Why Your Message Might be Misinterpreted

Have you ever shared a message and been surprised by the receiver’s reaction? Maybe you said something you thought was innocuous, but the person responded by taking offense. Or you asked them to do one thing, and they did something entirely different? Why is it so hard to communicate? Here are a few reasons why your message might be misinterpreted.

Missing Context

Context is integral to how humans process information. If your audience doesn’t have the same information, background, or schema as you, they’re likely to interpret your message differently than you expect. That’s especially problematic if their different interpretation leads to inappropriate behaviors or unproductive reactions.

For example, imagine you have a new member of your account team. Before your weekly account planning session, you pass along an email from the client peppered with colorful language, a litany of complaints, and a threat that he will pull his business. Before your meeting, the new team member is sweating it out, worried she’ll be fired before even getting started. She walks into the meeting with dark circles under her eyes and a detailed plan for how to remedy every problem (and anticipate a few that haven’t happened yet). You chastise yourself for not filling her in on good old Roger sooner. This week’s email was tame relative to normal, and he’s been a client for 23 years. Whoops. A little context would have gone a long way.

Individual Differences

Another reason your message might not have the intended effect is that people respond differently to the same stimulus (i.e., message, body language, tone, etc.). I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen one person attempting to be very clear and dispassionate in delivering a message only to be told they were harsh or too direct. In these cases, the sender often fails to create the desired effect because the receiver feels hurt or becomes defensive.

The opposite happens, too. A person trying to be kind and diplomatic obfuscates the message and is surprised (and annoyed) when it doesn’t land. But the receiver didn’t even hear the message because it was too indirect or sugar-coated to register as an issue.

To reduce the impact of these individual differences, most teams benefit from a personality assessment tool that allows you to calibrate on dimensions like directness or authoritativeness. My favorite tool is the Birkman Method®, which includes multiple measures that help you dish out your message in the form most likely to allow them to swallow it.

Cultural Differences

Early in my career, I managed a young woman from Hong Kong. She was intelligent, kind, and eager. Although her English was a bit tentative, that was the least of our communication challenges. The bigger challenge was that she reacted to not understanding what I was saying by laughing. I had no idea that she wasn’t understanding what I wanted from her, so I left her in the deep end over and over. Once I learned this tendency, I knew to respond to her laughter with offers of assistance.

Another fascinating cultural difference is the diverse interpretation of eye contact across cultures. I was raised in an Anglo-Canadian household, and making eye contact was a sign of respect in our home. Even in school, it was common to hear a teacher say, “Look at me when I’m talking to you, young lady!” I recently spoke with a client who grew up in the Caribbean. She told me the exact opposite story about eye contact in her home. Looking an elder in the eye would have been a sign of confrontation and disrespect. Fascinating!

It makes a huge difference if you’re trying to convey respect and your actions are being interpreted as the exact opposite! The best way to uncover and appreciate these cultural differences is to talk about communication with your team. What are the norms that you grew up with? Have you lived and worked in different cultures; if so, what have you noticed about the discrepancies and sources of misunderstanding? How will you come to a common set of norms for communicating in your team?

Contradictory Body Language

Have you ever listened to someone telling you one thing but whose body language was screaming the opposite? The first example that comes to mind for me is the person who says, “I’m fine,” while every muscle in their body is tensed, clenched, or pinched.

When what you say doesn’t match what you show, the receiver is more likely to believe your body language than your words. Are you saying you’re “ready to collaborate” while dropping eye contact and slumping your shoulders? Are you saying you’re interested and listening while twitching and nervously shaking your leg? Tune in to your body language to ensure it’s not undermining your message.

Baggage and Bias

One final source of misunderstanding in communication is bias, which comes from our prejudices about the sender or the message itself. Our brains are not the logical, unbiased machines we might wish they were. Instead, they are highly susceptible to interpreting things subjectively based on preconceived notions.

You might send a message to a colleague that you intend to offer assistance to help them deliver an excellent presentation. If they like and respect you, your colleague might interpret your offer as kind and generous. If, on the other hand, they think your ego is too big, they might interpret that message as condescending. I refer to that as the “Mother-in-Law-Effect” because you might interpret the same message differently if it comes from your mother versus your mother-in-law.

It isn’t just people who trigger biases; you might also find that a word has baggage for you. I remember working in an organization where I used the term “empowerment” and watched everyone in the room gag. Here, I thought I was using a positive expression that would excite them when, instead, I was raising the demons of a misguided initiative that had tarnished the word empowerment forever. Who knew?

In Conclusion

It would be nice if you could transmit a message and have confidence that it would be received as you intended; unfortunately, with most people, you probably can’t. Differences in context, personality, and culture cause people to interpret messages idiosyncratically. The complexity of body language and bias exacerbates those challenges. As you work with colleagues long enough, you may be able to calibrate more easily, but most of us need to put more care into ensuring our intent leads to the desired impact.

Additional Resources

The 1 thing you can do to improve communication today

Tips to improve the connection when you communicate

When Culture Doesn’t Translate by Erin Meyer

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