Exegesis

My first experience with global work is conducted via conference calls. I am routinely in a panic. Everyone around me appears to understand everything being said.  I am lost.  We’re all rumored to be speaking English, but laced with the heavy accents of Mexico, Argentina, China and India I’m straining to find my native tongue within these strange dialects.  I’m much more comfortable today, but I’ll admit to sometimes even having a hard time when my British colleagues get on a roll.  They, of course, are quick to tell me we Americas are the ones who do not know how to speak English.

 

Once I begin to understand what’s coming out of their mouths, I realize the words don’t mean the same things. Culturally the same process is done very differently.  A commitment to deliver the materials on Tuesday carries no weight in Chile; in the Banana Republic, I learn, it gets there when it gets there. But I’ve built my schedule around the US expectations, and I’m also counting on the fact that proven methods of escalation work south of the equator.  Well, they just don’t.

Next comes the technical speak.  When you’re tasked with leading a project comprised of multiple specialties, you need to come up to speed quickly, going way deeper into, let’s say, how a data center works than you’d ever care to go.  But this matters because you can’t sequence the project or bring the right people to the table at the right time if you don’t understand some of the details. 

   

And then we get to the layer so deeply buried and complex it can seem like it takes a psychologist to understand.  Human feelings, our experiences, our baggage; these cause us all to view situations differently, respond differently.  This could very well be the most crucial level of understanding, but it’s also the most difficult to break through.

 

When you get down to it, an unbelievable amount of information is lost in translation.  We fail every day because of a lack of understanding. Deliverables at work get missed, schedules are blown.  We even fail to understand the source of our manager’s anger.  Is it about the mistake we’ve made or the impact to another’s reputation if the project fails?  Head-butting between parents and their teenagers is germane to this.  Our kids deliberately keep us in the dark as they wrestle with the unbelievably difficult task of showing us who they are.  They barely understand themselves, how can they explain anything to us?  Relationships with our spouses and significant others, those meant to be the most intimate of all, fail on a regular basis because we’re unable to open up to the loved one who matters most to us.

 

When I contemplate it, it seems miraculous that anything ever gets done right at all.  How much of our accomplishments and successes are achieved at the surface level because navigating to a basic level of understanding is relatively safe?  What truly breakthrough work could we deliver or mind-blowing relationships could we revel in if we all seek to really understand each other?

At Trader Joe’s I’m asked by the very friendly cashier what I do for a living.  It takes only a second to do the math in my head and decide explaining my job as a senior leader at my company will take some time to explain, so I blurt out that I’m a project manager.  The minute I say it I feel like Ralphie in “A Christmas Story”, desperately clawing his way back up the Santa slide after he realizes he’s made a huge mistake requesting a football instead of the coveted Red Ryder BB Gun coloring his every thought round the clock. I walk out of the store angry at myself for diminishing the title I’ve worked hard to earn because it will take a few extra words to get to understanding.

 

To be understood and to understand is humbling.  It requires wholehearted, vulnerable living. It means admitting you just don’t get it. This can feel like exposing a weakness.  Aren’t we supposed to know everything about the job we’re tasked to do, the child we gave birth to, the spouse we’ve laid beside for the last 20+ years?  The further removed our beliefs about how much the other may expect us to know are from what we actually do know, the easier it is to admit the disconnect.  No one expects a real estate agent to know how to split an atom, so it’s hardly risky to ask that question.  But if you’re working on a project in the realm of your expertise, or spend every weekend with your boyfriend, it becomes harder to raise your hand.

Understanding requires trusting that the person on the other side of the conversation has the patience and desire to explain the situation or himself to help you understand. And that he will be there for you, without judgment, for as long as it takes for you to get it. Ultimately, if you can’t move to the same place, then it means trusting you’ll be able to coexist, respectfully and happily, on two different sides of the same issue.

 

Getting to understanding is hard work you need to be willing to do. If you won’t spend time learning about the equivalent of quadratic equations or nuclear physics when all you really care about is getting to the launch plan for the product that incorporates this subject matter, you risk the success of the project because you can't effectively lead the team doing the work.

Nothing about this is easy because we need to show our weaknesses, so we leave the tough questions unasked, we avoid the work required to get us to understanding.  It’s easier to ask to be removed from the project, or to respectfully exit the relationship and move back into our safe place, that place where we’re not challenged. But if we don’t identify the brokenness and fix it, we leave wild success and wild love on the table.   As one of my favorite people at the office told me this week, “Development hurts."

Lost in yet another translation, I’m accused of not taking my own advice.  Ouch!  It hurts, but in this case it’s spot on.  I know what needs to be done, but I’m just as fallible as the person next to me.  It’s not about eating my words; it’s about teaching myself how to feast on them.