The Greatest 15 Myths of Communication

#5 Myth: Meaning is in words

Semantics is the study of meaning in language. It explains how two individuals searching Google for “hot looking person” want different results. One person wants information on an attractive person while the other person wants information on global warming. Google invests billions of dollars into semantics for its search engine algorithms to determine whether 12-year-old Johnny searching “hot looking person” wants good-looking people or information for his geography assignment. The implications of good semantics is huge. Without good semantics, search engines die like our relationships.

While meaning can be in words, a word is only a medium for understanding to travel, much like the air is a medium for light to travel. “Words are only postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap,” said George Bernard Shaw.

A black car may bring prestige, wealth, power, and speed into your mind’s eye. For someone else, a black car may mean sickness, death, and loss. When a black car comes to mind, we might see Donald Trump and prestige, but someone else might see the black limousine carrying their mother’s casket to her burial ground.

Words are representations of images, symbols, and events; they do not solely give messages their meaning. The attachments we have to what we say and hear gives communication most of its meaning. You do not react to a person’s words; you react to your meaning of a person’s words. Someone calling you “a loser with no life” will not affect you when you give those words a meaning of, “he’s just angry” or “if he was aware of personal growth he wouldn’t call me names – whatever he calls me, doesn’t affect me”. Understanding this myth and using its truth in your life will take your communication and personality to a whole new level.

#4 Myth: Speaking talent is important for effective communication

Speaking with a good vocabulary, clarity, directness, and structure does not equal effective communication. Light travels through air like communication travels through speaking skills. Just because the path of flow is clear and smooth does not mean the destination or source is desirable.

Most business communications seem determined to convert this myth into truth. Presentations, mission statements, and team leadership seem to work around the principles of clarity, directness, and good vocabulary. What an awful way of communicating! It makes employees hate work and discourages customers from buying the company’s products or services.

Each year, Chip Heath, co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, gets his students to persuade fellow class members that nonviolent crime is a major issue in the United States. Heath describes a major problem his students at Stanford University have when they give presentations: the students attending one of the world’s best universities are intelligent and present their ideas with good speaking skills.

Each student is given one minute to present their persuasive speech while the other students rate his or her speech’s effectiveness. The highest-rated students present statistics with poise, smoothness, and charisma – the typical understanding of effective communication in business. A few minutes following the presentations, however, Heath gets the students to remember any concept from any of the presentations. “When students are asked to recall the speeches, 64 percent remember the stories,” says Heath. “Only 5 percent remember any individual statistic… almost no correlation emerges between ‘speaking talent’ and the ability to make ideas stick.” The foreign students with poor English speaking abilities are equally persuasive as native students.

Businesses are made up of individuals. A business is one entity that only represents the individuals within. Lose the idea that you need to “strive to become a leader in the industry while maintaining a key focus on adhering to superior customer service”. Reading such statements make me puke! Any business communication, whether your inspiring a team or persuading a CEO, does not persuade on statistics, structure, and effective speaking skills. People are persuaded from stories, emotion, analogies, self-interest, and a little bit of logic. Speaking talent is not as important as you think it is for effective communication.

#3 Myth: More communication is better

More money is better. More power is better. More friends is better. Thinking that more of something good can be a problem. Give a poor man millions of dollars, a business, a great network of friends, and he may lose it all. The poor man may not have the knowledge to successfully manage such financial, capital, and human assets.

More of a bad thing only amplifies the problem. Spending more cash does not resolve credit card debt. Eating more junk food is not going to fix your health. Fighting with your partner will not help your relationship if you continue poor communication.

Moreover, some issues are better left untouched. Rose Macaulay said, “It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.” It may seem that this myth is the opposite to the myth “communicating a hidden problem worsens the problem”, but each have their own uses in various situations. Much like laughing, there are good and bad times to use each communication myth.

Sometimes a person can be so emotionally closed-off that they directly request you to keep quiet. What I do in this situation is use the technique of reflective responses to empathize with the person’s anger, frustration, or other emotion they are experiencing. I will say something along the lines of, “Seeing [whatever the issue is] makes you feel [feeling] because you need [whatever the need is].” However, sometimes a person’s shield is too strong for any communication to get through. Sometimes you need to shut up, respect people’s requests, and do as they say.

