I originally wanted to call this blog “lost in translation" but in gestation it shifted to “the practice of misunderstanding”. It sort of wrote itself. Its roots are in my work with people in different capacities over the last 15 years.
How often do the best intended messages somehow not get the response expected? Or our (apparently) killer stories fail to hit their mark, and barely raise a response. Or how often, our passions just come across as no more than slightly fanatical ramblings.
Or how often when we engage with people that we don't have a lot of experience with do we find our messages coming over confused and the metaphors tied in knots like the tendrils of a beached jelly-fish.
As a trainer and a facilitator I am frequently assailed by the ambiguities of communication. As much as I might try to craft messages that will land for those in the room, I certainly can't admit to always hitting the mark.
On reflection, the compromise begins within. There is an abridging that occurs as we move from felt/sensed/perceived experience and our final expression. First we have to find the right and appropriately representative words, then we have to check they are the right words, all before we get to what is actually spoken, and so heard. By the right words I mean those that we deem will be received as appropriate or acceptable in the social context. In so doing are thinking about how they will be perceived or interpreted, and we then consider whether these might or might not align to our original intention. Phew! Are you exhausted already? I am!
The Limitation of a Dictionary
In theory words are clean objective representations, since the day of Dr Johnson their meanings have carried clear and (theoretically) commonly accepted definitions. Our dictionaries, whether on the shelf or in the cloud facilitate this.
But yet there is more. In practice, words can also carry more personal interpretations, such as emotions or memories. Unique tags that each of us have gathered through the trail of tribulations that constitute real life, and so in spite of Dr Johnson and his successors' efforts, they are not always interpreted the same way. They do not all hit the same mark!
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that, “as soon as you try and put a thought into words it ceases to be true". There is something that is compromised when we put it into words. Language is always a summarisation.
Let me give you an example ….. Close your eyes and imagine a tree, sit with that image for a few seconds and allow your imagination to explore it a little. When you are done, open your eyes and try to write down a description of that tree.
My guess is that written representation had a limited richness versus the original image in your head. Even if you covered the whole page in words. And if someone reads your description of that tree? What is the likelihood that they will create an image in their heads replete with details identical to that which you initially imagined.
Seeing the Limits
The effect of these limits can work in two ways. Not only is that original information and experience compromised as we frame the sentence. Our interlocutor(s) plays this back in reverse. Lets consider what happens when that precis is then expanded once again within the consciousness of the recipient. In so doing it is translated back through and emphasised in the light of their filters. In practice, what chance is there really for a common or agreed understanding? Word alone is flawed and carries with it the potential to confuse. Think how often our emailed instructions or requests, or quick social media messages, are mis-interpreted. And what unfolds.
In practice we are primed to misunderstand (and potential for conflict) when we limit understanding to words alone. Think about legal disputes.
In the years that the followed 9/11 the insurance world lost millions of dollars over a dispute about whether the WTC attacks were one or multiple events. A semantic legal exercise, which in "real" life has no meaning what so ever. Yet expanded within the map of misunderstanding it took on a life of it's own, creating positions that no one was willing to relinquish. They were trapped in the prison of conflicting interpretation.
How many disputes over history have flared through misunderstood best intentions. If experience is comprised in the process of putting it into words, then the likelihood of interpretation being the same as my original experience is essentially nominal. I created the attached image to try and express this assertion, but of course it is in itself an compromise.
Also, how many spiteful and emotional disputes unfold now in social media when we do not just misinterpret information, but also then apply a degree of territoriality over our statements. Which then demand defence at all costs. How much energy do we expend seeking to win nominal and irrelevant arguments that have no value beyond the time it takes to type them.
My assertion here is the value in acknowledging this potential for confusion. Recognising the often emptiness of words alone. Acknowledging the potential for misunderstanding in receipt, regardless of how well we craft the original message.
If we recognise this potential then perhaps we can pause, reflect or maybe even test out what is and is not understood. We can reflect, explore or question before we fire back in an unhelpful voice. We can even ask what others understood of our communication.
Think about it! I might not understand you as you seek to be understood, any more that you might me.
Your observations are invited.
