Speaker or Listener: Who’s Responsible For Misunderstandings?
There’s been an age-old argument in the communication field: who’s at fault if a misunderstanding occurs – the Speaker communicating badly, or the Listener misunderstanding? Let’s look at some facts:
1. Speaking is an act of translating what’s going on internally into communication that enables others to understand an intent – choosing the most appropriate words for that particular listener in that particular situation. But the act of choosing is unconscious and may not render a full or accurate representation of what is meant.
2. Listeners translate what they hear through a series of unconscious filters (biases, assumptions, triggers, habits, imperfect memory) formed over their lives by their:
a) world view,
b) beliefs,
c) similar situations,
d) historic exchanges with the same speaker,
e) biases on entering the conversation (like sellers listening exclusively for need).
What a listener hears is fraught with so much unconscious filtering that their ability to hear accurately what’s meant is untrustworthy, except, possibly, when speaking with someone known over time.
3. According to David Bellos in his excellent book Is That a Fish In Your Ear?, no sentence contains all of the information we need to translate it. As listeners, are we translating accurately? What parts of what we hear is biased?
Since communication involves a bewildering set of conscious and unconscious choices, accuracy becomes dependent upon each communication partner mitigating bias and disengaging from assumptions; the odds of communication partners accurately understanding the full extent of intended meaning in conversation is unlikely. It’s quite a complicated mess of factors.
My new book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? focuses on listening: how we mishear, misunderstand, and otherwise misinterpret, where and how the gap between what’s said and what’s heard occurs and how to avoid misunderstanding. [My next book might be titled Seriously? Did you really hear what you think I said? that focuses on speakers]. While researching and writing the book I realized that the responsibility for effective communication is heavily weighted in the court of the listener: if listeners don’t have skills to catch or prevent their biases or unhook from all subjective filters, the speaker’s words and intent are moot: they may be misconstrued regardless of their accuracy. And yes, sometimes speakers mis-speak. But when a listener hears precisely what is being conveyed and respond accordingly, a speaker can hear any problems and correct them.
So the answer is: the responsibility for an effective communication lie with the listener.
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Sharon Drew Morgen is the NYTimes Business Bestselling author of Selling with Integrity and 7 books how buyers buy. She is the developer of Buying Facilitation® a decision facilitation model used with sales to help buyers facilitate pre-sales buying decision issues. She is a sales visionary who coined the terms Helping Buyers Buy, Buy Cycle, Buying Decision Patterns, Buy Path in 1985, and has been working with sales/marketing for 30 years to influence buying decisions.
More recently, Morgen is the author of What? Did you really say what I think I heard? in which she has coded how we can hear others without bias or misunderstanding, and why there is a gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She is a trainer, consultant, speaker, and inventor, interested in integrity in all business communication. Her learning tools can be purchased: www.didihearyou.com. She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.
Sharon Drew Morgen December 22nd, 2014
Do You Hear Your Buyers?
What we hear is not the objective of our communications: connecting is. As Senders, we speak as part of the communication process; as Receivers we hear as part of the communication process. But unless there is a completed cycle of Sender → Receiver → Sender, and a connection occurs in which there is mutual understanding, there is no communication. Given those guidelines, are you connecting with your buyers?
As sellers, we end up biasing many of our conversations due to the sales process itself. When we enter conversations with a goal in mind – to discover who might have a need for our solution, or seek an appointment, we bias the conversation and limit the connection. Not only do we listen only for what we want to hear, but we pose questions to get the answers we think we need and miss all that might be possible.
What if
- Someone does have a need and their buying path is too complex to discuss with a stranger?
- The response you hear is unconventional and you wrongly assume it’s not a prospect?
- It might be an appropriate prospect who can’t meet with you due to time constraints and you could become creative together and have a Skype meeting?
- What if you hear what sounds like resistance because you’re not getting what you expected and you could be facilitating a buying decision?
Because we bias our conversations with buyers, we restrict possibility. We get lost on our end of a conversation, and don’t enable something larger, like being real facilitators to a buying decision. When we make assumptions, we teach buyers how to defend themselves against our folly rather than work together creatively. When we misunderstand, mishear, or misinterpret, we lose buyers because our conversations seem to be about us, not them, and they feel ignored, abused, or as if they are pawns in a game not of their making.
