Communication Errors

Video Transcription

Hi, I'm Juliet Tietz. And welcome to Conflict Resolution-- putting the pieces together. Today, we're going to talk about some errors that can come about in our communication. So I'm going to start off by listing our key terms. And I just want you to be aware of them and look out for them throughout this tutorial-- sender, receiver, message, and miscommunication.

So when we have a communication process, we have a sender. And they want to give a message to another person. And that person is the receiver. And the receiver then in turn will send a confirmation message back up to the sender so they know that they received the message and that they understood its intention. So that was kind of a lot for just that little bit. So why don't we just break it down by defining what each of these terms mean?

So sender in communication is the person moving information from one self to another. So again, sender-- they're the person that's taking the message. And a message is a packet of information, which has been encoded and is moved from sender to receiver. So the message contains the information that we want to give the receiver here.

And the receiver in communication is the person receiving information from another. So they're the one that's getting the message that the sender is sending them. And once the receiver gets that message and interprets it, they send back a confirmation message up to the sender letting them know they got the message and understood it.

And if there is no confirmation message from the receiver, the participant in the communication or the sender can't be certain that the message was received or if it was interpreted as intended. So we need this confirmation message to make sure that it was received and interpreted as intended. And if it's not interpreted correctly, this can lead to a communication error.

So in communication errors, we have a misinterpreted message which is also known as a miscommunication. And miscommunication is a state in which a receiver has interpreted a message in a way other than that intended by the sender of the message. So here, you're sending a message to someone. And they're taking it completely the wrong way and not how you intended them to receive the message. And when we have miscommunication, this can result in conflict.

So how can this happen? Well, we may have written a note letting somebody in our house know that they shouldn't turn on the water because it's being repaired. And they didn't see the note. And so the pipes burst. And they were left with the big mess. And they're really mad at the other person because they felt that they didn't inform them of this.

Or another way is through email. At work, if you work in an office setting or even personal life, we get a lot of emails. And oftentimes, we can misinterpret the written form of communication here. And that can result in a conflict with our co-workers or our friends or maybe even our family members because we are receiving the message but are misinterpreting what they mean.

Or another good example is through our verbal communication. Maybe we use a certain tone of voice. And we didn't even recognize it. And somebody really took offense to that. And they thought we were insulting them. And they could maybe even go to the lengths of like these two men and have it out physically.

It may not result in that extreme of a conflict. But those sort of verbal cues or tones of voice or gestures that we may not intend to insult or invoke some other parties, they may do so because that's being interpreted in a way that's offensive to others.

So in order to avoid miscommunication, we must send or request a confirmation message. And remember, a confirmation message is letting the sender know that we receive their message and interpret it as they intended.

And if for some reason, the receiver does not send the confirmation message, it's really important then that the sender asks for one so we are clear on that the message was received and to make sure that all is good and they know what we mean.

So now, let's go over our key points on communication errors. In communication errors, we misinterpret messages. And when we misinterpret them, we can cause a conflict. And this miscommunication is where the receiver receives the message in a way that was not intended by the sender.

And we can avoid miscommunication by sending or requesting confirmation messages. And so this lets us know that the other person got the message, and they understood what we meant. Thank you for taking the time out to view this tutorial. I really hope you learned something. And I can't wait to catch you again next time.