What We Don't Know: How and When Our Communication Can Be an Impediment to Getting What We Need and Want

Communication can be a force for helping us satisfy needs and desires yet it can also create a roadblock, a frustrating one, to those objectives. It begs the question — what gets in the way of successful communication that drives positive outcomes? This cross section of five comments provides ideas.

Mary Kogut-Lowell
Business Attorney at Private Corporate Counsel

Miscommunication can impede getting what we want. Here’s an example from my own personal experience:

I was exchanging emails with a colleague about sending some information to a third party. My colleague sent an email stating, “I resent your message.”

What she meant to say was that she had re-sent (forwarded) my email to the third party, but I read the message to mean that she resented, i.e., felt indignation at, my email. I was steamed for a couple of days until I realized what she was really trying to say.

We later had a good laugh about this exchange, which demonstrates the risks of email communication. Conversations allow us to hear people speak and observe their body language, rather than relying solely on words that we see on a screen.

Molly Strawn
Manager of Marketing and Brand Strategy at InnovateMR

Not leading with being helpful: If you want something, earn the respect of your peers and always get them what they need so that when you ask, people jump to help you.

Leading with ego: If you think you are the most important person always and forever, you are not going to have honest communication with people and people won’t want to have honest trustworthy convos (sic) with you.

Not understanding people's “why.” Why is this sales team member upset about this proposal? Why is my boss seemingly coming down hard? Why is the ____ team not answering me?

By understanding “why” about someone, it helps you better prep to get what you need and come to them with humility as a person.

That sales team member just got dumped, my boss is being chewed out by their boss, and that team has 5 pending items that are overdue. None of that has anything to do with you — and it’s not worth taking it personally.

Dominic K. Hawkins
Director of Public Relations at TIAA
Founder and Principal Consultant of Factotum Consulting

As communications professionals, we often speak from an hubristic desire to flex our skills or knowledge, in the hopes that the client or executive talking to us will be impressed enough to accept our idea. Therefore, our excellent communications skills can get in the way.

This is a common misconception with many skilled communicators, like marketers and salespeople. They make the critical error of not letting the other person get across their point of what they're looking for or their needs, in their attempts to convey their own message. This can create excess noise in the conversation and lead to miscommunications.

Instead, communicators need to strike a balance between laying the foundation of their authority in the matter and asking the correct questions to avoid issues.

Petra Frese, Ph.D.
Brain Health Scientist and Success Coach

Lack of Clarity: When we are not clear about our needs or wants, we cannot effectively communicate with others how they can help us achieve or fulfill the desire.

For example, you want to be acknowledged for your work so you go into your boss’s office and ask for a raise when, perhaps what you really wanted was a promotion.

You didn’t have enough clarity to know what you were truly seeking. A raise acknowledges your efforts to you. A promotion acknowledges your efforts to the world.

Emotional Responses: When emotional intelligence is under-developed, it generally comprises an ability to stay focused on the desired outcome and instead becomes focused on the emotional reaction to a situation.

Ineffective Listening: If we are not actively listening to the other person, we may miss important information or clues that could help us get what we want. Listening is an essential component of getting what we want.

Blaine Little
Founder and CEO at Momentum Seminars Training and Coaching

Active Listening: Without the other participant in the process, it stops being a dialogue. We might as well be talking to ourselves if we are not able to get feedback.

This is why active listening is so important to a conversation and strengthening relationships. Listening is not a passive activity, it takes intention. Here are a few pointers to help you listen more actively:

Rest your mind. Don't jump to a conclusion of what you think the other person is going say.

Resist the urge to interrupt with your own thought or point of view.

Respond with short signs of attentiveness such as “oh,” “uh-huh,” and “I see.”

Restate, on occasion, in your own words (what is being said). Let the listener know you truly internalized the point.

Reiterate what you believe to be key points of what the speaker is saying.

Reflect on the entire message when the other is done talking.

By simply listening, you may uncover a new need or unstated objection that could eventually lead to the solution of a problem.

When someone is talking, just be patient, hear them out and when it's your turn to speak, insist they do the same. Not only will you establish yourself as a business professional but you strengthen a relationship and build trust.