We all believe we’re good communicators. But the truth is we all still have a great deal to learn about communication.
And if we’re honest with ourselves every week most of us experience some kind of breakdown in communication with our colleagues or family members.
Miscommunication is one of the greatest sources of business inefficiency. It can waste an extraordinary amount of time, cause interpersonal tension or even conflict in a team. This can prevent us from delivering on our priorities or executing our strategy. Management thinker Peter Drucker famously once said “culture east strategy for breakfast”. A big part of that was because miscommunication is endemic in most businesses.
Over the last 25 years working with CEOs and leadership teams we’ve seen seven sources of communicational breakdown. Each one can derail a relationship and stop progress in its tracks:
Just because someone has a very specific goal in mind when they speak doesn’t mean their message is communicated clearly.
French mathematician Blaise Pascal, one of the great intellectual figures of the 17th century once said, and I paraphrase, “sorry for writing such a long letter, I didn’t have time to write a short one”. It takes time to be clear and precise. Intention doesn’t mean clarity.
We must audit the clarity of our message. Keep things short, simple, make sure our message has a beginning a middle and an end; a logical flow and the main point is obvious.
Just because we say something doesn’t mean that the other person received the message. Leaders often assume in a meeting because other people are sitting quietly, they are listening. They are not. What they are often doing is thinking about what they want to say.
Just because a TV programme is broadcast doesn’t mean anything was received. The TV sets may not even be turned on. Even if we transmit with precision and clarity, this doesn’t guarantee the message was received.
We must check whether our receivers are even in listening mode.
Even if our broadcast was received it doesn’t mean that it’s been understood. Often people just hear what they want to hear and ignore the rest.
This is exacerbated by the fact that our brains are programmed to fill the gaps in our perception. We may get half a message, fill in the blanks, and not even notice we have made some things up to our our gaps in understanding.
Alternatively, we may hear the words people say but completely miss the meaning behind the words results in significant misunderstandings.
And it’s extremely common in business for people to feel misunderstood. It’s one of the reasons why 70% of people are demotivated at work.
Now I'd like to make a very important distinction here - misunderstanding is not the same as not understanding.
If people don’t understand you, they often realise they don’t understand and may ask you to repeat your message as a result. The error here is a lack of comprehension.
In contrast, if someone misunderstands you, they often don’t realise this has happened. In fact, they often believe they have understood you when they have not. This is an error of interpretation not an error in comprehension.
In the case of not understanding the error correction involves a new explanation or a simpler explanation. But correcting a misunderstanding is a lot harder. Not least because it may go unnoticed for some time. One we realise someone has misunderstood us we must clarify the nature of the error and correct that.
The emotional effect is also profoundly different in these two scenarios. When people don’t understand you, it can make you feel invisible or ignored. But when people misunderstand you if can often create the feeling of being judged, often unfairly, particularly if people attribute an inaccurate motive to you that you don’t have, based on their misunderstanding.
When there is a possibility of a misunderstanding occurring it’s vital to check comprehension and interpretation, using skilful playback.
Even if you have checked someone's interpretation of your message and they did indeed get it right, this doesn’t mean that they agree with you. People assume you don’t understand them when actually you disagree with them and you understand very well. It’s not the same thing.
So even if reception is good, and there is understanding, we must still check to see whether what they have understood aligns with their own view s, and whether we’ve created a shared meaning.
Even when we have created a shared view in a team or group, and everyone is on the same page, this doesn’t mean people are committing to anything. It’s easy to assume that if people agree with us then they will be equally motivated to do something about the problem.
We must explore people’s commitment level and not assume that when people say they are committed to action that this is true.
Verbal commitments are made all the time in business, but this doesn’t mean anything changes. If there is real commitment there will be evidence of this. Have the people who made verbal commitments made it impossible to regress. Have they “burnt the boats”, like the Vikings used to do when they invaded. Have they made it impossible to sail home. Actions speak louder than words. If someone has jumped off the mountain in a squirrel suite there is no doubt about their commitment it is visible.
It’s wise to look for evidence of commitment. Have they created a concrete action plan with timelines and metrics as a start. Have they named someone to hold them to account for non-delivery. Have they really “burnt the boats”.
Even if someone is committed enough to act, this doesn’t mean that the desired result will be achieved. Success usually depends on the quality and precision of the action taken. It’s very easy to “go nowhere fast”. Or, as some leaders say, when describing the bias for action in their organisation, “we often shoot first and ask questions later” or “we “shoot, then aim”.
It is vital to carefully think through what action will move the dial, and how success can be precisely measured.
There is a massive gap between intention and outcome, and communication breaks down very easily. If you’re not achieving the results, you want, or things aren’t moving fast enough, consider which of the seven sources of communication breakdown may be at play and dig in.
Often the problem is people simply misunderstand us. We don’t feel seen or heard and for social animals like us human beings this can be traumatic. If we become more skilful in our ability to understand ourselves and others, we can massively improve our chances of success.