You can drive yourself crazy trying to understand why someone has misunderstood what you had said in an email or in a meeting – I am sure that we can all recall a time when this has happened.

Seth Godin wrote an excellent post on misunderstandings - something that we need to be particularly aware of as change practitioners.

I think this is where it becomes important to repeat and repeat again in a different way - expect to be misunderstood, and don’t expect that everyone will interpret messages, training, coaching and the change in the same way.

Expecting that you will be misunderstood is smart – look at ways to improve but even then expect that you will be misunderstood.

What’s the point of even trying to get your message understood – why put in so much effort? The point is to lessen the misunderstandings but understand that you will never get rid of them.

Don’t stop trying to communicate and get your message across, think of inventive and new ways to communicate.

What have you done differently to communicate and get your messages understood by larger audiences?