Today I had three conversations with three different coworkers. It was the exact same conversation, which, as I write it down, seems like an enormous amount of wasted time (I’ll work on that). It wasn't about an ambiguous topic. It was a fact-based and laser-focused talk about a business-critical issue that all four of us are collectively resident experts in and trying to solve on behalf of one of our customers.

Drum roll please...

Everyone interpreted what I said differently. Each of the three people went off in a completely different direction even though they were given the same words. More importantly, because each of them went in separate directions, they got further and further away from the single source of truth we were trying to get to, only increasing the intensity and frustration of the overall situation and delaying a response to the person that mattered most; our customer. But here’s the alarming part – I didn’t realize everyone had interpreted my recommendations in different ways until everything had already blown up.

I’m sure this is not a surprising phenomenon to those in the scientific community or those who study active listening skills. But to me, a dude who spends every day trying to get a group of people to move in the same direction with a common goal, this blew my mind. I’m not sure how to fix this issue, but this is something I’m going to start studying and learning about.

The phrase, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it,” needs to be replaced with “Who cares how you say it; if your audience doesn’t interpret it the way it’s intended, you need to say something else.”