Peter Drucker on Communication #1

Peter Drucker (1909-2005) was a management consultant, educator and author (Wikipedia).  I read several of his books many years ago. He was philosophical yet practical about business. He had many insights. One of them was Management:Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973). I recently recalled he had written about communication.

His four fundamentals of communications are:

1. Communication is perception.

2. Communication is expectation.

3. Communication makes demands.

4. Communication and information are different and indeed largely opposite—yet interdependent.

In this post I will only expand on the first one.

“Is there a sound in the forest if a tree falls and no person hears it?” The correct answer is: No. There are sound waves, but no sound unless someones perceives it. Drucker makes this a segue to communication.

It is the recipient who communicates. The so-called communicator, the one who emits the communication, does not communicate. He utters. Unless there is someone who hears, there is no communication. There is only noise.

Perception isn’t logic. It is experience. The “silent language” of gestures, tone of voice, and the context – including cultural and social referents – can not be dissociated from what is said.

One can communicate only in the recipient’s language or his terms, using terms that relate to his experience. The connection between experience, perception, and concept formation – that is, cognition – is much subtler and richer than earlier philosophers imagined.

Fanatics aren’t convinced by rational arguments, because they do not have the ability to perceive a communication that goes beyond their range of emotions.

I believe Drucker's description of the recipient is correct in general, but I personally wouldn't say it is only the recipient who communicates. I think it's a two-way thing. Maybe he had this one-way view due to his work with higher-level managers. Indeed, he writes later in the same chapter about downward communication from managers to subordinates. He writes: [A]ll one can communicate downwards are commands, that is, prearranged signals. One cannot communicate downward anything connected with understanding, let alone motivation." That doesn't sound fully real to me. For example, what about communicating between peers from different work areas? Teachers and students? Client and consultant?