Checking for understanding
Rather than assume you are getting through, take the trouble to check it out. There are different ways to do this, from asking directly for a summary to listening to your partner’s responses for signs of misunderstanding.
Providing Summaries
A good way to promote fuller understanding is to summarize your main points every once in a while. The idea is to pull all the threads of the conversation together in order to check whether your story is clear, your message and its implications have hit home, your point of view has been captured, or your case is being made. And, since summaries often have a ‘winding things up’ aspect to them, they are implicit invitations to have a dialogue.
Rather than assume you are getting through, take the trouble to check it out. There are different ways to do this, from asking directly for a summary to listening to your partner’s responses for signs of misunderstanding.
Providing Summaries
A good way to promote fuller understanding is to summarize your main points every once in a while. The idea is to pull all the threads of the conversation together in order to check whether your story is clear, your message and its implications have hit home, your point of view has been captured, or your case is being made. And, since summaries often have a ‘winding things up’ aspect to them, they are implicit invitations to have a dialogue.
Asking for Summaries
Instead of merely providing summaries, you can also ask those in the receiving role to give you a summary. You do this, not as a challenge to test their understanding, but to check your own success at communicating your ideas and to help them understand.
Looking for clues
An audience can provide all sorts of clues about how well the communication is going. After ‘reading’ the audience's reaction, the sender may need to reevaluate their communication tactic and try another approach. For example, a performer might say to himself: "My timing seems to be off. I need to slow down a bit." Or the speaker at a conference might say to herself, "Their eyes are beginning to wander. I had better cut this short and end with a bang." Good communicators, when in the sender role, also look for clues in the receiver’s reaction to what they are saying. One valuable source of information is body language - everything from facial expressions to hand movements and posture. Some common warning signs are: wandering eyes, fiddling fingers, shuffling feet, a secret glance at a watch, and a slumping posture. Not all clues are nonverbal. The ways in which receivers respond can also provide clues.
Ask directly
Another way of confirming whether you’re getting your key points over clearly and that your conversational partner has understood, is simply to ask. Things like, "Does any of this make any sense?" or, "I'm not sure if I've made myself clear. I'd like to know what you've picked up from what I've said." There are many different ways of inviting the other person to feed back their understanding. However, be careful. If you check directly for understanding either too often or too blatantly, the other person might think, "She must think I'm stupid." So reserve your requests for confirmation for the bigger points, or for the end of a chunk of conversation. It's better to take a preventive approach. If your conversation partners are not ‘spontaneous dialoguers’, bring them in early on and more frequently.
Instead of merely providing summaries, you can also ask those in the receiving role to give you a summary. You do this, not as a challenge to test their understanding, but to check your own success at communicating your ideas and to help them understand.
Looking for clues
An audience can provide all sorts of clues about how well the communication is going. After ‘reading’ the audience's reaction, the sender may need to reevaluate their communication tactic and try another approach. For example, a performer might say to himself: "My timing seems to be off. I need to slow down a bit." Or the speaker at a conference might say to herself, "Their eyes are beginning to wander. I had better cut this short and end with a bang." Good communicators, when in the sender role, also look for clues in the receiver’s reaction to what they are saying. One valuable source of information is body language - everything from facial expressions to hand movements and posture. Some common warning signs are: wandering eyes, fiddling fingers, shuffling feet, a secret glance at a watch, and a slumping posture. Not all clues are nonverbal. The ways in which receivers respond can also provide clues.
Another way of confirming whether you’re getting your key points over clearly and that your conversational partner has understood, is simply to ask. Things like, "Does any of this make any sense?" or, "I'm not sure if I've made myself clear. I'd like to know what you've picked up from what I've said." There are many different ways of inviting the other person to feed back their understanding. However, be careful. If you check directly for understanding either too often or too blatantly, the other person might think, "She must think I'm stupid." So reserve your requests for confirmation for the bigger points, or for the end of a chunk of conversation. It's better to take a preventive approach. If your conversation partners are not ‘spontaneous dialoguers’, bring them in early on and more frequently.
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