Like much of the nation, I’ve been swept up in the Hamilton buzz after it was made available on Disney+. There’s a line that gets me every time. In the song “It’s Quiet Uptown,” Angelica Schuyler sings the line “there are moments that words don’t reach.” And it’s true. Sometimes we flail and falter trying to get across what we are thinking or feeling. But that’s doesn’t mean we stop trying. The goal of communication is always this: to somehow, eventually get our message across.
It might help you to have a visual for what is going on when we communicate.
This is a picture of the Ross Transactional Model of Communication. It’s my favorite illustration of communication. I’m not going to go through all of the different components even though I could geek out on this stuff for quite some time.
Instead, I want to focus in on one part of the model. See those tiny stars, the asterisks, inside each person’s mind? That’s the goal of communication. It’s to get that little star—be it an idea or a feeling or an opinion or a concept—across to the other person, all the while losing as little as possible along the way. Let’s talk about how to do this well.
Know Yourself
Great communicators start from a foundation of self-knowledge and awareness. This could be getting feedback from an expert on your communication strengths and weaknesses. (And we happen to be able to help out with this if you are looking for feedback.) But it could also mean coming face to face with your biases and being honest about them. We all speak from our own knowledge and past experiences and attitudes and motivations. We need to keep these in mind when trying to get our message across. This helps us to maintain integrity and respect for people who might not share our viewpoints.
Know Your Audience
One of the most important things you can do as a communicator is to realize you’ll never fully get your audience to reconstruct your idea exactly the way it exists in your mind. That’s because it has to pass through the lens of someone else. And remember the knowledge and past experiences and attitudes and motivation that you have that we just talked about? Well, your audience has those too. Only they don’t look like yours. So when you are trying to get your message across, you need to keep in mind there will always be the element of individuality in communication that prevents us from replicating an idea exactly. But that’s okay. It’s what makes human communication both messy and beautiful.
Choose Your Symbols Carefully
When we need to communicate something, we use symbols to get our messages across. It could be a look—you know the kind your coworker or best friend or spouse shoots you without having to say a word. It could be an image—some powerful picture that captures a moment or a mood. But most of the time, the symbols we choose to use are words. But not all symbols or words are created equal.
Great communicators spend time thinking about which ones work best. Instead of just launching into a presentation or meeting, give yourself time to think about how to best get your message across. Is it a memorable phrase, a graphic, or a video? We have to work hard to help our audience to see and understand something the way we see and understand it. This means choosing the symbols we use carefully. To get you started, check out Hemingway’s top 5 tips.
Keep these three things in mind when conversing and writing and presenting. Know yourself. Respect the different perspectives of your audience. And select your symbols carefully. If you do, you can build bridges of connection and understanding. And you’ll accomplish the essential goal of communication which will always be this: get your message across.
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