16 May 2006

Getting the message across clearly

I was talking to Phil earlier today about one of our clients. We had interpreted something that the client had told us in slightly different ways so we ran a test to check which one of us was right. That kind of testing costs time and, in some cases, cash.

In a perfect world there wouldn't be any confusion and all messages would be received as transmitted without distortion or misunderstanding. But as you know only too well, we don't live in a perfect world and we are stuck with imperfect human communication.

Trainers normally encourage receivers of communication to give feedback of their understanding and transmitters of communication to ask for feedback of understanding. Those techniques represent belt and braces, but the reality is that there is plenty of misunderstanding in the world - irrespective of how good and clear the original message was.

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