Blog #1 9.19.08

Interview with Chuck Berger

In the interview with Chuck Berger, I took a few things away. It was nice to be able to sit back and listen to someone speak about a subject I just read in Chapter 10. It was nice because I was able to listen and really grasp what I had understood and listen to someone whom had studied the subject of Uncertainty Reduction Theory.
In the Interview, Berger was discussing theory and made the comment that there are no absolutes and I appreciated that. I was able to reflect on the first chapter and remembered what Dr. Griffin had said about theory, that it is all a test and an attempt to understand. I also heard Berger say “…you have to be willing to be wrong.” I can relate with that based on my work life. You can’t be right 100% of the time; you just have to be coach-able. I have a facilitator remind me of this recently and I agree with him.
I also understood what Berger was saying about uncertainty reduction and the idea of planning: The argument that we make mental plans for achieving goals… we have mental representations of goals, and have mental representations of plans to reach goals. Unless we can peel the onion and understand what someone else’s goals are, or if we are unwilling to let someone into our intimate self, it will only make the goals harder to obtain.