In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP):
The Meaning Of Your Communication is The Response You Get
Ever have a time when you were sure you were being totally clear, but the other person heard something else?
One way to deal with that is to blame: it’s their fault they didn’t get it. But then they didn’t get it, you didn’t get it, nobody got anything.
Another way is to take responsibility: that’s interesting, I wonder how else I can say it so they’ll get it instead.
By adopting the belief that the meaning of your communication was the response you got instead of the communication you delivered regardless of their response, you become more real-world by being responsive to feedback and flexible by adapting to change.
How Do You Use This?
You could recite poetry all day to your spouse, for example, to communicate your love, but if her response is total boredom, you didn’t achieve your intended message.
It would then be a waste to blame her (’she just doesn’t get it’) for you not achieving your intended outcome, because you have a chance to step back and learn something.
What if a simple ‘I love you’ is enough to get her melting in your arms? You’ve learnt a much faster way to get your intended message across than reading poetry all day 
The Meaning of Your Communication is The Response You Wished You Got
The opposite of this belief sounds a bit silly when phrased this way, doesn’t it? Anytime you or I blame someone else for not getting what we wanted to say and don’t take responsibility for it though, and think our communication was perfect and they were dumb-asses for not getting it, it’s as good as saying the meaning of our communication is the response we wished we got.
If The Meaning of Your Communication is The Response You Get, What Would Be Different For You?
Some schools of communication say that both parties in a communication have 50% responsibility each for the communication. In NLP, we shoot a little higher, and take 100%.
If, whenever you don’t get your intended message across, feel misunderstood or unheard, you go ‘it’s them, they just don’t get me’, then you’ve only learnt to communicate in one way: yours.
But if you take the belief that the meaning of your communication is the response you get, to take responsibility and be willing to be more flexible than your audience could be so you can catch them at all and any angles, you learn how to communicate in two ways: yours and theirs.
And eventually, yours, and theirs, theirs, theirs and theirs too.
This is what sets great communicators, teachers, mentors, coaches, counsellors and speakers apart. Instead of labelling their audience as ’slow’, ’stupid’, ‘resistant’, ’sleepy’, and so on, they take responsibility and go, ‘how can I communicate to them in a way that they’d get what I want to say, regardless?’
If you were to believe that the meaning of your communication is the response you get, how would your life be different?
NLP 101 Series:
NLP 101: What is NLP? Part 1
NLP 101: What is NLP Special for The Super NLP Hardcore
NLP 101: What is NLP? Part 2
NLP 101: So Dark The Con Of NLP
NLP 101: How NLP Changed My Life
NLP 101: The Map Is Not The Territory
NLP 101: There Is No Failure Only Learning Experience
NLP 101: Every Behaviour Has A Positive Intention
NLP 101: The Meaning of Your Communication is The Response You Get
NLP 101: You Cannot Not Communicate
NLP 101 Thoughts: You Cannot Not Change The World
NLP 101: People Are Always Making The Best Choices They Have
NLP 101: People Are Not Broken
NLP 101: You Cannot Not Communicate: The Pygmalion Effect
NLP 101: Everyone Already Has All The Resources They Need
NLP 101: There Are No Resistant Listeners, Only Inflexible Speakers
NLP 101: Life Is A Series of Systems
Recommended Reading for NLP Starters
Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement
Great Reads for the NLP Hardcore
June 14th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Ah yes. The infamous ‘meeting of the minds’. More often than not it doesn’t happen. An interesting book penned in the mid ’30’s, The Tyranny of Words, hits on another reason people don’t get the messages: the words we choose are open to a myriad of different interpretations. Ask 12 people what ‘facist’ means and you’ll get twelve definitions - based on that persons education, social and economic background, etc. That’s why it is crucial that the person speaking finds a way to seek *clarification* from the listener. And not by asking, “did you understand me?”, but by asking open ended questions that require the listener to repeat, in their own words, what they’ve just heard. If you’ve rattled off a short to-do list to your husband a follow up question of “How do you think you will prioritize these today?”, will force him to repeat the list and verify his understanding of what needs to be done.
Interesting article that should peak some introspective thought on an important topic.
June 15th, 2006 at 12:05 am
An interesting comment that should peak some introspective thought!
I like your comment Sam, it’s very informative. In NLP we paraphrase your point through presupposing that the map is not the territory, no matter how much we think we get what someone else is saying, it’s always going to be just a best guess.
Anyone who’s ever been in a relationship will know
I like the way you suggested to seek clarification. Instead of asking for a direct ‘did you get it’, going about it in a subtle way instead.