Think before you speak?

“I am only responsible for what I say, not what you hear”

I have been seeing this saying doing the rounds for the past few months and cannot help myself but comment on its validity.

At first I thought that the saying was ingenious because it makes clear that I am only responsible for my “meaning” as per my words deliver and not any one else’s perception of my words. Great, what a liberating feeling. I deliver my words and now it’s your problem to figure out what to do with the information. Nothing could be further from the truth!

While speaking I am the one trying to get across an idea and in order to do so I need to choose my words and delivery thereof carefully, so that I have the best chance of helping you understand what I am trying to communicate. I have since found the aforementioned saying to be a lazy excuse for poor communication skills. To be fair, I know that feelings have a large impact on the saying as it does not purely relate to straightforward communication.

It is far harder to communicate feelings than ideas and where feelings are involved I can bet you that assumption is in tow. This leads to a bad outcome every time.

Now to mention my favourite saying. “You have two ears and one mouth, listen twice and speak once”. This means that your audience has an equal responsibility to make sure that they are clear on the information received from you before replying. I might be harsh in the following statement but anything less than a mutual effort to give, take and process information by two or more parties engaged in conversation is just lazy.