I do not intend to turn the CommFlowSystem into a scientifically robust methodology. Quite the contrary. The system should be firmly rooted in pragmatism and best practices. The system should work in real life, and it is not always required to know how something works, as long as it works. Interpersonal communication is not an exact science. Having said this, however, I still deemed it useful to dedicate a chapter to some interesting facts about communication that might come in handy in a conversation.
The following key aspects I found most fascinating in my research about communication. I am sure there are many more, and I look forward to your feedback.
The importance of non verbal communication
Studies have shown that in personal, specifically in emotionally charged conversations, the impact of the words used are as low as 10% of the total "message". Body language (50%) and Tone of Voice (40%) make up the bulk of the message.This is compounded by cross-cultural effects when you are speaking in a foreign language. We do this intuitively when we speak to babies or pets, using mostly body language, facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice. This is also an interesting conversation when you "tune in" on some small talk. Even if you are not close enough to make out details, or if the small talk is in a language you don't understand, you can get the drift of the communication. Think about this the next time you are in a one-on-one situation, or when you chose a medium to transport your message. There are, of course messages that need no body language or tone of voice to be effective. This relates back to the "Clarity" gate of understanding and agreement. If you add the Consequences of an action or inaction to a message, the message gets understood quite easily.
The importance of communication preferences
People prefer a certain style of communication. Some people are very visual, and you can discover that preference by analyzing the language and media they typically use. They will prefer words that relate to the ability to see or visualize, and they will like to refer to the “big picture”. Other folks are more auditory, and they will reveal their world model by referring to thinking, discussing, analyzing words, facts and knowledge. Other folks, however, are more kinesthetic, referring to a model where the prefer to "get in touch", experience something, especially when its connected to their community. Like I said before, there is no magic here, but once you acknowledge the fact that people are different, and that they need different "portals" to their way of understanding, your flexibility will increase, as will your ability to communicate and reach understanding and agreement.
The importance of the brain as a "filter" and as a story teller
When we communicate, we mostly assume that the audience "receives" the information in the same way we would receive the information. This is a massive error. The brain filters out about 99% of all sensory information generated by the body, be it visual, auditory or kinesthetic. In other words, only 1% of what is being received actually makes it into conscious awareness or memory for that matter. This is the reason why it is completely impossibe to tickle yourself. The brain anticipates. In addition, the brain constantly fills in the missing gaps based on memory, plausibility and experience based predictions. While the conscious brain only actively deals with 1% of the information received from the "outside", it always strives to provide a full experience. It is pretty much constantly engaged in "story telling". That is the reason why even a small stimulus can trigger a complete memory episode, why a single word can lead to a strong agressive or positive response and why we usually cannot completely agree on a lot of things. 99% of whats in our mind is GENERATED by our mind, and that process can create results that range from the somewhat fuzzy to the outrageously wrong. Keep this in mind as you progress on your journey towards communications excellence. This is the reason I chose "community" as the first key to understanding and agreement. Once we know the world model of our audience, we can fine tune our messages and our media to ensure our message can be part of the 1% received, and that the brain of the recipient tells the story in a way we intend the story to be told.
The importance of constant, automatic, instant evaluation, judgement and retrieval
The brain is a highly evolved system that helps us deliver responses that increase our chances of survival and that enhance individual and community progress. It does this partially by constantly, automatically and instinctively evaluating all situations as either positive (increasing status, certainty, autononomy, power, pleasure etc.) or as negative. But it is important to note, however, that these evaluations as either "positive" or "negative" are highly personal, and situational, and can change in an instant based on the individual's context. In other words, what is good in one situation or context, can be detrimental in the next, and the brain will decide in an near-instant, instinctive, non-thinking way. Often the decision for fight or flight is made by the older, deeper regions of our brain before we even consciously aware that a challenge or opportunity. Chemicals are released, resources and attention are shifted, and the body is geared up for a response at a subconscious level way ahead of our conscious awareness. We need to respect this in our communication. The rational part of the brain that we are so often appealing to is highly overrated, and can easily be overwhelmed by the instinctive and emotional parts of the brain. You can remember this by the sentence "Logic is King, but Emotions are King Kong". This is what we refer to as "gut feeling", i.e. our whole body has already evaluated a situation and communicates an overall "gut reaction" while we are still pondering about the positives or negatives of the situation or the communication. This is where "positive thinking" as an approach is also somewhat overrated. The brain responds based on our "wired-in" experience, and every experience is reflected in the wiring of the brain. If we want to change this inherent wiring, thinking about something is often not enough. It is much better to "act" upon it, and then connect the action with a species or individual enhancing positive effect on either our status, power or pleasure. That's why a call to action is so important in any communication. It not only delivers you the feedback you need to know if your communication was effective, it also anchors thoughts, opinions and evaluations in the neural structures of the brain.
