We're Always Communicating Something
By Sharron Stockhausen, MMA
Over the years amazing things have happened in the way we share messages with others. Some of you can remember when telephone service first became available to you in your homes. What a wonder it was to talk to people or listen in on the party line to get the latest scoop.
Many wrote (and I do mean wrote, as with a pen on stationery) letters to relatives to keep up on life events. I still hand write personal notes. One friend gave me stationery last year for Christmas. She said it was on sale so she bought it. She said I was the only one she knew who would actually use it and not just put it in the desk drawer.
I can’t validate that I’m the only one she knows who still writes letters and notes in long-hand and sends them through the postal service, but I can confirm that I have indeed used the stationery to correspond with friends.
Whether it’s good or bad, technology has become the center of communication. We use email, voicemail, and fax to get our messages across. But are we really getting our messages across using those channels?
Consider the difference between communicating face-to-face with someone versus communicating via technology. When we see the other person, we get helpful clues about what they are really saying. Body language, facial expression, posture, eye contact, and gestures augment the words we hear. Those things aren’t available to us in email, voicemail, and fax.
The basic communication model shows that minimally we have two parties, a sender and a receiver. The sender sends a message. The receiver receives and processes it. The receiver sends feedback to the sender. The sender receives and processes the feedback. The communication is complete. Simple enough, it seems.
But if it’s so simple, why is there so much miscommunication? The message doesn’t travel through a vacuum. It begins with one complex human who has a lifetime of experiences, emotions, thoughts, interpretations, beliefs, and even prejudices. It lands with another complex human who also has a lifetime of experiences, emotions, thoughts, interpretations, beliefs, and prejudices. The problem is that each of these things is unique to each person. No one ever can live your life and be you. No one can ever completely know how you think, how you feel, and why you act as you do. Nor can you ever totally know someone else.
Miscommunication comes when the message is processed through each person’s unique system of understanding. You can test this the next time you’re in a staff meeting or some other event that has one speaker talking to an audience of several people. Form your idea of what was communicated, then ask others who were there with you to tell you what they heard or got out of the message. I’d be shocked if all of you were in 100% agreement.
Because each of us is unique, we look for supplement clues about the other person or the message. We make decisions about the other person’s credibility based on things like title, education, appearance, accent, and word choice.
Crank up your awareness of your own prejudices. Do you treat people dressed in stained or ripped clothes differently than those in business or evening attire? Do you respect or discount the elderly? Do you stoop to meet children at eye level or tower over them with a stance of authority? Do you gush over management and avoid eye contact with the custodial staff? Do you clean the house for company and let your family live in an unkempt home?
Your answers will tell you a lot about how you communicate with and react to those around you. And perhaps your answers will help you understand why others relate to you as they do.
I like to smile at people. Smiling is a universal way to momentarily brighten someone else’s day.
Most of us live stressful lives and our posture and facial expressions can send negative messages. Stress doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can get us moving toward a desired goal. It can give us pause to stop and evaluate. It can even bring out the best in us.
Certainly the early hours and days after last month’s terrorist attack underscored how stress can bring out the best in us. Americans lined up to volunteer to put themselves in harm’s way to help others. Blood donations were up exponentially. Money poured in from individuals and corporations alike.
What were we as a nation communicating in those dark days? We sent a message of community, pride, and patriotism. But some didn’t get it because they processed our message through their own understanding.
What do you as an individual communicate? Why do you choose the channels of communication you do? I choose email when I want my message in writing and delivered quickly. I choose the telephone when I want to explain or explore ideas. I choose fax when I want to send a form for signature. I choose writing long-hand and postal mailing when I want to show the recipient they are special to me. I choose face-to-face as much as possible.
You’re always communicating something. I tell my graduate students that you can’t not communicate. People get messages from you all the time. I hope you check in on occasion to make sure they’re getting the right ones.
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