October 2, 2024 • 13 mins
Are you ever frustrated trying to communicate? Do you ever feel misunderstood or misunderstand what someone is trying to communicate? Communicating can be hard, frustrating and difficult. On this edition of the Ray Sanders Leadership Podcast, Ray unpacks four common barriers to communication and 3 C’s for better communication.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Have you ever experienced a failure to
communicate? Do you ever feellike you're misunderstood? Does
communicating ever frustrateyou? If so, stick around. I
think you'll like what you'regonna hear on this edition of
the Ray Sanders LeadershipPodcast.
(00:26):
Hello, everyone. I'm RaySanders, and you're listening to
the Ray Sanders LeadershipPodcast. Welcome back, everyone.
I'm Ray Sanders, and I'm yourhost here on the Ray Sanders
Leadership Podcast. I know youhave a lot of choices out there,
so it really tickles me that youstop by and let me just kinda
join you on your journey today.
(00:47):
You know, I don't know whereyou're at. You might be
traveling down the road, workingout at the gym. You might be
where I was a few weeks back,hanging out at the beach, and
you thought, you know what? I'mgonna check on in on old Sanders
and see what he's up to. Youknow, recently, I had the
opportunity to be with one of myclients, and they asked me, how
can we better communicate on ourteam?
(01:10):
And we developed a littlepresentation, something we call
fuel, filling up every leader.And during fuel, we unpack this
whole idea about communication,and how challenging it is, and
how confusing it can be. Solet's talk just a minute about
communication. You know, what iscommunication? Well, if you look
(01:32):
it up in the dictionary, there'sa lot of different descriptions
that come along, and there's alot of different things that
they say.
But the bottom line is it'sabout using words, sounds, or
signs to express ideas,thoughts, and feelings. Are you
with me? So let's think aboutit. Most of the time, we use
(01:55):
words, whether verbally or on apage, to communicate with those
that we want to talk to orexpress ourselves to. Sometimes
we'll use sounds.
One of the examples I gave inthe meeting that I shared at was
the thought of being, you know,at a basketball game or
something when you're in highschool, and you see a pretty
cheerleader and you go, that'llget some attention. What are you
(02:22):
hoping? What does that mean? Allit is is just a simple sound.
But if you're the right girllooking at the right guy and
you're up in the in thebleachers, and you see him, you
might give him another signal.
You might wink at him, or youmight point your finger at him,
and then curl it up and say,like, hey, come here. I want to
(02:43):
get to know you. So we use wordsand sounds and signs to express
ideas, thoughts, and feelingsall the time, but here's the
deal. Communication can beconfusing. Let me give you some
examples.
Let's talk about different wordsthat have the same meaning. You
(03:04):
know, I grew up, I grew up herein Oklahoma on the on the
plains, were people from theprairie, and believe it or not,
you may not know this about me,but there was a day that I
actually used to ride bulls. Andlet's just say this, I wasn't
very good at it. But growing upin a farming community, it
wasn't unusual that we would goto a a rodeo or ride horses back
(03:26):
in the day, but if I wanted toget my horse to go, there's
several things that I could say.I could say giddy up, or or how
about just go?
All of those giddy up or go,were communicating the same
meaning, but with differentwords. I could say, woah or
(03:50):
stop, and those would be thesame words. They would be
different words but with thesame meaning, different words
but with the same meaning. Sowhat are some words that are
different but also have the samemeaning? Now if I told you bat,
(04:10):
would you think that I meant abaseball bat or a bat that flies
around at night out of a cave?
Same word, different meaning. Orwhat if I said, I see you, or
let's go to the sea, or read andread. Which is it? Same words,
(04:34):
different meaning. Let's faceit.
There's a lot of barriers tocommunication, a lot of barriers
communicate to communication,and I think there's at least 4
that I wanna unpack. The firstone would just be a lack of
clarity, a lack of clarity.Sometimes it's just not clear
what somebody means. Do theymean see, see, read, or read, or
(04:55):
read, or bat, or bat? What dothey mean?
