Lost in translation
How many times do we worry about whether what we have
communicated to our colleagues, friends and family is interpreted in the right
way and communicated to people down the line in an accurate and reliable
manner? The most probable answer is “A lot”.
The reason is simple. The distance between the ear, eye and
mouth is at least four fingers wide! Let me elaborate. Man is a social animal. He
believes what he sees and what he hears. He will speak what his brain has
interpreted as the truth based on what he sees and hears. However when one
communicates there are a number of things other than speech which affects the
listener. The first and foremost is what is popularly called “Body language”. The
way our hands move in tandem to our speech is a dead giveaway. More often than not it is body language which
will determine whether what we intend to communicate has indeed been
accomplished in the same measure and extent. More on that in a later article.
More often than or not, in today’s fast pace of life, we
tend not to look for and understand whether what we intend to communicate has indeed been received and understood by the recipient. Taking a leaf out of the military
whenever an oral communication is given on wireless, the recipient repeats the
message and thereby acknowledges that he / she indeed understands what has been
communicated. Repeatation has one more advantage. It reaffirms the communication
in the recipients mind.
In school, we learnt the alphabets and numbers by mindless repeatation,
writing, reading and speaking. While it is not advisable to go completely the
rote way, it is noteworthy to understand that our Vedas and Shastras were
communicated since time immemorial through the oral route, from Guru to
Shishya. The focus was , small group size, one to one communication and
implicit trust of the Shishya in the knowledge of the Guru.
The recipient of any dialogue will internalize the speaker’s
words only when he trusts the speaker, when he feels that the speaker is
directly addressing him. This is what
makes great public speakers great. They are able to connect to each and every
person in the audience and makes them feel that he is addressing them or their
concerns. This is a skill as well an art.
To recap, effective communication hinges on
- - Inflection, tone
- - Body Language
- - Level of engagement
- - Trust