"Miscommunication is at the heart of many of our problems as individuals and as a society, and at the heart of much of that miscommunication is the fact that most people don't have very good listening skills," said David Cunningham, senior program leader with Landmark Education, a global enterprise that offers communication training and development programs, like its flagship course the Landmark Forum, in more than 120 cities. Landmark Education helps people discover their own barriers to effective communication and develop mastery in both listening and expressing themselves.

 

Cunningham advised that, with practice, anyone can master the three key principles of good communication: listening, distinguishing and creating. Used together, these principles can dramatically impact the quality of your life.

 

People typically are not as good at listening as they think they are, Cunningham asserted: "We're often so busy thinking about what we're about to say or remembering the last time we interacted with the person that we are likely paying more attention to our own thoughts than to what the other person is really saying."

 

The second principle of good communication, distinguishing, involves learning how to tell the difference between what was said and what you think was said.

 

"Once you're really committed to hearing what the other person is saying and are actively listening," Cunningham said, "then you practice looking for where you are adding your own interpretation of what that person said. We do this every day, but the trick is, we're not usually aware we're doing it."

 

An example, Cunningham said, is when the boss requests a meeting at the end of the day. "You might hear, 'You're in trouble,' or 'We've got a problem,' or even, 'I'm sorry, but we're going to have to let you go.' And all she really said was, 'Could you step into my office around 4 o'clock?' You start reacting to what you think she said, not what she actually did say."

 

Using language to create is the third communication principle. Typical conversations use language to report, Cunningham explained. "We talk about what happened, the weather, what we're going to do, how we feel and so on. Which is all fine, but it doesn't actively create anything."

 

Masterful communicators use language to actively create. "Do you say, 'I'm the person to do this project,' only when you have iron-clad evidence from the past that that's the case?" Cunningham concluded. "If so, you're missing out on some of the greatest power communication has. You can say, 'I'm the person to do this project,' and in saying it, it can not only make that real for the other person, it can also have you be in action to make it happen."