work was given to them.

The four boys had discovered that unity is strength.

They have realized with the example as it was experiential and now they could able to change their mindset. 

The villagers also changed of their behavior based on the changed mindset of the sons.

The same structure should apply for the communication process to take any change initiatives.

If we have to pass the critical message it has to start with these techniques. As we know this story from this childhood, it is easy to follow these structures when we articulate critical messages and communicate.