What I say is not what my children hear.

"Didn't I Tell You to Clean Up?

When I say, “Clean your room!”, my nine-year-old son interprets it as picking up a few toys from the floor and tossing the clothes lying around—clean and dirty, all rolled into a ball—into the closet. What I meant was for him to remove ALL clothes and toys from the floor, put everything neatly in its place, take dishes, glasses, and other items that don't belong in his room back to the kitchen, and make his bed. What I envisioned is not at all what he hears, but why? Isn't that a pretty straightforward and clear message? How can something so simple be misunderstood?

But, That's Not What You Said

The message “clean your room” can have many different meanings depending on who interprets it. The problem arises when I assume that my son understands what I mean, even though he doesn't have the same information and background that I do. Perhaps I should have told him that we needed to do laundry that day and that it was important for his dirty clothes to go in the laundry basket, or that we were having a cleaning session in the afternoon, so everything on the floor needed to be removed so the vacuum cleaner could get through.

The Cursed ‘Curse of Knowledge’

Professors Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Martin Weber published a groundbreaking paper in 1989 called ‘The Curse of Knowledge in Economic Settings.’ The focus of their paper was to understand how individuals make decisions in situations of uncertainty. Their theory, in simple terms, was that individuals with a lot of knowledge often struggle to convey information to those with less knowledge. Here in Denmark, we call it the curse of knowledge.

Do You Know This One?

In the book ‘Made to Stick,’ Chip and Dan Heath explore this phenomenon by presenting an example with Elizabeth Newton, a psychology student from Stanford University. In her experiment, she divided participants into two groups: ‘tappers’ and ‘listeners.’ The instruction was simple—the tappers had to tap a well-known melody like ‘Happy Birthday’ or the US national anthem on the table, while the listeners tried to guess the melody.

Before the experiment, Newton asked the tappers to estimate how many listeners they thought would be able to guess the melody. They estimated 50%. Surprisingly, only 2.5%, or 3 out of the 120 tapped melodies, were correctly guessed. The tappers were mistaken because they already knew the melody and could hear it in their heads while tapping, which was in stark contrast to the listeners who only perceived disjointed tapping sounds.

Are You Cursed?

Unfortunately, it happens all the time. For example, when marketers become so close to their product that they can no longer see it as outsiders who experience the product or service for the first time do. If you assume that your target audience already knows what you're talking about, it often leads to oversimplifying your message or leaving out important information.

Or you end up using insider language, industry jargon, buzzwords, and acronyms that no one understands!

How Do I Become a Customer?

The curse affects us all, especially when we write. It's particularly dangerous because readers can't ask questions, and writers can't gauge reactions. The curse can sneak into an email, a website, or a social media post, which is why much of the content intended to guide potential customers through the sales funnel fails, leaving them confused, without a clear understanding of what to do next, or worse—how to buy the product.

Storytelling Lifts the Curse

Storytelling forces us to recall our own experiences and understanding of the subject. It compels us to put ourselves in the audience's shoes and imagine what it was like when we didn’t know everything we know now, and to adjust our communication accordingly. When we use stories, we also create shared experiences and evoke emotions to make the message memorable. Stories help our audience understand complex subjects and make informed decisions.

The Tortoise and the Hare

We convey valuable lessons to our children every day through stories. From the importance of perseverance and determination in the tale of the tortoise and the hare to the theme of self-acceptance and believing in oneself in H.C. Andersen’s ‘The Ugly Duckling.’ Maybe my son would have cleaned his room with a smile if I had told him a story about a boy who saved the day by tidying up his room. Or maybe not, but it’s worth a try because as author and marketing theorist Peter Drucker said: “It’s not about the message, it’s about the reaction.”