Lessons from a Literature Degree: Understanding strategic communication

There are 100s of 1000s of courses teaching you how to make yourself heard, how to make yourself seen and how to build influence.

However, there are barely that teach you how to listen, how to pay attention and how to empathise.

Studying literature allowed me to focus deeply on understanding and interpreting texts, which developed my ability to empathise with the needs and wants of people and gave me a framework to process trends and different industries.

Learning to listen and absorb is also an invaluable skill in our ability to produce. It allows us to swiftly understand the things that matter to people within the context of their background and interests, and it equips us with the ability to learn and connect.

Learning what to pay attention to

Here are 3 simple things to pay attention to when reading a text to get more value out it:

1. Word choices — choice of words creates atmosphere, reveals degrees of severity and hints at

2. Order of information — What comes first is often emphasised, and what’s left at the end is meant to leave an impression.

3. Background context — The who, when, where associated with the author and the work can shed some light on intentions.

   
   

The power of understanding intentionality

When you start paying attention to these details in texts, it opens up your mind to intentionality – or a greater awareness of the choices that people make in how and what they communicate.

Understanding intentionality allows us to grow empathy and expand our world view. This practice that helps us to break away from the idea that we are the only ones who are thinking and experiencing in the world, and this makes us less alone and more empathetic.

It opens us up to the idea that for every second of the day, the minds of the people around us are working and we are constantly experiencing life.

Every single one of us, from the man driving the bus in the morning to your boss at work.

The depth of our thoughts and the intricacies of how life was dealt to us, and how we deal with it back, are what make us interesting.

Understanding strategic communication

To start noticing the intentionality behind these details also allows us to understand that there were strategic ways in which people choose to communicate their information. For example:

• Why seems to be the most important thing that they want to highlight?

• What are they trying to paint someone else as?

• What details seem to be deliberately left out? Why?

An awareness of strategy in communication is important to better understand what people’s intentions are and to figure out how best to communicate what they care about.

Difficulties: Paying attention takes time

As attention spans shrink, it appears to be becoming more challenging to apply these analytical skills and to justify the value of written works. While there are predictions that longer form content is making a resurgence, succinct bites of information tend to remain dominant.

However, its rarity can still make the ability to go deeper in topics a powerful skill. And beyond that, being able to empathise and communicate thoughtfully is invaluable in maintaining meaningful interpersonal relationships.

Check out the short story I wrote for my Final Year Project here!