What kind of misunderstanding do you fear most in the workplace?

One morning, on my way to school, my daughter suddenly told me that the teacher asked them to bring a "living thing" to school. Hearing this, I wonder why teachers nowadays are so careless that they can let students take biology without worrying about spreading diseases or destroying the environment.

To confirm further, I asked her which teacher asked me to take it. She said the science teacher asked her to take it. Hearing this, I seem to have some rationality.

But when I think about it, there is no "living thing" at home. As soon as I asked a question, my daughter said yes, just bring the flowers watering on the balcony. Then it dawned on me that she said "pot" and I heard it as "living thing". It's okay, it's okay. If you really prepare a living creature, it will be a big joke.

This little story is just a subtle communication misunderstanding. But our life and work are always full of similar but unfamiliar communication problems.

Some people even say that 80% of management problems are communication problems.

Then why is there always a problem with our communication?

On the morning when I heard that the "pot" was a "living thing", on my way to work in the company, I carefully thought about this problem and summarized four communication problems. Sharing it with everyone may be helpful to your work.

The first category is ambiguity in communication.

Obviously, the little story I said at the beginning belongs to ambiguity in communication.

The so-called fuzziness refers to the different understanding of information in communication between the two parties, which leads to communication failure.

Generally speaking, a complete communication contains five elements, namely, communication subject, communication object, communication media, communication environment and communication channel. Simply put, it is people, intermediaries, environment and channels. All these factors may lead to the deviation of information in the process of communication.

For example, oral communication is definitely not as clear as written communication, one-on-one communication is definitely more direct than group communication, and offline communication is clearer than online communication.

In addition to these, there are two kinds of communication ambiguity related to people, which I want to talk about separately, because it is easy to be ignored.

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The first is the generation gap.

The background of our times is different, and people's understanding of information will be biased.

For example, we sometimes send a smiling expression in chat, which will be interpreted as unfriendly, thus calling it a death smile. Our "haha" will be interpreted by young people as careless and perfunctory.

Nine times out of ten, the problems of the new generation in enterprises may also be caused by the generation gap.

So what should we do?

Margaret mead, a famous cultural anthropologist, wrote a book called The Generation Gap. We used to say that there is a generation gap, and the responsibility lies with young people. You people are so rebellious. But Meade doesn't think so. She divided human culture into three types: pre-figurative culture, parallel figurative culture and post-figurative culture. Her point of view is that we have entered the post-figurative culture, that is, the elderly should learn from the young.

That makes sense. After all, young people are the front end of productivity. Don't complain when you are old, study when you should, and try not to fall behind.

The second is the index expression.

This is an embarrassing technical term from sociologist garfinkel.

He divided expression into direct quotation expression and objective expression. The latter refers to the scientific expression, which will make all the preconditions and constraints clear. However, the expression in our daily life is often not like this, but more dependent on the situation, "relying on the complete and undeclared hypothesis of meaning, and enjoying knowledge".

To put it bluntly, most of our communication is based on some inventory knowledge and assumptions. If one party ignores this premise and the other party doesn't enjoy it, then communication is prone to problems.

As a manager, he is usually very busy and often has no time to explain things, but it is difficult for subordinates who receive information because he may not know these "inventory knowledge".

When we see that kind of short video, the boss only needs to tell his subordinates, and they will know when they have done it. This kind of communication is of course efficient, but the more efficient it is, the more it is because the background knowledge of both sides is highly overlapping.

In this way, the so-called generation gap is also an indicator expression.

There is also a more terrible phenomenon, that is, "the curse of knowledge." The more knowledge you have, the more you will subconsciously assume that the other party will share the same "inventory knowledge" with me, and the less you will simply spread knowledge. So it's hard for you to listen to people with high knowledge and culture.

What are we doing? Empathy. When communicating, stand in the other person's position and try to understand the other person's knowledge field, so the communication may be less difficult.

In short, to solve the ambiguity in communication, one is to find suitable channels, media and environment, and the other is to learn. Only by continuous learning can both sides better understand each other in almost the same knowledge map.

The second category is the emotion in communication.

Ambiguity in communication is the most basic problem in communication. But because of these ambiguities, it is easy to escalate into another big problem, that is, the emotional problem in communication.

