How Miscommunication Happens (and how to avoid it)
Context Is Everything.
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My practical take on this is that other than very simple exchanges, people don't just transmit closed or definitive messages to each other. Most human communication is a complicated mix of context, personal experience and individual perception. This means most conversations are unreliable blends of what people THINK is being said. The more people involved the bigger the problem.
Because I have experienced the havoc miscommunication can cause both personally and professionally I now have a habit of telling people the same thing in three different ways, using three different examples. To help me I follow an old training adage by telling people what I am going to tell them. Then I tell them what I want to tell them and then I tell them what I have just told them. |