One morning last week I was being interviewed for a coaching contract. The interviewer asked me to think about my recent experiences coaching executives and to talk about what trends or patterns I was noticing. After a few moments of thought, I had a list of three items. At the top of the list were challenges in communicating effectively both up and down. The interviewer agreed and then asked me to say a little more about how I worked with these clients. Of course, I noted that how I work with the clients depends on what’s needed. In some cases, the client needs to learn a specific set of communication skills. For example, leaders who have moved from project management into executive positions may need to learn how to communicate vision and engender buy-in instead of directing people to follow the details of a project plan. Sometimes learning to communicate effectively requires that a client stretch outside her comfort zone. Ingrained patterns of being “nice” can stand in the way of delivering difficult messages; discomfort with betraying feelings can create barriers to trust. There are also occasions where an individual’s style of communicating which was successful in previous work contexts no longer fits a new position within an organization or a shifting organizational culture. The interview went on a while longer and came to a satisfactory conclusion.
I wish I had read Robert Burton’s book “On Being Certain: Believing You are Right Even when You’re Not” before that conversation. Had I done so, I would have been able to add one more item to the communication challenge: the brain-based feeling of knowing. Burton, a neurologist, puts forward some convincing evidence that within the brain there is a primary mental state- the feeling of knowing- which has a role in shaping our thoughts. We all know that feeling. “I know I put my keys in my coat pocket”. “I know that I sent you that report last week.” Despite evidence to the contrary (an empty pocket, no sign of the report on your e-mail), I know what I did. I also know that my husband adds the wrong seasonings to his tomato sauce and that people who don’t like public radio are just plain wrong. Well, at least I feel I know those things.
Burton talks about two kinds of thoughts: semantic thoughts, which don’t need to be reasoned out (e.g. July follows June in the calendar); and perceptual thoughts for which the thinker’s brain must make instantaneous sense of the intersections of multiple, complex streams of memory, sensory input, perception, emotions and reasoning which are constantly undergoing change as new information is received.
What does this have to do with communication? Think about it. Most verbal friction between individuals comes about because we’re not thinking about something in the same way. Our brains “know” this thing differently. Imagine that each mind is an ocean. My brain’s take on the value of public radio is the result of thousands of little rivers and streams of my education, experience, personality, inclinations, genetics and what all else coming together in a single current when I turn on “All Things Considered.” Your brain is similarly an ocean and though we may have a few rivulets in common, your “public radio value stream” has incorporated thousands of other different creeks and rivers unique to you. Yet, each of us “feels” she is right about the issue at hand. What begins as a discussion, an exchange of perspectives, can easily turn into a debate and, finally, a full-blown argument.
So what’s the workaround to feeling I’m right? Can dialogue really make a difference? How can we create brain bridges? Stay tuned……
