Challenges with delegation, meeting locations, and completion of tasks usually indicate a communication problem. There are two areas that cause a breakdown in communication: being specific and quantifying. If you learn to how to be effective in these areas, you will dramatically reduce your communication problems.

Be Specific and Get What You Want

Unclear or ambiguous communication can lead to very ugly problems. Terms or phrases such as “a few” or “some” or “later” or “soon” can lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication.

You probably have your own “filler” or vague words you use to stay non-specific. These words are great in situations where being specific isn’t necessary, such as when you tell a co-worker that you’re just finishing a project and will meet her in lunch room, “in a minute.” Of course everyone knows that doesn’t mean exactly 60 seconds. It means soon. But what is “soon”? For some people that may mean 15 minutes. To others “soon” may mean only three minutes. Vague words often mean different things to different people because word is relative to listener’s personal paradigms.

If you tell an experienced speaker to expect “a lot of people” in her audience, she may expect to see two thousand people sitting in an auditorium. An inexperienced speaker may only picture 35 people in audience when told same thing.

Tell a group of people to arrive “around five o’clock” and you will have people showing up anywhere from 4:30 to 7:30. (I have family members that believe they’re on time if they arrive on right day!)

A deadline is set to have a project finished “by end of week.” Does that mean project should be completed by 9 am on Friday morning or 5 pm Friday evening?

Be specific with what you want and what you are talking about and you will be more successful with your communications.

Quantify and Create Tangible Understanding

If you ask a child if she took a cookie from cookie jar, how will she respond if she is indeed guilty of stealing an Oreo? Of course, she will avoid eye contact as she tells you that she was nowhere near forbidden dessert.

This is similar to response you will get from an adult who feels he has betrayed your confidence or has bad news to tell. People in Western Culture who don’t make eye contact are viewed as untrustworthy, unbelievable, or unsure. Confident people make solid eye contact.

Be careful, however, not to overpower a shy person with too much eye contact. If you feel that you are conversing with an unsure or overly shy person, don’t stare at them too much in an attempt to make eye contact. You don’t want to overwhelm them.