A Equals C: The Keys To Effective Communication

Many years ago I attended a speaker seminar at work. The speaker for the day had to cancel because his father died that morning, so a substitute came to give a talk about communication. It was the best speech I ever heard and, since then, I have used it in training ever since.

There are three parts to every communication:
Part A: What the speaker thinks he/she said
Part B: The words that were actually said
Part C: What the listener thinks was said

Written communication has the same three parts.

Communication is achieved when Part A equals Part C. It can’t happen if Part A does not equal Part C. Part B is the section that is often argued. However, often the actual words can be somewhat unimportant because much of communication, up to 67%, is non-verbal. These include, but are not limited to, body language, tone, and facial expressions.

There are other factors in conveying a message, and they all play an important role in making (or breaking) part A equal part C.

Why do I bring this up? I continually read posts on RallyPoint speculating that a candidate has allegedly said something or the other. Yet when I read the accompanying articles, I cannot find anything that supports the poster’s conclusion. Obviously the writer or poster believes what he or she wrote, otherwise they’d just be lying. I firmly believe that others can read that same article/post and reach the exact opposite conclusion. More importantly, to us as leaders in the military, is the impact of posting things without thinking them through. What does that do to our trustworthiness? If we lose the trust of our people, how can we be good NCOs or officers? How can we expect people to continue to follow us?

Why do we read the same words and come away with opposite views of what was said? Just as we do while listening to a speech, we come away with different views because we read with a fixed, predetermined mindset of what we think the author is going to say. Our prejudices cause us to read what we want to read.

What is the solution? There isn’t a simple answer. Obviously when we are communicating in person, part of the problem is that we are listening to them in order to form our response rather than listening to determine what the speaker is saying. Perhaps we also read written word in the same way. Also, in the case where we are commenting on the writings of another, our comments reflect our opinions more than they should. This is especially true when the subject is religion or politics. We tend to add, delete, or otherwise edit the writer’s words to reflect our personal positions. A single word or phrase suddenly becomes a complete statement or position. Qualifiers that the writer or speaker included are not typically noticed or considered.

So please: I urge you to think about what you post or say and make every effort to effectively communicate. It is always important to be honest and nonjudgmental. Understand that others may very well not see things as you do and will have a different interpretation. Make sure that your perspective will be so clear that the receiver of your message will understand exactly what you are conveying despite any preconceived notions.