The Art of Conversation:  Why Business Conversations are Fraught with Misunderstandings, Part 2

Communication is fraught with misunderstandings, misfires, miscommunications and mishaps.  It’s akin to the Abbot and Costello radio comedy skit from 1938 titled “Who’s On First?”.  The premise of the sketch is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team for Costello.  But the players’ names simultaneously serve as the basis for questions and responses.  For example, “Who is the first baseman?” and “The first baseman is Who.”  This leads to repeated misinterpretations and growing frustration between the performers.

That sketch was later performed in two movies in 1940 and 1945 and then in a television program. During the recording of the skit for the 1945 movie, there is muffled laughter in the background coming from the film crew.  They were trying, but failing, to keep from laughing during the taping even after multiple takes.  Finally, film Director Jean Yarbrough decided it was a hopeless task to get them to stop laughing, so on the last take he left in their laughter.  Even now, a video of that sketch plays continuously in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY.  The reason this skit from over 85 years ago is still considered funny by people of all ages and locations is because it touches on a problem everyone experiences… miscommunication.

All men and women have trouble with miscommunication.  Misunderstandings happen regardless of age and background.  Communication misfires happen in all locations and languages.  And if you mix people of different gender,  geographic location, culture, and ages together, the chance for a conversational disconnect increases significantly.  These disconnects happen at home and work.  Not only do these misfires affect our personal relationships, but also our professional ones. 

While it might seem odd to equate business conversations to a comedy skit, so many conversations have an element of that.  What’s worse is that the people having the conversation aren’t even aware that there is a misunderstanding with what they are saying, or more likely, how they are saying it.  In business, conversational disconnects – often caused by differences in linguistic and conversational styles — can result in lost opportunities, deals and relationships.  Misunderstandings between management and staff can cause employee turnover to increase.  Conversational disconnects between employees and customers can lose deals.  This can have a real impact on the bottom line, and there’s nothing funny about that.

What We Say and How We Say It

Communication is effective when the recipient of a thought understands the meaning intended by the speaker. Good communication is simple and direct, sometimes intensified by emotion, but never confusing. There are many variables that can cause communication to fail, including:

1. choice of words
2. intonation patterns
3. pace at which each person speaks
4. pace at which the speaker gets to the point
5. the rhythm of the conversation
6. how loudly / softly each person is speaking
7. misunderstood humor
8. differing customs / cultural norms
9. a disconnection caused by different conversational styles (talking over someone; comfort with silence and pregnant pauses; etc.)

Let’s look at each and identify some strategies to avoid misunderstanding.

1. Choice of Words

While there is no exact count of words in the English language, it’s estimated that there are more than 1 Million total words, about 170,000 words in current use, and 20,000-30,000 words used by any given individual.  On top of that, it is estimated that a new word is created every 98 minutes.  Due to the sheer number of words available to choose from, the opportunity for muddled communication is high, even when two people have similarly sized vocabularies.  Which 20,000-30,000 words each person knows varies from person to person.  Also, the understood meaning of each word can vary significantly due to environment, culture, and experiences. 

And this does not even factor in other ways that choice of words used in business impacts comprehension, such as with acronyms (CMO = Chief Medical Officer or Chief Marketing Officer?), industry jargon (mission-critical = essential to existence or just really important?), colloquialisms (long shot; corner the market; up in the air; hands tied; go down swinging), legalese (heretofore; aforementioned; moot point; hearsay; per se; etc.) and/or buzzwords (leverage; bandwidth; synergy; etc.).  All of this adds to the possibility of confusion and miscommunication.

Here is a fictional scenario to illustrate the point.  The new Accounting Manager at a small business approaches the top Salesperson in the company on a Wednesday afternoon and says “If you have time, please process your travel expense receipts.” The Salesperson, concentrating on a quote for a customer, gives a small nod and says, “Uh-huh.”  To the Accounting Manager’s dismay, no Expense Report had been submitted by end of day Friday.  When confronted on Monday by the irate Accounting Manager, the Salesperson excused his lack of action with the explanation, “You said ‘if I had time,’ and I was busy getting some quotes done and visiting clients.”

This scene is repeated every day in thousands of businesses across the country. The Accounting Manager was guilty of not saying what she really meant.  Her intent was to instruct the Salesperson to submit all expenses by end of the week, even if that meant the Salesperson would have to rearrange his schedule or miss another activity in order to finish the paperwork.  In an effort to avoid being demanding or seeming unreasonable, the new Accounting Manager added the false condition “if you have time,” expecting the Salesperson to intuit the underlying meaning of the statement as having urgency.  The salesperson – who is commission-based and only makes money by closing deals — naturally focused on the conditional “if you have time,” rather than the direction of “process your travel expense receipts”.  The Salesperson thinks the only thing that should really matter at the company is sales.  The Accounting Manager is responsible for ensuring that all charges on the company’s credit cards are properly expensed in a timely manner in case of an audit.  As a consequence, both parties felt unfairly treated by the other. 

In linguistics, this is considered False Civility, a common cause of misunderstanding.  While civility is desirable in all cultures, it’s often misinterpreted. Civility is a matter of context.  What’s considered rude or thoughtless in one situation might be proper in another.  A supervisor asking a colleague to meet a deadline should not dilute the message just to be seen as “nice.” Civility is about being considerate of how words and deeds affect others.  It does not, however, mean beating around the bush or being fake.

In the previous scenario, the Accounting Manager would have been more effective if she had taken the time to make sure the Salesperson was listening, and chosen her words carefully.  If she had waited for the salesperson to look at her, she could then have said “Mike, we will be closing out the books for the quarter starting Monday, so you need to process all travel expenses by end of day Friday.  Any problem with that?”  That would have communicated the urgency and timetable.

The salesperson could then have replied “I’m swamped with quotes and was going to visit two clients on Friday.  But, since you need the travel expenses right away, I will reschedule one client for next week and spend the time on Friday processing my expenses instead”. The Accounting Manager could then have either said, “Great. I appreciate it.” or “If I get you an accounting clerk to help you process those expenses today, would that speed things up so you don’t have to reschedule a meeting with a client?”  By using clear language, the Accounting Manager would have communicated the expectation and possibly offered help, and the Salesperson would have understood what was needed and either rearranged his schedule or accepted a helping hand.

Research shows that unclear language can undermine trust in the message and in the individual.  And many pieces of business jargon and acronyms are overused and imprecise.  So better than having a terse conversation, the Accounting Manager could set a policy and process for how expense reports are handled.  And if processing expense reports is not the highest or best use of a top Salesperson’s time, then providing accounting support – if the company can afford it — ensures things are done in a timely manner and eliminates the need for the conversation completely.

Next week, we’ll look beyond word choice to how things are said as a source of miscommunication.   Don’t miss it.

Quote of the Week

“There is no communication that is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood.” Luigina Sgarro

© 2022, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.

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