My wife’s first language is French. Consequently, communication around our house can seem like a game, because sometimes the same phonetic word means the same thing in both languages—and sometimes it does not. Linguists call those latter cases false friends because they seem to mean the same thing, but they in fact mean something quite different.
For example, the word “impressive” works the same in both languages, but the word librairie in French does not mean library in English; in French, it means bookstore. So, it would be easy for me to think that I understand Elise when she says she will be at the librairie, but my mind would be travelling to a completely different place from hers, which could create a funny (or not-so-funny) situation. I call these situations MIS- agreements: we think we are on the same page, but we are not. I find MIS-agreements far more problematic than DIS-agreements, because MIS-agreements are sneaky.
We are in such a hurry all the time. A hurry to talk. A hurry to be heard. A hurry to move on to the next thing on our to-do list. We want to believe that our communication partner agrees with us, because that would make life easier: we would not need to process any new information or perspectives. That laziness makes us vulnerable to a sneaky illusion: we may not have a true agreement, but rather a MIS-agreement. All seems fine and harmonious at the start, and only later do we discover that we both acted on a false assumption of being on the same page. Then, we must suddenly stop/rewind/redo/replace either or both partners’ recent work. MIS-agreement is an illusion of congruence that shuts off our attention to new information and perspectives, resulting in the emergence of actual problems later.
Alan Mulally was the Director of Engineering for the development of Boeing’s wonderful 777, a collaborative engineering project of the greatest scale and complexity. From that experience, coordinating thousands of engineers and designers, he had a great vantage point to observe good and bad communication. This is how he put it, riffing on a famous George Bernard Shaw line:
“The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred. We think when we express ourselves that, because we generally understand what we think, the person that we’re expressing it to understands it in the same way. You must recognize that it’s going to take intentional effort to allow everybody to come to a fundamental understanding.”
To avoid MIS-agreements, take a moment to test for the alternative hypothesis. Choose an important idea on which your perception of unity depends and ask your partner to describe how they see that idea.
“When you say <insert word>, I interpret that as <insert narrative description or example>. How are you using the term <insert word>?” By elaborating explicitly on how you each see these ideas, you avoid making the often-unfounded assumption that you are both on the same page – before you invest time and energy relying on a false assumption of unity. It is easy to create beautiful harmonies from different notes and instruments, but not if you are expecting everyone to play the same note. The assumption of unity destroys the possibility of harmony.
Contrary to what most of us assume, the responsibility for understanding does not rest entirely with the listener. A great deal of responsibility falls on the speaker. It is not enough for the speaker to use words that can mean what is intended; she must try to use words that cannot mean anything else. This bar requires more thinking, more words, more time up front. But, to quote the great basketball coach John Wooden, “If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, how will you ever have time to do it over?”
Article by Scott Davis
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Article published in More to Life – Edition 70
