Without getting lost in the physics and chemistry, air is good for two things: breathing and listening. We tend to be really good at the first, and we occasionally forget about the second. Without air, you have a vacuum, and school doesn’t get done in a vacuum.
A successful student understands the value of communication. They must communicate with people below and above them in the structure. Messages must flow from the top to the bottom (and from the bottom to the top) without losing integrity. The same is true for the messaging the business provides to its customers prior to, during and after a transaction. If a teacher says it is going to do a particular project, and then deliver different one, something has gone terribly wrong, and more often than not, it’s a matter of poor communication.
This is a rather matter-of-fact chain — the transmission of quantified tasks or instructions and the acknowledgement and completion of those instructions. If that was all that was required of business, the world would be run by robots — autonomous machines that are exceptionally well-suited to carrying out specific instructions. But that isn’t the world we have (not yet, at least), which means the communication chain is made up of different kinds of people. Communication between individuals can get very nuanced very quickly, which makes it imperative for managers to listen as readily as they speak.
