"Measure twice, saw once"

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This proverb refers to the carpenter's rule, which highlights the waste of time and materials when a carpenter hastily assumes they measured correctly the first time.

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We may not have considered applying this idea to the domain of listening and speaking. When we have a desired intention or direction for a conversation, listening is like measuring (assessing) what they are saying or intending to say in order for us to know how to speak (saw) in order to move the conversation along the direction we'd like in our partnership with that person.

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"The meaning of the communication is the response that you get."

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This NLP precept helps refocus us when we're not getting the response we want.

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Yet there are two factors that affect how effective our communication is likely to be heard and responded to. First, the accuracy of our listening helps us know how to speak to create the impact we want. Second, based upon our listening (our measuring), how well we speak (our sawing) in order to make that desired impact.

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Although being effective in both are necessary to more reliably achieve our bigger intention, I will focus here only on effective listening since effective speaking depends on it. 

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Listen twice

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Although I could blame the language barrier for the sometime miscommunication that I have with my Chinese friends, there is something more fundamental at play. With my Chinese friend Heidi, we rarely miscommunicate because she quickly asks for clarification if she doesn't understand something I've said. In contrast many other Chinese friends will "fill in the blanks" and make the assumption that they understood clearly and fully what I had just said. Consequently, their response is usually a non sequitur to what I had just said.

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But the issue remains the same even when we're communicating with someone who speaks the same native language. In fact, it could be worse because we are more likely to assume, "it's so obvious what they just said," assuming there is not a language barrier when there is.

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Have you built in a "could I be making an invalid assumption" filter?

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We can never get away with not making some assumptions about the intended meanings of certain words and non-word communications from others. However, we can become attuned to what assumptions we might be making that are more likely to be inaccurate in comparison with other assumptions by learning to ask ourselves some filter questions like these.

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• "Am I certain about the context they are speaking inside of?"

• "Are their words specific and grounded enough for me to be fairly certain of their denotation?"

• "Am I listening for the intent behind the words that may be different than if I interpret the words literally?"

• "Am I providing reflective listening properly to help them feel I am listening and to give them a chance to correct my listening if it needs adjustment?"

• "Could what they spoke or how they spoke be interpreted another way, perhaps more generously?"

• "What question might I ask to help ensure the understanding to support the desired direction?"

• "Are they responding to me in a way that indicates that I may be off track in supporting the desired direction of our conversation? What inaccurate assumptions have I made already that could have contributed to that?"

• "Am I pausing to ensure accurate listening before I start to frame my response?"

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The most important "measuring and sawing" of our life

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Whenever we are listening, we are measuring. Whenever we are speaking, we are sawing. Through these two processes, we build and maintain the life we want (or don’t want).

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Let's get good at it. 

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Listen twice, speak once.