I mean, in Spanish, I could saya llama, and I that would mean
call, or it could mean fire, orit could mean an animal. I mean,
goodness sakes. There's a lot ofopportunities where a lack of
clarity can confusecommunication. Another barrier
to communication would be poorlistening. You know, I think
(05:18):
it's interesting.
If you just if we just look ateach other, isn't it obvious we
have 2 ears and one mouth? If wewould just listen twice as much
as we speak, a lot of times ourcommunication would be a whole
lot more clear. But what do wedo? We get into a conversation,
someone begins talking, someonebegins sharing, and what what
happens? We begin to formalize,we begin putting together our
(05:41):
own thoughts, and we don'tnecessarily interrupt them, but
we kind of check out and weprepare what we want to say.
I would call that poorlistening. Or what about
prejudices or assumptions? Somany times we have someone
speaking to us, and based uponthe way they look, or their
gender, or where they come from,we make some assumptions about
(06:03):
them and their ability, to getthe job done, so to speak. So we
can we have these we have theseprejudices and these assumptions
that make their way into oureveryday life. Not necessarily
always bad and they might beinnocent, but they do get in the
way.
Here's another barrier tocommunication. How about the
(06:25):
misuse of technology? Now here'sthe deal. So many times,
especially among youngergenerations, I have noticed that
people don't speak or they don'ttalk, they text. And what do we
leave out of the conversationwhen all we do is text one
(06:45):
another?
We we can't look into eachother's eyes. We can't discern
each other's voice, but what dowe do? We think that we're the
master writer, and we're gonnawrite out a beautiful text, and
then all of a sudden we'remisunderstood. Did I mean come
here? Did I mean come here?
Or did I mean come here? I mean,all those things play into what
(07:06):
could be meant by something assimple as a text. We just simply
rely too much on text andtechnology in that regard. But
then there's times that weactually just use the phone. We
use the phone, but even that canbe limiting because what?
We can't see body language. Wedon't know if we're frustrating
someone. They could be totallyignoring us or doing something
(07:29):
else. They have us on speakerphone, and who knows what
they're doing. We've all went inthe bathroom and heard the guy
talking on his phone as he wasin the stall, so to speak, and
you're thinking, does anybodyreally know where he's at?
And how many of us have actuallymade a call, maybe in the
privacy of our own home, doingthe very exact same thing? So,
(07:53):
you know, the cell phone isgreat, but texting and calling
can be limiting. So what's best?Well, let's not misuse
technology. Certainly, we couldFaceTime or we could do a Zoom
call or something like that.
Anytime we can add the visual,we can look someone in the eye.
We can look at them and see whattheir body language is saying in
(08:15):
addition to what they might besaying in a text or otherwise or
with their mouth, it's gonnahelp us communicate and get rid
of some of these barriers tocommunication. I'd like to talk
about what I believe are keys togreat communication, and I call
it the 3 c's. The 3 c's arethese, and I want you to
(08:35):
remember them. The first one iscall, the second one is
communicate, and the final oneis confirm.
So what do I mean by call? Whatdo I mean by call? If you're
going to communicate, do I meanpick up the cell phone and call?
Well, sort of. What I reallymean is engage me, call on me,
(08:55):
get my attention.
So remember call and get myattention. If I don't have your
attention and I don't knowyou're listening, how do I know
that I'm ready to begin the nextc, which is communicate. The
second c is communicate, andwhen you can when you
communicate what you want to dois inform me, but you don't want
(09:17):
to assume. You want tocommunicate. You want to lay out
the details.
You wanna make sure that Iunderstand. You don't want to
assume that I know what youmean. How many times have you
been speaking to someone, maybeit's a coworker, maybe it's one
of your kids, maybe it's yourspouse, and you say, you
understand? And what do theyalways say? Yes.
(09:39):
I never will forget being in aclient meeting one day, and I
was helping a president of acompany begin to realize that he
thought people wereunderstanding, but they weren't
always really getting it. And wewere sitting in an executive
team meeting and one of hisexecutives was there and he'd
finished with, this meeting andhe said to the executive as as
he began to walk out the door,he said, do you understand? And
(10:03):
classic. What did the executivesay? Yeah.