Here is another thing that is good to know. While the brain is very complex overall, most of its detailed inner workings and mechanisms are quite simplistic, and almost mechanical. The brain, for example, cannot process "negatives". If you say to someone, "Do not think about your car!" the brain cannot process the "not" and already instantly invokes a memory of your car. If you tell someone "Forget Paris", all you achieve is that they think about Paris. Any stimulus that is not filtered out (only 1%) will generate an instant response and will more or less fully invoke memories and emotions. It does not matter if the stimulus is actually an outside event, or a memory invoked by the brain itself. So, if someone is afraid of dogs, they will have an emotional response to a physical dogs that is identical to the response generated by looking at the image of a dog, or just thinking about a dog running towards you. (sorry about this example if you happen to be afraid of dogs). We have to be careful here with our preconceived notions of "positive" or "negative" imagery, examples. Also, the approach of "thinking positively" can backfire or become a complete failure. Say you stubbed your toe against one of the legs of your kitchen table. It hurts. A lot. There is nothing postive about that. The more you think about it, the more angry you will get that you were not more carful. The same is true about some incident at work. For example you did not get that raise. Again. It hurts. There is NOTHING positive about that. You try to think positive about it, all you do is "rub in" the fact that you did not get the raise. There is more. Take childhood traumas. Someone stole your bike. Bad. It hurts, etc. Why do you want to invoke it over and over again? All you do when you try to "think positive" is recall the bad experience again, and again, and again. And the way the brain works, the more you invoke a memory, there more strong the memory gets, and the more the memory gets distorted and overloaded with your current bias. In other words, while we cannot always avoid getting angry about something, we can avoid "staying angry". If something is in the past, leave it there, learn from it, move on. That's why I am also a firm believer one should not constantly bring up bad or negative examples in our communications. All we achieve is that we invoke the negative memory in the audience, and they might associate us with that bad emotion. Now, having said all this, I do believe that the inventors of the positive thinking idea PROBABLY had a good intention. What they probably wanted to achieve is help people focus on the now, and on positive outcomes in the future. And there is nothing wrong in my opinion about focussing on the NOW and on DESIRED OUTCOMES of future actions and activities. Whatever happens to you, accept the fact that you cannot undo the past. Focus your brain, and that of the audience on what's possible based on facts and situation at hand.
The following key aspects I found most fascinating in my research about communication. I am sure there are many more, and I look forward to your feedback.
The importance of non verbal communication
Studies have shown that in personal, specifically in emotionally charged conversations, the impact of the words used are as low as 10% of the total "message". Body language (50%) and Tone of Voice (40%) make up the bulk of the message.This is compounded by cross-cultural effects when you are speaking in a foreign language. We do this intuitively when we speak to babies or pets, using mostly body language, facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice. This is also an interesting conversation when you "tune in" on some small talk. Even if you are not close enough to make out details, or if the small talk is in a language you don't understand, you can get the drift of the communication. Think about this the next time you are in a one-on-one situation, or when you chose a medium to transport your message. There are, of course messages that need no body language or tone of voice to be effective. This relates back to the "Clarity" gate of understanding and agreement. If you add the Consequences of an action or inaction to a message, the message gets understood quite easily.
The importance of communication preferences
People prefer a certain style of communication. Some people are very visual, and you can discover that preference by analyzing the language and media they typically use. They will prefer words that relate to the ability to see or visualize, and they will like to refer to the “big picture”. Other folks are more auditory, and they will reveal their world model by referring to thinking, discussing, analyzing words, facts and knowledge. Other folks, however, are more kinesthetic, referring to a model where the prefer to "get in touch", experience something, especially when its connected to their community. Like I said before, there is no magic here, but once you acknowledge the fact that people are different, and that they need different "portals" to their way of understanding, your flexibility will increase, as will your ability to communicate and reach understanding and agreement.
