A Relentless Trojan Horse: Language

Mark Twain noted that “Language is the Trojan Horse from which ideas get into the mind.”? He doesn’t attempt to modify the statement to communicate that accurate, reliable, consistent, or even truthful information matters. ?The language we use plants ideas, triggers emotions, and stimulates associations…..and judgments.

Every word used is clothed in emotional colors and carries with it potential intentional invitations, unintentional invitations, intentional disinvitations, and unintentional disinvitations (W.W. Purkey, PhD). ?And we get in serious trouble with the unintended messages. ?The list would be long if we knew the number of times we thought we communicated one message only to learn a very different and unintended message was received.

As an exercise, I invite managers to think about feedback they need to give to a peer or associate. ?They are asked to identify feedback intended to help an individual grow, to gain clarity on a behavior to start, stop, or continue.? They write the opening paragraph of the feedback they plan to give.? In groups of four, I ask them to use a process of reading the paragraph WITHOUT ANY ADDITIONAL CONTEXT—just read it.? The other three members of the group are to capture what they heard as an intentional message and a potentiallyunintended message.? Each member of the group has the same experience through rotation.

?Of course, the potential unintended messages provide golden learning.? Folks are astonished at what people are hearing in their statements, and most of the time, when individuals think about it, the unintentional message is the real message the sender wants to send.?

?We do multiple rounds and slowly get to the single sentence that describes the behavior that was the focus and the impact it was having, and the simple request to explore it.? So a 150-word opening paragraph is reduced to: “I’ve noticed that when we are in meetings together, you keep looking at your phone.? I’m puzzled by this and want to explore how that can change.”

?Our brain is remarkable in that it is busy decoding information and making up a coherent narrative as to what the information means.? We know the brain privileges emotional prompts over other kinds of information, and often tragically, we respond to those emotional tags as if these are “true” statements of the way things are.?

?We may not realize that the message coming to us is cloaked in unconscious content which gets translated as intentional. ?The person who gives a brief and terse response to a question may be responding to the feeling of being accused, though the question was not accusatory.? When the individual was growing up, questioning always carried an undercurrent of accusations of doing things incorrectly.? Without realizing it, a seemingly basic information probe triggers a reservoir of emotional energy.

?We need to remember, as Jung suggested, that “we hardly know the impact we have on others.” ?I’ll never forget rubbing my eyes in a meeting with vendors and the team of associates interpreted the action as rejecting a certain vendor.? I shared that I was getting used to a new set of glasses that I picked up earlier in the day.? But this reminded me that people watch closely and listen closely and interpret in ways beyond our control.? It is only when we ask do we learn how the messaging is going.

It is a good practice to check out with others what they are hearing when we want to provide a deliberate message and to probe what others are hearing or understanding and are experiencing related to our intentions.

?Emily Dickinson wrote:

A Word is Dead the Moment It’s Said

Some Say

I Say it Just Begins to Live that Day

And how very right she is that words live in our minds and take root.? While we can’t know every outcome of our engagement with others, we can be mindful of the terms, goals, ambitions, aspirations, and hopes we infuse with the messages we give.? And with careful attention, nurture a co-created understanding of where we are and where we want to go.

It takes less time to become an effective communicator than time and resources to constantly clean up all the misunderstandings.? Being mindful about the messages we send and what we think we are hearing is worth the effort.? Our words can be the Trojan Horse that brings energy, hope, and seeds of opportunity.