With everything that can go wrong in communication, it's amazing that we can
communicate in the first place. How to communicate with your spouse? Let's learn
about that today.
Communication probably one of the first things that comes up when I meet with a
couple.You know what it's amazing that we can communicate in the first place.
Here's the model just to give you a little appreciation of this. Every
communication has a sender and the receiver of any particular message. So
the message goes from the sender to the receiver. Now let's say that the sender
has message "a" in mind. Whatever "a" represents. The sender wants to send this
message "a" over to the receiver.Well in order to do that, the sender has to do a
process first called encoding. Encoding is where we take that message and we
translate it into some code. This message as I'm sharing this thought with you
today on our YouTube channel had to be encoded digitally. The digital encoding,
you don't understand the code but that's the code that is understood by the
computers. So we put it into that kind of a code and then we send it on over to
the receiver. Well the receiver obviously has to do
the decoding. So if you received this video in the digital code that the
computer understands, you wouldn't understand it unless you're a programmer.
The encoding has to be decoded on this side and that's why you have a
computer or a smart phone that understands the code that was sent and
it decodes it. So that you get the message on this side. Now,
usually in a couple, in a relationship any interaction between two human
beings. The code that is chosen is typically a language. So we're speaking
English here today. That's a code. Spanish is a code. Finnish is a code. Swahili is a
code. Those are the codes we typically use as human beings. But there's more the
code might include. Body language, facial expressions right? That sends a
different message. This is all part of how we encode all the nonverbals, the
body language, the context, the tone of voice.
It all becomes part of the code. Now here's where we run into some
interesting challenges. Before that signal can even get over to the decoder
on the receiving side, it has to go through this big cloud of noise. It might
be physical noise like a radio blaring or a jackhammer outside of your window
or a busy freeway or a plane flying overhea. That's all physical noise that
can interfere with the code getting across. We were having a meeting
yesterday with our National Speakers Association. In a smoothie bar, they
have these really loud blenders and so we had to pause every so often for the
noise to die down before we can continue with our communication. Now noise doesn't
have to be physical noise. Sometimes, it's just thought noise. Have you ever been
talking to someone and the lights are on but nobody's home? It's like they're
staring at your forehead or something. You know and you can tell they're really
not connected with you because they've got some noise in their head
that's totally distracting them. History, gender, upbringing, language, culture all
of these things create additional noise. So between the encoding problem,
the decoding problems, all of the noise that it has to go through in the mean
time, usually what happens is the receiver picks up a whole different
message from what was intended by the sender. Now, you know this has happened to
you how many times. Have you heard back from your spouse for example?
"Oh, so you're saying I'm just whatever right? And you're like, "no! that's totally
not what I was saying. Well why did they pick that up? It may have been an
encoding problem, it may have been a decoding problem, it may have been the
noise in between. But a lot of times, "a" doesn't come across to "z" it turns into
b. So I share the whole model with you because it's amazing that we can
communicate at all given everything that could go wrong here. There's two steps
that I think will help us to improve our communication. So that "a" equals "a" . That's
what we're going for. We want to make sure that what's sent is exactly the
same thing that is receive. And for this, I'm going back to two steps that were
shared by Stephen R.Covey. An amazing leadership expert. You've probably read
his books or at least heard of him. Covey taught that we first listened to
understand. Now, there's two important words here that we need to pay attention
to. Listen and understand. Listen has exactly the same letters as the word
silent. Yeah, you're checking that out right now aren't you? Yeah, it does. That's
probably a coincidence but it's also kind of helpful because we need to quiet
some of the noise and just zip it for a minute while you listen. You got two ears
and one mouth. Use them in that proportion. And I think we're going to be good. Listen,
now what's our goal? To understand some people think
that understanding means agreeing. Understanding does not equal agreeing. So
don't worry about agreement right now. You simply want to make sure that "a"
equals "a". That's what we're going for then we have understanding. So while
you're listening, pay attention. Quiet some of the noise in your own mind. Some
people are quiet. While they're listening but they're trying to dream up all of
their answers to what they're hearing. You know what I'm talking about? Coming
up with your rebuttal? No, listen to understand. You make sure that you get it
and I don't care if you agree at this point. In my experience most couples
don't disagree as much as they think they do. They haven't taken the time to
really understand each other. This is huge. Now the second step. Express, this
happens when you are the sender, okay? When you're on this end of the
model, "Express to be understood". Notice that the goal is exactly the same. It's
understanding. So we're not expressing to persuade or to convince or to manipulate
or to drag someone into our point of view. We are expressing to be understood.
That means you're going to pay attention to your language, to your tone of voice.
You're going to encode this message in the way that is the most likely to be
accurately received because our goal is still the same. We want "a" to equal "a" so
that there is an understanding. The sender and the receiver have the same
message in their mind. So that's just two steps that we can use that will make
a huge difference and then as you practice this, you get better at actually
communicating. It always gets me excited to know that you are working on your key
relationships and I am so honored to be a part of that. Thanks for being here.