Most of us covered the subject Communication in school, so when we come with Friedemann Schulz von Thun’s 4 Ear Model at training sessions or seminars, you can be sure some will roll their eyes and sigh, believing they already know more than enough about communication. We are well aware that (nearly) everything has already been said or written on the subject. So why then, are communication problems a constant factor in our daily lives? How can people still get their wires crossed when they supposedly know how to communicate? […]
Let’s start with sender-receiver model. Some of you may have heard of this classic communications model developed in the 1940s by the mathematicians Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver. The two men worked for Bell Labs telephone corporation so the model has technical origins, intending to reduce malfunctions between senders and receivers when talking on the phone. The model was then picked up by sociologist Stuart Hall as well as Paul Watzlawick and developed for human communications. No different than a telephone wire, conversations have a sender and a receiver. One person (sender) transmits a message to another (receiver). The message, any message in the course of a conversation has an underlying meaning; is encrypted by the sender, either in her verbal expression, her written word or her body language. It’s up to the receiver to decode these signal in order to understand what the sender wants to say. The receiver reacts to the message he understood and becomes, in turn, the sender, sending his own encrypted message to be interpreted by the receiver. And on it goes.
But what happens when the receiver holds a different decoding key than the sender, arriving at a varied message? Conflicts arise because the receiver did not understand the sender’s message. We like to compare this to a package sent on its way. The sender prepares the package and sends it off, but how it will arrive is subject to a number of variables. Ideally, the package arrives just as it was sent, completely intact. It suffered no damage and the contents are exactly what the receiver expected. Transfer this metaphor to a communication situation: The receiver has correctly absorbed and decoded the message. The other extreme is that the package didn’t arrive at all and was lost in transport. The message the sender sent has completely bypassed the receiver.
Or the package arrives but suffered damage along the way. The receiver is disappointed, having expected something else. The sender is also disappointed because damaged goods are not what he originally sent. In communications this would be termed a misunderstanding. Before an important meeting, a leader requests her employee to go closely over the presentation one more time. The employee does as requested, but fails to correct the mistakes, resulting in a presentation with faulty slides – extremely embarrassing. Of course, afterwards, the leader takes her employee to task.
Sometimes the package seems to arrive completely intact. It looks good on the outside, is even lovingly wrapped, but when the receiver opens it he discovers the content is damaged or not what he expected. Compliments, for instance, can frequently come in such deceptive packaging. At first glance, they feel good, but take a second look and they turn sour, the eyewash becomes evident. For example, it sounds quite nice when a colleague comes up to you after a presentation and says, “You formulate your sentences so simply, I immediately understood everything!” However, the message could also be interpreted as your colleague doesn’t think you capable of illustrating complex content. Other compliments are easier to identify as offensive, such as, “You’ve lost so much weight! You look much younger and prettier!” The sender relays a clearly negative message wrapped in satin, “You looked old and ugly a few weeks ago!” […]
Understanding cultural differences often plays a decisive role in the professional theater. Cultural ignorance, on the other hand, can literally be risky business. A common example is the nod, relaying either agreement or disagreement. While in the States, nodding implies agreement or understanding, in parts of Southern Europe, a single nod implies a firm no. Especially at the dinner table, what is considered polite or impolite; appropriate or inappropriate varies greatly from culture to culture and country to country. Ignorance of cultural dining etiquette can result in a thoroughly awkward business dinner atmosphere.
Yet, the most decisive factor in decoding and assessing a given message, independent of language or culture, is the receiver’s personal perception. Every receiver has developed her own perception filter emerging from her origins, upbringing, education level, personal associations and experiences. This filter can produce the broadest spectrum of message interpretation but the process is always the same: The receiver first takes in and assesses the message. The more parallels between the sender’s filter and receiver’s filter, the more likely the message will arrive exactly as it was sent. So it goes to follow, the greater the difference in filters, the higher the likelihood of misunderstanding the message.
An excerpt from the book “Leadership is More – 27 Questions We Too Can Answer” written by Gianni, Jan & Marcello Liscia, 2022
