Last week, we talked about how to avoid misinterpretation. This week, I want to share with you an exercise that can really drive that point home — and help you and your team understand this cognitive dissonance.
Have your whole team (yourself included) write down the first ten words you think of when you hear the word “partnership.” Give yourself about 2 mins to force speed, and to get the first words that come to mind without overthinking. Once your lists are completed, have everyone turn to a partner (preferably the one they didn’t cheat from) and compare their lists to see how many words are exactly the same. Not sort of the same; not once explained how you interpret them they’re similar; but exactly the same.
I do this frequently in my team facilitations, workshops and conferences, and I’ve never once seen a pair who had all ten words the same. In fact, the highest match I’ve ever seen is 5 or 6 words, but I could count those pairs on the fingers of one hand with fingers left over. In fact, it’s not unusual to have a third or half of my audience having NO matching words at all. What does that tell you? Ask your team; the question solicits some interesting responses.
The bottom line is: we all interpret words differently. For instance, some people think of ‘partner’ as a business partner; some people think in terms of life partner or personal relationships; some words are emotionally oriented, others are much more pragmatic. But there are always differences. Even if we’re generally pretty aligned, we all have subtle (or not-so-subtle) variations in our perception of the word and the world.
Those variations can lead to big misunderstandings; think of that classic railroad picture, where they started from each coast, and met in the middle — only to find they were slightly off. The difference was a matter of feet over 2500 miles, but it renders the whole thing useless if it were to really happen. That is why it’s imperative to understand not just what people say, but what people hear, and to check in along the way to define terms, ask for interpretations, and check for alignment.
