To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different and we perceive the world differently

When I heard the very first time about the pragmatics of language which refers to the use, purpose, or function of speech and language, I was intrigued and remembered Alice’s conversations with Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass”. These conversations would leave her totally puzzled, feeling dumb and frustrated. Isn’t it a common phenomenon at work that you experience being totally misunderstood, at the same time as you feel that you are being manipulated? Here is my favorite

?“… ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”

‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”’ Alice objected.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’”

This is about power (“which is to be master”). Humpty Dumpty is using language just as it suits him (“When I use a word,…, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less” ) and leaving Alice no chance for a fair conversation. She will lose anyway (“a nice knock-down argument for you”).

Syntax and semantics are not enough!

Content vs relation

There are situations in which we know that no matter how hard we try for being understood, no matter how much we try to bring the conversation to the “content” of the discussion which should be possible to discuss with facts, figures, examples, rational arguments, the conversation can be derailed and an outside observer can notice that there is something about the “relation” that doesn’t work so this will go on as the “conversation of the deaf”. When the relation doesn’t work and both parties may have prejudices, preconceived ideas about the other, they will be standing apart and insisting that they are right without finding the common ground and have dialogue.

When I was doing my research on pathological communication patterns behind stress and burnout in organizations, I came across an incredible example of such a conversation between a manager and a subordinate, which was a double bind situation where he could never win against his boss because he doesn’t get a clear expectation or demand of “it”, but he should do “it”, and when he does “it”, probably it won’t be “it”??:

Boss : “I won’t say anything because I don’t know what you’re doing”, um… “the only thing I can say is that the top management says that it’s not the way we should do it”.

Pierre: “Ah OK, so tell me how to do it!”

Boss: “I don’t know! Just find! Just work and find! And do what we want you to do!”

Pierre: “OK” (laughs) “OK, what should I do?” –

Boss: “So, just work it out, and we’ll see if it will be OK, that’s it”.

Semantics vs pragmatics

Semantics studies the meaning of sentences; pragmatics studies the meaning of utterances. The semantic meaning of a sentence is its literal meaning, based on what the words individually mean and the grammar of the language. The speaker’s meaning of a sentence is what the speaker intends to communicate by uttering it. These often coincide but can diverge. In case of divergence, ‘meta-communication’ is used in order to clarify the meaning. ‘Meta-communication’ is the general term for communication about communication.

Requests for clarification and dialogue is important when words can mean different things to different people. If the listening/reading party suspects incorrect interpretation on his/her behalf, because of a perceived mismatch between what is said and what is to be expected in the wider context of the conversation, s/he may start a conversation for clarification, i.e. a meta-communication. Both Alice and Pierre tried without success. But fortunately, meta-communication will often succeed especially between professional people with good intentions of communication for collaboration.

Intended message vs interpretation

However, we can not be sure that although the intention is good, the communication will be an effective one. Human communication is prone to mismatches between the speaker’s intended message and the hearer’s chosen interpretation. In other words, it is more open to misunderstanding. According to Miller (2011), most of our misunderstandings of other people are not due to any inability to hear them or to understand their words. A far more important source of difficulty in communication is that we so often hold so many beliefs, prejudices, biases (please see my article on LinkedIn about biases) that we interpret what we hear instead of listening to what is said and take it as it is. This is difficult because all experience is subjective; all perception is an interpretation. And all interpretation happens in a context. Context is the psychological or mental framework within which we understand a phenomenon or an observation. Context gives the phenomenon meaning. This brings us over to the importance of understanding language in a given cultural context.

The five axioms of communication

Often in these conflicts one part will accuse the other and communication is thought as a linear process which is not. If I were ever a minister of education, I would introduce communication as the first skill to be learned from the beginning. There is so much we don’t know about communication, and we fail over and over again. Communication is an ever-present feature of human interaction. The five axioms of communication, formulated by Paul Watzlawick and his colleagues (1967) help to describe the processes of communication that take place during interaction:

1. One cannot not communicate. Everything one does is a message: “Activity or inactivity, words or silence all have message value”. Thus, when a manager does not respond to a phone call or an email message (unless there is a good reason such as being busy) or even simply looks at the employee and does not respond, s/he still communicates (refusal, dismissal, resentment, etc.).

2. Both “content and relationship levels of communication” matter. I already referred to it above. Content refers to the actual subject matter of what is being discussed. The relationship level of a communicative act has to do with how the two communicators view one another and how they convey it. As Watzlawick, et al put it, “All such relationship statements are about one or several of the following assertions: ‘This is how I see myself…this is how I see you…this is how I see you seeing me’…” and therefore determines “how this communication is to be taken”.

3. Punctuation in the communicative sequences. In a communicative event “every item in the sequence is simultaneously a stimulus, a response, and a reinforcement”. Different punctuations make people see the sequence of events differently and may lead to endless conflicts (game without an end). "You insulted me" "No, it is you who started"...No one participant’s behavior can be said to cause the other’s. This is about the circular nature of communication.

