Communication And its Errors!!!!!

You know the famous Abbott and Costello routine, 'Who's on first?' about a baseball game in which Mr. Whooze is on first, Mr. Whats is on second, and Mr. Heeze is on third. As they move through this conversation the two comedians become thoroughly and hilariously confused. At one point the exchange goes like this:

Costello: 'I thought you said he's on second.'

Abbott: 'No, Heeze's on third.'

Costello: 'Who's on third?'

Abbott: 'No, Whooze's on first!'

Costello: 'What?'

Abbott: 'He's on second!'

Costello: 'Who's on second?'

Abbott: 'No, I told you. Whooze's on first.'

It's all very funny. But confusion in communication is generally no laughing matter.

It results in hurt feelings, anger, and perhaps broken relationships.

Can anything be done about poor communication? Yes, our communication skills can be improved.

You know the old line:

'I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.'

That doesn't have to be. Communication is the process of exchanging information, feelings or attitudes through symbols, sounds, signs or behaviour. So not all communication is verbal: your eyebrows or hands communicate as much (sometimes more) than your vocal chords.

'Communication theory' is built on the idea that all communication involves a sender, a message, one or more channels, and a receiver. The sender 'encodes' the message in some form; the receiver 'decodes' or interprets the message, and feeds back to the sender some sort of response. But for all this to happen the sender and receiver have to 'connect' with some common knowledge and experience. So when a message is 'transmitted' it is not necessarily 'comprehended'.

All meaningful human relationships involves communication, and therefore some conflict when the communication is not understood, or is interpreted as a threat. So for communication in a family to be effective, strong personal relationships are essential: that is, there ought to be a commitment to the well-being of the other/s; you should understand their feelings; there ought to be a significant level of trust; and behaviours ought to be fairly predictable.

Text Source: http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/9650.htm

Image Source: http://www.shutterstock.com