Miscommunication
September 9, 2009 
Miscommunication is a big problem, not only does it results in misunderstandings or offending people unknowingly, it may even cause something more serious like death.
This is seen in the stampede on 10 September in the India capital New Delhi. Five were killed and many others injured. This could have been avoided if they use a better way or other channel to inform the students about the electrical breakdown so that they can evacuate from the building safely and effectively.
As reported, the students received different messages and students from the first floor were told to evacuate to the top of the building whereas the students from the ground floor were told to go up instead. Partly also due to the students, who is the receivers, are distracted by competing internal stimuli which is their fear of being electrocuted hence they just rush out of the building without any order.
Some students might also follow the crowd to escape as its common for human nature to have the tendency to use our senses to rush to conclusion that there is danger even though they are not inform through proper announcements. This is idols of the tribe, one of Bacon’s four Idols. Furthermore, the place is filled with people’s screaming and chattering, even if there were any important messages being announced, it would be difficult for the message to be decoded in the mist of these noises. Hence message send not equals to message received.
If the teachers could take note of the lexis and the decorum, which is the style and delivery of the announcement, and the words and subject matter to fit together, to the circumstances and occasion, the audience; the number of death and injuries might have reduced significantly. The students should have been told to evacuate quietly class by class before their exams starts by the teachers rather then messages being passed around by students. This is evident in the article as the girl being interviewed says that she and her classmates were pushed out of their class for no reason. If the communication is an effective one, students would not be so alarm and rushing out in such a disorganised manner.
Therefore, miscommunication can be really serious especially in times of danger and chaotic situations. I deeply feel that this tragedy could have been avoided if the communication between the teachers and the students is an effective one.
URL: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1004086/1/.html
I think miscommunication is the worst communication that can ever exist. It causes wrong perceptions, consequences, etc.
And I agree with you that it can be especially serious in times of dager and chaotic situations. It inevitably causes injuries and even deaths.
Maybe they could have improved communication by installing a PA system whereby only 1 personnel will be able to instruct the students in such cases.
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Kai Ting
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Hello !! anyway , i agree with you! miscommunication is like the taboo for any form of communication and people should go all out to avoid it! to me, i find that idol of the tribe is the most dangerous factor in leading to misunderstandings, especially wishful thinking and jumping to conclusions. The consequences deriving from this category of misunderstanding are very dire as can be seen from your article where it led to the deaths of not one, but a few people!
on a sidenote, i feel that they should hold like an evacuation exercise so that the students would be prepared for such situations. haha !
claudia(:
Your paragraphing is abit not alligned properly. =P
In response to your post, i feel that effective communication between people is really an important factor! Just one wrong miscommunication is enough to cause a tragedy to happen, and that maybe why our eduction system in Singapore is giving us this good opportunity to learn good communications skills. Currently, I’m learning a module in my course which is named effective communication. I’ve learnt many new things from there such as our cognitive schema etc. They are really close to our hearts just that we do not know the specific terms. So people, do learn good communications skills! It’s of great help to us be it in future or now! =)
Totally agree that miscommunication can cause devastating consequences. The issue you brought up is a very good evidence. The school being unable to execute safe and orderly method of evacuation should hold a big responsibilty in the death and injuries caused. However, I think that the students shouldn’t just follow the others even though I understand it’s human nature to follow the crowd. Therefore,I agree that it all go back to the fact that effective communication is very important no matter where, under what situation and to who.
Lastly, interesting news! Looking forward to your future posts！
It is always known that misunderstandings would cause unnecessary troubles but never did I ever realised that it would might result in death someday.
This blog article explains the importance of communication and how would things be simplified or salvaged with proper and effective communication network. Feeling the same as the author, I am definite that the tragedy would have been avoided if proper communication has been put in place.
I agree that miscommunication can cause a big problem to everyone. It is really serious because innocent lives are gone due to miscommunication. I never knew that miscommunication among people could result in death, thanks for sharing this with me. Really hope the family of the death can get over it, cause i went to check up on this news after reading your blog and I saw videos of devastated family members crying and screaming outside the school premises.
After reading your post, I understand & also agree that miscommunication could lead to different consequences. There are definitely other more effective ways to get the messages to be spread out instead of getting the students. Human at a younger age might not be able to control their emotions well and hence this might lead to higher chances of providing wrong information. They should have realize and used other ways of communication.
And hopefully from your post, they could have realize that communication is an important factor in minimizing the amount of injuries and death.
Communication is extremely important to us people. We communicates using gadgets such at handphones, laptops and conversations etc. This is part of our everyday life! So the importance of it should be relatively obvious. Miscommunications may cause people to have disputes with one another, i’m sure many have experienced it! But in the article above, it’s consequences was even worst, DEATH! Hope people will know it’s importance and practice it!
I couldn’t agree more with you that communication skills is really important. Improper communication will only lead to confusion, as stated by you “students received different … whereas the students from the ground floor were told to go up instead”. This really shows the importance of communication skills. Hence, proper communication should be put in place! then maybe such mishaps might not happen after all.
the lost of lives which could have been avoided is so uncalled for.
yupps i absolutely agree that the miscommunication was the main cause of the tragedy.
perhaps the indian educational system can learn from singapore, and conduct drills to familarize the student body as well as the staff to the emergency exits in the school (:
To be honest, I never thought how miscommunication could lead to such adverse effect, to the extend of death, until I read your post. I always thought that it is alright if I didn’t pass my message clear to the other party and hence never bother to elaborate on my points. Looks like I would have to reflect on this to prevent any undesirable consequences from happening to the people around me or even me. Thanks so much for the posting!
Inproficiency in the language used by the people who spreaded the information could have caused their intention to be inaccurately conveyed. Those who recieved the information were guilty of making personal inferences of it and relayed it based on their own interpretation, giving rise to widespread panic as people were made to believe they were in a potentially dangerous situation. Then there was the savagery that was the stampede. Ironically, the people who were disillusioned were mostly only concerned about protecting themselves from a danger that was non-existent, ignoring the well-being of the people around them in their pursuit of safety. They had allowed themselves to be led by their instincts and that was very much akin to animals. In this case, not only had instincts failed them but made them murderers in the process. Therefore, this article is a strong reminder for us not to succumb to idols of the tribe as referenced from your post because it can lead to undesired outcomes.
indeed, miscommunication can cause devastating outcomes. i also agree that effective communication gets things done well. however, it is always easier said than done.
if we are talking about countries or the various societies, in general, it’s a totally different thing. it’s easy for individuals to realise any mistakes in the way that they communicate. but in developing countries like India, or a little society, like a school, it isn’t as easy for them to realise and solve the problem within a short period of time. even if they know there is the problem of miscommunication, it would be impossible for them to solve it at once.
Rome wasn’t built overnight; they need time, knowledge, and the right way to impart these communication knowledge in order to lift the problem of miscommunication. after all, not everyone studies communication as we do; we may know where the problem lies, do they?
(Apologies for late response)
Miscommunication’s wide definition is failure to communicate clealy to other parties. As ‘far’ as I know, I’ve only heard of miscommunication leading to personal conflicts between people, however this article deeply knocks me on my head that it actually contributes to death as well. So Thanks Shuanghui for sharing this with us.
However to my opinion, I felt that these kind of tragedy caused by miscommunication is not happening around us THAT frequently. Of course, we should learn to convey our message across people clearly and thoroughly from day 1 when we learn how to express ourselves.
No problem. I agree that it is shocking that miscommunication could actually lead to death that is why i wrote on this incident.
Shuanghui:)