Having understanding of comments …… to get mutual understanding between people is the core of empathy and an important ingredient to a trusting, workable relationship and to you getting what you want.
There are two main abilities that need to be mastered:
- The ability to share another person’s meaning
- The ability to confirm with the other person that you understand what they mean
It requires following a sequence of steps with the other person, while being careful not to (over) interpret and not trying to move them on until it is agreed that the meaning is mutually shared. At this point both people understand the original message and there is also mutual understanding of the meaning behind the message.
This is achieved when the sender says/confirms to the receiver “yes, that’s what I said and meant”
The steps in sharing a meaning are:
- One person sends a message by saying something, giving information or raising an issue to another person
- The second person as the receiver gets the message and feeds it back to them
- The second person confirms, clarifies and corrects what they understand the message to be based on the feedback from the sender
- The second person then feeds back their new understanding to the sender
- The sender then confirms that the receiver has got it ‘right’, or corrects them on what their original meaning really was
- The two people continue the sequence of these steps for each piece of information/message/issue
The underlying intent of each person is critical to achieving shared meanings.
If the intent is to hurt or discredit the other person this would be categorised as aggressive behaviour and be counter-productive in reaching a shared meaning. Hence the intent should be one of genuine concern and effort to understand.
The communication style adopted by each person is also important. Appropriate behaviour is choosing from and applying the common types of communication styles to suit particular situations:
- Conversational/small talk- shallow but good ice breaker
- Light control- where 1 person is dominant
- Heavy control- where 1 person totally controls and overrides the other in a destructive way
- Search talk- where both are on an equal footing and mutually explore topics and input their views
- Straight talk- where a combination of the above is used as appropriate depending on the circumstances
By applying these techniques you will help the other person feel understood, resulting in you making a proper connection with them. If we accept
that “to be understood, firstly we have to understand” it thereby vastly increases the probability that they will understand you, where you are coming from and what you want!