Larry D. Lauer

Being misunderstood is one of the most frustrating feelings anyone can experience.  It certainly is true for professional communicators. Yet, it happens almost daily. In fact, I have been known to comment that there is no such thing as a communication expert. There are only people who work at doing it systematically every day.

Experience has taught me that as much as fifty percent of every message  is lost.  A receiver can only process so much information, and selective perception determines which fifty percent is remembered.  Noise interruptions, from technical problems to attention distractions, also make it difficult to process entire messages. Based on this same reality, I argued in a previous blog that people only hear what they want. So what can we do to improve understanding?

I suggest thinking about shaping important message content around seven steps: (1) Get your receivers’ attention before sending any message. (2) Tell them your main purpose up front. (3) Limit your message to a few main points. (4) Give an example or tell a story to substantiate each one. (5) Conclude by summarizing your key points and purpose. (6) Build in the most efficient feedback process you can.  (7) Respond to whatever feedback you get, and resend your message.

The closer communication can become actual dialogue, the more effective it will be.  And, the more distance and noise  (including technology) there is between sender and receiver, the less effective communication will be. In these cases, you must keep your message as simple as possible, and repeat it as often as you can. In the final analysis, we all must anticipate breakdown, and just keep going.  The advantage we professionals  have is that we do it everyday, and therefore are able to continually repeat and reinforce our most critical messages.