TwFs for Communication

There are many reasons, here are some of them.

1. Get your messages heard and acted on.
2. Express who you are; have a voice you feel good about.
3. Respond to incoming messages in the best ways possible.
4. Avoid being misled, tricked, or conned by false information.

Communication is the process of sending and receiving messages.

A message is what the sender wishes the receiver to understand. It includes ideas, information, feelings, intentions, or requests.

1. The two main roles are sender and receiver.
2. The sender’s job is to clearly encode their intended meaning in a form the receiver can easily understand.
3. The receiver’s job is to decode the message and respond in the best way.

1. Excellence consistently produces the best payoffs in real life: better results, smoother interactions, fewer conflicts, and clearer understanding.
2. When you pursue excellence, your overall payoffs (rewards minus drawbacks, taken holistically) increase across all situations.
3. These positive payoffs begin immediately; you do not need to be an expert before benefits show up.
4. Excellence is not “extra work.” It is the most efficient path to the outcomes you want.

Pursuit of excellence gives you the most rewards the fastest.

1. Clarify Your Aim

   • What outcomes do you most want?
   • What role are you playing? (requesting, informing, persuading, entertaining, connecting, etc.)
   • What does “success” look like for this interaction?

2. Design Your Message

   • Who is your audience and what do they care about?
   • What do you need them to understand, feel, or do?
   • What channels will you use? (words, tone, body language, visuals, structure)

3. Deliver and Observe

   • Send the message through the channels you chose.
   • Watch what actually happens: reactions, behaviors, signs of understanding or confusion.
   • Compare the real outcome with your intended outcome.

4. Reflect and Improve

   • What worked?
   • What didn’t?
   • What will you adjust next time (aim, message design, or delivery)?

Most incoming messages should be filtered out. If you choose to process a message, follow these steps.

1. Receive and Understand

   • Grok (deeply understand) the message
     • Use active listening for spoken messages.
     • Use reading-for-understanding for written messages.

2. Interpret the Message

   • What information is the sender giving you?
   • What is the sender feeling, or hoping you will feel?
   • What does the sender want you to do?
     • requests, information exchange, persuasion, entertainment, coordination, etc.

3. Choose and Deliver Your Response

   • Decide the response that best serves your aims and the situation.
   • Give the response and observe what actually happens.

4. Reflect and Improve

   • What worked?
   • What didn’t?
   • What will you adjust next time?

(Best Results) + (Sender’s Happy Path)

• Best results means achieving the outcomes you value the most.

• Your happy path is the set of actions and responses that lead you to those outcomes in the most desirable ways possible.

• Creating a clear and easy path for the receiver is part of your happy path, because it increases the likelihood that you get the results you want.

1. Your purpose defines the results you want the most.
2. When your purpose is clear, your choices become clear, and your chances of getting those results increase.
3. Without a clear purpose, messages drift, weaken, or backfire; with a clear purpose, everything aligns.

A sender without a clear purpose is like a hiker without a destination — every step is motion, not progress.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” George Harrison “Any Road”

1. Review a list of common purposes and notice which ones feel most important or desirable for this situation.
2. Select the purpose (or small set of purposes) that best captures what you want the most.
3. Prioritize your chosen purposes so you know which one leads and which ones support.

List of Purposes = a short set of purposes that cover most communication: {inform, request, inquire, persuade, coordinate, encourage, and so on}

{inform, request, inquire, persuade, coordinate, encourage, connect, entertain, emote, express}

• This TwF uses set notation {} from math. A set is a collection of items that fit a rule; no duplicates, and order does not matter.

• Notice that the set has 10 items.

1. Purposes: connect, persuade, inform.

2. Priority Order:

   • Connect: Build trust and openness so students are ready to learn.
   • Persuade: Help students believe the material is valuable and worth engaging with.
   • Inform: Present the essential content students must understand.

3. Synthesis: Connect with students so you can persuade them of the value of the lesson, and then inform them with the content they need to learn.

1. Purposes: connect, inform, express, emote.

2. Priority Order:

   • Connect: The core purpose of small talk is strengthening relationships.
   • Express/Emote: Sharing thoughts and feelings deepens connection and builds trust.
   • Inform: Casual updates help maintain a shared sense of what is happening in each other’s lives.

3. Synthesis: Build relationships by sharing small updates, expressing your thoughts, and showing how you feel.

A channel is the path a message travels from sender to receiver.

It can be: - Physical (air for spoken words, paper for writing) - Technological (text messages, email, social media) - Nonverbal pathways (facial expressions, gestures)

The key idea: The channel is how the message gets there.

