April: T.S. Eliot called it the cruellest month. And here in the USA most folks would agree with that assertion, thanks to the dreaded tax day. We’ve already covered taxes pretty well (uno, dos), so let’s talk about something infinitely more pleasant. Miscommunication.
Osmo Wiio*, the Finnish communications scholar, posited quite a few laws of communication, my favorite of which is the cheerily upbeat:
If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which does the most harm.
Truer words were never spoken. Just ask yourself how you respond to emails suggesting changes to your pet project. Do you take them in positive, upbeat ways are based on the most beneficial possible interpretation of what was written? Or do you instinctively take the darkest view of the communique in front of you? I’m more guilty of the latter than the former, I admit.
The plus side of this personal failing, though, is that I understand that the same tendency lies in the hearts of my coworkers. So I try very hard (too hard, perhaps) to compensate for this in my own communications. But, if we stick with Wiio, we come to the next nugget:
The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds.
I’m not sure there’s any getting past that point, so we’ll just move on before we fail any further.
Let’s consider Wiio’s suggestion that when you and another person are conversing, there are actually six people involved in the conversation:
- Who you think you are
- Who you think the other person is
- Who you think the other person thinks you are
- Who the other person thinks he/she is
- Who the other person thinks you are
- Who the other person thinks you think he/she is
Sound like a reasonable explanation for the difficulties you have in communicating with, say, your boss? I could go on for pages about the arguments and difficulties I’ve encountered because #3 and #5 didn’t match up. Actually, I’d be willing to bet that it’s that dissonance that is the greatest source of friction in my business communications.
Or am I just communicating too much and risking failure here?
-Andrew Trent, Journyx Director of Web Content
* Special thanks to Jason at Signal vs. Noise for bringing Osmo Wiio to the forefront of my brain last week.