What more we could we achieve with plain speech?

 I was recently in North Wales lecturing some students on project management.  I was sharing the class with a colleague of mine and we seemed to making at least some sense to the audience which is often the first hurdle.  Our subject for that particular day was organisational change, which is a favourite of mine as it always creates an uneasy feeling in the room; people fear change and for good reason, but that’s a topic for another day.

About 15 minutes into the lesson, I found myself waxing lyrical about the similarities of the Fischer Model to that of the grief process observed by Kübler-Ross, pontificating over the benefits of the Kotter model in limiting the negative effects of change and communicating the message to all possible stakeholders.  I was in rapture, because I knew what I was talking about and I had some people who were willing to listen to me drone on about niche subjects.  It made me feel clever.  

Then I realised: this behaviour simply is not good enough.

I was lecturing a mixed group of academics and industry managers in a reasonably small theatre.  It struck me that since none of these people were either stupid or inexperienced, if only 70% of what I was teaching was getting through, I was failing; making ‘some sense’ just doesn’t cut it.  As a result, I stopped and, rather than check understanding, I assured the class that I was actually telling them things that they already knew.   They knew just fine that change was painful; they had seen it done well, and they had seen it done badly.  They were aware of the resistance to change they felt in themselves and had suffered the effects of it manifesting itself in others.  

The problem with social scientists, be it lecturers, coaches or trainers, is that like all groups of people, we like to talk in a restricted code of speech.  Just as the military talks in acronyms and abbreviations, academics formalise language, giving common terms for each other to understand in a type of shorthand; making us feel learned and differentiating us from those of us who do not speak our language. 

In a lot of professions and communities, this is extremely useful.  It allows people to bond with each other and communicate their message in a succinct way.  However, social science is meant to be about people, their interactions and their development.  If we cloak ourselves in mysterious terms (which may serve to inflate our egos) and leave our clients and students confused, then we completely miss the point of the knowledge we are trying to convey.  

The formal language would get the students their through exams and allow them to communicate in their groups for projects later, but it would mean nothing if they did not understand what it meant in the real world.  It’s important to remember that as a coach.  One of my clients, to her credit, will often stop me mid-flow and ask for an example that applies to her.  This makes me pause and think, checking that I am on point, forcing me to ensure my statements are relevant; otherwise why would she spend the time and money on a coach?

This knowledge is important to remember when trying to select a coach or mentor.  You are paying for a service which should be backed up with academic rigour, personal experience and, above all, clarity of expression.  Coaching interventions are based upon countless scientific experiments, designed to determine human behaviour and promote positive outcomes.  However, if this information is not being conveyed to you in an understandable way, you are wasting your money.  When you are in your consultations, try to pick up on how the coach speaks to you.  Are they taking time to listen?  When they do speak, do they communicate to you as a person or are they out to impress with flowery language?  If they don’t communicate in language you understand, there’s every chance they don’t really understand it themselves.

Hope you are having a great new year, and please leave your comments below.