Last week we talked about the need to translate initiatives and ideas for the individuals that you are leading and influencing.  This week, we will dig a little deeper into that concept by looking at how translation is difficult because everyone is always building their own context.

A few years ago I performed a poem called “Who Protects the Pocket Monsters?”  The phrase “pocket monster” is kind of an English translation of the word Pokémon.  Pokémon are those creatures that you catch with the pokeballs and then you make them battle each other.  The poem talks about capturing Pokémon and having them fight against each other.  If you want to hear the poem, take 2 minutes and listen to the attachment.

You might be wondering why I’m sharing a story about a Pokémon poem.  It’s because something really interesting happened after I performed the poem.  People kept coming up to me after the poem to tell what they thought the poem meant.  No one had the same answer, and no one mentioned Pokémon.  Some people told me the poem was about protecting endangered animals.  One guy told me it was about the cruelty of the whaling industry.  Some folks told me it was a poem that exposed the horrors of war.  Others told me it was a social commentary about Mike Vick and dog fighting.  Some talked about how the poem was about reflecting the violence we broadcast in our society.  The emcee of the event actually told the crowd that he thought the poem was about people’s souls being crushed by corporate America.

The thing is that they were all right in some degree.  Everyone in that room had been building context their entire lives, so when they all heard the same poem they heard different messages.  In this case, the fact that they all took away different messages didn’t matter, because I just wanted them all to connect to the poem.  However, imagine how bad it would have been if I would have needed the crowd to take away the same message.

This made me think of translating as a leader.  One of the biggest barriers to leading and keeping people on the same page is that everyone is always creating their own context.  Their context causes them to view messages in ways unique to them.  For example, Sue believes that change is a good thing and Darlene thinks change is scary.  These attitudes will color anything a leader says about change.  The challenge then becomes not only translating the message you want to communicate, but always restating and reframing the context to keep everyone on the same page.

When you communicate how often are you building context before you have a dialogue or share your message?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry