Sometimes, Say *Exactly* What You Mean

First published on March 15, 2019

One of my favourite moments of coaching never actually happened. I was a member of a group of coaches, learning together, and we played a game. Someone shared a situation they were dealing with and each coach offered them a question. The person sharing then got to choose which question to answer.

The person in question - let's call them the client - had been speaking about the challenges of having their Left Brain and Right Brain in conflict. Another coach gave a beautiful intervention, which made me laugh and almost applaud because of it's elegance (it was on Zoom and I was on 'Mute', so that was ok): Can you tell us the situation again but without using the words 'Left', 'Right' or 'Brain'?

The client chose to answer a different question - and it wasn't mine, either - but I have remembered that moment ever since, because the other coach's question unlocked for me something I had seen in the client, but been unable to articulate. The phrases 'left brain' and 'right brain' were holding her back. They didn't give us - the listeners - the full detail of what they meant (I'm still not sure I remember the difference), and they assumed that we knew. But also, in this case, it felt to me - and the coach who asked the question - that they didn't give the speaker the full detail of what she meant. That unpacking them would be of huge benefit to her.

Language is a fascinating thing, and the words we use matter. As phrases pass into common parlance, they provide us with a wonderful way of short-cutting a repetitive explanation. We see this as we use acronyms in our office; we see it in our daily life when we use phrases like 'Work-Life Balance' or 'Left Wing' or 'Vaping'. They have meanings. We know what they mean, and they speed up and simplify conversations. That's one of the beauties of language, and if you try and imagine how life could possibly work without that process and those shortcuts it's basically impossible. These phrases and this evolution of language enables conversation and understanding to progress so much faster than it would otherwise.

Except when it doesn't.

Except when they slow down our thinking, because they aren't able - in certain situations - to give the texture necessary to advance conversation and understanding. Except when they lead to misunderstandings - sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally. Or they lead to conversations being shut down, dialogue and debate silenced.

We pick these words and phrases up from popular culture, and we use them. And they are useful. And it pays to slow down sometimes, to explain them, to expand them.

Sometimes, we use them with careful understanding, and sometimes we use them because we hear other people use them, or because they are used almost ideologically by 'people like me' (whether that is 'coaches', 'conservatives', or 'remainers').

Take this thought with you in the next few days or weeks. When are the shortcuts and phrases you use shutting down a conversation or a train of thought, and when are they helping? Try replacing 'lean in' or 'political correctness gone mad' or 'fascist' with whatever you actually mean by that. And understand it will be different to what someone else means by that.

Notice it with others. When do they use a phrase that you don't quite know what they mean, or you wonder if they know what they mean? Notice it, particularly, if someone uses it to shut down a conversation or make you feel small. It's basically impossible to increase understanding if we don't both know exactly what we mean.

Not all the time, of course. But if you believe that we are living in more divided times, then asking that question - what exactly do you mean by that? - with genuine curiosity, could be the way to open dialogues, change debates, and deepen our collective understandings.

Stephen CreekComment