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The Meaning Of Your Communication is The Response You Get

wolfy

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One of the rules from NLP.

The Meaning Of Your Communication Is...
... what the other person understands.

... and the response you get.
In other words, it doesn't matter what you intended to say. The meaning of what you said is what the other person takes it to mean - how they interpret it.

And that will impact the response you get.

This means you have to pay attention to the response of the other person, to check they "got" what you were trying to say.


I think it is a really useful way to think. Although I must admit I'm pretty crap at it. Do you agree this is the best way to maintain control in your communication? Do you think in another way?
 

Mole

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There is a slightly more radical way to interpret it.

And that is to abolish the author and the reader, so all that is left is the conversation.

Of course this is entirely counter-intuitive to anyone trained to read and write, as literacy presupposes an author and a reader.

And while universal literacy in parts of the world is barely 100 years old, our spoken cultures are 200,000 years old.

So we had no writers or readers for 200,000 years.

And as we move into the Electronic Age, literacy will become redundant. And so the author and the reader will become redundant.

So once again, with only a break of 100 years, we will gather around the electronic campfire and listen to the sound of our voices.

Why, in one of our very own threads, in the Fluff Zone, called, "Post Your Own Voice", we are hearing the first sounds of our own voice.

The sound will swell and swell and swell, drowning out everything but our conversation.
 

Athenian200

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One of the rules from NLP.




I think it is a really useful way to think. Although I must admit I'm pretty crap at it. Do you agree this is the best way to maintain control in your communication? Do you think in another way?

Oh my. That's actually how I've learned to think a lot of the time.

It's actually very Ni, according to this. :)

It really bothers people when they go back over my past posts and see inconsistencies between what I said then and now, though.
 

wolfy

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Oh my. That's actually how I've learned to think a lot of the time.

It's actually very Ni, according to this. :)

It really bothers people when they go back over my past posts and see inconsistencies between what I said then and now, though.


Interesting that, does sound like one of the examples. Though as long as were aware of the response the other person was giving you, and you are willing to adapt to the feedback you'd think anyone could do it.

I read a lot on NLP years ago. That stuck in my mind. It's a pretty useful technique but difficult to do. The problem is getting caught up in your own view of the situation. Your thinking becomes rigid and you lose sight of your objective.

It's interesting how important it is to know your objective in any situation. For some reason the concept of objectives has been on my mind the last couple of days...
 

Athenian200

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Interesting that, does sound like one of the examples. Though as long as were aware of the response the other person was giving you, and you are willing to adapt to the feedback you'd think anyone could do it.

Anyone can. :) It's just that most people don't want to, or think it's a "dishonest" approach because it's not as purely focused on fact. That's why "evil" characters are often NJs... because everyone can do that, but they want to discourage and denigrate it because they're uncomfortable with it.
I read a lot on NLP years ago. That stuck in my mind. It's a pretty useful technique but difficult to do. The problem is getting caught up in your own view of the situation. Your thinking becomes rigid and you lose sight of your objective.

It's interesting how important it is to know your objective in any situation. For some reason the concept of objectives has been on my mind the last couple of days...

Yep, that's more Ni. Knowing your objective is what helps NJs focus and organize situations. When I become confused about my objective, I'm as disorganized and directionless as a P... which is actually painful.
 

Totenkindly

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I think it is a really useful way to think. Although I must admit I'm pretty crap at it. Do you agree this is the best way to maintain control in your communication? Do you think in another way?

Communication's a two-way street.
You can only control how your deliver your message.
You cannot control how it is received.
No matter how perfectly or accurately your convey your intentions, the other person can respond in any way, from purposefully blowing it because they don't like you to working hard to get it even when they have trouble understanding your point.

(That's why conflicts built on hostility rather than misunderstanding can never be resolved by more information.)

The feedback loop is the only real way to make sure you are conveying the meaning you intend to convey.
 

CrystalViolet

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Hmmm....What Jennifer said.
 

Mole

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Perhaps it means that conversation is recursive. And that the meaning is found in the recursiveness.

If the intention of the author means nothing, then the intention of the reader means nothing.

The only thing that matters is the conversation and the meaning of the conversation.

And neither the author nor the reader can know the meaning of the conversation. The meaning only unfolds moment by moment.

This is very scary for the literate who expect a beginning, a middle and an end. But literacy has come to an end and we are learning to live in the now, moment by moment. Why, on the best seller list is, "The Power of Now".
 

wolfy

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Communication's a two-way street.
You can only control how your deliver your message.
You cannot control how it is received.
No matter how perfectly or accurately your convey your intentions, the other person can respond in any way, from purposefully blowing it because they don't like you to working hard to get it even when they have trouble understanding your point.

(That's why conflicts built on hostility rather than misunderstanding can never be resolved by more information.)

The feedback loop is the only real way to make sure you are conveying the meaning you intend to convey.

Yeah, I agree. So I guess having clarity on your own objective is key in effective communication.
 

Totenkindly

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Yeah, I agree. So I guess having clarity on your own objective is key in effective communication.

I think it really helps to know yourself and what your intentions are, to make sure you're not doing something on your own (and to give feedback to the other person based on THEIR comment, so that you're setting an example of what you want from them plus helping alleviate any uncertainty on their end).

Sometimes communication feels easy, sometimes it just feels too darn complicated. ugh.
 

Athenian200

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And neither the author nor the reader can know the meaning of the conversation. The meaning only unfolds moment by moment.

This is very scary for the literate who expect a beginning, a middle and an end. But literacy has come to an end and we are learning to live in the now, moment by moment. Why, on the best seller list is, "The Power of Now".

For some reason... that reminds me of this:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvd3kaupZ60"]When will then be now?[/YOUTUBE]
 

Mole

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For some reason... that reminds me of this:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvd3kaupZ60"]When will then be now?[/YOUTUBE]

Precisely.

Only a short time ago it took three months for a communication to reach us. And then it became faster and faster, until now it is almost instantaneous.

Yet we still act as though we have all the time in the world - when not only time has been abolished, but space as well.

And with time and space gone, the author and reader followed suit.

But we drive forward looking in the rear vision mirror constantly surprised by the now.
 

Mole

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Why, on the best seller list is, "The Power of Now".

And the now only has its power because it is invisible.

And the now is invisible for exactly the same reason the unconscious is invisible.

Both the now and the unconscious are invisible simply because we are driving forward looking in the rear vision mirror.

So in order to avoid crashing the car, we need to make the unconscious, conscious and the now, visible.

And you ask, how can we do that?

Well, the unconscious and the now are as close to us almost as whiteness is to snow. And fortunately they are just a millimetre or two away.

All we have to do is to shift our gaze from the rear vision mirror to the windshield - a distance of a few millimetres.

And then the road ahead, called the now, will become visible, with the unconscious on either side of the now.

We are simply hypnotized by the road unfolding behind us. But now it is time to wake up and smell the coffee and simply look through the windshield.
 
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