Do you understand me?

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Can a person live without communication? "Why not?" - you will say. Once on an uninhabited island, where there is not a single living soul for miles around, he, of course, will be sad, but where can you go! We'll have to put up with the lack of interlocutors. Under normal circumstances, communication with our own kind is an integral part of our life. Especially at work. This is where a lot depends on how you are able to communicate. Including your own future.

Once I turned to a firm for advice and, while waiting for my turn, witnessed an interesting conversation.

“You did not at all what I asked,” one employee said to another.

- Why not? - she was surprised. - Here is the text, and here are the certificates. That's exactly what you said.

- No, - objected the first, - I wanted there to be diagrams, here - text, but not about our products, but about our mission, and here - already tables. That's what I said. And you have the opposite.

- But that's how I understood you …

A typical situation, isn't it? One explained in her own way, the second understood in her own way, and both, it seems, did not bother to ask each other again if everything was clear. As a result, the work on which a lot of time was spent will now have to be redone. Which of the interlocutors is to blame? Both, you say. And you will add that such in life is found at every step.

Communication is a process involving at least two people. In order to reach mutual understanding, efforts of both sides are needed. However, there are different situations in life. If the boss, giving you the next task, mumbles something completely incomprehensible and gets confused in explanations, then remember that:

• if you do not cope with the task, then the blame will fall primarily on you;
• you are unlikely to succeed in changing your boss and his manner of expressing your thoughts.

What then is to be done? As a friend of mine used to say, take care of yourself.

Don't be dominated by prejudice and overconfidence

Make contact with a positive attitude. Even if someone, figuratively speaking, stepped on your tail, put old grievances out of your head: you are at work, here it is important to be able to find a common language with any team member, regardless of whether you like him or not.

Do not look down on your interlocutor. He starts a conversation, and you sit and think: "Yes, I already know perfectly well what you are going to say." In vain. No one is able to predict the course of a conversation with one hundred percent certainty. It is possible that your interlocutor has some kind of surprise in store for you. If you follow the lead of your own self-confidence, you will miss important information, and this can ultimately affect the quality of all your further work.

Create a setting

If you have a serious conversation with an employee, then make sure that nothing distracts you from the conversation. Turn off the radio and TV, close the door to the hallway, turn off the phone. Only you and the interlocutor. And maybe your notebook - in order to take notes during the conversation, having previously requested permission to do so. You will say that you have an excellent memory and you do not need such a safety net, but you should not rush. But what if your interlocutor suddenly starts sprinkling with technical terms, most of which you are completely unfamiliar with? Most likely, you will get nervous and at some point will lose the thread of reasoning. To prevent this from happening, take a notebook in your hands.

In addition, by taking notes, you can better focus on the subject of the conversation and will not let your thoughts drain to the side.

Don't be hasty

Do not interrupt the interlocutor, do not rush him, do not finish phrases for him. If you break these three rules, then you risk, firstly, displeasing the person you are communicating with, and secondly, getting low-quality information. Let the interlocutor speak to the end and only then begin to speak yourself.

Make it clear that you are listening carefully

It is quite appropriate from time to time to insert remarks like "I understand …" or "yes, yes, of course …" into the conversation. Thus, you show the interlocutor that you are really listening to him.

However, do not try to entertain him with such digressions: "You know, it reminded me of a story …"

Ask your questions

In no case should you be ashamed to do this. Your job is to get the most out of the conversation. If you do not understand something, then you need to ask again. This can be done in two ways. The first is paraphrasing. You repeat the thought of the interlocutor in your own words and ask him to check if you understood him correctly. For example: "If I understood you correctly, then …" or "You mean …".

The second way is to find out. Here you simply ask to clarify the information you may have misunderstood: "Please specify, please, what exactly you mean …" or "Be kind, repeat it again …".

It is useful to summarize at the end of the conversation. For example: “So, what did we agree on as a result?..” or “As I understand it, our main task is…”.

Be observant

We communicate with each other not only with the help of language: demeanor, movements, gestures, eye expressions, facial expressions, intonation are sometimes more eloquent than words. Sometimes these non-verbal cues can even give the interlocutor information that we would rather withhold. I remember one friend of mine, talking about the relationship with his bride, said: "We are all super! Complete understanding!" - but at the same time his face was distorted by a grimace, as if he had eaten something incredibly sour. My husband and I exchanged glances: they say, everything is clear with your "complete understanding".

Therefore, conducting a dialogue, try to pay attention not only to what your interlocutor says, but also to how he behaves. And if you notice something in his behavior that does not correspond to what he is saying at the moment - be on your guard, he is clearly not saying what he thinks. Although this does not necessarily indicate a deliberate lie.

Remember how many times in your life there have been situations when you were forced to utter words of politeness, and at that time you yourself felt a burning desire to shout out loud or beat everything that came to hand, simply because the day was not going well or your head ached. So don't be overly suspicious.

Tune in to his wave

Psychologists say that we usually like people who are somewhat similar to us in appearance, similar in temperament, demeanor or attitude towards life. It is noticed that if both interlocutors in the course of a conversation discover similar principles of conducting a conversation, then this facilitates mutual understanding. This similarity can be accidental - people, as they say, coincided. But if this does not happen, then you can consciously adjust to the intonation of the interlocutor, his facial expressions, gestures, etc. in order to establish contact with him. He grins slightly - and you repeat the grin. He crosses his legs and puts both hands on the armrests of the chair - you do the same. Try experimenting and you will see how the whole atmosphere of the conversation changes. You are no longer just people who need to find a solution to a problem. You are people who are comfortable with each other, like-minded people.

“In theory, everything always looks great,” you might say. There is only one way to fix the situation - to exercise. Take this theory into service and communicate, communicate, communicate. For a kid, after all, even a couple of steps is a great thing, but look at yourself today: you are on rollerblades, and in a car, and on a snowboard. So it is with the secrets of effective communication - the road will be mastered by the walking one.