“Conversation Prisms”
Ever seen the movie Office Space? It is one of the most iconic cult-classic movies showing the extreme hypocrisies of corporate life, work meaning, and communication gone wrong. The head manager, Bill Lumbergh, speaks to the employees in what might appear to be a calm, managerial, slow, deliberate, specific, and professional tone of voice. Multiple times throughout the movie, he follows the “leadership rules” of communicating his specific needs for the company to run smoothly. It includes often using the word “we” instead of “I” when he is speaking with employees – particularly when he is trying to avoid active employee conflicts in the workplace. It should work, right?
But it doesn’t. “Yeah….I’m going to need you to get on those TPS reports,” he drawls. “Yeah…Where are we on those TPS reports?” he asks. “So…I’m going to need you to go ahead and move into the basement because we need to use this office. We really appreciate it,” he instructs one disgruntled employee who is never actually told that he was laid off weeks previously and that’s why he didn’t receive his paycheck. All of the employees ignore, avoid, or stare blankly at him. He is a caricature of himself and his own importance. None of the employees actually view him as important, relevant, or needed. He is a leader who follows the rules, but isn’t seen as a leader. In fact, he is perceived to be the problem – no matter what he says.
The hypocrisy of leadership training is often found in the fact that learning, following, and practicing the right leadership rules or skills for communicating does not actually guarantee good communication. If you are a leader who feels s/he is communicating well to his or her team what is expected but is still encountering difficulty, resistance, and new obstacles from the team itself, this article is for you. Let’s find the “disconnect” and try to get you connected again with your team.
The Basics of Communication, Miscommunication, and Cross-Communication.
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place! Just saying the words, even saying them in the right way does not guarantee communication has occurred. Let’s look at how real communication works. First, you have something to say. You talk to someone with the idea of “Let’s Talk” being implied. Your words come out into the air around you. But some other things happen that you might not be aware of when your words come out. It might look something like this:
You have an unseen “You” Zone that is hidden from everyone. It is full of your personal patterns of thought, connections, and contexts for the idea you are sharing. It makes you choose the words and order and tone used. Those are all picked up by others based on what they perceive or understand to be true about you based on your public clues about yourself. That is called a “Clue Zone.” The clue zone shapes what is shared based on what others perceive about your contexts for sharing them. In this way, the Post-it notes of information that make it through the clue zone can often be saying the exact opposite of what one intends. For example, sharing something seemingly innocent to the speaker might actually be communicating to recipients: “You don’t care what I think.” “You don’t respect me.” “You think you’re smarter than me.” “You want more than I want/have to give.” “You’re angry.” “I care. (when I don’t really),” “I agree. (when I am resisting)” “I support you. (when I don’t).” That is miscommunication. Being aware of your own clue zone means that you are able to provide better contexts for what you are saying or about to say so that others can receive the correct intent and meaning of what is shared. Sometimes this intentional skill is called “priming the conversation.” It is a skill that can be developed with help from a qualified/certified communication coach.
But communication involves more than just one person. Thus, a conversation may initially look more like this:
Notice that even if each person is talking with purpose and intent, there is an empty understanding space between them. Many times, conversations stay in the clue zone where parties shoot word arrows to parse or push intent based on the clue zones. They may even feel or think agreement is happening when it isn’t. Each person’s biased unseen zone has attached meaning and context onto what is being said by the other. The same word might carry different meanings to each, despite such “agreement.” And understanding may not actually take place between the parties: They are present in the discussion, but not actively engaged in the other’s intent or purpose. This is cross-communication.
In conversational scenarios, level one communication often happens in which someone with more authority or power just tells things to others. Recipients usually resist in some way. Sometimes level two communication happens where parties negotiate transactionally through the clue zones: I’ll do this if you do that. Neither level one or two communication inhabits the full space of understanding in the communication. Communication is not actually happening! If there is a strong relationship already (turquoise area), trust may be there enough to infuse the conversation with some level of interactive resonance based on past experiences. But even without an established relationship, it is possible to build trust in that understanding space and have powerful conversations where communication is actively synchronized.
How Conversations Produce Greatness.
In the neuroscientific world conversational synchronicity can be referred to as “Two-Brain Communication.” When synchronized, conversations take on significant power. In a synchronized conversation where trust and understanding of what is communicated by each party takes place, both brains literally change physiologically. It actually opens up the areas of each brain where connection, decision-making, memory, innovation, creativity, and self-actualization take place. Trust grows. People work better, feel better, and do better. Companies prosper and innovate more. Organizations are more agile in the market. Employee turnover rates drop. Teams engage more. Real communication in great conversations is powerful.
The late Judith E. Glaser, founder of the Creating We Institute and Benchmark Publications on Conversational Intelligence, said this: To get to the next level of greatness depends on the quality of the culture, which depends on the quality of the relationships, which depends on the quality of the conversations. Everything happens through conversations!” Unlike the movie Office Space, one needn’t burn down the entire organization to be free from the toxicity of it. There is a better way! And great leadership starts with one person in leadership making the decision to communicate better with these principles. It can become that leader’s greatest superpower: to embody, mentor, regulate, and reward great conversations that grow trust in his or her team. It’ll change the leader, the team, the company relationships, and the company culture. It makes leaders and organizations go from good to great. Are you in?
Susan Zytnik-Kunzler, ACC, BCC, MSOL is a twice-credentialed coach with a specialization in career coaching. She is highly experienced in leadership development and is the founder of A-Squared LAMP Groups, a 501(c)3 charity that provides professional and organizational development through coaching, training, consulting, startup incubation, and providing targeted systems & resource access. She has over 30 years experience working and developing new and established leaders and about 10 years helping new startups and helping people get the career they want.
