Typically many of us take for granted how we communicate. It’s easy right? A simple process involving interactions or exchanging of views between other people and yourself. Something is said and understood. No one ever leaves a meeting thinking “What was all that about? I haven’t got a clue what I have to do!” especially after the chair person has concluded with that well know phrase “We know what we have got to do, see you all next week!” 

The send & recieve model (fig.1) was developed to explain how communication works. With the Senders message being encoded and sent via a channel which is then decoded and understood by the Receiver. Simple? Mmm.

Problems may occur during all the stages especially if peoples differences come into play, or they don’t have accsess to the choosen Channel.

It firstly relies on the person sending the information (Sender) using plain english, understanding exactly who their target audience is, avoiding ambiguity and anticipating confustion. Secondly the sender has to identify the appropriate channel to use; email, meetings, telephone calls, text messages etc? Has a message been sent to people without computer accsess? Each channel has their good points and bad.Tried asking for directions before and did you remember everything they had told you?

How the Sender encodes or  the Receiver decodes or interperates the information relies on three main components (fig.2). Tone of voice, body language & the words we use. 

93% is based on our body language (55%) and tone of voice (38%) with the words we use making up just 7%. I’m sure you have  heard the phrases; “its not what you said, it’s the way you said it” and “words are cheap”.

Have you ever had to speak to someone who sent a ‘funny’,email  because it upset the person they sent it to and yet they had no idea? These are all evidence that parts of the whole as shown in (fig.2) are missing and effective communication hasn’t taken place. 

To sucssfully decode the information, the person receiving the information must allow time to read through or absorb the information, listen attentivley, avoid  making assuptions, and make sure they have sufficient background knowledge on the subject.

Each receiver is an individual and their interpritations of what is being communicated (encoded) will vary and be based on their values, perceptions and emotions. 

 Let me illistrate the point. 

There were two people driving down route 66 on holiday in America. In the distance they see a building, they draw closer and the passenger realises its a restaurant, she says “are you hungry?”  the driver says no, puts his foot down and they continue past the diner.

An hour or so later, they see another building and the same scenario plays out, it’s a restaurant, “she asks are you hungry?” again he replies “no,”  again they drive past.

Later on that day,  the passenger sees a restaurant looming in the distance and decides to say nothing. As they zoom past she hits the dash board with her  fist and shouts “ I told you twice already that I was hungry, why didn’t you stop?” The driver was stunned.

 Ask yourself why she did this. I propose that communication can be chaos. Don’t believe me? Try playing Chinese Whispers! 

The challege is that we all interperate information in many different ways, filtering informationtion into relevant and non relevant information. How we do this is determined by many factors including our belief systems, backgrounds, current situation and our concentration levels.

Perception plays a major part in this and is affected by how the listener feels about themselves at that point in time, their self confidence and self esteem. How the message being communicated is percieved  and how the person sending the message is percieved all have a great impact on how effective our communication is.

People who play the joker in life often find that they find it difficult to be taken seriously when the time is needed, because they are percieved in a certain way.

Its strange, how some people  percieve things. Is that pub in the country charming and quaint or is it gloomy and boring? Is the waiter in the restaurant ignoring you or giving you time to settle and choose from the menu? You have your veiws others another

What do you see here (fig3), an old lady, old man, young girl or all three? 

We all make errors in perception, it’s a tricky business and certainly not a exacting science. We fail to collect enough relevant information and often use totally irrrelivant information, and this we allow to effect our perceptions of any later information we are given.

So to recap, effective communication is a challenge and at times can be chaos. There are many barriers to the process such as; too much or unclear information, technical noise (due to weakness or fault in the transmission system), social noise (interference from people in the immediate environment),contradictory body language, language, perceptual Bias, technological barriers and lack of credibility of the sender.

Challenges can be overcome and we should strive to ensure that we select words carefully to avoid misinterpretation and have clear objectives for the purpose of the communication. All organisations have T.L.A’s (that’s Three Letter Abbriviations for those of you who dont work at Aquarius Training Solutions – Ed) so we should use plain english and avoid jargon and technical words that may not be understood along with ambiguity. Finally we should select the appropriate method and Channel.

Jim Ferry.