The meaning of communication is the response you get

Hello friends!

In this text, I will explain to you how Neuro-Linguistic Programming understands communication. Of course, it is a quick and easy text on the subject that will deal, in more detail, with the results of the communication or, in other words, its objective. Also check out our Free NLP Course

In the Course, you will learn What NLP is, as well as the main assumptions and specific techniques such as the technique to find goals, to forgive, to decide, among many others. But, returning to today’s text, let’s talk about communication and its results

Before we start, it is always interesting to talk about the definition of the topic to be addressed. Explaining what communication is could take us too far. Books and books have already been written about and there are several approaches within linguistics, semiotics, philosophy of language, literary theory, etc and etc.

For our purposes, we can define communication in an understandable way: to communicate is to make common, that is, it is to share information, it is an exchange that goes from a speaker to a listener. As I said above, there are many ways to understand communication. If you are interested, research more about it.

But here, let’s say that communication is making information common between a subject who speaks and a subject who listens. We could also say that communication is possible through writing, through gestures, through signs. Our goal, however, is to further analyze speech, verbal behavior.

NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, is a hands-on approach that is used widely in the US and has become very popular in Brazil. Instead of staying in the field of abstraction, of conceptual definitions, NLP seeks to change quickly and effectively.

Therefore, your understanding of communication can be summed up in one sentence:

“The meaning of a message is in its effect” (English)

Translation – The meaning of communication is the response you get

So far I have spoken only theoretically, only in terms of concepts. To understand, an example is always easier, isn’t it?

You know when we’re kids and everyone ends up having a nickname? It is very common for children to call each other by nicknames, either because of physical characteristics such as ball (fat), beautiful (ugly), smelling (stinky)…

But sometimes it happens that a nickname has to be “invented”. So imagine the scene:

10 boys trying to name one of them. Everyone gives suggestions, but no agreement or consensus is reached. Until someone says a name that the person about to receive the nickname doesn’t like, that he hates it. Okay, the nickname has been defined.

Moral of the story: the purpose of the nickname was to tease, tease, joke (we are not talking about bullying here). When they discover a nickname that affects, that bothers them, the nickname is defined. That is, everyone found a word for what they wanted. If the person hadn’t been affected, the nickname wouldn’t have stuck.

Like when a boyfriend wants to tease his girlfriend. The meaning of communication, its result, is provocation. If there was no provocation, if the result was not obtained, that’s it: communication would stop. It is in this sense that the answer is the meaning of communication.

See the example below, in the brilliant performance of Marcus Luque in Jô Soares:

In the video, we see Pepe upsetting his girlfriend with words and behavior. What he gets is exactly what he wants, to tease his girlfriend. Over time, he found out what affects her and to get this result, just repeat that it works.

We’ve talked about odd outcomes—such as nicknames or teasing his girlfriend—but we can apply the principle to communication in general.

Think about it, I write this long text. In the end, everyone understands and likes it. The result, everyone liking it, is the meaning of my communication. If I want everyone to understand I must write in the same way. If I want half a dozen to understand, I’ll write in a far-fetched way, with little-used words, without examples, etc.

That is, it all depends on your goal. What do you want to communicate? What do you want to get out of your communication?

Imagine a professor who talks, who talks, who talks and everyone thinks he knows a lot about the subject. He is the teacher who knows a lot but does not know how to pass the subject on. Now, what is the point of teaching then? Why teach if no one understands anything? If everyone fails the test?

So again, the meaning of communication is the response, the result.

“The meaning of a message is in its effect” (English)

Translation – The meaning of communication is the response you get

In the case of the teacher, what does he get by communicating with his students? Does everyone understand? Nobody understand?

When you talk to people close to you, friends, relatives, colleagues what have you gotten? Have you been able to get your message across? Have you been able to reach your goals with your speech?

Or is it that sometimes what you get is just the opposite of what you were wanting…

Think of some moments in your life when communication was strange, that is, you expected one result and another happened. Say, you spoke so that the other person felt sorry for you and the other simply ignored you… or else you spoke in anger and instead of getting respect or fear, the other person laughed…

These are two examples where communication did not work. The objective, both one and the other, did not happen.

What were you hoping to get when you were communicating?

On the other hand, throughout life we ​​learn to say the right thing, at the right time, in the right way and to the right person.

Think of times when you wanted to see a certain result – from your speech – and that’s exactly what happened. You spoke firmly and it was answered. You spoke with sadness and received compassion, you spoke with tenderness and received affection…

There are so many and so many situations! Think, evaluate, rethink!

Conclusion

In the text, we define what communication is in general and what is the conception of communication for NLP.

The meaning of communication is its result, for NLP. With this conception, we can start to rethink the way we communicate. Are we communicating well? Are we getting what we would like? Sometimes it’s not what we say, but as we say…

Some doctors and psychologists have observed that depression hides anger. That is, those who are depressed are actually feeling angry, they are wanting something that they are not getting. However, when depressed, when behaving like someone who is sad, who cries, who sulks, the person can begin to receive attention and affection that were not present before.

In this way, instead of anger, they developed the ability to be sad and, in sadness, receive a little of what they wanted. This is what Freud called secondary gain.

This is an example of the communication result. It’s similar to when we get sick and get attention. The child soon learns this. If you get sick, if you fake a stomach ache or a headache, you get attention. In other words, this is the result of your communication…

It’s just that. What we say, what we share, can be understood one way or another. It depends, of course, on many factors.

Analyze what you are getting from your communication. And what do you want? So switch it up…as an actor, try other ways!

Think about it… questions, suggestions and comments please leave a reply below!

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