A fixed-term job, a few months long. On the other side, a contact who was there at the start and then, week after week, a little less. Calls kept slipping, and the messages were full of enthusiasm but never any decisions. I was covered, the contract spelled out the duration and the terms. And yet at some point the problem showed up anyway.
A quick note before going on. The episodes in this post have been transposed, with the sector, the details and the timing changed, because I don’t want anyone to be recognizable. The mechanism, though, is real.
What I didn’t say
I had taken it for granted that he could feel the time running out too, even when we weren’t meeting. I hadn’t checked whether he understood what that duration meant. One message would have been enough, something like “At this rate we won’t finish on time. If it suits you better, let’s pause and restart, otherwise we’ll need a few more months and I’d hate that.” I never sent it. Legally I was in the clear, but that “but” is the real problem, and part of the blame was mine.
Saying too much, saying too little
The further I go, the more I study and think, the more I notice how hard it is to communicate well. We’ve talked and written about it before, but here I want to look at one thing. Communication mistakes aren’t all the same, and I see two opposite ones.
The first belongs to people who talk in order to get something. Frustration, speed, sometimes presumption, the idea of convincing at all costs, and often talking instead of listening. I’m not thinking of the self-styled gurus who use rhetoric to manipulate. I’m thinking of people who start out with the best intentions and who, under pressure and without enough clarity to stop and think, keep going convinced they’re doing fine. Maybe they get the result, but at the end of the day, what state are they in?
The second mistake is mine, taking things for granted and staying silent. In both cases, when you think about it, listening is missing.
What lands on the other side
Communicating is the act of putting requests, thoughts and words in front of other people, aloud or in writing. But the message that leaves isn’t the one that arrives, and what arrives builds perception. If we don’t handle it well, a distorted picture forms of us, of our work, of whatever we’re involved in. Asking “how do they see me?” helps more than it seems. Gadamer spoke of a fusion of horizons, the moment when understanding the other person changes how we see things too.
I started thinking about this in a volunteer association I belong to, where we’re trying to understand why it’s hard to bring in new people. Not every problem is objective or structural. It’s a working hypothesis, but it starts partly from here, from how what we do reaches the outside.
Then I think of a small town council, again with the details changed. Looking at what has been done, the work is there and it’s well done. And yet people complain, don’t take part, don’t vote. It can be politics, but not always. To me it seems that sometimes it’s communication that doesn’t happen, that comes late, or that when it does come sounds like an excuse. I say “to me it seems” on purpose, because it’s my own perception, and that’s exactly the point. Perception forms even when the data say otherwise. And that’s a shame for everyone.
Rhetoric is not manipulation
The word rhetoric can make people wince, and I often ask myself whether I’m crossing the line. For me it means care for the listener, choosing how to say something so that the other person can understand it. Cicero is my foundation. Cialdini is the modern appendix, and rereading his six principles I realized I apply most of them, to different degrees and always consciously.
Before an important conversation I simulate scenarios, questions and answers, so that I have a base even when things go somewhere else. It’s what I call knowing the variables. And when needed I switch approach on the fly, reworking tone and manner for the person in front of me.
To work out which side I’m on I use two questions. How would I feel receiving that message myself? And am I leading this person toward a shared goal or toward my own advantage? The second is almost Kant, treating the other as an end and never merely as a means. If the answer is my own advantage, for me it’s no longer rhetoric.
Break it down before you answer
From mathematics I carry a practical habit, breaking things down. I separate what I said from what arrived, and before that I define the terms, because in mathematics you don’t move forward if two people give different meanings to the same symbol. With everyday words it happens more often than we think, and here Wittgenstein helps, for whom the meaning of a word lies in its use. If the other person and I use it differently, it isn’t the same word for us. I’ve found that out afterwards more than once.
It isn’t easy and it isn’t the solution to everything. If I had to name a first step, I’d say listening, so often said and so rarely practiced. With a group of volunteers we’re trying to start from there, in the teams, for a set period. We ask questions, a bit like Socrates, not to lead the other person where I want but to understand where they stand, and for now without judging and without advising. As a second step I’d suggest what has worked for me and what I’m still working on, reading and studying.
In recent weeks, between work and volunteering, I’ve been realizing how much there is to do. In some areas the road is right but long. Talking about it, and hearing whether something different reaches you too, in the channels you know well, would please me.