Expectations That Affect Good Communications

When you communicate with another person, your interaction is governed by your particular mindset at the time. Your mindset filters the information you receive and often can prevent you from communicating and listening actively and objectively.

Your immediate mindset filters everything through your current concerns, including your expectations, present personal relationships or something as simple as what has happened right before the conversation.

Your long-term mindset filters everything through your personal background, your values, your past experiences and even your earliest childhood memories. Your immediate filters are those that change depending on current situations. They may be influenced by your long-term filters, but for the most part these are factors that immediately concern you.

Have you ever left a meeting upset because it failed to live up to your expectations? Or have you ever gone into a meeting fully expecting to hear your boss say one thing but told you something that is totally different? The expectations that you carry into a communication situation can impede your ability to actively listen to what a speaker is saying.

These expectations may be about the topic. For example, you expect the presenter at a meeting to take a particular stand on a topic or reach a certain conclusion. When he starts to talk, you assume you know what is going to be said and listen selectively to support your expectations. You do not listen objectively to what he is saying.

Your expectations also may be about the speaker. Part of these expectations may be based on your previous experience with the speaker. "Oh, he's always boring," is an example of expectations you may have. But you also have roles that you expect people to fall into because of their status. These expectations can stifle communication. When someone doesn't act the way you expect him to, your expectations will filter what you hear him saying.

Your expectations also may relate to a particular situation. You may have caught yourself saying, "I wish I didn't have to go to that boring meeting." When you catch yourself saying something like this, you are expressing your negative expectations for the situation. If you go into the situation, expectations in full swing, they will create a self-fulfilling prophesy. Regardless of the reality of the situation, the meeting will be boring, and you will only "hear" the meaningless small talk.

There is a way for you to control your expectations. Before your next meeting or conversation, make a list of what you expect out of the topic, the situation or the speaker. This list represents the barriers that prevent you from actively listening and being able to communicate effectively.

Test your reactions prior to the meeting or conversation and anticipate your reactions to particular ideas or situations. Try to predict a full range of responses. Ask yourself, "If he says this, how will I respond?" This is useful in situations when you have had some difficulty in communicating or when you anticipate hearing information that will make you uncomfortable.