Avoid Misunderstandings in the Workplace
Good leaders are aware of the importance of what is said. Great Leaders are aware of the importance of what is not being said.
I recall a story about a manager who had just joined a team and he did what all good managers do which was he explained his expectations.
He said that he felt that respect was the most important quality to have among teams.
Everyone had to respect each other. He as the leader had to respect the team and the team had to respect him.
The team universally agreed yet just a few weeks later the manager called me and expressed concern that the relationship between him and his team wasn’t good.
When I asked what the problem was, he told me that it was simple. His team didn’t respect him. So what happened?
The illusion of understanding
When I sat down with the team I quickly found out what had happened and it was a problem that I see in many teams.
Everyone thought they were talking about the same thing, when in fact they were talking about different things.
This is what I call the illusion of understanding.
The mangers definition of respect was that people would tell him openly when he was wrong yet the team’s definition of respect was the complete opposite.
In fact for them if they told their boss he was wrong in front of people then that would be a clear sign of disrespect.
You can easily understand why there was a clear misunderstanding because the manager and the team had differing definitions of “respect”
In this weeks article I want to explain how these kinds of misunderstanding occurs and what we can do as leaders in order to overcome them.
Firstly let me give you some background on why people have different definitions of the same word.
As children we develop a language.
This is a tool in order to help us obtain what we want in life to survive like food, shelter, love relationships etc.
People develop their language including meaning of words in three main ways.
What they observe, what they experience and what they are told.
This is highly effective but the challenge is that we develop language before the executive control function part of the brain fully develops.
How the brain works
The executive control function is the last part of the brain to solidify.
This is the critical part of our brain which enables us to challenge what we are told in a logical way.
This is why you can tell a child a fairy tale and they will believe every word, yet if you told an adult the same story they would know that it’s not logical and therefore not true.
This means that our view of the world is quite fixed before we develop the ability to challenge this view so when we become adults this strongly influences our lives.
When we encounter someone with a different definition of a word, particularly if it’s a value or judgement such as honesty, integrity trust etc, then the typical reaction a person has is that the other person is wrong and they themselves are right.
This is called the Similarity Attraction Effect which is why the majority of a person’s close friends tend to share the same values or it would be more accurate to say they share the same definition of values. Now this is very useful when forming friendships but for leaders it can be a challenge because great leaders don’t just lead their friends. They should be able to lead everyone. So how do they do it?
Silence is not agreement
Just because people are not talking it doesn’t mean they don’t have an opinion.
A common mistake that leaders make is that they ask a question and because there’s silence they assume that everyone agrees, I’ve seen many careers fall apart because of assumptions.
Great leaders never assume. Silence is not agreement, silence means that people are either not comfortable to raise their opinion or think that it’s not worth it because people are not listening. Great leaders understand that listening is just as important as talking.
Combine the “why” with the “What”
Great leaders have the ability to tell the same story in different ways to different audiences.
When they explain what needs to happen they understand that some people are naturally attracted to the big picture, while others want to know why something is happening and the rationale behind the decision yet other people are naturally more focused on the specifics and the detail on the practical steps. Successful leaders explain themselves by combining the “why” and the “what” they explain the reasoning behind their idea, the strategy as well as the specifics of what will happen.
This way everyone understands the decision better.
Applied learning
One of the most useless things to say to someone is “do you understand?”
This question doesn’t work for two reasons.
Firstly firstly people will freely say yes because they don’t want to look stupid and secondly people will also agree because they genuinely believe they understand when it’s only later on they realise they didn’t.
If you want to avoid misunderstandings stop saying “do you understand?”
Instead look for examples of applied learning.
If you have told someone to do a task, applied learning would be asking them how they would go about completing the task.
Ask people questions where the answer would demonstrate their understanding and never just ask a yes or no question because you will only ever hear yes. Misunderstandings occur everyday but with a bit of knowledge about how the brain works and some practical tips you can become a more effective leader and ensure that what you say is the same as what is being heard.