The new government in Australia has just released its austerity budget and it seems a lot of people are very unhappy! Their popularity rating plummeted as all the various socio-economic groups counted the cost of throwing away the credit card. The age of entitlement is over, declared the treasurer. “Here, here”, said all those who believed that meant their hard earned tax dollars would no longer go to lazy louts who refused to work. “Boo, boo”, said all those who believed their government was abandoning the sick, the poor, the unemployed. Political ideals often have opposite meaning depending on context. If you are employed in a well-paying job, and see half your income disappear in taxes to help the not-so-needy, you may have a different perspective to these announcements, than the twenty-something job seeker, after their umpteenth “sorry, no jobs here” letter.
In management, to improve communication we have to consider the context of the other person. Our beliefs are shaped by our life’s experiences and we find it hard to understand how things may look or seem to someone else, through a different lens. Their life experiences may filter the information in a completely different way than the way we intended. The common advice is to walk in someone else’s shoes before we judge them. But is it ever possible to really walk in someone else’s shoes? Even if we do experience identical circumstances, the context in which we will frame that new circumstance, is shaped by a lifetime of unique experiences. Having a starting position that we are right and the other person is wrong is often at the heart of all miscommunication. A different approach is to explain your context - how something looks to you, and then truly try to understand the other person’s context - how it looks to them. Communicating is a two way process. It is explaining what something means to you, and then understanding what that something means to the other person.
In the entitlement case mentioned above - which led to much emotional anguish and even protest marches – if it was explained that supporting a disabled person, or someone who genuinely cannot find work is a legitimate tax expense, and then listening and understanding what entitlement actually meant to voters, this miscommunication could have been averted.
In management, to improve communication we have to consider the context of the other person. Our beliefs are shaped by our life’s experiences and we find it hard to understand how things may look or seem to someone else, through a different lens. Their life experiences may filter the information in a completely different way than the way we intended. The common advice is to walk in someone else’s shoes before we judge them. But is it ever possible to really walk in someone else’s shoes? Even if we do experience identical circumstances, the context in which we will frame that new circumstance, is shaped by a lifetime of unique experiences. Having a starting position that we are right and the other person is wrong is often at the heart of all miscommunication. A different approach is to explain your context - how something looks to you, and then truly try to understand the other person’s context - how it looks to them. Communicating is a two way process. It is explaining what something means to you, and then understanding what that something means to the other person.
In the entitlement case mentioned above - which led to much emotional anguish and even protest marches – if it was explained that supporting a disabled person, or someone who genuinely cannot find work is a legitimate tax expense, and then listening and understanding what entitlement actually meant to voters, this miscommunication could have been averted.
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