Notes from Table VI
Communication is a communal act
Perspectives can change interaction, ask people to write down problems, move away from dyads but triangulate communication. Writing is different when it’s for one person or for a group. Embracing multiple perspectives can work against miscommunication.
Conflict has to do with human perceptions. Conflict resolution requires shifting shared ground from one set of facts to another, to reframe the issue. Miscommunication comes in large part because of how much of communication is framed by these larger non-human structures.
What are some contexts for the problem we identified: How do we use listening to avoid miscommunication with the goal of understanding our differences and acting on our commonalities?
Sometimes the concrete suggestions may not do justice to the richness of the problems posed. An example of this is a grievance officer at a college, who listens to a lot of problems students are having with courses. He or she has to understand that students are not always able to understand the solutions given by the counselor. The students need to really listen. How can this be taught?
One particular student is an unfriendly marketing major who is inadvertently plagiarizing his work. His argument was that the same sentence was on ten websites, so it’s not plagiarism. How hard it becomes to communicate the real life answer.
Sometimes students really hear something different than what is being said.
Sometimes it isn’t an issue of listening but of perception.
This student maybe doesn’t want to understand, so it is not a failure of listening.
Here is an interesting question: what are the roles of power and authority in listening? From the student’s point of view what can be done?
In communication classes students are offered scenarios and asked for interpretation, the class jumps on one, and in the end the challenge is to come up with a bunch of different explanations and alternatives.
Recommendations/Best Practices
– Rephrase questions
– Offer multiple perceptions
– Understand emotional noise
– Build in delay time between responses
– Write down complaints
– Triangulate or bring in fourth person to reduce miscommunication, diverse listening backgrounds in terms of ethnicity, gender, SES, etc.
– Multiple perspectives