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We all have the same understanding - right?

You hold a long, long meeting. You spend hours getting everyone to participate, voice their opinions, discuss and debate. You leave no aspect of the deal unexamined. Everyone's exhausted, but they all shake hands, commit to implementing the agreement as soon as they fly home, and leave smiling.

Then, a few days, weeks, or months later, you begin to suspect that things are going astray. Everyone claims to be doing exactly what was agreed to, but somehow their 'understanding' of the agreement is very, very different from other participants.

What's going on?

Here's one take on it. Although this example is based on cross cultural differences, it applies just as well to a group that is made up of just one culture. I ran across this simple test in a newspaper article back around 1983. Unfortunately, I have long since lost the original article and can't give the author well deserved credit. I've applied this test to mixed groups of Japanese and foreign managers over the past twenty years, and the results are amazingly consistent.

First, I explain some of the background behind Japanese kanji. The fact that they were originally pictographs - rough drawings of objects like the sun, moon, water, etc. The Chinese kanji were then borrowed and modified by the Japanese.

This is the Japanese kanji for 'field' like a rice paddy. It's kind of easy to imagine how the original shape was developed by looking at a real rice field, especially looking down from a hillside.

I always make sure to check to see if everyone understands the concept. If they have any questions, then it's important to take the time to clarify before proceeding.

Then I introduce the kanji for 'power'. You can easily see the strength represented by the character, in many ways like a muscular arm or powerful leg.

Again, I take the time to confirm everyone has the same understanding.

The next step is to explain how the combination of the two kanji characters form the kanji for 'man'. Easy to understand - man is the 'power' of the 'rice field'. It's man (or more often woman) that lays out the fields, does the plowing, planting, and harvests the rice.

Everyone is still on the same page and has the same understanding....

The Test:

So, kanji started off as pictographs - rough drawings or sketches of things or actions. Kind of like Western stick figures used in simple cartoons.

Let's imagine for a moment that the Japanese kanji for man is a stick figure like the one at the left. Seems pretty easy and straight forward to imagine.

The Question:

If I ask you, for a moment, to imagine that the kanji stick figure is actually a walking man. And I ask you to give me your immediate impression, without a lot of thinking or logic, just your gut feel.

Which direction is the man walking? To the right, or to the left of the page?

The Responses:

With surprising consistency over the years and with hundreds of subjects, roughly 80-90% of the Westerners say the man is walking to the right while 80-90% of the Japanese say the man is walking to the left.

Why?

Everyone has their own explanation after the fact. Some of the Japanese feel that their choice came from the fact that they often write from right to left. Other Japanese feel that the kanji character looks like a man carrying a heavy weight on his back almost pushing him into the ground, so he must be walking to the left. The most common Western rationale is also writing style - this time from left to right. Another Western explanation is that the power part of the kanji for man resembles a man's knee raised to walk to the right.

All of that is fine, but they are all rationalizations arrived at after the fact. A critical point is that everyone had a gut level impression, a core belief, before they gave any concious thought to the answer. Left unexamined and unexplored, they would have acted on that core belief only to find that they were 180 degrees out of sync with their counterparts.

A Broader View:

Is this unique to cross cultural communication? No. The same problems and disconnects come up everyday in business and social settings even when all the participants share the same cultural background and heritage.

How do I avoid this type of problem? It's impossible to totally avoid this type of problem. It's a basic characteristic of human nature. You can, however, become sensitive to its existence, recognize it when it appears, and take action to get things back on course before the situation gets completely derailed.

All too often we focus on the surface level meaning of words that we use without questioning the underlying assumptions. Everyone wants the company to be 'profitable', but one group may feel that implies a higher share price or bonuses while another group may feel exactly the same word implies long term stability and employment. One person may feel that 'family' implies children, commitment, group membership, and a social infrastructure while another may feel the same word only implies a level of security or social respect.

The Telephone Game

When I was a kid one of the popular party games was called the 'telephone game.' We'd all sit around in a circle. The first person would whisper a few short sentences in the ear of the next person. They would have to repeat it to the person next to them, and so on around the circle. When it got to the last person, they would announce what they heard. It never, ever, came close to the original message, and was usually so distorted that it would evoke belly laughs from all the players.

Funny kids game...

Of course, it never happens in the real adult world... does it?

Happens all the time! Every single message, every attempt at communication between any two beings suffers from the same problems and gets degraded in one way or another. Yet, we like to believe that it doesn't.

The president of the company decides that their strategic direction needs to be changed. He talks to the COO. The COO talks to the regional VPs. They talk to their direct reports. They talk to the mid-level managers. They talk to the individual managers. They talk to the employees. They talk to the customers and suppliers....

Do unto others as....

The 'Golden Rule' says that we should "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Sounds reasonable.

But....

Doesn't that assume that they want or desire the same things that we do? Doesn't that imply that we can satisfy them by giving them what we want? Does that work? Aren't their needs, wants, and desires different from ours?

Here's a good example: I grew up in the United States - Southern California to be more precise. As a result, I love peanut butter and jelly. Crunchy peanut butter spread on thick covered with gobs and gobs of grape jelly. For me, it's 'soul food.' Just the thought of it brings back childhood memories so strong and vivid that I almost think I'm back there for a moment. My wife, on the other hand, grew up in Chiba, Japan. Her particular brand of 'soul food' from her childhood includes sticky white rice, natto (a type of crushed fermented soybean mash), and a pickled sour plum. It wouldn't make much sense for me to serve her a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, no matter how great I might think it tastes. Nor do I want to chow down on natto - far from it. I can, however, fix her some natto and hope that she will get the message and buy more crunchy peanut butter for me....

The same challenges, and opportunities, come up in business almost every day. An engineer designs a new product that he (or she) thinks is absolutely fantastic, then wonders why it doesn't sell. An investor picks a stock and invests a bundle because they really 'like the company' when they should be investing in companies that other investors will like enough to buy the stock from them at a premium.

So, what's a better Golden Rule?

How about - "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them."

It All Makes Sense...?

I was walking to the office the other morning and happened to look up and see the window washers preparing to clean the building windows. Of course that triggered a chain of thought that went something like this-

We build highways and train lines to carry the daily crush of office workers...

Most people travel for an hour or more to get to their office...

We build expensive, multi-story buildings for them to work in...

We build vertically because land is scarce and expensive...

We equip the buildings with elevators to carry the employees...

We surround the buildings with mirrored glass so other people can't see in...

We add external elevators and pay people to risk their lives cleaning the glass...

We arrange our desks facing away from the windows...

And, we think all of this makes perfect sense.