Become a Master of Communication

George Bernard Shaw once said “The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”. 

A friend of mine who was a Police Dispatcher of The Raleigh Police Department told me a story where he once received a call from a frantic man who wife was in labor. The caller yelled into the phone … “My wife is pregnant, her water just broke, and her contractions are 2 minutes apart…please tell me…what do I do”? My friend calmly asked the man “Is this her first child”? The man screamed back in the phone “NO YOU IDIOT…This is her husband”!

As most REALTORS have discovered, in tense or adverse situations, what you say is not always perceived as you hoped it would be understood...  Another saying you may have heard is... There is always 2 sides to every story (I to like to say… there are as many “sides” to a story as there are people in the story!)

As a former Law Enforcement Officer, I can attest that sometimes an “eye-witness” can be your worse witness. This is often caused by an individual’s “personal filter”… which the event must pass through before being redirected through the brain and then verbalized in their own words.

Have you ever been at a sports event where a call was made by a referee and one side perceived it as a good solid call and the other side started yelling “REF YOU SUCK!” (If you’ve been to a Carolina Hurricanes Hockey game, I am certain you have heard this chant…) This experience is a result of personal bias and personal filters…We know there were not two different calls made…one correct and one wrong…the two different sides merely “saw” it differently because of personal filters. And because the third party (the Ref) has a perception of what occurred, there is also the possibility that the “penalty” may never have actually occurred… Are you starting to see how the communication confusion can start?

Interpretation of what is being said can also create poor communication…this is caused by individual perception filters. Ever played the game where a group sits in a circle and a phrase is started and verbally passed from person to person? By the time it reaches back to the first person the story usually has changed significantly! Read on to discover techniques to avoid confusion and become a master of communication…

The following are the different filters communication must pass through and why so many communications are misunderstood:

·        Filter 1- What the speaker actually wants to say… (What he thinks in his mind as he is preparing to speak)

·        Filter 2- What the speaker actually says when communicating

·        Filter 3- What the listener hears

·        Filter 4- What the listener actually understands

·        Filter 5- What the listener wants to say in response (What he thinks in his head he wants to respond with)

·        Filter 6- What the listener actually says in response

·        Filter 7- What the original speaker hears

·        Filter 8- What the original speaker actually understands

How to Improve Your Communication Skills:         

1)    Repeat what you think you heard and understood to the speaker…example: “What I understood you to say is… the seller is willing to have an engineer look at the crack in the foundation and report on it…and then, if needed, the seller will have a licensed contractor perform any needed repairs”?

2)    Ask “clarifying” questions like: “What did you mean when you said any needed repairs?... Will it be all the repairs identified in the report?”

3)    Perform perception checks on the other side by asking questions like: “I feel you are uneasy about having this inspection performed or am I misreading your body language”?

4)    Active, Attentive Listening is a required skill for communication. We were given 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason. An excellent communicator must be an excellent listener as well. Use phrases like “yes, I understand…or please continue” to let the speaker know you are listening and understanding them.

Don’t take for granted the party you are communicating with is understanding what you thought you said. With verbal communication always follow-up with written confirmation of the conversation and how you understood it…this gives the other party an opportunity for rebuttal if necessary. Think before you speak and listen before you respond…don’t just be a good communicator…be an EXCELLENT COMMUNICATOR!