A sender constructs a message using codes and channels the receiver can understand. Common resources include:

• Words and language
• Symbols and visual cues
• Tone of voice and vocal features (pitch, pace, volume)
• Body language (posture, gestures, eye contact, facial expression)
• Medium-specific elements (images, diagrams, emojis, formatting)

Essence → The sender chooses forms of expression that fit the receiver and support the sender’s intended meaning and purposes.

The sender’s job is to:

• Decide the meaning they want the receiver to understand.
• Clarify the purpose(s) of the message (inform, request, persuade, connect).
• Craft the message so the intended meaning and purposes are easy for the receiver to understand.
• Choose words, symbols, tone, and nonverbal cues that support clarity and accuracy.

Essence → Create a message that the receiver can accurately decode and respond to in the best way.

The receiver’s job is to:

• Accurately decode the sender’s intended meaning.
• Infer the sender’s purpose(s) (inform, request, persuade, connect).
• Respond in the best way, supporting mutual understanding and shared goals.
• Use active listening and clarifying questions when unsure of the meaning.

Essence → Understand what the sender means and wants — and respond in a way that moves the communication forward effectively.

Definitions:

Cognitive content → the factual or conceptual meaning (what the message is about) Affective content → the emotional and motivational tone (how the message feels)

Simple: Cognitive tells what. Affective signals how to feel and how the relationship stands.

Examples: - “The meeting is at 3pm.” → mostly cognitive - “I really appreciate your help!” → mostly affective - “We need that report ASAP!” → both (information + urgency/pressure)

Success criteria are a set of measurable indicators that define what high-quality (desirable) results look like.

Examples: - Party → {everyone has fun, great food, good attendance} - Novel → {readers love it, captivating plot, interesting characters, meaningful insights} - New Car → {good price, love it, safe, good mileage, reliable}

Sender role (essence) → {receiver understands intended meaning, high likelihood of intended response}

Sender role (empowering fundamentals) → {accurate, clear, concise, complete, logical, persuasive, audience-appropriate, engaging, action-oriented}

Receiver role (essence) → {accurately understand intended meaning, respond in the best way}

Receiver role (empowering fundamentals) → {active processing, skilled decoding, clarifying questions, paraphrasing}

Paraphrasing is a listening skill where the receiver restates the sender’s message in their own words to check that they’ve understood the intended meaning.

Conclusion: No.

Reasoning:

1. Definitions:

   • Predisposition: A tendency to act in a certain way.
   • Bias: A predisposition that results in unfairness, distortion, or systematic error.
   • Warranted: Justified with good reasons or evidence.

2. Bias is typically a warrantless or unjustified predisposition — something that distorts thinking, judgment, or decision-making.

3. If a predisposition is based on solid evidence, reasoning, or experience, it’s better described as a justified belief.

4. A justified belief is valuable. Example: A doctor is predisposed to test for malaria in patients returning from sub-Saharan Africa because malaria is common there. This isn’t a bias — it’s a justified belief.

5. Summary: A warranted predisposition is not a bias. Bias implies error or unfairness. A justified predisposition is generally a strength — an efficient guide to action based on evidence.

1. Continually build trust and connections with other people.
2. Continually make others feel important, valued, and cared about.
3. Social situations feel easy, natural, and low-stress.

Giving someone your full attention with the purpose of deeply understanding their message and helping them feel heard and valued.

Analysis: {Fully Attention by Reciever, Deep Understanding of Sender’s Message, Speaker Feels Heard and Valued}

1. Give full attention: be mentally present and stop all multitasking.
2. Physically orient toward the speaker: body, eyes, and hands aligned and open.
3. Seek deep understanding: grok their ideas, emotions, and wants.
   • Suspend judging the message or planning your response until understanding is complete.
4. Signal engagement: use natural cues such as nods, short verbal signals, and subtle mirroring.
5. Confirm understanding and connect: paraphrase, validate their feelings and intentions, and respond appropriately.

1. Continually build trust and connections with other people.
2. Continually make others feel important, valued, and cared about.
3. Social situations feel easy, natural, and low-stress.

1. Continually build trust and connections with other people.
2. Continually make others feel important, valued, and cared about.
3. Social situations feel easy, natural, and low-stress.

1. Approach effectively
   • Use lottery-winning posture: open, relaxed, confident
   • Smile and make brief eye contact
   • Use a natural greeting or handshake when appropriate
2. Use a simple, low-stakes opener
   • Hi, I’m Don
   • How’s your day going?
   • What brought you here today?
3. Sustain an easy back-and-forth rhythm
   • Use active listening
   • Ask simple open questions
   • Stay with light, safe topics
   • Build on what they say; follow threads
   • Pivot when needed to keep balance
   • Be curious, not intense
4. Exit gracefully
   • Thanks, it was nice talking with you
   • Excuse me, I’m going to grab a drink
   • I’ll let you get back to your group