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We had a training session at work the other day, and the presenter started off the two exercises with the following quote by Maya Angelou:
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
I was a little sad when he asked the room as a whole if they knew of Angelou, and only a small group did. But that's another story.
For the exercise, the presenter asked for four people to come to the front of the room. The volunteers all had to say exactly the same thing: "Can I see you in my office?". However, the volunteers also each had a slip of paper. The paper said one of the following:
Reprimand
Console
Share a secret
Seduce
The person had to say the same sentence, no added words or embellishments, but to say it in a way that conveyed the word they had. After each person said his/her line, we had to vote for which prompt they had.
When delivering the line, each person did something different. The person consoling put a hand on the shoulder of the person she was delivering her line to. Her head was partly bowed, and her tone was soft and soothing. The person sharing a secret glanced around, leaned into the woman he was speaking to, cupped a hand in front of her ear, and very softly and eagerly said his line. The person seducing delivered the sentence like a pick up line, and while the person reprimanding was tense, kept some distance between him and the person he delivered the line to, made little eye contact, and spit out his words.
Inevitably, the audience picked the correct prompt, as they did when the next group of volunteers had to say, simply, "Okay," with the following prompts. The way it was delivered follows the prompt.
Do you understand? - A tip of the head and tone going up at the end questioningly.
I don't understand. - A bit hesitant, furrowed brow, bit questioningly.
Fantastic - Delivered enthusiastically with a big smile and a thumbs up.
Mocking - Delivered sarcastically with a roll of the eyes.
The purpose of the exercise was for people to consider that how they say something is just as important and conveys just as much as the words themselves. That's important in a business like ours where cross-departmental and remote teams are pretty much the way we work. However, I think it also applies to a lot of rather specious arguments I've seen in fandom this last year.
It seems there are quite a lot of people who think others should completely ignore the "deeper meaning" they convey in their posts and comments. They believe that when others respond to and comment on the "tone" they are using, those others are trying to hold them to some garden-party-in-the-Hamptons standards of politeness. That whole chain of reasoning rang false to me every time I heard it, but I wasn't able to articulate why until the seminar at the office.
If you expect people to listen to what you say and to be open to your views and ideas, you damned well better take into account both what you are saying and how you are saying it.
Now, I'm not saying that we have to all live in a happy place where no one pisses us off or we can't respond to anything except with Stepford-wife smiles. That would be creepy and more than a little disturbing. It would also be false. We all have issues and behaviors that make us see red. However, if we unleash that anger--no matter how easy or satisfying doing so might seem--we gain nothing except perhaps momentary catharsis. We also guarantee that the person we are talking to will either shut down completely or respond in kind. We are also likely to turn off and turn away people who might support us or might want to engage/explore an issue but no longer feel comfortable doing so.
Now, I'm not saying we should ignore it when people piss us off. I'm not saying that we don't have the right to be angry when that happens or that we don't have the right to vent about it. What I am saying is that processing our anger, pain, sorrow, etc. and engaging with others on the issues that cause those things are separate sorts of discourse. They're both important; they're both necessary. However, they have different purposes, different audiences, and by conflating them, which seems to happen an awful lot, we do a disservice to each of them and to each other.
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
I was a little sad when he asked the room as a whole if they knew of Angelou, and only a small group did. But that's another story.
For the exercise, the presenter asked for four people to come to the front of the room. The volunteers all had to say exactly the same thing: "Can I see you in my office?". However, the volunteers also each had a slip of paper. The paper said one of the following:
Reprimand
Console
Share a secret
Seduce
The person had to say the same sentence, no added words or embellishments, but to say it in a way that conveyed the word they had. After each person said his/her line, we had to vote for which prompt they had.
When delivering the line, each person did something different. The person consoling put a hand on the shoulder of the person she was delivering her line to. Her head was partly bowed, and her tone was soft and soothing. The person sharing a secret glanced around, leaned into the woman he was speaking to, cupped a hand in front of her ear, and very softly and eagerly said his line. The person seducing delivered the sentence like a pick up line, and while the person reprimanding was tense, kept some distance between him and the person he delivered the line to, made little eye contact, and spit out his words.
Inevitably, the audience picked the correct prompt, as they did when the next group of volunteers had to say, simply, "Okay," with the following prompts. The way it was delivered follows the prompt.
Do you understand? - A tip of the head and tone going up at the end questioningly.
I don't understand. - A bit hesitant, furrowed brow, bit questioningly.
Fantastic - Delivered enthusiastically with a big smile and a thumbs up.
Mocking - Delivered sarcastically with a roll of the eyes.
The purpose of the exercise was for people to consider that how they say something is just as important and conveys just as much as the words themselves. That's important in a business like ours where cross-departmental and remote teams are pretty much the way we work. However, I think it also applies to a lot of rather specious arguments I've seen in fandom this last year.
It seems there are quite a lot of people who think others should completely ignore the "deeper meaning" they convey in their posts and comments. They believe that when others respond to and comment on the "tone" they are using, those others are trying to hold them to some garden-party-in-the-Hamptons standards of politeness. That whole chain of reasoning rang false to me every time I heard it, but I wasn't able to articulate why until the seminar at the office.
If you expect people to listen to what you say and to be open to your views and ideas, you damned well better take into account both what you are saying and how you are saying it.
Now, I'm not saying that we have to all live in a happy place where no one pisses us off or we can't respond to anything except with Stepford-wife smiles. That would be creepy and more than a little disturbing. It would also be false. We all have issues and behaviors that make us see red. However, if we unleash that anger--no matter how easy or satisfying doing so might seem--we gain nothing except perhaps momentary catharsis. We also guarantee that the person we are talking to will either shut down completely or respond in kind. We are also likely to turn off and turn away people who might support us or might want to engage/explore an issue but no longer feel comfortable doing so.
Now, I'm not saying we should ignore it when people piss us off. I'm not saying that we don't have the right to be angry when that happens or that we don't have the right to vent about it. What I am saying is that processing our anger, pain, sorrow, etc. and engaging with others on the issues that cause those things are separate sorts of discourse. They're both important; they're both necessary. However, they have different purposes, different audiences, and by conflating them, which seems to happen an awful lot, we do a disservice to each of them and to each other.
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