It’s possible to hear your buyers without bias, assumptions, or misinterpretation, in order to achieve true communication. Are you willing to relinquish your restrictive goal and consider an inclusive one that enables creativity and leadership? Are you willing to truly communicate with your buyers?
I’ve written a new book that provides the tools and skills to hear others without bias, assumptions, triggers, or misunderstanding. What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard? is a provocative, original book that covers new ground in the communication industry. It breaks apart how our brains keep us from hearing what’s being said, and offers tools to listen objectively. Let’s all start communicating, together.
Contact me with questions about how to hear others without biases or how to train your team. Let’s make ‘hearing what’s intended’ the new buzz phrase. Because if we all can hear what’s intended, we can make a huge difference in the world.
Sharon Drew Morgen | 512-457-0246 | sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com
www.buyingfacilitation.com
Sharon Drew Morgen November 28th, 2014
Posted In: News
Assessment: How much do you suck at listening?
Answer these questions to see how accurately you hear what your communication partner intends you to hear.
- How often do you enter conversations to hear what you want to hear – and disregard the rest?
- How often do you listen to get your own agenda across, regardless of the needs of the speaker?
- How often do you have a bias in place before the speaker’s points or agenda are known?
- Do you ever assume what the speaker wants from you before s/he states it – whether your assumption is accurate or not?
- How often do you listen merely to confirm you are right…and the other person is wrong?
- Do you ever enter a conversation without any bias, filters, assumptions, or expectations? What would need to happen for you to enter all conversations with a totally blank slate? Do you have the tools to make that possible?
- Because your filters, expectations, biases, and assumptions strongly influence how you hear what’s intended, how do you know that your natural hearing skills enable you to achieve everything you might achieve in a conversation?
- How much business have you lost because of your inability to choose the appropriate modality to hear and interpret through?
- How many relationships have you lost by driving conversations where you wanted them to be rather than a path of collaboration that would end up someplace surprising?
As I wrote my new book What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard? and asked folks I knew to provide feedback, I received similar notes from all around the world saying that the book was great – for their spouses. The consistent message was that they, themselves, heard every word spoken and had no communication problems around their listening skills. Ah, I thought, but do they hear what’s intended?
It’s physiologically impossible to accurately hear all that our communication partners intend to convey. Here are some reasons why:
- we have biases, filters, triggers, assumptions, and habits that uniquely contort what’s heard.
- people don’t always accurately represent what they say and mean for us to hear, leaving out details they assume will be understood and aren’t, or choosing words that have different meanings than how their listeners define them.
- the situation in which our communication is taking place has any range of situational biases that make shared understanding challenging.
- we all interpret what we hear uniquely, according to our education, family history, religious beliefs, political beliefs, age, and ethnicity.
Are you getting the picture here? Assured understanding is not even close to possible. Yet most of us assume we hear accurately. Sure, we hear the words. But do we understand what’s meant?
When my new book What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard? came out, I got notes from folks around the world telling me they listen accurately. And I wonder if they recognize the difference between hearing words spoken vs hearing what’s intended.
It’s physiologically impossible to accurately hear what our communication partner intends us to hear. We have biases, filters, triggers, assumptions, and habits that get in the way. And people don’t accurately represent what they mean for us to hear, leaving out details that they assume will be understood and aren’t, or choosing words that have different meanings for listeners. Or the situation we find ourselves in has any range of situational biases that make it difficult. We hear according to our education, family history, religious beliefs, political beliefs, age, ethnicity…..
Are you getting the picture here? Not even close to possible. So what is it we are defending? What is so important about believing we hear what’s intended when we don’t – and it’s not even possible?
My new book breaks down the good, the bad, and the ugly of how we hear, why we don’t, where we have problems (lots of assessments and fun exercises), and ways to fix it. Lots of funny examples of just plain dumb conversations between really smart people. And my snarky personality leads you through the process.
Contact me with questions about how to hear others without biases. or how to talk so others will hear what you intend to convey. And, I’ve designed some very affordable learning tools to help you figure out how to know exactly your particular ‘brand’ of bias, as well as one to lead you through the process of diminishing your biases and enhancing your ability to hear others. Let’s make ‘hearing what’s intended’ the new buzz phrase. Because if we all can hear what’s intended, we can make a huge difference in the world.
Sharon Drew Morgen | 512-457-0246 | sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com
www.buyingfacilitation.com
Sharon Drew Morgen October 29th, 2014