The importance of the brain as a "filter" and as a story teller
When we communicate, we mostly assume that the audience "receives" the information in the same way we would receive the information. This is a massive error. The brain filters out about 99% of all sensory information generated by the body, be it visual, auditory or kinesthetic. In other words, only 1% of what is being received actually makes it into conscious awareness or memory for that matter. This is the reason why it is completely impossibe to tickle yourself. The brain anticipates. In addition, the brain constantly fills in the missing gaps based on memory, plausibility and experience based predictions. While the conscious brain only actively deals with 1% of the information received from the "outside", it always strives to provide a full experience. It is pretty much constantly engaged in "story telling". That is the reason why even a small stimulus can trigger a complete memory episode, why a single word can lead to a strong agressive or positive response and why we usually cannot completely agree on a lot of things. 99% of whats in our mind is GENERATED by our mind, and that process can create results that range from the somewhat fuzzy to the outrageously wrong. Keep this in mind as you progress on your journey towards communications excellence. This is the reason I chose "community" as the first key to understanding and agreement. Once we know the world model of our audience, we can fine tune our messages and our media to ensure our message can be part of the 1% received, and that the brain of the recipient tells the story in a way we intend the story to be told.
The importance of constant, automatic, instant evaluation, judgement and retrieval
The brain is a highly evolved system that helps us deliver responses that increase our chances of survival and that enhance individual and community progress. It does this partially by constantly, automatically and instinctively evaluating all situations as either positive (increasing status, certainty, autononomy, power, pleasure etc.) or as negative. But it is important to note, however, that these evaluations as either "positive" or "negative" are highly personal, and situational, and can change in an instant based on the individual's context. In other words, what is good in one situation or context, can be detrimental in the next, and the brain will decide in an near-instant, instinctive, non-thinking way. Often the decision for fight or flight is made by the older, deeper regions of our brain before we even consciously aware that a challenge or opportunity. Chemicals are released, resources and attention are shifted, and the body is geared up for a response at a subconscious level way ahead of our conscious awareness. We need to respect this in our communication. The rational part of the brain that we are so often appealing to is highly overrated, and can easily be overwhelmed by the instinctive and emotional parts of the brain. You can remember this by the sentence "Logic is King, but Emotions are King Kong". This is what we refer to as "gut feeling", i.e. our whole body has already evaluated a situation and communicates an overall "gut reaction" while we are still pondering about the positives or negatives of the situation or the communication. This is where "positive thinking" as an approach is also somewhat overrated. The brain responds based on our "wired-in" experience, and every experience is reflected in the wiring of the brain. If we want to change this inherent wiring, thinking about something is often not enough. It is much better to "act" upon it, and then connect the action with a species or individual enhancing positive effect on either our status, power or pleasure. That's why a call to action is so important in any communication. It not only delivers you the feedback you need to know if your communication was effective, it also anchors thoughts, opinions and evaluations in the neural structures of the brain.
Here is another thing that is good to know. While the brain is very complex overall, most of its detailed inner workings and mechanisms are quite simplistic, and almost mechanical. The brain, for example, cannot process "negatives". If you say to someone, "Do not think about your car!" the brain cannot process the "not" and already instantly invokes a memory of your car. If you tell someone "Forget Paris", all you achieve is that they think about Paris. Any stimulus that is not filtered out (only 1%) will generate an instant response and will more or less fully invoke memories and emotions. It does not matter if the stimulus is actually an outside event, or a memory invoked by the brain itself. So, if someone is afraid of dogs, they will have an emotional response to a physical dogs that is identical to the response generated by looking at the image of a dog, or just thinking about a dog running towards you. (sorry about this example if you happen to be afraid of dogs). We have to be careful here with our preconceived notions of "positive" or "negative" imagery, examples. Also, the approach of "thinking positively" can backfire or become a complete failure. Say you stubbed your toe against one of the legs of your kitchen table. It hurts. A lot. There is nothing postive about that. The more you think about it, the more angry you will get that you were not more carful. The same is true about some incident at work. For example you did not get that raise. Again. It hurts. There is NOTHING positive about that. You try to think positive about it, all you do is "rub in" the fact that you did not get the raise. There is more. Take childhood traumas. Someone stole your bike. Bad. It hurts, etc. Why do you want to invoke it over and over again? All you do when you try to "think positive" is recall the bad experience again, and again, and again. And the way the brain works, the more you invoke a memory, there more strong the memory gets, and the more the memory gets distorted and overloaded with your current bias. In other words, while we cannot always avoid getting angry about something, we can avoid "staying angry". If something is in the past, leave it there, learn from it, move on. That's why I am also a firm believer one should not constantly bring up bad or negative examples in our communications. All we achieve is that we invoke the negative memory in the audience, and they might associate us with that bad emotion. Now, having said all this, I do believe that the inventors of the positive thinking idea PROBABLY had a good intention. What they probably wanted to achieve is help people focus on the now, and on positive outcomes in the future. And there is nothing wrong in my opinion about focussing on the NOW and on DESIRED OUTCOMES of future actions and activities. Whatever happens to you, accept the fact that you cannot undo the past. Focus your brain, and that of the audience on what's possible based on facts and situation at hand.
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