Why miscommunication occur

Without context, a mistake can occur during the communication process, which can leave consumers confused or upset at the end result. One example of a lack of context in communication came from Yellow Pages, the company that publishes telephone directories. Unfortunately, one ad erroneously promoted the Korean dish Bibimbap using an image of noodles instead of rice.

Photos of the ad were shared across social media, and Yellow Pages quietly issued an apology on social media in response. Soon after, the entire marketing campaign was terminated. Lack of context can be dangerous and lead to damaging business relationships both internally and externally. To prevent this cause of miscommunication, all those involved on a project should be given ample time to ask questions and review their work. Consider involving a subject matter expert to ensure the project will come across effectively.

Assumptions in business communication occur when various factors are thought to be true but are never confirmed, which can take place at any stage of the product life cycle. Making assumptions is commonplace in business for strategy and decision-making, but those are typically standardized. In the early s, the beverage industry was focused on developing clean and natural products.

Pepsi tried to take advantage of this fad by releasing Crystal Pepsi , a clear and caffeine-free version of the traditional drink. Less than two years after appearing on shelves across the nation, Crystal Pepsi was retired from production. Vagueness and ambiguity occur when a message is not fully delivered, the sender leaves out valuable information or the receiver fails to ask clarifying questions. Ambiguity and vagueness enhance the difficulty of a task, and they diminish the ability to make decisions and solve problems.

Not being able to solve the problems of customers can have a costly impact on a business. Some legal documents are filled with technical language called legalese. The words are often complex and confusing enough that people hire lawyers to interpret the information. Acronyms, jargon, and buzzwords are used within their respective circles to communicate quickly and efficiently. However, they can have the opposite effect with outsiders, which is why you need to adjust your word choice.

Your attention is on your argument, which can prevent you from understanding the other side, and changing your stance on the issue may require losing face. Here are some examples that highlight how common the counterproductive phenomenon is:. Sometimes, the intention behind our message is clear. In the latter case, the message is left open to interpretation and, consequently, misinterpretation.

The recipient may have to read between the lines. Granted, some circumstances require a more implicit approach for the sake of politeness. Similarly, the medium or channel used to communicate the message can also cause issues. A potential solution comes in the form of emojis, which might be suitable in some customer service settings.

It can also be used in more casual emails. Chances are that your imagination will conjure up all kinds of monstrosities. Our minds naturally tend to interpret ambiguity in a negative way first. This comes with a side-effect, which is orienting towards the negative when something obscure is mentioned. Your best bet is to assume misinterpretation before malevolence and to keep negativity bias in mind when sending implicit messages. This can result in misunderstanding later down the line when the wrong steps are taken in accordance with the message.

A reliable solution is to ensure that you only include the most important points, keeping the intention clear. The recipient is then less likely to become overwhelmed.

One of the root causes of information overload is a lack of communication skills. Not everyone finds it easy to keep their messages clear and concise. In "What? Did you really say what I think I heard? There's actually an ongoing epistemological debate between intelligent people over whether objective reality even exists. We won't reach a conclusion here, but that fact alone underlines the weight of mental models. One that changes minds, instead of hardening them.

A few types of mental models and reinforcing mental biases only add to the miscommunication of our world:. Sub- Cultures. Humans create cultures to make sense of reality. Everyone is part of various cultures and subcultures, all influencing the way we look at things and the paradigms we live in.

Someone with a socialist mindset may have a more pessimistic view regarding the intentions of businesses than someone with a belief in the market's invisible hand. What's more, what sounds nice in one language sounds rude in another. The standard speaking style in Spanish, for example, is more direct than English. Or as Mark Twain put it: "If your only tool is a hammer, all your problems will be nails. Each specialism functions as a lens through which we interpret the world—whether that's economics, sociology or feminism.

That makes it hard to talk about issues from the same perspective. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations A hammer and a screwdriver will have a hard time arguing over how to open a wine bottle. For more understanding, we need Swiss army knives.

This bias is responsible for our tendency to only focus on and accept what concurs with our existing worldview. As brilliantly illustrated by The Oatmeal , the Backfire Effect is an extreme form of the confirmation bias. It occurs when evidence that contradicts a person's belief actually makes it stronger. This happens because many of our opinions aren't based on reason, but on emotion.

The internet has made slipping into groupthink easier than ever. We only interact with the news and online friends that share our opinions. Digital echo chambers provide the space to air your opinions and find instant reinforcement, feeding a trend of modern tribalism. Mixed in with the negativity effect, people from one tribe assume only negative intent from people from the other tribe.

Instead of reacting on what people are actually saying, they engage in a sort of mental telepathy and respond on what they think they are really after. Test Userlike for free and chat with your customers on your website, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram. Say Bob makes a stand against immigration based on various, non-racial arguments. And they might be, of course. But assuming that they are only ensures an ever growing distance.

When you encounter someone with strongly differing opinions than you, try to objectively uncover the areas in which your mental models differ, and where they overlap. Frame it as a cooperation. Most discussions spin towards the question of who is right , instead of what's the truth. Reframe the discussion as a mutually benefitting clash of minds that will get both of you closer to the truth. Talk in terms of the other person. As Olga Khazan from The Atlantic suggests in the video below, we often try to convince people with arguments that appeal to our values, not theirs.

This communication technique is the opposite of straw-manning , the practice of summarizing the argument of your opponent in a way that makes it look worse. With steel-manning you summarize the other person's argument as favorable as possible — perhaps more favorable than your conversation partner did. Expand your mental models. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet's business partner, consciously expanded the number of mental models during his lifetime — from accounting, architecture, biology, economics, to philosophy, physics and more.

Expanding your mental models will allow you to reason about issues from multiple angles. Mental Models are how Charlie refers to the key ideas in each discipline.

Each idea is a concept or model about how the world really works that can be used to understand and solve real problems and predict real outcomes.