Communication – You Can’t Just Shout It Out
August 31, 2007 – 5:22 am
In the first article of this series, I suggested that sometimes the receiver doesn’t receive your message because he simply chooses not to. In other words, although you may have crafted your message as clearly as possible, the breakdown in communication may have been an intentional act on the part of the receiver. I guess that makes you feel better. I mean its not your fault if your message is intentionally ignored by the receiver, right? Wrong!
If your responsibility as the sender of a message was limited to insuring that you were heard, all you would need to do is shout at people all day long and you would be a successful communicator. Unfortunately, if you want to be an effective communicator, you need to make sure that you are both heard and understood.
Actually, making sure that the receiver understands your message is the hard part of communication. Are you sure that your message is being clearly received or do you sound like this?:
“I think I know that you know what you think I meant when I said what I said but I really didn’t mean what you thought I was thinking when I said what you heard so now you have really messed things up.”
In the book, BusinessThink, the authors present a useful concept that they call “complex equivalents.” Basically, they say that we may be creating communications problems by presenting our ideas using words or phrases that have multiple meanings. The words we use may appear to have a clear meaning, yet buried beneath the words are multiple meanings and interpretations that require further understanding if we are truly going to communicate effectively.
If you want to be an effective communicator and remove all doubt about your message, all you have to do is ask a few questions. Try some of these:
- Do you understand what I what I just told you?
- Do you have any questions that I can answer about what I’m asking you to do?
- Can I rephrase my instructor to make them easier for you to understand?
- Can you tell me what I want you to do?
Although it takes a little more time and effort on the part of the sender to ask these simple questions (or similar questions), they will virtually eliminate communications problems. Remember, it is not enough to simply “send” the message, you also have an obligation to insure that the message was received in the manner that you intended.
Other articles in this series: