Instead of in-person classes, training companies have moved to online teaching platforms. Yoga classes are conducted on Zoom. Even ice-skating lessons have been taught online. While the online space can be a viable substitute for learning, this can lead to less effective learning environments, and much can be lost in translation. An example of how easily we stumble with messaging is the social experiment of sharing a statement and outcome with one person.  More often than not, after passing the statement around a circle of people, the statement becomes distorted.

Listen carefully to people as they often share something along the lines of, “She is taking that over there so everyone knows where it is.” It is most likely a smart idea to ask the following questions.

• She who?
• Taking what over where?
• Who is everyone?
• What is “it?”

In a recent Gallup survey, only 7% of workers in the United States agree that communication is accurate. That suggests a staggering number of workers fall into the category of the miscommunication pothole. That is a gap that makes me wonder just how often we think we understand when that is not the case, or that we are positive we are understood when nothing could be further from accurate.

Many of us are in such a hurry that we fail to provide detailed information that clearly speaks to what we are communicating at any given time. These are the moments when I enlist a tool called, Powerful Questions. These are questions that we tend not to consider and that when used effectively, get to the heart of what is being communicated and not being communicated.