It's not what you say...

This is a distillation of a talk Sadie Crabtree gave at TAM 9 in Las Vegas.  The ideas are (hopefully) as she presented them - I'm not qualified to know if they're original or if she (just) did a great job of presenting them.

It's not what you say, it's what they hear.

That's the #1 sound-bite to take away.  There are some details, but the heart of the matter is captured in that message.

Classic communication theory has the entire process broken down into a few steps:

1. You have an idea.
2. You translate the idea into words.
3. You speak/write/sing/or otherwise encode those words into a medium.

    The medium transmits the encoded message

1. Someone hears/reads/otherwise receives the message.
2. They parse the phrases and words.
3. They form an idea of what you're saying based on their interpretation of your words.

If any step is missing what you thought is not received by the person on the other end.  If at any step the message changes, their perception of your idea is changed as well.

You have control over your side of things - what words you chose, what form you chose.

From there, the message goes out.  You have no control over how it is transmitted.  You have no control over how someone hears it.  You have no control over how they parse it, or what ideas they form.

The only control you have over how the receiver interprets your message is in the words you chose.

Pro-Choice.  Pro-Life.

Who could be against either of those?  Those are very carefully chosen words because it creates an uncomfortable mental state to think of yourself as against Choice or against Life.  The mental dodge we all use is to say "I'm not Anti-Life, I'm Pro-Choice", or "I'm not Anti-Choice, I'm Pro-Life."  But it's just that - a dodge.  We know "the other side" picked their phrase to make it hard to refute.  We refute it anyway, claiming it's bunk.  But ours... Ours is the real interpretation.  I'm not Anti-Life, I'm Pro-Choice.

Labels.

Next time you're talking to someone, try to be aware of the labels you use.  We all use them - communication is impossible without them.  Just try to think of how someone might have a slightly different definition of a label than you.  What does "Republican" mean to a republican?  What about to a democrat?  What about "Taxes"?  Or "Wellfare"?

Labels have power, in their ability to condense an idea to a simple, easy-to-repeat sound bite.  But that power can be (and often is) subverted by people having different definitions for those labels.

You may be trying to say, "Lets not burden the poorest people with extra expenses" when you say "Tax the rich", but many will hear, "I think the most successful people should be punished for their success by having to pay the way for the lazier members of society."  "Rich", "Taxes" and "Poor" are labels with different definitions for different groups of people.

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Next time we find ourselves in a situation where someone is just not understanding us, the right thing to do is step back, learn what we can about their perspective and try rephrasing what we're saying so they'll understand it better.


Communication is difficult.  But it's also the most powerful invention of the human species.  Learning that our perspective, our words, and our definitions for those words are not the only ones out there is the first step to effectively utilizing this most powerful of inventions.