“When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door”. Simone Weil 1970
My last two postings describe how when people work together, the phenomenon of vagueness generates contradictory views, and how leaders can help a group navigate these tensions.
When a contradiction is “impossible to resolve except by a lie”, we’re describing a stuck situation where the words we have available, appear not to have the capacity to help us move on.
So when Simone Weil goes on to say, “we know that it is really a door”, she makes clear something about those words that will need to change if things are to turn out differently.
Words are the fundamental tools used when people talk and think together, though there are lots of other ingredients ~ eye-contact, intonation, speed of delivery, etc. This posting is about the words.
It is really worth checking out what words get used within an organisation, and also those that don’t. My research and consultancy roles have allowed me to observe the language being used in different settings and it is striking how much it varies. Let me show you why this matters:
Here are two word clouds taken from collaborative and oppositional discussions. One is a group of artists discussing graphic novels with an enthusiastic audience who are all having rather a nice time. The other is from a daytime TV tabloid talk show that has been described as “human bear baiting”. The discussions are transcribed and then an algorithm identifies the top hundred words of three or more letters (leaving out “the” and “and”). The more a word is used, the larger the font.
This cloud really speaks for itself – the group are thinking about comics and the word “like” features in two ways ~ one to do with enjoyment and one to do with comparison. The next frequency of use ~ {kind and thing} are words used to guide lines of thought. Crucially the words join people together in a collaborative task to construct something, which in this instance is a good experience.
This cloud also speaks for itself – this really is about winding people up. Most strikingly, the word “think” is absent. The name in the middle belongs to a vulnerable witness. The human bear-baiting description was used by a judge in a legal case following a physical assault that took place during a different episode of this programme.
Imagine what life would be like if one of these clouds contained your top hundred words. The first cloud would give you the capacity to be charming, have fun, make friends; the second might well lead to a criminal conviction.
I’ve deliberately identified oppositional and collaborative discussions to illustrate how language affects thinking. The language used in most organisations will sit somewhere between these extremes and generally we have a choice of more than just a hundred words. None the less, most folk will be able to recall moments when communication headed toward one of these poles.
Word clouds provide a snap-shot of organisational culture in real time. They are co-produced by everyone involved in a discussion. They can help folk consider communication processes without pointing a finger of blame. This can be a helpful route to navigate the anxieties that often accompany work to enable an organisation to do things differently.
References:
Weil, S. 1970 First and Last Notebooks trans Rees, R. London OUP
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7011962.stm
http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2006/lost-in-translation-panel-discussion-transcription/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqEC46JesY4
Photo: Amador-Loureiro www.unsplash.com