It’s interesting to see people talk to one another and walk away with totally different understandings on the discussion. All heard the same words, same inflections, knew who was speaking but each has their own interpretation of what was intended by the words. I’m not talking about hidden intent but rather individual, unique perspectives or paradigms which causes each of us to listen with what we think we know and understand. I’ve managed the integration of an acquired company where both companies, the parent and the acquired team, used the same terms and phrases in the same industry but I quickly learned each had different meanings. Using the same words the listeners would leave with different understanding of what was said.
One small example is when I was managing a single location call center and wanted the supervisors to implement a standard formatted and informed weekly report so I could quicky understand each without having to translate between the different versions. I created a template and conducted a mini-training session during a weekly staff meeting. The message was simple, I thought – use one standard format and here is the format. The next week all the supervisors presented the same formatted report which looked nothing like my template. My primary intent was standardization which was achieved. I asked why the different format. They let me know they really didn’t understand my format and were embarrassed to ask, so they all turned to the most experience of them and decided to use her format. My goal was achieved and I learned a lesson about needing to learn how to more clearly communicate including how to confirm what the audience heard.
The goal of communication isn’t for you or me to say what we intend but rather to ensure the listeners both hear and understand what we intend to say. How can you do this effectively? I suggest that the first step is to design or lay-out the communication and run it by one or more people who may be in the target audience to get their observations. Secondly, once you complete the communication then follow up with one or more different audience members to hear what they thought they heard from you. The goal is to learn how to communicate with empathy and understanding of the target audience.
Knowing your audience is really critical. Are you talking to a senior management group, the client, frontline employees, or other? The message points must consider who is listening and what would be of interest to them. Talking about company profit improvements to frontline employees may mean they hear you plan to reduce staff or limit pay raises and promotions.
Know your audience, be sure your message is focused on the audience, trial your messaging ahead to help adjust to the audience, and check post messaging to confirm what was heard was what was intended.