Confuzzled

9/7/2020

‘It’s always best to pose a question, except when it isn’t.’ (Claire Pedrick)

It reminds me of Ted Winship, a trade union activist I worked with as an apprentice. He often spoke like this: ‘It’s always the same, sometimes.’ It was a kind of word play that made people stop – and think. Or a teacher at school whose name, sadly, escapes me now: ‘If you have nothing to say, say it.’ It was some years before I finally worked out what she meant. I think too of Jesus. He often spoke in parables – stories, analogies, that left many of those who heard him feeling perplexed or bemused.

Yet, why do it? In an era of endless soundbites, personal broadcasts, voices calling out loudly in all directions competing for air space, it’s hard to achieve cut-through. Even harder, perhaps, to achieve break-through; to have a meaningful influence or impact. We create and consume words like candy and in high volume, yet few provide the life-giving spiritual, mental and emotional sustenance we need to learn, develop and grow. How do you use language to evoke or provoke, reveal or inspire?

26 Comments

Annette Maie, Phd.

9/7/2020 10:52:09 pm

Seems to me Indigenous cultures have a history of been skilled in the use of metaphor for many layers of meaning... interesting reading 'Sandtalk' by Australian, Tyson Yunkaporta where he discusses this.

Nick Wright

9/7/2020 11:13:35 pm

Hi Annette. Yes, metaphor can be a creative, vivid and powerful use of language to evoke and reveal layers of meaning; especially those with emotional-spiritual content that are are difficult (if not impossible) to convey via more linear, descriptive language. Thank you for the reference to Sandtalk - much appreciated.

Ian Henderson

10/7/2020 08:21:32 pm

Meaningful influence for me is being aware of what matters to other people.

10/7/2020 08:22:32 pm

Hi Ian. That's certainly a good starting point from which to exert meaningful influence. Do you have any examples from experience you could share here?

13/7/2020 06:04:10 pm

Hi Nick. To be fair, there are so many. The point is that people are motivated by what matters to them, which is obviously linked to their values. When I am in sales mode I will always ask the potential client what is important to them about training. Their answer always gives me so much information about what I need to in order to (a) firstly influence them to partner with us and (b) what I need to deliver for them to value our partnership. For me it's the essence of real collaboration and why we have such a high repeat business rate; of which we are proud!

13/7/2020 06:10:05 pm

Hi Ian. Yes, I have seen and experienced you model that in practice! I agree that people are motivated by what matters to them. Gestalt guru Geoff Pelham observed that people also notice (selectively) what matters to them. Sometimes we can influence simply by enabling a client to notice what they were not (hitherto) noticing. Your sales approach reminds me of that advocated by James Rowe: 'consultative selling'. It focuses on establishing genuine partnership with mutual benefits.

John (Norval) Settle

15/7/2020 12:35:22 pm

The Pelham observation (by another name) is a common cognitive bias. One mini-technique in mediation to deal with such hearing "misses" is to do a quick time-out, and ask a party to tell you (and the other party) what he/she just heard -- and then ask the other party if the response was accurate. (all very respectfully). This can open a useful colloquy on how the parties (among other humans) often hear only what they want to hear.

15/7/2020 12:39:42 pm

Hi John. Yes, indeed. I have used the same method in coaching and facilitation. It can help surface what has been (often inadvertently) filtered out. On the theme of 'only hearing what they want to hear', this short related piece may be of interest? http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/wishful-thinking

20/7/2020 09:51:53 am

And that, Nick, is the key for me!

20/7/2020 09:52:27 am

😃

13/7/2020 05:57:38 pm

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it!" (I've forgotten the baseball player's name who coined that). The real concerns are your honesty, transparency, respectfulness, and (as Ian says) awareness of what matters to others. Being articulate does help, but you can be forgiven much if you display trustworthiness, including the attributes I just summarized.
One tool: Learn to think for a split-second about what you say before you say it -- mediators get good at that! And I agree that the occasional aphorism or provocation can be useful -- Here's one I like when I sense some subject needs to be opened that people are avoiding: Robert Frost's two-line poem -- "we dance in a circle and suppose // while the truth is in the middle and knows." Plus, silence is your ally -- your parties will fill the vacuum!

