A Failure to Communicate

"You're not listening to what I am saying!"

"Oh, yes I am, you said..."

We've all been down that conversational road, and we know that unless something changes, it's not going to end well. Both sides are talking past one another and not listening to try and understand the other person. An argument will never end well when both parties hear what they want to hear just to prove their side right. When you try to win an argument instead of the person, it gets messy. Often there is not any real malice intended, but we don't understand what the other side is saying or trying to say. It might be a failure in communication or it might be a prejudice against what is being said. There is talking, but no communication.

How can we avoid this? We don't act like the Captain in Cool Hand Luke and start beating people over the head because they are not listening to us. We can avoid this by not attributing evil intentions to everyone that disagrees with us on every point. We can listen and ask questions of people to make sure we are hearing what they are trying to say before we grab our pitchforks. We can go to someone privately and ask them for clarification. Don't be so vain, to think this (or every) article is about you. Maybe, just maybe, the problem is that you didn't understand or didn't read it closely enough. Maybe you are reading more into the article, sermon, post than was intended by the person who posted it.

It is not acceptable to deliberately mishear our opponent. When we know what our opponent is saying and we know that there is disagreement, we have to deal honestly. Truth is nothing to play around with and nothing to compromise on; but we do the truth a disservice when we don't rightly represent those people and those positions we oppose. Don't defend the truth by lying about your opponent. How can we claim to stand for the truth, but don't care to understand the truth in our arguments? You need to be "swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath," according to James 1:19. This should especially be true when dealing with good brothers who disagree with us. Once you wrongly attribute malice to someone who disagrees with you because it makes it easier to refute them, but you've lost your opportunity to convince him of your position and have made an enemy out of your brother. To deal honestly with truth or with another person you have to listen to them, to what they are really saying. Listen to them and deal with what they actually say and what they mean, not what you think they said, not what you want them to mean, or what you wish they would have said.

The Harvard Business Review has a good article on talking past each other in business situations. In the article, they list some items that might be helpful to us. I have slightly edited the bullet points below:

Stop doing this:

• assuming that others see what you see, feel what you feel, and think what you think
• recognize that emotions, such as fear and distrust, change how you and others interpret conversations
• thinking you understand and remember what others say, when you really only remember what you think about what they’ve said.
• underestimating your own blind spots

Start doing that:

• asking open-ended questions, to which you don’t know the answers, (i.e. What influenced your thinking?)
• listening to the answers to understand them, not just to refute them
• Be clear in defining your terms