-soon -never -always -it depends -I'll consider it -I meant Every word or phrase we all use can be interpreted in many different ways by everyone.In fact if we said to ten different people; I'll get to it as soon as I can,do you think this simple phrase would set up different expectations in each of these people?Of course.We are all different in so many ways, so when you use a simple phrase like;I'll get to this as soon as I can-it's to be expected that everyone may hear a totally different message than was intended or even sent The key to improving understanding and reducing conflict in communication regardless of whether it is a customer,your spouse,a friend or an employee is to have a simple system of ensuring clarity and reducing misunderstanding. Try an experiment right now.Open your dictionary(if you still have one)and look up the word negative.What did you find?Well,I'll help you out here;here are just a few of the ways this could be interpreted by others; Damaging,Depressing,Harmful,Unhelpful,Unconstructive,Denial.Disapproving, Uncooperative,Pessimistic,Blaming,Opposing.And this is just a fraction of the words or definitions illustrated. So when someone says you are being negative what do they mean?Well,pick any of the above and you would be right.However,if when you said it you meant that they were being unhelpful and they interpreted it as they were being disapproving,do you think maybe that an argument might follow? The average person has a vocabulary of about 1500 words.How many words do you think are in the modern dictionary?Well,if you guessed 25-50,000 you're not even close There are words and then there are actions and both of these are grounded in intention or the lack of it.There has been a lot written in the past few years about"intention". Exactly what is intention?Without going into a great deal of"heady"stuff here- intention is one of two things-stated intention and real intention. Many people say they mean things when they really don't.The contradiction here is an inconsistency between what they say and what they really mean.-soon -never -always -it depends -I'll consider it -I meant Every word or phrase we all use can be interpreted in many different ways by everyone. In fact if we said to ten different people; I'll get to it as soon as I can, do you think this simple phrase would set up different expectations in each of these people? Of course. We are all different in so many ways, so when you use a simple phrase like; I'll get to this as soon as I can - it's to be expected that everyone may hear a totally different message than was intended or even sent. The key to improving understanding and reducing conflict in communication regardless of whether it is a customer, your spouse, a friend or an employee is to have a simple system of ensuring clarity and reducing misunderstanding. Try an experiment right now. Open your dictionary (if you still have one) and look up the word negative. What did you find? Well, I'll help you out here; here are just a few of the ways this could be interpreted by others; Damaging, Depressing, Harmful, Unhelpful, Unconstructive, Denial. Disapproving, Uncooperative, Pessimistic, Blaming, Opposing. And this is just a fraction of the words or definitions illustrated. So when someone says you are being negative what do they mean? Well, pick any of the above and you would be right. However, if when you said it you meant that they were being unhelpful and they interpreted it as they were being disapproving, do you think maybe that an argument might follow? The average person has a vocabulary of about 1500 words. How many words do you think are in the modern dictionary? Well, if you guessed 25-50,000 you're not even close. There are words and then there are actions and both of these are grounded in intention or the lack of it. There has been a lot written in the past few years about "intention". Exactly what is intention? Without going into a great deal of "heady" stuff here - intention is one of two things - stated intention and real intention. Many people say they mean things when they really don't. The contradiction here is an inconsistency between what they say and what they really mean