Suppose a coworker offers you mints or gum every time you speak to them. If you only take their words literally, you'll think, "Gee, what a generous person," and miss entirely their true meaning: "Your breath stinks and it's bothering me but I don't want to hurt your feelings, so I'm giving you out where we can both pretend you fixed the problem before anyone noticed."
Yes. And yes, that's the way to go.
In my experience, when people of differing backgrounds try to read between the lines, you will get more damage than when things are simply not said. Absence of information leaves you somewhat open minded. Wrongly interpreted information often leads to bad decisions and fruitless battles.
If you've been the person that lots of people attribute stuff to because they read things between your words that simply did not exist, you'll know what I'm talking about.
>The problem is that there are many things people want to communicate but would rather not say because they're likely to lead to uncomfortable situations.
Completely agree. That's why the standard communication trainings/books focus heavily on making it safe enough for the other person to speak. There's no good alternative to that.
>Suppose a coworker offers you mints or gum every time you speak to them. If you only take their words literally, you'll think, "Gee, what a generous person," and miss entirely their true meaning: "Your breath stinks and it's bothering me but I don't want to hurt your feelings, so I'm giving you out where we can both pretend you fixed the problem before anyone noticed."
Sorry - I completely read the first half of the scenario and came to a different conclusion. As will many others.
I'm going to say what one book on communications essentially said: Utilizing tact is a poor fix to poor communications. People use tact because they do not know how to communicate well.
There isn't anything wrong with uncomfortable situations. I have a few moments every day where I am physically uncomfortable (correct response: stand up and stretch). Why should it be a problem if I am emotionally or socially uncomfortable (correct response: clearly state intentions, put a little bit of effort into making other people comfortable).
There is a difference between going out of your way to make people uncomfortable (bad idea), being blunt (not the best way) and being direct (escalating quickly if someone doesn't take a hint - most of the people I've seen doing this are successful). You can make people uncomfortable in a respectful and friendly way.
Basically, if you take everything literally and and the people around you who won't be direct; they are the problem. Try and work with them, but reading things in to what they say is not a great idea.
One of the most brilliant professors I have met fiercely preached this belief, and I can see how it can help some interpersonal relationships. But he took it to an extreme. When somebody asked him whether he thought Trump was racist, he responded "well, has Trump said that he is a racist?". The idea is that whether a person lies or not is immaterial; you should take the persons words as the ultimate truth. He is the most well published professor in the entire university, and an internationally respected mathematician.
I tend to read everything "between the lines," and I think about my professor's words often, because I wonder whether this habit is affecting my relationships.
It is one thing to say you aren't a racist, but if if you act like one all the time then congratulations, you actually are a racist even if you never say you are one.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck.... it's probably a duck.
A wise response.
It is incredibly easy to smear a person in the “other” tribe.
I also received some pretty sound advice around three years into my career: "just assume that people mean nothing more or less than the literal words they said to you. Don't read more into it than they actually say." I found that if I felt awkward about a situation, I was trying to read in between lines to find some reason that a person secretly hated me or were annoyed by me. They had never actually said or done anything to indicate that they even thought twice about me once I walked away, but I made up all sorts of stories about them in my head.