Communication solves problems

What do we do wrong? Communication seems so simple.

Being able to communicate effectively will make our lives easier, but why do we have such trouble communicating?

Communication consists of 2 parts.

The first part is the “easy” one, listening.

Yet we are observing that people do not like paying attention to the person who is speaking. The reason is probably because we overthink our process and we try to predict what the other person is going to say to be able to prepare for a possible reply. Things get nastier when we assume to know or understand what they are thinking.

There is an emerging urge to know stuff, to know people, and to know how everything works, especially on a matter we have know-how, like our business. This is a very biased process of thinking because we always make assumptions through our perspective and our point of view. Although humans are similar in many ways, they are not the same and what is usually ignored is that we don’t share the same thought process.

Here is a great example of how differently people think given by Richard Feynman, A person I admire greatly.

So ok I hope this makes sense for you as much as it does for me.

So, given we are so different, how can we efficiently communicate with each other?

Well, we have to begin with proper listening and then we have to try to understand what the person speaking truly means. That includes active listening and asking questions to fully understand their point of view along with their claim.

The second part is speaking.

And sure, we are quite fluent in speaking but does what we say make sense to the part that is receiving the message? Again, we are doomed to speak as if everybody else is living in our brains and knows exactly what we mean. But sadly that is not the case and repeating what you say several times (like I do… which is wrong and I try very hard to stop that) does not mean your message is being successfully received.

One quick trick to make sure you make sense to the other person is to ask questions about whether they fully comprehend your message. Unfortunately, that is only possible when you have a 1 to 1 conversation in real-time.

So, what do we do for any other possible communication? How does a business send an understandable message to its audience?

We do Marketing.

If you ask me Marketing is about listening to your audience, understanding, translating in your own “personal language” and responding in the way the audience comprehends.

Do you see now why Marketing is so valuable for your business?