I got it, boss. I understand.But then I said, how do you
know? And I said, ask him whathe understood, and what do you
think happened? He explainedwhat he understood and it wasn't
it was close, but it wasn'texactly what the boss wanted.
(10:25):
So it's one thing to call on me,it's one thing to get my
attention, it's another thing tocommunicate, but we don't want
to assume that people reallyunderstand. Which leads us to
the 3rd c, and the 3rd c isthis, confirm. So number 1, I'm
going to call on you, I'm goingto engage you, I'm going to get
your attention. Number 2, I'mgoing to communicate, I'm going
(10:45):
to inform you, but I'm not goingto assume you understand. So
then what do I do?
I confirm. And how do I confirm?Tell me what you heard me say.
Say it back to me. Tell me whatyou heard.
Ask clarifying questions. Ask mea clarifying question. So what's
(11:06):
the first c? Call, engage me,get my attention. What's the
second c?
Communicate, inform me, don'tassume. The third c, confirm,
Tell me what you heard me sayand ask me clarifying questions.
Did you catch the pattern? Call,with the a, attention,
(11:26):
communicate, the a, assume,don't assume, and confirm, ask.
These all work together to helpus communicate better.
So the next time you have acommunication breakdown, and
trust me we're going to havefailures in our communication,
We're going to have a failure tocommunicate. There's no doubt.
(11:47):
It happens. We're human. But thenext time this happens, kinda
run these questions through yourmind.
Did we call? Did we call on theperson? Did we engage them? Did
we get their intention? 2, howclearly did I communicate?
How well did I lay it out? Did Igive you enough details, or did
(12:10):
I assume that you already knewor you understood? And then
finally, did I confirm? Did Iask you clarifying questions?
Did I ask you to tell me whatyou heard?
I believe that when we use the 3c's to help ourselves
communicate with other withothers, the 3 c's can make a
(12:33):
great difference in helping uscommunicate clearly. Hey. Thanks
for stopping by today. I reallyappreciate it. I hope this has
been a good program for you, andI hope you put into practice the
3 c's.
And remember, we're in yourcorner for life and work.
Have you ever experienced a failure to
communicate? Do you ever feellike you're misunderstood? Does
communicating ever frustrateyou? If so, stick around. I
think you'll like what you'regonna hear on this edition of
the Ray Sanders LeadershipPodcast.
(00:26):
Hello, everyone. I'm RaySanders, and you're listening to
the Ray Sanders LeadershipPodcast. Welcome back, everyone.
I'm Ray Sanders, and I'm yourhost here on the Ray Sanders
Leadership Podcast. I know youhave a lot of choices out there,
so it really tickles me that youstop by and let me just kinda
join you on your journey today.
(00:47):
You know, I don't know whereyou're at. You might be
traveling down the road, workingout at the gym. You might be
where I was a few weeks back,hanging out at the beach, and
you thought, you know what? I'mgonna check on in on old Sanders
and see what he's up to. Youknow, recently, I had the
opportunity to be with one of myclients, and they asked me, how
can we better communicate on ourteam?
(01:10):
And we developed a littlepresentation, something we call
fuel, filling up every leader.And during fuel, we unpack this
whole idea about communication,and how challenging it is, and
how confusing it can be. Solet's talk just a minute about
communication. You know, what iscommunication? Well, if you look
(01:32):
it up in the dictionary, there'sa lot of different descriptions
that come along, and there's alot of different things that
they say.
But the bottom line is it'sabout using words, sounds, or
signs to express ideas,thoughts, and feelings. Are you
with me? So let's think aboutit. Most of the time, we use
(01:55):
words, whether verbally or on apage, to communicate with those
that we want to talk to orexpress ourselves to. Sometimes
we'll use sounds.
One of the examples I gave inthe meeting that I shared at was
the thought of being, you know,at a basketball game or
something when you're in highschool, and you see a pretty
cheerleader and you go, that'llget some attention. What are you
(02:22):
hoping? What does that mean? Allit is is just a simple sound.
