Misunderstandings

Who has never been the protagonist or victim of a misunderstanding? Ever since our ancestors
made their first grunts, misunderstandings have been part of our daily lives. How did the
people you misunderstood react to? Surely they were annoyed with you or they responded
with anger. Misunderstandings always end in unpleasant situations where everyone loses.
Misunderstanding is a curious phenomenon that has its origin in the dysfunctions of the act of
communicating. Fernando Trias, a journalist, said that the misunderstanding came from the
fusion of the adjective "bad" and the verb "to understand". But where does the
misunderstanding begin? A person who communicates something to another is supposed to
want the message to come through clearly. A misunderstanding occurs when a distortion
factor has been introduced into the act of communication that causes the message to be
distorted, confused, or altered enough to cause the receiver to understand "B" when the
sender was saying "A". There are many cases of misunderstanding, e.g., a customer
misinterprets a policy; a colleague misinterprets a task; a couple faces a misunderstanding
about who should pick up the child and some friends fight over the misunderstanding of those
who like them. Most people have thought that lack of communication would decrease with the
advancement of technology. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. We are more
connected than ever, but it seems that we are only moving further away from mutual
understanding.

Currently there are many causes of misunderstanding, but the main ones are poor listening
skills and poor speaking skills. These reasons are the ones that mostly influence
misunderstandings. Julian Treasure argument "We are rapidly losing our listening skills. Our
apps have put us in a constant state of distraction; our headphones lock us in a private
bubble." In my opinion, I think this is the factor that causes misunderstandings, since people
do not pay enough attention when someone is talking to them, and this results in
communication not being efficient. As Julian said, we have been more focused on technology
than face-to-face conversations. The second cause is poor ability to speak as some people
express themselves so inconsistently that it is almost impossible to understand what they have
said. Mr. Treasure recommends "Think before you speak, form mental models of what you
want to say, then organize it and match the ideas with connecting words. This will help you not
to say inconsistent things and people will understand what you want to say."

I will now deal with some cases of misunderstanding. First I would like to start on the best
known misunderstanding that was illustrated in the score book by Jose Antonio Millan. The
book "Impossible forgiveness" tells us that in the remaining minutes for the execution of an
inmate, the real culprit was found. A telegram was sent at full speed to stop the impending
execution. The judge ruled, "Pardon. Impossible immediate execution." But the man who
wrote the telegram, ignorant of the most elementary punctuation rules, wrote, "Impossible
pardon. Immediate execution." That small point, moved from place, constituted a
misunderstanding that supposed life to the innocent. This story is fiction, but we need to
analyze to see if this was a misunderstanding and the reason why it happened. So is this a
misunderstanding? No. It is an incompetence. Many misunderstandings are not involuntary,
but are the result of lack of competitiveness. This is the result of assigning people, roles and
responsibilities for which they are not prepared. Many of the alleged misunderstandings in
history have caused everything from plane crashes to ship wrecks. Military mistakes that
claimed thousands of lives have historically been attributed to misunderstandings of the
orders received.

Now I will tell a personal case, my friends and I had gone to eat at a restaurant. When we
arrived we headed to a table, after several minutes the waitress arrived with the letter in hand.
She handed us the letter, then she asked us what our order were. Belen and I ordered
hamburgers, Mayumi decided to order a roast chicken and Yobitza had ordered a pizza. The
waitress said "I'll get it in a few minutes." Our order took about fifteen minutes to be fulfilled.
The waitress came with the two burgers and the roast chicken, but did not bring the pizza. The
waitress told us that the pizza would be ready in five minutes, so we kept waiting. About five
minutes passed and we called the waitress, Mayumi asked the waitress if the pizza had been
ready. To which the waitress said "the pizzas are over". We were surprised because they had
brought a pizza to other customers who came after us. In addition to the waitress's attitude
being so inconsiderate, she could have told us that we should ask for something else because
the pizza was over, but she didn't, so Mayumi was upset and rebuked the girl. At that moment
the owner of the restaurant approached and he asked what happening was. We explained
what had happened to our order. He apologized for the misunderstanding. He asked the
waitress to bring four desserts. He told us that this situation wouldn´t to be repeated again.
We thanked him for the desserts and left the restaurant.

In conclusion, since there is a high tendency to listen to what we expect to hear, it is very easy
for people in conflict to create misunderstandings. Therefore, the potential for
misunderstanding is high, which can make conflict resolution somewhat more difficult. So the
most recommendable thing is that when one is in a conversation, pay close attention to what
the other person is saying, this will decrease the probability of creating a misunderstanding.

NAME: FABIOLA CHAVARRIA TORRES

COURSE: A06

DATE: 23/07/2020
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