Wiio’s “Laws of Communication.
As I write this, I have this huge blue file on my desk. It contains notes from many leadership training sessions I have attended over the years in my leadership journey. As a way of reminding myself of these lessons and examining how leadership has evolved, I thought of sharing some of these lessons here.
The one I am reading now has an accompanying timetable entitled, TWR Africa Leadership Summit, April 2004. That was a long time ago, but the lessons haven’t changed much. This lesson is about Communication as a core competency of Servant Leaders.
It is here where Wiio’s “Laws” of Communication are introduced. Osmo Wiio was a Finnish researcher of human communication. His laws of communication are the human communications equivalent of Murphy’s Laws.
Wiio’s laws state that:
· If communication can fail, it will.
· If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which does the most harm.
· There is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message.
· The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed.
Wiio also observes that anytime there are two people conversing, there are six people in the conversation. Think about that next time you are having coffee with a friend😊
1. Who you think you are
2. Who you think the other person is
3. Who you think the other person thinks you are
4. Who the other person thinks they are
5. Who the other person thinks you are
6. Who the other person thinks you think they are.
This leads the servant leader to practice responsible listening and responsible speaking.
In responsible listening, the leader accepts responsibility for understanding what other people say, no matter how poorly they communicate instead of showing frustration with poor communicators, the servant leaders display compassion and understanding. They choose to clarify and understand the total message. The leaders are cognizant of fact that our listening is normally influenced by:
1. Selective interpretation
2. Selective retention.
In responsible Speaking, the leader accepts responsibility for people understanding what the leader says, no matter how poorly they listen.
People stop listening when.
1. We speak too long
2. We talk about features not benefits
3. We provide solutions to their problems before they ask for them.
Revisiting these notes has reminded me that as a servant leader, I need to act responsibly in both my listening and my speaking and that I can show empathy in how I listen to those I lead no matter how poorly they communicate.
I have also been reminded to accept responsibility for how I am understood by those I lead, no matter how poorly I think the listen.
When there is misunderstanding in communication, the servant leader takes responsibility; one for the team.
How do we accept responsibility for understanding what other people say when we are their leaders? How do we take responsibility for being misunderstood by those we consider poor listeners?
Bernice Gatere