How often do you see a job listing that says, “The candidate must be an effective communicator”? What does it really mean to be an “effective communicator”? Must you have a gift with words? That would be nice, but the bottom line of effective communication is the ability to be understood.
The Ability to Be Understood
Getting your message out so that it is understandable may seem simple enough, but the fact is that nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood. Our average daily vocabulary includes some 800 words—but those words have 14,000 different meanings! Here are just a few examples of how words can be confusing:
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