Your Intended Message
How Might Your Intended Message Contrast with Your UnIntended Message?
by George Torok
Today, let's look at the title of this podcast, your intended message. That is part of the message that you send. When you send a message.
Did you know that there are two distinct parts not so distinct, mixed together within your message, your whole message is actually a blend of your intended message and the unintended messages. Let's look at the challenges of both. And once you are aware of these challenges, you can deal with them more effectively, and communicate more successfully. Start let's start with the intended message.
The intended message, of course, is the message that you want to send you hope to send and you believe you sent. However, it's not necessarily the message that was received and understood. And you can probably guess why is that the case? Well, here's four possible reasons why your message might not get through the intended message might not get through one.
Perhaps you failed to clarify your message before sending. And this is a common mistake when it's more common when speaking than writing, we can do it in writing. The good news about is when you write a message, you have time to review and edit before you send. And if it's a particularly thorny message, you might be wise enough to write it, review it, put it aside for a day and come back to it the next day where you can review it and edit and maybe not send it at all.
However, when you're speaking, the danger is you don't have the opportunity to edit unless you have prepared and rehearsed this message that you are delivering, which I suggest you do whenever you can.
So perhaps the first reason why your intended message doesn't get across is maybe you simply failed to clarify your message before sending clarify your message before you start speaking. And that might mean pausing and thinking before you speak.
The next reason why the message might not get through, perhaps they weren't listening. And you're thinking what how could they not be listening? Don't they know who I am? Well, maybe that's why they weren't listening. Sometimes your audience simply isn't listening. They're not paying attention. Why might they not listen? Well, perhaps they've heard you speak before. And they know how you go on perhaps they thought you were boring last time. Or perhaps they can feel the emotion in your voice, the anger and therefore they're going to simply stay out of the way and not listen. But sometimes they're not listening. Maybe they simply haven't connected with you. You haven't connected with them. You haven't got their attention. So they might not be listening.
The next reason why the message your intended message might not get through. They didn't understand you. Hmm. What are you talking about? What do you mean? They simply didn't understand perhaps you were talking and using terms and words that you know what they mean, but they don't or perhaps what was you thought was clear in your head was not coming through in the words that you were using and they simply didn't understand you.
And the fourth area where the message didn't get through is they didn't believe you or they heard you They understood you and they don't believe you. Why might they not believe you? Well, perhaps they know you've been someone to tell untruths in the past. And clearly, you could be doing it again. Or perhaps you said something earlier in your message that they know is wrong or they believe is wrong. And so why should they listen to the rest of you? By the way, if you make the mistake of injecting one, untruth or suspicious lie early in your presentation, we now have permission to ignore everything else you say. Because you we've now learned that you are a liar. And what else could be true?
So there are four reasons why the message might not get through. Now be clear, when you are sending your intended message, here's the challenge that you face, your message starts as a mess in your head. And inside your brain, your head, it's a mess in there. And you might say, Oh, no, no, George, you haven't. It's not a mess, it is a mess. Trust me, it is a mess. If you look inside my head, it's a mess.
To you, it's a mess. To me, it makes sense. And your head. What's going on your head makes sense to you, because you've had all your life to get used to the mess in your head.
And when you want to send a message, you need to take that message in your head, convert it into words, speak the words, they hear the words and convert it into the mess in their head, there's a couple of translations going on. Good opportunity for things to go wrong. And one of the areas of things might go wrong, is the filters that we use, to that we put your message through before we even consider it.
When you speak, you send the intended message along with unintended messages.
Your Intended Message is the podcast about how you can boost your career and business success by honing your communication skills. We’ll examine the aspects of how we communicate one-to-one, one to few and one to many – plus that important conversation, one to self.
In these interviews we will explore presentation skills, public speaking, conversation, persuasion, negotiation, sales conversations, marketing, team meetings, social media, branding, self talk and more.
Your host is George Torok
George is a specialist in communication skills. Especially presentation. He’s fascinated by the links between communication and influencing behaviours. He delivers training and coaching programs to help leaders and promising professionals deliver the intended message for greater success.
Connect with George
www.SpeechCoachforExecutives.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgetorokpresentations/
https://www.youtube.com/user/presentationskills