False Assumptions
Years ago, I was leading a workshop with a company out in California. This particular workshop stands out in my mind because it was then that a participant told me about a video on YouTube called ‘Notice and Imagine’. He recommended I watch it, as it was conceptually relevant to one of the topics that we were discussing. At his recommendation, I watched the video, and it truly changed the way I think about communication. The video is essentially a man speaking at what looks to be a conference, and he has people pair up with someone they don’t know and leads them in an exercise. In this exercise, one person in the pair has several uninterrupted minutes to say, “I notice ‘X’ about you; therefore, I imagine ‘Y’ is true about you.” As an example, someone might say, “I notice you’re wearing your watch on your left wrist, therefore I imagine you’re right-handed.” The other person in the pair was instructed not to give any non-verbal indication of whether the person was right or wrong. Once the time was up, they switched roles. At the end, they gave feedback and tabulated the percentage of ‘imaginings’ that were correct. It turns out they were wrong about 50% of the time.
The speaker went on to explain that we do this exercise on a daily basis in our lives. We notice things about people, and we draw conclusions about those people based on what we have noticed. Some of these conclusions are very benign. For example, if a co-worker comes back from vacation with a sunburn, we might conclude their vacation was at the beach. However, some of the conclusions we draw are much more problematic. For example you may notice that a co-worker doesn’t send you an email with the information they said they would send, which puts you behind on a project. You might conclude that they did it on purpose to sabotage you. In reality, there could be a host of reasons why they were late on the email that have nothing to do with you.
The speaker in the ‘Notice and Imagine’ video continues by saying that these conclusions we come to are often erroneous (as demonstrated by the exercise he had people do), but we have the tendency not to fact-check our conclusions. In the second example I gave, we’re unlikely to check back in with the person to see why the email was late to determine if we’ve come to the right conclusion. Our tendency is to create the conclusion, assume that it’s true, and then align our behavior with this ‘truth’ we have discovered. One particularly problematic part of this pattern is that the longer we have believed something, the more ‘true’ it becomes to us. By not fact-checking our conclusions, they are more likely to persist in a belief, which makes us more firm in how true we believe the belief to be, without any real information to support its truth. What’s even worse is that in the midst of conflict, we tend to reduce the frequency of communication with the other person. This means that more and more of our interpretation of the situation is based on unfact-checked assumptions. This is a recipe for problematic communication and entrenched conflict.
Content vs. Process
To summarize where we are so far, many communication patterns we engage in that end up problematic are more a results of what has gone unspoken, rather than what has actually been verbalized. At this point, I’d like to introduce two concepts related to communication. They are Content and Process. Content is what you’re actually communicating about. Process is the unspoken thoughts and dynamics at play during communication. we typically only communicate about Content and leave the Process unspoken. This is a big problem that is related to the Notice and Imagine dynamic discussed earlier. Let’s take a look at a scenario to explain further the differences between these two concepts. The thoughts the employee is having in this scenario will be in parentheses.
Boss (B): Can you come into my office for a minute?
Employee (E): (Internally rolls eyes, due to not feeling like they have the time right now) Sure, what do you need?
B: You know that project I delegated to you last week, the one with the deadline of next Friday?
E: Yes, I’ve been working on that.
B: I’d like you to head in a little different direction than what we talked about last week. I think it’s important that you write up the financials first before going too far into the scope of work. If we have the financials first, then we can align the scope of work to those numbers.
E: (Ugh, he specifically said last week that I would be in charge of this project and had put me in the position to make these decisions. So much for ‘delegating’.) If that’s the direction you think we need to head, then I can stop my work on the scope and look at putting together the financials.
B: Sounds good. Let me know when you have something for me to look at.
E: Will do. Thanks. (Walks out of the office wondering why she even tries to show initiative when he’s just going to micromanage anyway).
This scenario is necessarily simplistic, given the constraints of a short article, but it’s probably not unlike what many people have experienced before. The Content of the dialog is what people actually say. The Process is the dynamic surrounding the Content. In this case, the dynamic is that the employee is getting frustrated, feels like she’s being micromanaged, and ultimately is losing motivation to show initiative. Notice that this is the most important part of the conversation. It’s also the part not being discussed. It’s very likely that the boss has no idea that his intervention on the project is viewed as micromanaging. It’s entirely possible that he’s done some real thinking about the project and feels like this is the right direction. He also thinks that coming right out and saying it is the most efficient way to communicate it.
There is so much that goes unsaid on a day-to-day basis in the workplace. So much of it, if it was said, would generate significant progress and avoid so many challenges. But it remains unsaid and undealt with. In the scenario above, the employee is likely to continue to believe the boss is a micromanager and will begin to interpret even minor suggestions in that light. This will create a dynamic that the boss will be completely unaware of and will rob the employee of motivation and morale. And it’s completely avoidable.
Speaking the Unspoken
If you find yourself in a conversation that starts to go sideways, instead of getting defensive, say somethin like, “I feel like our conversation has started to escalate a bit. Are you feeling that too? If so, where do you think it’s coming from, and how do we get back on track?” Again, it’s taking a thought about the dynamic and verbalizing it. If you have a colleague who consistently has the wrong takeaways from your interactions with them, instead of emotionally withdrawing from that person and just consigning yourself to feeling frustrated with them, it might be worth saying something like, “It seems like, more often than not, you leave a conversation with me with a different takeaway than I was intending. How can I do better in creating clarity in our conversations?”
And the conversations don’t need to be terribly complex, they just need to address the unspoken issues. Going back to the dialog example above, one might simply say the following, “I had a real quick question that I’m hoping you can help shed some light on. Based on our discussion about the project last week, I had walked away with the understanding that this was going to be my opportunity to step more into independent decision making. From this conversation today, it seems like there are areas where I won’t be making independent decisions on this. Can we have a conversation about where those boundaries are, so that I have more clarity and alignment with you?” In many cases, seeking that clarification immediately can be a big step forward in resolving that unspoken issue.
It may very well be true that you’re thinking, That would never work with so-and-so. Any attempt to communicate like that with them would result in a problematic outcome. While you might be right, it’s also true that the cause of that dynamic is that for too long you and the other person have not had Process discussions, and everything that was left unsaid became internalized, creating a negative, stable view of the other person. And, from time to time, frustration boils over and you do have a Process conversation, but in a destructive way, such as yelling, “You never let me finish a thought without interrupting me!” That’s definitely a Process thought being verbalized but in an unhelpful way. It would be much healthier to say, “I’ve noticed that I have started to feel frustration when I share my ideas with you, because I don’t feel like I’m being given the space to get them out in one piece. Would it be possible to minimize the interruptions until I can get my full thought out?”
You can wordsmith it however it makes sense for you, as long as the unsaid isn’t left unsaid. The most emotionally intelligent people take the Process and bring it out into the open. This generates understanding and problem-solving, rather than misunderstanding and frustration. It takes some practice, but it is well worth developing this skill. It can fundamentally change how you communicate.