Communication = texting???

Think about how much we communicate to people during the day? You’re probably thinking about how much you’ve talked, but is that all you’ve done through communicating? What about the times you smiled at someone? Or maybe you don’t like to smile, maybe you frowned at a person walking by. Either way, you’re communicating to that person a message. 

I love this picture, it reminds me of the different ways to communicate. There’s Verbal, nonverbal cues (Body language), and tone. One of the girls, Regina, is verbally talking to someone on the phone. Caty, on the far left, is standing looking a little impatient with her arms crossed and staring at Regina. She is visibly communicating through nonverbal cues. And if we were watching the movie we could hear the tone of the girls and understand what they are trying to convey.

Most people think that we communicate the most through our words, however, studies have shown that only 14% of our communication is conveyed through words. 35% of communication comes from the tone of our voice and how we say something. And the last 51% comes from the non-verbal cues we send to people.

With all of that said think about how many times you’ve gotten upset over a text message, all because you misunderstood what they were trying to say. Who’s fault is it that the communication failed? Was it the sender or the receiver?  That’s hard to really determine.

The Communication process:

We each have our thoughts and feelings, when we want to share them we encode them into a message and send them through some sort of medium. The receiver then will try and decode our message and that’s when their own thoughts and feelings come in. After they “understand” what you were saying they will encode their own thoughts/feelings into a message, send it through another medium, and it comes right back to the initial sender.  I’m not sure if that made much sense, but it really is just a cycle of confusion. While we might think it is easy to understand our own message, the receiver might interpret it completely different than what we were really trying to say.

Not to mention there sometimes is static/noise that interferes with the message we wanted to get across. This noise is often the body language, tone, or maybe the mood of the other person.

So! The real question is how do we make sure the other person understands what we are trying to say? How do we become better communicators and decision makers together?

I suggest to everyone to pick up M. Russell Ballard’s copy of Counseling with our councils 

This is the book I plan on reading once I have the money to buy it… So if anyone of my family/friends wants to donate to the “Help Hannah communicate better” fund that would be fantastic! J

In this book Elder Ballard teaches the way to communicate by revealing how the Quorum of the twelve and the First Presidency holds their meetings. You might think this sounds a bit odd, but what better way to learn how to communicate than through our Prophets’ methods?