When there is less communication, there is more silence – and silence is powerful. Silence marinates the conversation into the mind. Silence is where change takes place. Change occurs in the mind; not in words. You cannot expect a person to fully comprehend what you are saying while they listen to your words. Use silence to increase understanding and boost your persuasion abilities.

While more communication can create further poor communication, amplify problems better left untouched, and limit the power of silence; less communication helps us understand. Precision can be more dramatic and memorable. In this case, less is more.

#2 Myth: Nonverbal communication accounts for 93% of total communication

The number two myth is a close contender for the greatest communication myth. Nonetheless, this myth is the most widespread communication lie, quickly spreading from many nonverbal communication articles and books that teach 93% of communication is nonverbal. Nearly every time nonverbal communication is discussed, you will hear this myth. The misunderstanding that nonverbal communication contributes 93% to all communication is the most quoted and misquoted piece of information in communication – ever.

If 93% of communication is nonverbal, learning a new language would be a breeze. Should this second greatest myth of communication be true, we could easily talk in different languages because words would make up an insignificant amount of communication.

Here is the truth about this myth. Albert Mehrabian, professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California in Los Angeles, and Susan Ferris in a study titled Inference of Attitudes from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels, looked at the contribution of verbal and nonverbal signals to total communication. The two researchers had participants listen to prerecorded voices of single words, such as “maybe”, while looking at black and white photographs of facial expressions. The participants were told the tonality of voices and facial expressions communicated either disliking, liking, or neutrality. They were then asked to choose between the three attitudes for each recording. The study found facial expressions contribute 55% to communication while vocalics contribute 38% (a 3:2 ratio).

Mehrabian later on in his book Silent Messages: Implicit Communication of Emotions and Attitudes referred to the findings from his study as the 7%-38%-55% rule, a rule defining what factors give meaning to our words. The rule states that 7% of meaning is in the spoken words, 38% of meaning is in how we say the words, and 55% of meaning is in body language. Mehrabian explicitly states in follow up discussions on his studies and book that the 93% of nonverbal contribution to communication applies only when someone discusses his or her likes and dislikes. He says his findings were not intended to be applied to communication in general.

When a guy discusses his likes, you will see his energy rise. He will smile, talk more enthusiastically, show interest, vary his tonality, move around, and give off other nonverbal messages he likes the subject. Similarly, when he discusses his dislikes, you will see his drop in energy. He will frown, talk in a bitter manner, show disinterest, have a boring tonality, move less, and give off other nonverbal messages that he dislikes the subject. When listening to this guy talk about his likes and dislikes, 93% of your belief that he is telling the truth comes from nonverbal communication. If this guy frowned, talked in a bitter manner, and used boring vocalics when he supposedly talked about his likes, you would conclude he disliked what he was talking about.

#1 Myth: Good communication has taken place

While other communication myths can be shifted up or down a few spots amongst the top fifteen list, this myth remains concreted as the number one communication myth. The greatest myth you likely experience on a day-to-day basis is thinking you have communicated well with someone. George Bernard Shaw, recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature, said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Communication is a buzzword that has too often been misused. You think you just experienced a great conversation, but all that took place was some talk and feel-good emotions. Forget thinking that good communication is speaking with logic, telling the truth, expressing your intelligence, adapting to people’s communication styles, communicating as much as you can, making people feel good, making yourself feel good, keeping the two of you calm, or solving a problem.

Good communication does not take place when only these things happen; rather, it is a point of open understanding (the NVC process is one of the best techniques to build understanding for good communication) where people walk away from the conversation feeling better. Good communication is determined by people’s responses.

It is easy to blame other people on poor communication, but this is just another myth – a lie to thwart the necessity for truth and change. You are responsible for the communication in your life. You are aware of the greatest 15 myths of communication; other people in your life will not be. It is up to you to bring the truth of these myths into your conversations.

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About the Author

Joshua Uebergang, aka "Tower of Power", teaches social skills to help shy persons build friends and influence people. Visit his blog and sign-up free to get communication techniques, relationship-boosting strategies, and life-building tips by email, along with blog updates, and more! Go now to http://www.towerofpower.com.au/free/

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