Are You Lying To Yourself And Don't Know It?
Communication filters become blinders if you are not careful
There is an old saying about salespeople that you may have heard. “How do you know when a salesman is lying? … His lips are moving.” This idea of salespeople as lying, manipulative people interested only in closing the deal, getting their commission, and moving on to the next prospect is common and, unfortunately, accurate in many cases.1 For this reason, new prospects are often skeptical of everything a salesperson says, and overcoming this distrust barrier must be an early goal in any sales situation. No matter how sincerely the salesperson may want to help solve a problem, the prospect is hearing “Liar- Liar” with every word, and nobody buys from somebody they do not trust.
Do you recall a post from a few weeks ago that talked about the energy shift in sales meetings that happened when prospective customers shifted from passive listeners to curious potential customers? At that time, it was presented as a perception shift, which was accurate, but something else happened at that point. Their listening filters shifted as a result of the shift.
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In prior posts we talked about filters in a general sense, and this time I want to dig deeper into filters and look at how they work to either promote or limit accurate understanding. To do this we are going to start by taking a look at how filters are used for radio communication. It may seem unrelated, but the concepts are totally applicable because your radio tuner is actually a type of communication filter.
When you “tune” your radio to a station in your car you are actually changing the operation of something called a band-pass-filter. Here in Chicago, I often listen to #WXRT which is at 93.1 FM. When I set my radio tuner to 93.1 FM, I hear only WXRT which is what I want. Sometimes, however, I want classical music, so I set my dial to #WFMT which is at 98.7FM. A simple process that we take for granted but what has just happened is pretty remarkable. WXRT doesn’t disappear when I tune to WFMT, and my neighbor can be listening to WXRT in her car at the same time I am listening to WFMT in mine. The bandpass filter in my car radio allows only the WFMT signal (classical information) to pass and ignores the WXRT signal. Her car radio allows only the WXRT signal (rock and roll information) to pass and ignores the WFMT signal.
This is the basic function of a communication filter: To allow desired information to pass through and to block the undesirable information. Hmmm … sound familiar? Remember our earlier discussion about confirmation bias? To remind you, a definition from #Wikipedia of confirmation bias is the “tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.” In other words, all of our personal communication filters are “tuned” to “hear” only what we want to hear and it disregards the rest. This isn’t a new concept and was even used in a 1968 #PaulSimon song called “The Boxer.”
While bandpass filters are incredibly useful for enjoying a specific radio station, they are problematic for interpersonal communication which happens on multiple levels. Interpersonal communication includes a combination of words, vocal inflection, eye movement, body language, smell, touch, and any number of other communication signals. Each of these signals presents clues related to what the other person intends to communicate which our brain uses to create an interpretation of the sender’s message.
If we only “hear” information that confirms what we already expect to be true (basically bandpass filtering their message) then what we understand from a person’s communication may only be a fraction of what they are actually trying to convey. Unfortunately, this means that the likelihood of us understanding something new from them is greatly reduced. The result: You may mistakenly believe that you fully understood someone when you may have only gotten part of their total message.
It is like looking at a color drawing using a black and white filter. All of the color richness that the artist intended when creating the drawing will be flattened into shades of gray. Try to imagine “Water Lilies” by #ClaudeMonet or #VanGogh’s “Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples” in black in white. Definitely not the same.
There is a classic 1903 painting by #PabloPicasso called “The Old Guitarist” which is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago.2 I remember being amazed when, as a kid on a school field trip, the teacher had us look to see if we could find the young woman in the painting. None of us believed she was there but we did it anyway. You should have heard the amazement with the kids when they actually saw her, and the frustration expressed by the kids who did not see her! (Check out the link to the painting and then click on the black and white filtered version contained on the webpage if you cannot see her.) Strangely, after we saw her, it was difficult not to see her! The brain truly is complicated and incredible. Where at first my filters only allowed the old man to come through, they “retuned” to see the young woman and they seemed to stay on that station, ignoring the old man! This implies that our filters are tunable if we are willing to let that happen, which offers me hope. As I have gotten older, I now see both at the same time.
We all have communication filters and to deny their existence is setting yourself up to not only misunderstand others but to be misunderstood yourself. If you understand your personal filters, you have the ability to watch them to see if they are furthering or hampering your understanding of what others are communicating to you. Conversely, if you are aware of your audience’s filters then “tuning” your message such that it will be best received by those filters is your best chance at being properly understood. Proper tuning will at least let your message get past the filters intact allowing complete communication to happen.
But filters are only a part of the problem with profound misunderstanding. Perception resonance is the second part and that will be the topic of next week’s post. Thank you as always for taking the time to stop by and read my newsletter.
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For more about how to be better understood, take a look at my recently published book “Getting Through: A Systematic Approach To Being Understood” (ISBN: 9798987950807) available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers.
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I’ve had to clean up the mess left from a prior salesperson who had a “close ‘em then leave ‘em” temperament when taking over a their territory, and it was no fun. I spent the first few months just getting them to meet with me and learn to trust again. It leaves emotional scars that buyers struggle to get over.
All of these paintings are on display in the Art Institute of Chicago, which is a wonderful Chicago treasure. This is the cultural side of Chicago that often does not get enough attention. Check out this link to get a taste of the cultural variety that the third largest city in the USA has to offer.