Understanding Vs Agreement

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Understanding vs Agreement

Whether you are presenting ideas, discussing plans, or negotiating with others, it is crucial to ensure that you can make your listeners clearly understand.

However, gaining understanding is just the first step. To achieve your goals, you also need to gain agreement from your audience.

• Understanding means that others comprehend the exact meaning of your message.
• Agreement means that they think what you are saying is good, right and true.

Understanding should come before agreement.

Therefore, the first thing to do is to make yourself clearly understood.

Followed by gaining their agreement.

It may be the case that they understand what you are saying, but they disagree.

That is just a fact of life.

Not everyone will agree with what you say. But we should strive for universal understanding.

You should be able to make yourself always understood, even if they do not agree.

Ideally, you would like to gain both their understanding and agreement.

How to Make People Understand

To make people understand you need to:

• use specific language
• give definitions
• use illustrative examples
• use numbers to express exact times, places, and quantities
• speak slowly enough to allow people to keep up with your presentation.

How to Gain Agreement

We gain their agreement by giving sufficient reasons to believe that what we are saying is true, right, good, practical, and fair.

The clearer your message, the easier it is to gain both understanding and agreement.

Remember that understanding comes from using clear language, and agreement comes from giving sufficient reasons to believe.

It is important not to invert the correct order and put agreement before understanding.

Coming to agreements before we have gained mutual understanding, leads to conflicts.

What happens when we sign agreements based upon misunderstanding? There is conflict.

Summary

As a professional person, your goal is to communicate effectively and achieve your objectives.

To do this, you must gain both understanding and agreement.

By following the right order and using clear and specific language, you can communicate your ideas effectively and achieve your goals.

Communication Skills Training

We recommend our Communication Skills Training course for anyone who is involved in making presentations. Learn to communicate with clarity, confidence and persuasiveness!

About the Author: Chris Farmer

Chris Farmer is the founder of the Corporate Coach Group and has many years’ experience in training leaders and managers, in both the public and private sectors, to achieve their organisational goals, especially during tough economic times. He is also well aware of the disciplines and problems associated with running a business.

Over the years, Chris has designed and delivered thousands of training programmes and has coached and motivated many management teams, groups and individuals. His training programmes are both structured and clear, designed to help delegates organise their thinking and, wherever necessary, to improve their techniques and skills.

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Further Reading in Communication - Persuasive Communication

• The Rhetorical Triangle
  Persuasive communication is a useful skill, and the rhetorical triangle method will help you express yourself and get your message across to your audience.
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• The Art of Negotiation
  Mastering the Art of Negotiation: Discover effective strategies, tips, and techniques to achieve win-win outcomes in any negotiation scenario. Enhance your skills and build successful relationships. Read more on our blog.
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• Impression Management
  First impressions do count. With a little thought, you can leave a positive impression in the minds of people you meet.
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• Why are Some People Dangerous?
  Most people would consider themselves rational, and a few may be inspiring. A great leader is both rational and inspiring. However, the inspirational but irrational communicator, is a dangerous combination.
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• Understanding vs Agreement
  Whenever presenting ideas or negotiating with others, it is crucial to make your audience clearly understand your message. Without understanding you cannot hope to gain their agreement.
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