4 Common Reasons Why Your Communication Might Fail

“My wife told me I don’t listen to her. At least I think that’s what she said.”
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True communication is all about the same message you send out to someone being the same one they get. That applies the other way around, too. It also means whatever idea they send to you by speaking, turns out to be the same one you get.

If that doesn’t happen, communication doesn’t exist. It’s just a lot of mouths moving and sounds floating in the air.

Seems like it should be pretty simple. And, it really is just that simple.

If it is so simple, then what are the main reasons why communication falls apart for so many people?

One reason is that one or both of you aren’t TUNED IN. Your mind is wandering on something besides what is being said. Maybe you’re rehearsing what you’d like to tell them next. It’s more important for them to understand you than for you to understand them. Maybe you’re in la-la land.

If you’re wanting to listen to your favorite radio program on AM 1200, it doesn’t do much good if the radio is tuned to AM 1148 or AM 1205. Be tuned in to hear and understand what’s being said. Others will tend to treat you as you treat them. If you tune in to them, they’ll tend to tune in to you.

“Seek first to understand, before being understood”
The fifth habit of Highly Effective People. Stephen R. Covey

Another reason is that you’re not delivering your message clearly. Maybe you’re beating around the bush. Being too vague. Hoping they’ll “get it.” Some people might. Not everyone.

Get to the point as clearly as possible. Keep it in one sentence. If you’re not sure what you’re trying to say, they probably won’t either.

Other times you’re letting your emotions contaminate what you’re trying to say. Emotions can distort your tone of voice, facial expression, body language. Others are going to be more focused on how you say it, more than what you’re saying.

Wait until you’ve calmed down before you deliver your message. Make sure you convey caring in order to make receiving your message more palatable.

Still other times, the words that you’re using mean something different to others than they mean to you.

I was at a workshop once where over 200 other people were present. The leader gave us a list of ten words. We were to write down the first word that came into our mind with each word the leader gave us.

As I recall, the first word was “teach”. He later asked us what word we wrote down. About 5 people wrote down “learn” when they heard “teach”. Others wrote down “student”.

There were dozens of other words that people wrote down. Out of 200 people! The point of the exercise was to show that, just because someone says the word teach”, not everyone has the same idea of what it means as the one who said it.

Not everyone means the same thing by the same word. It’s pretty amazing that people communicate at all.

Here’s another example; I was also at an event once where a small group of people from Spain were trying to communicate with me and some others through an interpreter.

The interpreter was from Mexico. The people from Spain were constantly feeling offended because of how the interpreter was speaking to them.

It turned out that the words he was using were identical to theirs, only they meant something very, very different. He profoundly offended a teenage girl when he just tried to ask what time she wanted us to pick the group up.

They were speaking the same language. The words meant something different. It was a mess.

• If you want to improve your communication,
  tune in,
  be clear about your message,
  be calm and caring,
  and know the language of the person on the receiving end!