Ask non-judgmental clarifying questions, be curious and enter the conversation prepared to be surprised, says Judy Rees. Facilitator and author of Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds, Judy says we’re too reluctant to ask clarifying questions, which in turn leads to miscommunication.

What happens when people are mis-communicating? They’re assuming that those around them know what they mean by their words, when very often they don’t.

What’s At The Heart of Miscommunication?

More often than not the message that we’re transmitting isn’t being received the way we mean it to. When people are not communicating the biggest thing that happens is that they assume they know what others mean by their words, says Judy.

If the other person talks about happiness and you’ve done some thinking about happiness, the normal thing is to assume that the other person means the same thing that you do. The weird thing is that they don’t, they never do!

This is an excellent episode about what it means to speak using clean language, using non judgmental, clarifying questions and getting to the bottom of what a person really means. People are reluctant to ask clarifying questions because we aren’t used to doing it, but it’s something we have to learn to do.

The key is about framing, says Judy. So saying: “I want to understand what you mean by what you say” when trying to understand something.