My Toastmaster Speech, gave it about an year ago, thought for all future speeches, will post them here so I can get reviews and comments before I speak.
Toastmaster Speech #4
- “What we have here is a failure to communicate”
Imagine doing your annual review with your boss. You think you did a decent job for the past year and deserve a good raise. Your boss thinks otherwise. The two of you talked about this at length and tried to justify your positions, but no agreement was reached. At the end, your boss said: “What we have here is a failure to communicate”
Mister Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, and welcome guests:
Was that really a failure to communicate? You made your intentions clear and your boss did likewise. Do you think he would suddenly agree with you if you try to tell him the same thing all over again? Whenever a dispute arises, our instinct is try to talk things out, to clarify our position. We would say: “What we have here is a failure to communicate”. The idea that conflicts can be resolved through better understanding is so ingrained in our way of thinking that we hardly question it. This approach works in some cases, but it is just as likely to backfire by causing frustration and resentment. Poor communication is not necessarily the cause of an argument, and to understand this we must be able to distinguish “misunderstanding” from “disagreement”.
What is the difference? Simply put, misunderstanding is a difference in the perceived facts, while disagreement is a difference in opinions derived from the facts. In an argument, misunderstanding can be easily corrected given there are mutual respect. To settle a disagreement however, one must resort to persuasion and be prepared to compromise.
Let me give you an example. India’s most controversial dam project, the Narmada project, was first envisaged in 1940s by the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The multi-million dollar project involves the construction of some 3,200 small, medium and large dams on the Narmada River. NBA activists say the dams will submerge forest farmland, disrupt downstream fisheries and possibly inundate and salinate land along the canals, increasing the prospect of insect-borne diseases. Some scientists have added to the debate saying the construction of large dams could cause earthquakes. They say that in a country as disorganized as India, it is likely that the necessary maintenance of these dams may suffer.
But those in favor of the project say that the project will supply water to 30m people and irrigate crops to feed another 20m people.
In what was seen as a major victory for the anti-dam activists, the World Bank withdrew from the Narmada project in 1993. Several other international financial institutions also pulled out citing human and environmental concerns. The construction of Sardar Sarovar dam itself was stopped soon afterwards.
The dispute was not in these facts; they are in the differing views of the authority and the general public: From the authority’s perspective, stopping construction was out of the question, and it was easier to dismiss the cause of opposition merely as a lack of understanding. In other words, they chose to believe that once the public became better informed, they would agree that building a hydro power plant was the best solution.
This is a belief that deep inside, we all agree. There is no disagreement, only misunderstanding. This is what Dr. David Siebel called “The Great Myth of Hidden Harmony”: People who prescribe to this thinking believe that if we only understood each other better, we would agree. In the case of the hydro power plant, the authority took on a twisted version of the myth: If only the public understood us, then they would agree with us.
If this mindset strikes you as patronizing and self-centered, it may also strike you as being familiar. How many of you go into an argument thinking that the other party will agree once they see what you see? I have seen numerous examples of people projecting their mindset onto others; rather than putting themselves into other people’s shoe, they try to put others in their own shoe. With this mindset, even if the dispute could be resolved through better understanding, the perceived lack of respect would drive the other party to shun further attempts at communicating.
So when is greater understanding an answer? You can use the following question as the litmus test: “Would the problem disappear if we understood each other better?” In other words:
- Do you think the other person will change their mind if you explain yourself better
- Is the argument caused by the other person’s need to be understood?
- And most importantly: If you can fully understand the other side, are you prepared to change your mind?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then you have a dispute that can be resolved by better understanding
As you can see, poor communication is not always the problem. By identifying the type of problem, you identify the type of solution. In the case of misunderstanding, the solution is better communication and greater understanding; in the case of disagreement, as I have mentioned earlier, one must developed a strategy to persuade, and be prepared to compromise.
Mister Toastmaster