Miscommunication is very common in relationships. This is why it is essential that you say what you mean and mean what you say. Communication begins when a person has a thought, feeling or idea. Next, the person tries to communicate that idea so that the receiving person understands the message. Then, the thought or idea is communicated, whether it's by speaking, texting, writing etc. Then the message is interpreted by the receiver.
It is essential to keep in mind that communication is not always about what you say. In class we learned about a communication scale. About 14% of communication are the words you say, 35% is the tone you use and 41% is nonverbal. Your body language actually does a lot of the communicating for you. So in reality, it isn't necessarily what you say but how you say it that matters. Your body language and tone usually determine how a message is received.
Miscommunication also occurs when people don't say things directly, hoping the other person will get the hint. An example of this is when a girl is in the car and she asks the guy if he is hungry and wants to stop and get something to eat. The guy says that he's fine and isn't hungry. What the girl is actually saying is that she wants to stop for something to eat. You can see how easy it can be to interpret things differently than the person meant for the message to be received.
We are always communicating, whether we are talking or not. One technique that works well to make sure you are interpreting a message the way the person intended would be to check for understanding. This is done by repeating back to the person what you think they mean and then asking, "is that right?" Asking questions to clarify will avoid a lot of miscommunication. If you are the person communicating, you could check for understanding by asking them if they understand what you're trying to say or seek to clarify.
No comments:
Post a Comment