Communication is interpreted through our lifetime of personal context.
When you communicate, you do so with an entire lifetime of personal context. therefore, it’s logical to conclude that the person you’re communicating with also has a lifetime of their own personal context.
Because of this context, misunderstandings can be both easy and devastating.
Is it possible to guide the messages others receive from us?
Absolutely it is, and with conscious effort we can create a message that is easy to understand even without our lifetime of personal context.
- Use definitive descriptions.
That is, descriptions that present a reasonable amount of information to give a specific message. Avoid being vague, “I’m hungry,” says nearly nothing while “I’m a bit hungry for pepperoni pizza” communicates a lot. In other words the person you’re talking to doesn’t understand, unless you tell them, that you’re not that hungry or that you want pepperoni pizza and not lasagne.
- Empathize with the other person.
Empathy is by far one of the most important interpersonal communication skills you can develop. By reflecting how they feel, we get a better idea of how to express a message. Telling somebody whom is grieving that “things will get better” will not be received well. Telling the same person “you must be feeling very hurt inside,” will show that you can relate to them and it expresses that you care about how they are feeling.
- Be appropriate to your relational dimension.
Relational dimension is how the communicators feel about each other. You wouldn’t likely talk to your mother with the same tone as your best friend or a police officer as lovingly as a grandparent. Your relationships themselves communicate messages.
Communication = Relationships
If we don’t use empathy, relational dimension, and definitive description, we are risking coming across in a way that may be drastically different than what we meant.
In the next article we will look at empathy in depth. Have you ever had a situation where you didn’t think about how they felt and how it affected the message?