By | David Klaasen | Helping You Create Clarity, Inspire Your People & Drive Performance | Retain your best people | Changing Management Mindsets and Behaviour | Practical Behaviour Analytics
The most frustrating thing about communication is that it is never good enough. There is always someone who will get the wrong end of the stick; they will choose to interpret what you’re saying in a completely different way than what you intend, or they simply won’t take a hint. It’s all about below conscious motivation and once you know what to look for you can become even more effective.
Expert communicators will always take responsibility for what they are saying and what gets understood or not. A helpful mindset to keep is to consider that “the meaning of your communication is evident in the response you get” and “Seek first to understand before trying to be understood”. For example if you are communicating to your team about some changes in targets, and you give the reasons from your perspective, you may later find out that they took away a completely different message. But by really listening to their interpretation of the message and taking the time to investigate why they think like that, it will help you to adjust what you say and how you say it so they are able to understand what you really meant.
In a previous blog “Do you have Inspired Working Relationships”? I mentioned four levels of relationship; Physical = all the non-verbal communication and body language stuff; Emotional = the ability of both parties to empathise and understand how the other feels; Mental = being articulate and intellectually stimulated and Purpose = clarity of shared values and the purpose of the relationship.
