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Communication Skills Are About Transmitting Ideas Not Just Talking

Communication is…

“Achieving a state of shared understanding of the message transmitted”. Communication only occurs when the receiver fully comprehends what you mean. Communication to be successful must be confirmed by appropriate feedback that demonstrates that understanding.

Communication is not… just telling someone something!

So what’s the problem and why is there so much miss-communication?

Communication when you break it down is a series of ‘symbols’ translated into language and gestures by the sender, which are then deciphered as a new series of ‘symbols’ by the receiver! Example: Different words can mean different things to different people.

Take the word vision for example.

Vision can mean: eyesight, something that has been seen, something that is surreal and imagined, competence in discernment or perception, intelligent foresight, the way in which one sees or conceives of something or it can refer to an object of extraordinary beauty. Even if you take the final meaning beauty of course can be many things to many people, what you find beautiful may not be seen as such by another..

The most commonly used 2000 words in the English language can produce 14,000 possible interpretations and because those with whom we speak constantly interpret rather than truly listen… our real meaning is therefore often lost.

This leads to the second problem of communication… most people don’t really listen well.

Listening is a long subject that I will not go into here however suffice to say that when you are speaking with others they will be either preparing a response to what you are saying from early on in the conversation or worse still mentally thinking about what they a have prejudged in their mind about you and the topic you are presenting.

To truly communicate well you need to…

a) Plan what you are going to say by putting yourself in the shoes of your audience.

b) Use the famous seven “c’s” of communication! You must be…

•    Clear
•    Concise
•    Concrete
•    Correct
•    Coherent
•    Complete
•    Courteous

c) Be acutely aware that what you are saying will be filtered through both your and the listeners…

“Individual differences, cultural differences, attitudes about the message or the other person, stereotyping, generalizing, beliefs, values, assumptions about what the other person knows, thinks, feels or has heard, age, sex, perceptions, expectations, emotional state, jargon, differing verbal and non verbal signals, pre-empting, thinking about your perspective or how to answer something that you or the listener does not understand and environmental noise or visual distractions.”

A handy basic communication checklist.

During your planning you need to think about:

WHAT WE WANT TO COMMUNICATE: Organise our thoughts. Make a mental outline… (Know any people that never get to the point?) and state what we are communicating concisely in the appropriate order and at the appropriate pace.

WHEN TO SEND MESSAGE: Is this the right time? What frame of mind is receiver in? … Is the receiver going to listen or are they under stress or pressure from other situations they are dealing with?

WHERE TO GIVE MESSAGE: Is this the right place or are there a lot of distractions? Is more privacy required?

WHO IS THE RECEIVER: Their frame of reference, experience and needs.

THE METHOD OF SENDING OUR MESSAGE: In person, by phone, letter, memo or a combination of methods…

So finally to be an  effective communicator you need to hone your skills of soliciting pertinent feedback buy developing a series of pertinent questions during your planning process to ensure that what you are really communicating is understood and finally asking your listener to summarize what you have said to make sure the correct message has been received.