Since there is communication, there are differences and ambiguities between the two sides, and communication is to eliminate this inconsistency between the two sides.

However, in the process of communication, there are big or small "tipping points" because of positions, methods, languages and actions. It is possible to cause emotional patterns of either party or both parties. Then there are negative emotions such as anger, resentment, accusation and abuse in communication, which eventually leads to communication failure. The most serious is the so-called "violent communication".

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The most common reason that leads to emotions in communication is that the positions of the two sides are inconsistent or even conflicting. I think this thing should look like this. If you think that should be the case, two people's views and positions will be different. Communication depends on the civilization and quality of both sides. Otherwise, you may not be able to say a few words, and you will have emotions. In the end, it often ends badly.

Especially when it comes to communication involving conflicts of interest, it is normal to cause emotions.

In addition to this original position and interest difference, there are some hidden reasons.

The first is unequal status. For example, the communication between superiors and subordinates, this status is not equal, behind which is the difference in power. The boss's inculcation can easily be seen as oppressing people with power. Subordinates' comments can easily be interpreted as treason. It is easy to get emotional.

The second is not qualitative expression. I have observed that many times the arrival of emotions is due to the negative expression of the other party. Negative words such as "I don't agree", "I don't agree" and "you are not doing right" are very easy to attract resentment and thus rise to emotions. I once had a boss who told me to avoid using the word "no" at any time. Although this is a bit exaggerated, it makes sense. It is really inappropriate to change negative words into positive sentences.

There is also a hidden negative expression mode, namely rhetorical question mode. I like to use why to express it, but many times why is not understood as a question, but as a rhetorical question. Even in many cases, this has become a habitual pattern of many numbers. Once rhetorical questions are used, it is easy to embark on the emotional channel.

Third, we should pay attention to the "tipping point" in words and actions. I often say "thank you" to others is polite, "thank you" is sincere, but "I thank you" is prone to accidents. Although it looks small, once it becomes a tipping point, it will cause emotional disaster.

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The result of emotional evolution in communication is violent communication.

I have handled many cases of violent communication in the company in recent years. Emotions are hard to control once they come up, but after calming down, most people still feel that they should not apologize. It seems that things have been solved, but in fact the scars left behind are actually difficult to recover in a short time.

The book Non-violent Communication talks about many methods and skills to turn communication into a structured agenda and control your emotions. Only in this way can we communicate smoothly.

The third category ignores the art of communication.

The first two types of communication problems actually occur in the process of communication. Whether it is the understanding problem caused by situation or the emotional problem caused by psychology, it will eventually affect the result of communication.

The essence of communication is to promote communication with "ditch", and the core is to solve problems and solve inconsistent results. If the results can't be achieved, such communication is the biggest problem.

At work, we often encounter such a situation. Sometimes we communicate for a long time, and it is difficult for both sides to resolve their differences. But when someone else went, the problem was solved and an agreement was reached happily.

Negotiation is a kind of communication. We admit that negotiations are staged, so we have to admit that communication is technical and even artistic. The technology or art mentioned here is essentially a step difference. So what is the art of communication?

The first kind, sincerity

Recently, there was a very popular TV series The Knockout, and everyone was attracted by Gao Qiqiang. When I was watching it, I noticed that a sentence often appeared in the barrage, called "sincerity is the killer", which is Gao Qiqiang's way of communication. Gao Qi is very good at grasping and using human nature, and he did it by "sincerity" rather than threats and violence.

Therefore, I regard "sincerity" as the first art, and many times we win the chance by sincerity in various exchanges.

Second, the sense of boundary.

The so-called sense of boundaries is also sensitivity. You know what to say, what not to say and when to say it. Guo once acted in a sketch, in which there is a classic saying, "A word can achieve great things, but a word can do bad things".

I have drawn a communication model before, and we have positive and negative communication boundaries from top to bottom.

For example, we can praise our superiors, but later it will be understood as irony; We can praise our subordinates, but later we will be considered to have ulterior motives; Similarly, we can give advice to our superiors, but it will be considered a challenge after passing; We can criticize our subordinates, but if we do so, it will be considered disrespectful.

There is a boundary of trust between this "crossing" and "crossing". The more trust, the more boundaries can be pushed away. The less trust there is between the two sides, the more likely the border will be narrowed.

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