4. Communication can be both digital and analogical. The digital code is what the person says, what the words actually mean, while the analogical code has to do with how something is said or the nonverbal cues that go along with it. This means that someone can convey two opposing messages at once, which may cause problems. For instance, when a manager says “you have done a great job” while looking at his messages in the PC or smartphone, you will know that s/he doesn’t mean what is said.

5. Communication can be either ‘symmetrical’ or ‘complimentary’. This simply means that either the participants in the system are on equal ground with regards to power relations, or one of them is over the other. Conflict may arise when a party likes the status quo to change.

Understanding these basic rules of communication would make a huge difference. People believe that when they “send” a message to a “receiver” it will be understood in the same way as the sender intended it to be. However, several barriers will come in between.

Barriers to effective communication

Many communication barriers occur in everyday business communications such as stereotyping, negative past experiences, attitudes, mindsets, perceptual filters, and lack of trust and empathy. They all impact on what message receivers receive and how they interpret its meaning.

Misinterpretation occurs when the receiver understands the message to his or her own satisfaction but not in the sense that the sender intended. Misinterpretation can be a consequence of sender or channel noise, poor listening habits, erroneous inferences on the part of the receiver, or differing frames of reference. A combination of past experience and current expectations often leads two people to perceive the same communication differently. Although each hears the actual words accurately, s/he may catalogue those words according to his or her individual perceptions, or frames of reference. Within organizations, people with different functions often have different frames of reference. Marketing people may interpret things one-way and production people another. An engineer's interpretation is likely to differ from that of a salesperson.

Value judgements are a source of noise when a receiver evaluates the worth of a sender's message before the sender has finished transmitting it. Often such value judgements are based on the receiver's previous experience either with the sender or with similar types of communications. Value judgements, needs, and expectations cause us to hear what we want to hear. When a message conflicts with what a receiver believes or expects, the receiver may subconsciously block out the information or distort it to match preconceived notions. For example, feedback to an employee about poor performance, may not be ‘heard’ because it doesn't fit the employee's self-concept or expectations.

Filtering occurs when senders convey only certain parts of the relevant information to receivers. Filtering may occur in upward communication when subordinates suppress negative information and relay only the data that will be perceived by superiors as positive. Senders may also filter out important information if they distrust receivers.

Poor listening when people become so absorbed in their tasks that when someone initiates conversation, they are not able to disassociate and listen effectively. Most people do not listen actively either because they are too busy with preparing their answers or arguments. They also filter out information because they may form value judgements, make inferences, and listen only selectively to people whom they perceive as "distrusted" senders of information, for instance women can be thought of as being "hysterical", "exaggerating", "less trustworthy", etc in some cultures; young people are perceived as "ignorant" by older people or vice versa and people from developing countries can be regarded as "less educated" and "ignorant" by some people in developed countries. Gender bias, age bias and cultural bias may become barriers to effective communication. Personal biases and prejudices can lead us to block people out or assume we know what they are going to say, start finishing their sentences based on our own judgements, needs, and expectations; misunderstandings will easily follow. This can create negative feelings and make future communications even more difficult.

Gender bias is an important factor. It is known that males interrupt females more than they interrupt other males. There are numerous ways males and females communicate differently (see my article “Stronger together - the complementary nature of masculine and feminine leadership qualities” on LinkedIn), due to inherent, nature-bound differences and nurture and culture.

Age gap is also something that will influence our conversations (please see my article Ageism is a bias and a choice, on LinkedIn). With Google at their fingertips, Gen Z are instant fact-checkers, and they value transparency and honesty. They want to feel that these are shared values at the workplace too. They also expect that their job is meaningful, and their employer communicate with them meaningfully.

Intercultural communication is especially challenging. In multinational companies, English is Lingua Franca and there are varying levels of language proficiency. High grammatical proficiency in English is not equal to high pragmatic competence. The term ‘pragmatic failure’ means the inability to understand “what is meant by what is said”. Cultures provide people with ways of thinking, ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting the world. Thus, the same words can mean different things to people from different cultures, even when they speak the ‘same’ language. When the languages are different, and translation has to be used to communicate, the potential for misunderstandings increases. In cross-cultural communication, ‘pragma linguistic failure’ may arise from ‘pragma linguistic transfer’, i.e. the transferring from the mother tongue to the target language. If a non-native speaker of English appears to speak English fluently (i.e. is grammatically competent), any awkward experience of what is said is likely to be attributed to impoliteness or unfriendliness, rather than to any linguistic deficiency. While grammatical error may be excused easily, pragmatic failure may create a bad image as a person which opens the road to interpersonal conflict.

How leaders communicate?