But if you're the right girllooking at the right guy and
you're up in the in thebleachers, and you see him, you
might give him another signal.
You might wink at him, or youmight point your finger at him,
and then curl it up and say,like, hey, come here. I want to
(02:43):
get to know you. So we use wordsand sounds and signs to express
ideas, thoughts, and feelingsall the time, but here's the
deal. Communication can beconfusing. Let me give you some
examples.
Let's talk about different wordsthat have the same meaning. You
(03:04):
know, I grew up, I grew up herein Oklahoma on the on the
plains, were people from theprairie, and believe it or not,
you may not know this about me,but there was a day that I
actually used to ride bulls. Andlet's just say this, I wasn't
very good at it. But growing upin a farming community, it
wasn't unusual that we would goto a a rodeo or ride horses back
(03:26):
in the day, but if I wanted toget my horse to go, there's
several things that I could say.I could say giddy up, or or how
about just go?
All of those giddy up or go,were communicating the same
meaning, but with differentwords. I could say, woah or
(03:50):
stop, and those would be thesame words. They would be
different words but with thesame meaning, different words
but with the same meaning. Sowhat are some words that are
different but also have the samemeaning? Now if I told you bat,
(04:10):
would you think that I meant abaseball bat or a bat that flies
around at night out of a cave?
Same word, different meaning. Orwhat if I said, I see you, or
let's go to the sea, or read andread. Which is it? Same words,
(04:34):
different meaning. Let's faceit.
There's a lot of barriers tocommunication, a lot of barriers
communicate to communication,and I think there's at least 4
that I wanna unpack. The firstone would just be a lack of
clarity, a lack of clarity.Sometimes it's just not clear
what somebody means. Do theymean see, see, read, or read, or
(04:55):
read, or bat, or bat? What dothey mean?
I mean, in Spanish, I could saya llama, and I that would mean
call, or it could mean fire, orit could mean an animal. I mean,
goodness sakes. There's a lot ofopportunities where a lack of
clarity can confusecommunication. Another barrier
to communication would be poorlistening. You know, I think
(05:18):
it's interesting.
If you just if we just look ateach other, isn't it obvious we
have 2 ears and one mouth? If wewould just listen twice as much
as we speak, a lot of times ourcommunication would be a whole
lot more clear. But what do wedo? We get into a conversation,
someone begins talking, someonebegins sharing, and what what
happens? We begin to formalize,we begin putting together our
(05:41):
own thoughts, and we don'tnecessarily interrupt them, but
we kind of check out and weprepare what we want to say.
I would call that poorlistening. Or what about
prejudices or assumptions? Somany times we have someone
speaking to us, and based uponthe way they look, or their
gender, or where they come from,we make some assumptions about
(06:03):
them and their ability, to getthe job done, so to speak. So we
can we have these we have theseprejudices and these assumptions
that make their way into oureveryday life. Not necessarily
always bad and they might beinnocent, but they do get in the
way.
Here's another barrier tocommunication. How about the
(06:25):
misuse of technology? Now here'sthe deal. So many times,
especially among youngergenerations, I have noticed that
people don't speak or they don'ttalk, they text. And what do we
leave out of the conversationwhen all we do is text one
(06:45):
another?
We we can't look into eachother's eyes. We can't discern
each other's voice, but what dowe do? We think that we're the
master writer, and we're gonnawrite out a beautiful text, and
then all of a sudden we'remisunderstood. Did I mean come
here? Did I mean come here?
Or did I mean come here? I mean,all those things play into what
(07:06):
could be meant by something assimple as a text. We just simply
rely too much on text andtechnology in that regard. But
then there's times that weactually just use the phone. We
use the phone, but even that canbe limiting because what?
We can't see body language. Wedon't know if we're frustrating
someone. They could be totallyignoring us or doing something
(07:29):
else. They have us on speakerphone, and who knows what
they're doing. We've all went inthe bathroom and heard the guy
talking on his phone as he wasin the stall, so to speak, and
you're thinking, does anybodyreally know where he's at?
