Some Questions About Communication

Did I hear what you said?
Did I hear what you think I heard?

Did I hear what you meant?
Did you say what you meant?

Did you say what I think you said - or did I hear what I expected you to say?
Did I understand you the way you think I understood you?

[Are you confused yet?!]

Complicated questions like these show how nuanced communication is - the subtleties matter.

It can be hard to do communication well. It can easily slide into shouting at each other - particularly on social media, where outrage rules, and the messy middle gets ignored.

However, if we are to heal the rifts - to bridge the increasing levels of polarisation we are seeing, then we need to take time to understand each other. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with them - and it certainly doesn’t mean being all ‘kum-ba-ya’ about it.

But it does mean being willing to do the work.

Improving our communication skills is hard - and essential.

A provocation

Did you actually read the questions? Did you understand them, or gloss over them? If while reading the questions, your brain switched off - does that perhaps say something about your willingness to engage in the complexity…?

An offering

In difficult conversations, a useful phrase is “What I heard you say was this, this, and this - is that right?” It gives the other person a chance to add context or detail, and reduces the risk of misunderstandings. As Stephen Covey would say, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”