Communication is a wonderful yet tricky concept to navigate. While effective communication is efficient, helpful and leaves everyone with what we think of as a mutual understanding–it comes with struggles and faults that cause the wrong, actually misinterpreted, message to go through to someone. One common error in communication stems from egocentrism; the inability to see another’s perspective (Penn State World Campus, 2021).
Egocentrism creates limits in the way we communicate because not only can our communication reflect only our perspective, but sometimes it is only read in one perspective as well. Studies have found up to 1/4 of communication can be misinterpreted or otherwise negatively affected by egocentrism (Penn State World Campus, 2021).
I myself have experienced egocentrism at work through the messaging system our company uses for employee’s timestamps and scheduling. Managers are able to send us messages that we individually see on a computer when we log in to create a timestamp. In theory, this is a nice way to get a quick message out to employees regarding a meeting, an important announcement regarding our fast-changing work environment, etc.
One day while clocking in, my co-worker noticed a message from one of our managers with the subject “Do better please” and a short message along the lines of “Everyone needs to be doing little things to help the store like picking up a piece of garbage when you see it or straightening something out of place when you walk past it”. I felt bad when my co-worker told me about the message because I thought she was singled out. Then a few days later, I had the exact same message on my screen. Turns out, everyone got the message.
I remember seeing the message and I initially felt singled out and like I was approached in a passive-aggressive manner. Why did my manager already assume I wasn’t doing these things? Why couldn’t this be mentioned in a closing meeting?
I felt better when I was able to connect the dots to realize everyone got the same message and someone mentioned it was a test of that particular messaging system. However, my own egocentrism made me feel singled out and ridiculed because I saw it from the perspective of a negative tone.
I do believe the manager that sent the message also had their own egocentrism that limited the meaning of the message. They may have been trying to be helpful and not hurtful and not realize that the message could be interpreted as offensive. They also may not have realized the point of view we read it from–all that we do is not only disregarded in that message but the manager also assumed the worst in us.
To better avoid egocentrism, a mention of the standards/expectations at a closing/opening meeting would allow us to hear the tone of the manager’s voice to interpret the message better. Also, another manager reviewing the manager could edit the message to acknowledge the issue in a more positive approach as well as give a heads up that this was a test so everyone got this message and no one was singled out.
References
Penn State World Campus (2021). Errors in Communication. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2146712/modules/items/32847667.
I can’t imagine the shift of going from in-person meetings to online for such a long period of time. I definitely think people are bolder when they are anonymous or hiding behind a screen. I think this is why so many online influencers receive the amount of hate they get because people are able to express it with little to no repercussions. I do think that when people don’t have to look at someone in the face, there are more errors in communication but I would say a majority are from people not thinking about the tone of their comment or trying to be deliberately rude.
Communication is essential for our everyday life but it can also be very complex. As you mentioned egocentrism is just one error in communication. A few years ago my manager made a comment that he was going to our cooperate office to meet with senior leaders to go over the teams year end evaluations and as he was explaining the process a co-worker mentioned how she felt she was being judged by people she never met before nor do those leaders know us on a personal level. The co-worker thought they are giving us an evaluation based off of our monthly and yearly statistics. Communication is so important but yet it is so easily misunderstood hence this is why it is so important to have multiply individuals in a room to ensure that everyone is on the same page and understands the message correctly.
We have always had monthly meetings at work, where our President and representatives from different leadership would get up and talk about what was going on and take questions from the people that attended. Up until eighteen months ago this was all done in person. Because of COVID, we have moved to Teams live where they would still give their speech and we would still hear from representatives from my work but it allowed for anonymous questions/comments to be made. I have never been so surprised as how rude people got when they were able to hide who they were. These are people that work together side by side for years and now they are being about as rude and disrespectful as I could imagine. The longer we have done this the more bold people have gotten with their comments. Last week was the first time they did not allow anonymous comments and it was surprising how few people asked questions online. Do you think the ability to not look someone in the face when making comments causes errors in communication or do you think it is people just not thinking through their comments?