13/7/2020 06:02:47 pm

Thanks John. Interesting reflections. I haven't heard that Robert Frost poem before. It reminded me of the notion of the elephant in the room. Here's one of my favourite evocative quips: 'Is that sufficiently unclear?' (Richard Gold): http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/un-clear

15/7/2020 12:42:49 pm

Nick, yes -- and another quip I heard from a labor mediator, responding to parties who perennially disagreed when they didn't need to: "You two are in violent agreement!!"

Christopher Young

15/7/2020 12:41:32 pm

John, You forgot Yogi Bera???

15/7/2020 12:43:33 pm

Christopher, please forgive me -- how could I forget that yogi Berra coined that phrase? At least I didn't get caught pretending it was mine.

15/7/2020 12:44:36 pm

John, certainly all forgiven, sir! It's an iconic Yogiism so I was surprised =) it was well used and as always your points are spot on.

Nora Lingers

14/7/2020 05:46:45 pm

Especially for children, it is easier to understand a fact if you put it in a story, a parable. In the end it is easier to transfer it to your life and learn something from it.
I think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Children find it unfair to ignore a person who needs help because other things are more important or because he is a foreigner. This story enables children to put themselves in a situation in which they also needed help or helped themselves. So they understand that you should help, no matter who or where it is.

14/7/2020 07:48:16 pm

Hi Nora. I think that’s a great example of the power of narrative, empathy and imagination.

Patricia Inez Meiring

15/7/2020 07:16:59 pm

Great idea. I guess it’s the coaching questions answered allowance of space and being heard that makes a difference for me - but we often can’t elicit enough conversation that can do that on such a platform. Do you have a best suggestion to your question?

15/7/2020 07:22:35 pm

Thank you, Patricia. On ‘eliciting’, you may find these 2 short related pieces interesting?

http://www.nick-wright.com/art-of-discovery.html
http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/the-silent-way

Linda Reynolds

15/7/2020 07:18:27 pm

Thought provoking post, Nick. Words matter.

I’m taking a course entitled, “Fake News”. It’s very interesting and a bit frightening, I must admit. Words matter. They can mislead, lie, and create propaganda. But like all things, they can be used for the good. They can inspire, and perhaps most importantly, they can make us think.

Thinking and logic seem to be a bit out of fashion. It feels like we throw words around at times without thought.

What I’ve been trying to do for myself, in the training industry, is to understand key terms and create a personal understanding. I believe when we know what we believe, it’s much easier to inspire or motivate others. I have a long way to go and a lot to still learn, but my confidence grows each time I pause to contemplate the meaning of words and their context.

15/7/2020 08:00:46 pm

Hi Linda. Your “Fake News” course sounds fascinating! Are there any insights you could share here? On the power of words, you may find this short related piece interesting? http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/words

Elena Voytsekhovskaya

16/7/2020 01:25:25 pm

When to evoke or provoke, reveal or inspire - is mostly depends of what type of personality you're and what your goals are, mostly in small sales people evoke/provoke cause it's an emotional buy, in a longer sales cycle there is a need to reveal and inspire.

16/7/2020 01:26:55 pm

Hi Elena. Interesting. Can you say a bit more about 'depends on type of personality'?

Judy McKee

21/7/2020 10:34:49 am

Isn't it the truth? Is that a question? I love the ART of Asking Questions. I saw a trainer once who was supposed to teach up-selling and cross-selling and he opened with this question: "What do want to know about Up-selling and Cross-selling?" NO one put a hand up. The question was wrong. He didn't even know what he had done. The audience was afraid to speak. I think they wanted to say: "That's what we came here for you to teach us!" (rolling their eyes) He thought he was opening up a conversation and yet he closed it right down.

21/7/2020 10:39:42 am

Hi Judy. Thanks for sharing such an interesting example from experience. I'm curious: what do you think would have been a better question for the trainer to pose to the group? On the art of questions, here are links to a few short related pieces that may be of interest?

*Good question: http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/good-question
*Behind the question: http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/behind-the-question
*In the question: http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/in-the-question

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