I don't understand you! How often have you heard this sentence in meetings or team discussions?
Obwohl andere Teilnehmer exakt den Inhalt verstanden und nachvollziehen konnten, hatten vielleicht eine oder mehrere Personen ein großes „Fragezeichen“ im Gesicht. In solchen Situation sprechen wir von dem Phänomen der „Communication trap".
Where do these communication traps come from?
The situation described above can be based on three fundamentally different communication deficits:
- The other person did not understand acoustically what was said, but does not dare to say it.
- The other person did not understand the content of what was said.
- The conversation partner has a completely different communication pattern.
Let's take a closer look at these three points:
1. The conversation partner did not understand acoustically what was said
If this is given as a reason, it is quite simple: We simply bring our conversation partner back on board by repeating what has been said or summarizing the most important things for them.
2. The other person did not understand the content of what was said.
Here we just need to remember the basics that are taught in every management course:
- Provide enough background information so that all participants are kept engaged
- Formulate clear and precise statements
- Avoiding extraneous words - e.g., not using specific marketing vocabulary in sales meetings, paraphrasing. Who knows what a Delphi survey is? Explain better that it is a multi-stage expert survey in which the results of the previous round are fed back to the respondents.
- Talk through important presentations or conversations with an external person first and thereby simulate the actual conversation or presentation situation. You get direct feedback and can use this feedback in the preparation for the actual conversation / presentation.
But despite compliance with these well-known rules of the game, misunderstandings can still occur! Why?
Have you ever heard about metaprogram ?
Metaprograms are perceptual filters and describe, how a person takes in information, processes it, but of course also applies it himself.
3. The conversation partner has a completely different communication pattern.
Indicator of the communication trap is often that the conversation partner rejects your proposal or even your statement, but introduces the same content as a proposal in their own words. Then it could be that they have a different metaprogram.
It is important to know that most people are not aware of their metaprograms, although they are crucial filters of our perception. Discovering your own metaprograms leads to an impressive form of self-knowledge. You will realize that you not only get to know yourself better, but you will also build a bridge to the other person faster, which leads to more understanding and comprehension.
In total there are over sixty different metaprograms, of which we would like to give only a small selection here. Main polar directions are shown, which are rarely found in people across contexts. In certain contexts, however, clear patterns can be recognized. So we humans have preferences, but these can be quite different depending on the situation (e.g. professional/private). Here are a few examples:
a. Metaprogram Direction: Towards / Away from
Towards-oriented people are predominantly focused on goal achievement, while away-from-oriented people want to avoid problems.
Example: New-product development
- Towards: wants to create something new to serve new markets
- Away-from: would first like to work out solutions for existing problems
Depending on the situation, this can lead to a conflict of interest. Unless they are able to develop a product that is truly something new and at the same time helps solve existing product problems.
b. Metaprogram information size: Overview vs. Detail
There are people for whom it is important above all to get an overview. Details and individual small process steps seem unimportant. Ex: Presentations are held at helicopter level; slides are skipped or shown only briefly.
In contrast, there are people for whom the detail is important for making decisions. Even in conversations, they often want to know things very precisely because they can only really understand when they know all the details. Detail-oriented people also tell more details, they invest a lot of time in explaining every slide in a presentation in detail.
The presenter loses detail people when skimming the slides - overview people, on the other hand, when the presentation goes too deep into detail.
c. Metaprogram Information Source: Internal vs. external
Internal people find their motivation within themselves, but praise from outside is still important. They are convinced of what they do and what they achieve. Critics of this performance, according to the internal persons, are not sufficiently in the subject, i.e. not able to evaluate their performance. When speaking, they often use the phrase "I know..." and resist when someone interferes with their decisions. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
External people need the opinion and praise from outside for motivation. One's own performance can be poorly judged. External people like to let other people decide for them. When speaking, the reaction of the other person is closely observed in order to deduce how what is said is received.
CONCLUSION:
Communication traps can be avoided if we know the metaprograms of ourselves, but also of our interlocutors. One form of art in communication is therefore to take into account the most diverse metaprograms and to appreciate that the other person simply has different patterns in his or her thinking.
Another art is to adapt your own metaprograms depending on the situation without bending. So how about, for example, the next time you notice that your conversation partner needs more details, you deliver them or get to the point when your conversation partner gets impatient because you get lost in the details? We hope you enjoy exploring!
