Miscommunication or Poor Communication is a term thrown around like a “get out jail card” by those who choose to ignore emails, miss meetings and listen half-heartedly. In recent years it’s something I’ve begun to challenge.
Miscommunication occurs when two or more people are in a dialogue. Someone misinterprets what was said. We speak in terms of our intention and others hear with spoken words and visual clues.
How you hear affects:
your emotions
the decisions you make
perceptions of events
It is important to know your values and biases will influence hearing. The challenge is in making sure we are conscious of when they could be creating a blind spot in our thinking. How do we ensure this? These 3 steps:
All of us have biases, attitudes and values that help form opinions. This is not always a bad thing. The premise of Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink: Power of Thinking without Thinking” – is that internal gut reaction that those who are considered experts in a particular field possess. But other biases can clog the way we perceive life that can be detrimental to our success and relationships.
There’s nothing as frustrating as sitting in an hour+ long meeting that was supposed to be a discussion on how to solve a problem or brainstorm a new idea only to realize you’re ideas aren’t being heard because the Leader has already made up their mind. Those who are following you understand there are times decisions must be made. This is true even if they are following you voluntarily. People know when their voices are falling on deaf ears, so don’t waste their time nor insult their intelligence when you have no intention of hearing them out.