The importance of words, meaning, and context in change management

I was told yesterday that when two people meet for the first time it is like ice-bergs colliding and that they first connect at the very deepest level. This was someone I'd met for the first time. I disagreed. Did we connect at the very deepest level?

All communication is about TOPIC and RELATIONSHIP. Subconsciously we ask: What is being said, and how am I bring treated.

All the time we listen and compare words, ideas and concept with our internal schema (vision, values and meanings which are built from nature, nurture, culture and experience). Words are important: they educate, rally support or direct resources. Any change-agent needs to understand that poor choice of words, and particular judgement words (good, bad, right, wrong) or emphatic works (always, never, must) are likely to trigger judgements which are made in the mind of the listener and be interpreted differently according to the internal schema of that person.

To avoid upsetting people, and having clear communications stick to words without connotations. If I say someone is witty, good looking and fun, these are judgement words and may convey very different meanings to different people according to their values. But if I say someone is blonde, blue eyes, 6foot tall and speaks with an American accent, we can be confident that we have the same understanding. Of course it is convenient to say something is 'great' or 'bad' but it is also lazy and in change-management potentially pejorative.

If the meaning of words is the reaction that they provoke (a concept from psychotherapy and NLP) then the failure in communication is not in what was said, but in not anticipating the impact on the person to whom it was said.

A colleague was a course and reported that things went find once they completed the Forming, Storming and Norming phases of Team Building. I asked her to explain the Storming. She said that she took it really badly when told she was “traditional” (not modern?) and needed to be more “open-minded” (not narrow minded?). The trainer later switched from a strategic topic by saying said "..let's bring this down to your level..." (What level did he think she was at?) These are a poor choice of words if the objective was to engage my colleague. However, it does seem that things did work out OK in the end.

I reflected on this and think that change-agents should consider that challenging people's views, values or behaviors without satisfactory objective (non-judgmental) explanation/education is likely to upset!

Was my colleague being super-over-sensitive? Maybe educating people (thinking) or changing behaviors (feeling) is a sensitive issue, and care needs to be taken to create positive outcomes rather than provoke defensive resistance in the quest for hearts and minds?