Shanli Liu shares three ways to cut miscommunication: keep messages short to prevent defensiveness, stay calm and speak slowly so people hear your words not your emotion, and use neutral phrases like "I'm noticing we're not on the same page" instead of accusations.
3 ways to avoid miscommunication. Number 1: Shorten your message in text and email. The longer the message, the shorter the clarity and the greater chance for miscommunication. When you send that long message, it's like highlighting every word in a book. Nobody can tell which ones are most important, so what happens is the other person chooses it for you, and it's almost always one that gets them defensive. Number 2: Stay in your calm. The more emotionally charged you get— raising your voice, rushing your words— the more people hear your emotions and ignore your words. You can prevent that when you slow your silences down. And number 3, one of my favorites: use observation phrases. For example, "I'm noticing that we're not on the same page here," instead of "You're clearly not listening to me." Or, "I'm hearing that there's some confusion between us," instead of "You don't even care about what I have to say." Observation phrases keep things neutral and keeps the other person from getting defensive. So try that and follow me.
