My new friend Huguette has been studying up on her English with a book called Vrais Amis et Faux Amis. In English, that's "true friends and false friends." Now, this book is not about friendship; it's about words. Specifically, it's about words that exist in both English and French -- true friends being the situations in which both languages interpret one word the same way, and false friends being those risky situations in which the same letters or sounds have different interpretations by the two cultures. For instance, "superb" means the same thing in both languages. But, "car" means this to English-speakers...
...but this to French-speakers.
So, it would be easy for me to THINK that I understand Huguette when she uses the word "car," but my mind would be traveling in a different direction from hers…which could create a funny (or not-so-funny) situation later.
This morning, I was thinking about how pervasive this situation is -- even within a single culture. And, it dawned on me:
DISagreement is not the worst situation in communication.
MISagreement is.
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. A hurry to get something done. Many times, I REALLY WANT to believe that the other person agrees with me. So, I am not careful to confirm we have a true agreement, rather than a MISagreement. It is only later that we must suddenly stop/rewind/redo either one or both partners' resulting work.
Fortunately, disagreement is also often an illusion. Yes, fortunately. You see, I find that most initial appearances of disagreement are such that with a bit of clarification we find that we were simply focused on different parts of the same problem or that we did not have the same information -- and we don't actually disagree in any meaningful way about what needs to be done.
Paradoxically, the fastest way to a truly collaborative outcome is the early appearance of disagreement.
The early appearance of disagreement usually turns off the automaton-in-a-hurry-to-move-on switch in your brain, slowing you down to focus on what is happening now: this conversation, this partnership, this collaboration needs attention right now to make sure we are in tune -- to avoid MISagreement.
When you sense one of these situations, I recommend you approach it like the scientific method: test for the alternative hypothesis -- "When you say <insert word>, I interpret that as <insert narrative description or example>. How are you using the term <insert word>?" Repeat this until you find the term on which you are disagreeing -- or until you decide that you really, actually disagree. Either way, it is in your best interest to highlight, isolate, and address misunderstandings and to avoid MISagreements.
While the MISagreement problem certainly happens in spoken communication, I think it is epidemic in written communication like corporate reporting presentations -- especially those that use abbreviated text, bullet points, and illustrations. In fact, I think we often TRY to make MISagreement happen in our presentations: it requires a great deal of intellectual honesty to use words and images that are intended to avoid MISagreement.
It is not enough to use words that can mean what you say. It is essential to use words that cannot mean anything else.
Even if this means inviting disagreement. Because I'll take a true disagreement over a false agreement any day of the week.
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