The most important thing in improving communication is a willingness and desire to change our words. We don't have to change as people, we can't significantly change our looks (without an operation), and we don't even have to change our actions because our words will change that. We might have to work at changing our view of things so that we are more ready to use the words that are important. The first step is to understand the problem. It is through our errors that we sometimes learn best.

Learning From Faulty Communication

Faulty communication often results from:

• Evading conflict and producing situations in which disguised hostility can build beneath the surface.
• Sending oblique messages that transmit information but imply comment or request that can build resentment.
• Using others as go between allies to spy, provide wrong messages, and needle for secrets.
• Getting information through undesired sources so that primary communication is avoided.
• Withholding important messages which can inflame misinterpretation, guesswork, and blame.
• Avoiding sensitive discussion areas such as family problems, relationship differences, personal needs and preferences, and differences of opinion and knowledge.
• Lying, shading the truth in destructive ways, and requiring statements of those not ready to make such assertions.
• Listening in a hurried or distracted manner, or with a biased frame of reference.
• Allowing silences to harden and form a barrier against improved communication.

Person to person communication can be improved simply by avoiding and guarding against the characteristics listed above. We know communication jargon can lead to everyday confusion in just simple expression. The use and misuse of some usual verb forms ( am, see, believe, think, realize, guess, feel, know, have to, should, ought, etc.), and the problems with the biased term "you" sometimes contribute to this. Click here for the Words page to explore this further.

Another Approach at Communication

Without separating the content or process of communication, we can understand how to resolve certain problems in our personal communication. One of these major problems is that our words do not specify the extent of our expectations. In the simplest form, that is shown when we don't get the answer we want to a question we ask.
Good communication requires extending oneself to another. It is paradoxically stated in some lists of principles on how to get along with other people, that you should avoid saying "I". However, we advocate I-messages in the form of implying a responsibility for the response of another, viz. "I would like to know, understand, find out, get, have, etc., something." Then, we give the responder an opportunity to reply appropriately. Framing the I-message with a question can also be helpful, viz., "Can I ask you, are you mad at me?", seems a lot better than, "You are mad at me, (aren't you?)." "Is this really such a big deal?", you may ask. I don't know. We suggest you take it up with the important others around you.
Getting an effective message across to significant others around us is sometimes a very difficult task. We know that each of us attends, listens, hears, interprets, etc., in unique individual ways. Probably no other source of potential conflict invades us so prominently. Even speakers and presenters in the mass media have trouble with this. But, it is in the situation in which we come to expect appropriate and solicitous responses from others, that more disastrous difficulties arise. Part of the problem can be found to originate with distinct misunderstandings resulting from unclear and undefined terms and concepts. Few of us see or hear things in completely the same way, and many times, we just don't take the time to assure better communication. Our message here is to provide a better basis for that.

Some Important Communication Concepts

We center here on verbal communication almost exclusively, meaning the transmission of information and thoughts through the use of words in a spoken language, English, in this case.
Interdependence is generally defined as, "two or more parts, dependent each one upon the other". As we follow that, we understand dependent to mean someone relies on another to provide something. In interdependence, each relies on the other to provide something. Effective communication exchanges require this.
This interdependence can be described as communicator/communicatee interaction. In all verbal interaction, there is a transmitter (the communicator) and a receiver (the communicatee), as can be observed when two people are talking. The roles interchange from moment to moment as the interaction proceeds.

The content of verbal interaction can be stated as "words as they have meaning in the language spoken". The meaning of the verbal interaction can be contrasted to the content in that meaning is "the knowledge or information conveyed during the interaction". The structure of the interaction is important as it constitutes the arrangement whereby the effectiveness of the verbal interaction in both content and meaning can be increased.

These general concepts are important in showing that effective communication requires a reciprocal interaction for exchanging messages and information. Then, it can be seen that participating in communication makes all two or more person interactions, a communication system. Each individual's responsibility in a verbal exchange has to be understood in order to constructively deal with the infinite variety of possible meanings transmitted. To avoid letting this jargon put a haze on the picture, let's turn to more practical concerns.

A New Communication Process

The above analysis is simply a way of saying that communication in a relationship is what the relationship is all about. We said at the beginning that words are the source for changing what we communicate. If we do not improve that, we increase the chances for conflict. Bales (1976, See Sources) in his treatment of the dimensions of verbal transactions, showed us that there are a number of important characteristics regarding how we answer and comment to our communicatees, and they to us, their communicatees. His interaction process analysis strategy depends on the alert use of phrases like "I see (feel, believe, think, realize, want, would like, need, etc.) or an object phrase, It seems (appears, might be, could be, is like, etc.) in place of more definite statements when engaged in polite conversation. He points out that reflective responses; "What I am hearing is....", "What it seems like to me is....", or "What this means to me is...." provides a great deal of latitude for more effective response mechanisms and helps to discourage one way communication. He also describes other techniques including rephrasing, restating, repetition, clarifying, assuring, giving approval, and summarizing as useful in good communicator/communicatee transactions.

In our communication efforts, we often verbalize about something or the other that our communication partners can't relate to the same way we do. Part of this is because they are separate and unique from us. Part of this results from the content toward which our speech is oriented or the particular labels we choose to put on things. The list following contrasts some usual speech with content that has been shown to improve meaningful discussion.

Topics of Content for Better Verbal Interaction

	TALK ABOUT...                        RATHER THAN...
     Situations/Principles                  Personalities/Persons
      Dynamics of Change                     Current Stalemate
   Solutions                            Problems
             Here and Now                      Past History/Experiences
      Positives                             Negatives
           Important                          Trite/Unproductive)
     Effective Practice                     Old Issues
             Expressions                        Repressions/Depressions
         Self, I-messages                     Other, You-messages

With these guidelines in mind, here's to better communication and with it better relationships with caring others.

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