It’s the Message that Matters

Are you sure your message was received correctly?

Communication … the foundation of any relationship. Personal, professional, social, what-have-you, the specific relationship between two or more people doesn’t matter, without effective communications, it’s hard to get along.

Expressing your thoughts is only part of it. The most elegant speech is nothing more than noise if the audience doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say. It’s your job to make sure your listeners understand the ideas and concepts you’re trying to present.

[ad#inline-body]

Incomplete…

To illustrate what I mean, I’m going to share a tale of family life… One of my sons came home upset about school. We talked with him and found that one of his teachers had asked him to “redo” a homework assignment because it was “incomplete”. Not fully understanding her, he asked about it, and she said it was only 40% complete. He dutifully redid the assignment as he had done the first time and handed it in (again).

He showed us the original, and my wife and I were able to look it over and review the book the assignment came from. We read the instructions in the book, read the questions, and read the part where he had written down “page 78-79, Part A” as the assigned work. And sure enough, it looked like he had answered part A, questions one through ten… it didn’t look “incomplete” to us.

The next day he gets the assignment back with “40%” marked on the top and six of the ten answers noted for their incorrectness.

While incomplete is incorrect, incorrect is not incomplete…

Now some of you are thinking – “Oh, the teacher used the wrong word, that’s what caused the problem”. And others are no doubt thinking – “The teacher used the correct word, your son just misunderstood”. But my point is this – It doesn’t matter if she used “incorrect” or “incomplete” … her message wasn’t understood by the audience – our son.

You don’t need to use the same words again

In my every day dealings with people, I’ve found that when faced with a listener’s lack of understanding, some people will just repeat themselves. Oh, they may use a different emphasis, or say it louder, or maybe slower, but all they’re doing is repeating the same statement.

They don’t understand that I heard every word they said, but I don’t get their meaning.

[And yes, there are times that I miss words, but instead of saying: “I don’t understand”, I respond with “I didn’t catch what you said after “next Tuesday”…-]

Instead of just repeating their message as if I didn’t hear them, they should approach the message from a different angle. Stating it in a different way to help me understand what they mean.

Check with the listener!

Not everyone has fully developed ESP, the only person who knows the message is the one delivering it. The receiver has no idea what was intended and may have failed to understand part of the message – or failed to notice if the delivery left out key material, or heaven forbid, the person delivering the message in the heat of the moment actually said it incorrectly!-)

One way to ensure that your message got across is to ask for it back … “Now tell me what is it that I want you to do.”

By checking with the recipient, any problems can be worked out, and that is key.

Illustrated with this clip!

The one difference between this “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” clip and real life is that your “guards” won’t keep speaking to let you know that they don’t have a clue what you just said!