Marketing communication: principles and practice

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Talk
No
talk
Speaker’s context
Speaker’s understanding
Shared context
Shared understanding
Listener’s context
Listener’s understanding
S
T
R
A
T
E
G
I
C
T
A
L
K
I
N
D
E
X
I
C
A
L
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T
Y
R
E
F
L
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V
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T
Y
Figure 2.1
Constructing shared context for understanding
Source
: Based on Heyman, 1994

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and understanding, using techniques of formulations, questions and answers,
paraphrasing, examples, and stories.
Without such effort to construct understanding, we ‘climb the ladder of
inference’ (Argyris, 1990), rapidly leaping from observable data about a
situation to conclusions and actions based on assumptions and beliefs with
scarcely a moment to reflect. Because most of these conclusions are never
openly discussed, there is no way to check them and they provide the basis
for misunderstanding (Figure 2.2).
This inevitably leads to diverging meanings and understandings (Figure
2.3), unless communicators engage in conscious ‘strategic talk’. 
When communicating is taken as no more than objective informing, much
is lost that is possible in dialogue. In this ultimate level of communication,
each party seeks to share, perhaps only hypothetically, the other’s appreciation
and to open their own to the other’s persuasion with a view to enlarging the
approaching mutual understanding, if not also shared appreciation.
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We act on our beliefs
We adopt beliefs about the world
We make assumptions based on the 
meanings added
We add cultural and personal meanings
We select data from what we observe
Observable data and experiences
Our
beliefs
affect
what data
we select