For communication to achieve its purpose you need to be aware that you play two different critical roles:
- The Sender (speaker or author)
- The Receiver (listener or reader or viewer)
Most professional development focuses only on #1, The Sender role. That is the event approach. It operates on a false assumption:
All communication you SEND is fully RECEIVED and understood.
We don’t need an elaborate clinical study to invalidate the event approach assumption. We witness miscommunication countless times every day. Yet we somehow hang on to this false assumption, to the detriment of being effective with our communication.
What if you placed as much emphasis on your role as The Receiver of communication as you do with your Sender role?
Feel free to imagine you own examples. If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice the prevalence of blame wherever the event approach to communication applies.. Notice blaming by both yourself and by your communication partners.
Is it possible that you’re viewing your communication partners as something other than partners in a process? Instead perhaps as some type of recording or assimilation device that magically captures all your words and intentions for permeant storage and retrieval? Isn’t that the event approach?
There must be a better way!
