Listening and attending do not guarantee understanding. What I say might not be what you heard and what I say might not be what I meant. We must be prepared to work hard at understanding the meaning of what is communicated.
Meaning has four elements -
The Sense
The Intent
The Feeling
The Tone
Sense signifies the facts, ideas or state of affairs which the communication is intended to present to the listener.
Intention signifies the aim or object which the speaker is seeking to promote in or through the listener, ie. his purpose in making the communication. The language he uses is adjusted to this purpose.
Feeling signifies the feeling of the speaker about the facts, ideas or state of affairs which he is communicating; the speaker's language reflects his own emotional reactions to what he is describing.
Tone signifies the attitude of the speaker to the listener. The language of the communication varies in accordance with the relationship in which the speaker feels himself to be with the listener.
Of these elements, we may want to convey some or all. The real point is that we should convey all the elements we wish; and that, if any element does not reach the listener, it should be because we so intend, not because of some failure on our part.
Most of us are conscious all the time of our need to convey sense as defined above, and are usually conscious too, of our intention in communicating. But it is quite easy to neglect feeling and tone, or even to put unconsciously into our words, feeling or tone which will upset the listener. The listener is likely to be more sensitive to feeling and tone than we ourselves are when speaking. Our mind is usually so full of the sense and intention we wish to convey that feeling and tone may be overlooked.
The safeguard is to check the communication by asking oneself deliberately- “Is this just what I want it to be in Sense? Intention? Feeling? Tone?” - all four points in turn.
We have to remember that the listener will have his own ideas and feelings about the subject and his own mental picture of us. We have to allow for that: our message will only reach him after it has been influenced by his own feeling and tone. We should communicate by the following simple rules:
- Make the whole meaning clear; ie. all four elements in it, or as many of them as we deliberately wish to convey.
- Use plain language.
- Estimate the listener's probable reaction and express the message accordingly.