Effective communication means knowing who to turn to, how to get their attention, how to create the right type of mutual exchange, and finally how to achieve the desired consequences without misunderstandings, conflicts or ethical mistakes. "Mintzberg claims from his research that managers actually spend as much as up to 80% of their working time on written and oral communication" (Kaufmann and Kaufmann, 2015). A leader who cannot communicate is an ineffective leader. Neither is a follower who cannot communicate is effective in her/his work.

Personal communication style matters

As if all the above is not enough, let me also mention two other perspectives. We talk about business communication styles and personal communication styles. Let’s take the latter first. There are four basic personal communication styles:

Passive communicators are unlikely to express their feelings, needs or opinions and more likely to let others cross their boundaries. They don’t feel safe to ask questions or give criticism because they fear rejection and punishment. These are the “yes” people that will go with the flow to avoid conflict. The problem arises when they can’t tolerate the way they are treated any longer and/or they get burned out.

Aggressive communicators are at the opposite end of the spectrum. The aggressive communication style is dominant and tends to express feelings, needs and opinions in a way that crosses others’ boundaries and violates the rights of others. It leads to the alienation of the aggressive communicator as well as alienation of others who develop fear and insecurity in the presence of that communicator.

Passive-aggressive communicators combine passive and aggressive communication styles in such a wat that it is confusing for the person on the receiving end. These communicators appear passive even calm and nice on the surface, but they behave aggressively in indirect ways. They use sarcasm to make a point and their facial expression may not match the emotions they are expressing. They can sabotage projects, activities by passive resistance.

Assertive communicators express their feelings, needs and opinions clearly and without violating the rights of others. These people defend their boundaries, while being respectful of those around them. As a result, they feel in control of their own lives and they’re great at collaboration and teamwork because you will always know “where you have them”. They use “I” statements like “what I need or think, rather than “You” statements like “you are …” or “what you should do…”. Assertive communication is very effective for personal and business communication.

Business communication style differs

In business communication there are four styles: analytical, intuitive, functional, personal.

Analytical communicators prefer to communicate with data rather than emotions. They will use logic rather than intuition and they prefer to have specific, measurable evidence when making a decision and use numbers as evidence. This allows them to be “objective” and they are perceived as reliable and dependable. At the same time as they can be regarded as cold, nerdy, introvert and “businesslike”. When communicating with an analytical communicator one should include hard data and specific and precise language. One should avoid phrases like “I feel…”. To provide them written communication with facts and figures in advance will be highly comforting. When speaking with them, don’t go around the bush, don’t do small talk, go directly to the point.

Intuitive Communicators are essentially the opposite of analytical communicators. They prefer management summary, the big-picture approach to convey their points and appreciate when others do the same. Intuitive communicators may get bored with details, facts and figures and they are non-linear thinkers and may deviate from a linear agenda. Don’t press them into linear thinking. They tend to be creative people and like it when one comes up with big, bold ideas and they get an opportunity to brainstorm. They prefer visuals and also present with visual examples when communicating such as charts, diagrams or examples. It is important to illustrate how these things are connected in the big picture and details should be provided when they ask for detail.

Functional Communicators like details, processes, timelines and detailed plans. They want to ensure that no details are left out and they have full control. Contrary to the intuitive communicator, who would prefer to skip all the details, functional communicators are afraid of missing context and important bits of information. Functional communicators often ask a lot of questions. They want to make sure they understand every detail and every risk in a plan or project. They like step-by-step, well written procedures and process descriptions, perfect taxonomies etc.?In projects, they like all roles and responsibilities, expectations, budgets, and timelines be well-defined. They will give and demand feedback to keep tight control and include all perspectives so nothing is omitted from the process. Give them all the details and they will be very happy also with written information in advance of meetings.

Personal Communicators use emotion and connection to communicate what they expect and understand what is expected of them. They spend time in understanding others, what the boss or coworkers think, feel and what they are motivated by. They are good at recognizing non-verbal communication and reading between the lines, especially when they know the person they are collaborating with. They are often seen as mastering the pragmatics of communication and being diplomatic because they can adjust the language and formulate a message perfectly. They are good at listening and creating harmony in teams and smoothing over conflicts. They make sure that everyone involved in a project or task feels seen and heard. They like to meet face to face in order to read non-verbal cues and ensure a genuine connection with their bosses and co-workers. They are assertive about their feelings and invite to openness. When communicating with them it is important to respect their personal style and don’t alienate them by skipping the small talk and proceed with data and hard numbers and push for a decision. They need time to assess if what is there is aligned with their personal values and the way they see the team’s values.?

Final word

The key to a harmonious and effective organization is mastering the art of communication. Diverse teams are more effective than homogenous teams if they can communicate well across their differences of gender, age, culture, language, personal communication style and business communication style. No wonder why communication is difficult anything that goes wrong is attributed to lack of communication or misunderstandings. It is human. Awareness of various communication styles and barriers to communication can bring us all closer and make our organizations effective. After all communication is constitutive of organizations and subjectivities of employees. Communication is the very means by which we produce and reproduce our personal relationships and professional experiences. Effective communication is key to effective organizations.?