THE RICHNESS OF COMMUNICATION

Communication is about ideas, but not only about ideas. True enough, we primarily communicate in order to transmit our ideas. To do that we speak about information, data, and facts that back up our ideas, proposals, imaginations, and hopes. And yet in all of this we are also communicating other things beyond our ideas such as our state and our attitude. And because we do, people pick up on our attitude and sometimes... Sometimes that’s the primary thing which our listeners pick up on.

In communicating, attitude is inevitably communicated. It is communicated by the tone that is set by the words, the word use, we use, by the language, the metaphors, the length of sentences, the colloquialisms, etc. In verbal communicate we communicate attitude by our tone of voice, tempo of speech, inflections, etc. All of this speaks about state— the state that we are in, the emotional state that we are operating from and even our physiological state.

There’s a reason that we communicate our attitude and state. We communicate from state to state. That’s one of the basic premises in Meta-Coaching. When you communicate, you are in a state and that state is going to be communicated along with your words. In fact, you cannot not communicate your state. When you communicate, you are also sending your words and ideas to a person who is in a state. But what state? It makes a difference. If the person you are communicating with is not in the right state for receiving your message— your message will not get through. Or it may be distorted and colored by the receiver’s state and this can be so to such an extent that the person will pick up on, and conclude, a message the very opposite of what you are trying to communicate.

Say the words, “I love you” with a stressed voice and strained vocal chords so that it sounds angry and even aggressive and the message received will probably not be that of a loving one. Say “I love you” with hesitation, halt and pause, and do so from a state of doubt and skepticism and again, the love message will probably not be communicated.

From state to state reveals that communication is truly co-created. It is a synthesis that arises from the speaker’s message (words and non-verbals) as it is processed and filtered through the listener’s mental frames. Hence, the NLP communication guideline: “The meaning of your communication is the response you get.” Communication is not merely the exchange of information. It is a communion of minds and hearts— it is a co-union (comm-union).

“The meaning of your communication is the response you get” also reveals the somewhat

shocking conclusion— You never know what you have communicated until you notice the response and explore what is entailed in that response. The reason you never know what you communicated is because you do not know what the person heard. And people hear what they hear according to their interpretative filters (frames).

Here then is another thing professional communicators do — a professional communicator takes the hearing filters of one’s listener into account. Perceptually we do not all see and hear things neutrally. We hear according to who we are, what we value, the experiences that formulate our history, and the attitudes we have developed about things. We hear things through our meta- programs.

The Meta-Programs Model in NLP details 60 different thinking patterns which describe how we “think” (reason, perceive, see, hear, etc.). Each meta-program reveals yet another way that we can interpret the facts, data, and information that we’re exchanging. Each meta-program therefore offers yet another distinction in a person’s hearing filters. They reveal what the state we’re in, the attitude we are operating from, and how we are coloring what we hear.

In communication, more is transmitted than just words and ideas— emotions, states, attitudes, and meta-programs are also being communicating. And because of that communication can be sabotaged whenever a speaker is in the wrong state and attitude. As a professional communicator, it’s important to be on the alert to the many conditioning and contributing factors than ideas. It’s good to be suspicious about the richness of communication and what else if being transmitted other than ideas.