Intended vs Understood Meaning

When communication is more than words.

Dear Readers,

Miscommunication is often the key to a conflict.

In this article, I will outline the sides and the steps in the communication process and explore how to avoid miscommunication.

First, we need to understand the difference between ‘intended’ and ‘understood’ meanings. What we say and what is heard can be two different things.

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There are several steps in this process that we can outline asking the questions:

1. What is in our heads? What do we want to project to the person with whom we talk?
2. What comes out of our mouth (what we say and the words we use).
3. What does the other party hear and understand from the words we say? What is heard and what information enters the other person’s head?
4. What does the other party perceive and then process? What he or she thinks he has been meant by these words.
5. What he or she returns as information to you. What the other party tells us.

There is often a discrepancy in these steps. To avoid misunderstanding in a conversation we should ask the following questions: