“The main problem with communication,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, “is the assumption that it has happened.”
This may well be one of the eternal truths of mankind.
And it’s particularly a problem when we are innovating. The nature of innovation is that new ideas break existing “rules”, and an immediate and natural response is to invoke the rule and put up an objection.
So often this knee-jerk reaction springs from having misunderstood some aspect of the new idea.
The best way I know to deal with this syndrome is to use paraphrase.
To say to the person who has put forward the idea, “What I hear you saying is…”, is far more likely to result in real comprehension. Especially compared with the usual tactic.
Posts