And how many of us have actuallymade a call, maybe in the
privacy of our own home, doingthe very exact same thing? So,
(07:53):
you know, the cell phone isgreat, but texting and calling
can be limiting. So what's best?Well, let's not misuse
technology. Certainly, we couldFaceTime or we could do a Zoom
call or something like that.
Anytime we can add the visual,we can look someone in the eye.
We can look at them and see whattheir body language is saying in
(08:15):
addition to what they might besaying in a text or otherwise or
with their mouth, it's gonnahelp us communicate and get rid
of some of these barriers tocommunication. I'd like to talk
about what I believe are keys togreat communication, and I call
it the 3 c's. The 3 c's arethese, and I want you to
(08:35):
remember them. The first one iscall, the second one is
communicate, and the final oneis confirm.
So what do I mean by call? Whatdo I mean by call? If you're
going to communicate, do I meanpick up the cell phone and call?
Well, sort of. What I reallymean is engage me, call on me,
(08:55):
get my attention.
So remember call and get myattention. If I don't have your
attention and I don't knowyou're listening, how do I know
that I'm ready to begin the nextc, which is communicate. The
second c is communicate, andwhen you can when you
communicate what you want to dois inform me, but you don't want
(09:17):
to assume. You want tocommunicate. You want to lay out
the details.
You wanna make sure that Iunderstand. You don't want to
assume that I know what youmean. How many times have you
been speaking to someone, maybeit's a coworker, maybe it's one
of your kids, maybe it's yourspouse, and you say, you
understand? And what do theyalways say? Yes.
(09:39):
I never will forget being in aclient meeting one day, and I
was helping a president of acompany begin to realize that he
thought people wereunderstanding, but they weren't
always really getting it. And wewere sitting in an executive
team meeting and one of hisexecutives was there and he'd
finished with, this meeting andhe said to the executive as as
he began to walk out the door,he said, do you understand? And
(10:03):
classic. What did the executivesay? Yeah.
I got it, boss. I understand.But then I said, how do you
know? And I said, ask him whathe understood, and what do you
think happened? He explainedwhat he understood and it wasn't
it was close, but it wasn'texactly what the boss wanted.
(10:25):
So it's one thing to call on me,it's one thing to get my
attention, it's another thing tocommunicate, but we don't want
to assume that people reallyunderstand. Which leads us to
the 3rd c, and the 3rd c isthis, confirm. So number 1, I'm
going to call on you, I'm goingto engage you, I'm going to get
your attention. Number 2, I'mgoing to communicate, I'm going
(10:45):
to inform you, but I'm not goingto assume you understand. So
then what do I do?
I confirm. And how do I confirm?Tell me what you heard me say.
Say it back to me. Tell me whatyou heard.
Ask clarifying questions. Ask mea clarifying question. So what's
(11:06):
the first c? Call, engage me,get my attention. What's the
second c?
Communicate, inform me, don'tassume. The third c, confirm,
Tell me what you heard me sayand ask me clarifying questions.
Did you catch the pattern? Call,with the a, attention,
(11:26):
communicate, the a, assume,don't assume, and confirm, ask.
These all work together to helpus communicate better.
So the next time you have acommunication breakdown, and
trust me we're going to havefailures in our communication,
We're going to have a failure tocommunicate. There's no doubt.
(11:47):
It happens. We're human. But thenext time this happens, kinda
run these questions through yourmind.
Did we call? Did we call on theperson? Did we engage them? Did
we get their intention? 2, howclearly did I communicate?
How well did I lay it out? Did Igive you enough details, or did
(12:10):
I assume that you already knewor you understood? And then
finally, did I confirm? Did Iask you clarifying questions?
Did I ask you to tell me whatyou heard?
I believe that when we use the 3c's to help ourselves
communicate with other withothers, the 3 c's can make a
(12:33):
great difference in helping uscommunicate clearly. Hey. Thanks
for stopping by today. I reallyappreciate it. I hope this has
been a good program for you, andI hope you put into practice the
3 c's.
And remember, we're in yourcorner for life and work.
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