Well that’s a post title that won’t find favour with Google search engines!
It must have happened to you? You been party to meeting or a group conversation and in a discussion with other participants, after the event, you find that others have a completely different memory of the event….
How can it be that a group of people all partake in a discussion and yet everyone takes away something different?
I find it fascinating and challenging.
When we set out to communicate we have a clear intention in our mind. We know what it is we want others to hear. However, there is no sure fire way for us to know that our intention has been interpreted as we would wish.
Whenever we listen, we do so through filters of experience. Our minds are constantly matching and checking the words we hear against memories they hold and will choose the best match. This is not always the most appropriate thing for us to do.
So I am looking for ideas. What tips and techniques do people have for ensuring that their audience has interpreted their communications as they intended?
There are days when I feel as if I speak a different language from others, such is the level of mis – communication.
Answers on a postcard please……or a comment would do!
www.murmurz.com
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Is there a way? I’m not sure there is.
One of the many vocations I’ve enjoyed in my life was that of a teacher — not of children — but rather of adults. The cool thing was that teachers have this sneaky way to find out if they were understood — and that was to give a pop quiz. What a great way to find out if you got through to the students.
Of course, there was always one or two that had the ability to understand equal to a mud puddle — but if the majority aced the test, then you know you communicated.
However, I don’t know of any clever way to do that with this sort of communication that we do online. I’m open to ideas, though, since this is also a frustration of my own.
In Peace,
I think what you say is valid regarding quiz questions in a learning environment.
I think a lot of the problem with online communication is that the non-verbal part is missing – even by using emoticons, you can’t be sure that the message has been received in the context with which it was sent.
The post was prompted by a mismatch in spoken communication between adults. When one speaks the other cannot hear the words because of the preconceived ideas and prejudices they hold.
I am wondering what keys there might be to unlock such a mind to allow new possibilities to exist for that person……
See — a great example of not paying attention — I missed the part about “Listening With Interpretation” so I thought you were discussing written communication.
How often do we talk with someone and before they even finish what they were saying, we form a response in our mind and cannot hear another word the person is saying because we want to say something. Or, we can’t hear the words because the words go against what we want.
How do you control another?
I don’t feel it can be done. All we can do is control how we react to what is happening.
One example that I have in my own life is the serious lung issue I live with because of all the abuse I did to myself in my younger years. The young people in my life who are doing the same things I did, just don’t believe it will happen to them, even though they can see the result in me. All my words of caution fall on deaf ears.
All I can do is accept that I did my best to get them to see — and hope that I left an impression that may take effect later. And also realize that I wouldn’t have listened to anyone either — back in the day.
The nature of communication is that we interpret it in the light of our own life and experiences. We take everything in and interpret it according to our own feelings at the time. The only way to ensure your audience – or anyone you are communicating with – interprets it in exactly the same way as you is to put them in your place in life, to share your life and experiences that have brought you to this point and to extract them from theirs. I don’t know that this is possible.
As Ron rightly says “All we can do is control how we react….” – it is by your reaction to their interpretation that you can perhaps bring them to yours.