What can we say about the future?

The third and final section of the last show in this series:

‘What can we say about the future?’

is made up of tips from Programmes 7, 8 and 9.

My hope is that all the information and advice in this show, and in the series as a whole, will be relevant for a long time to come; but I do think these three snippets are especially important to hang on to as patterns of human communication change.

If you think the title of Programme 7:

‘Who is this foreigner?!’

is a bit rude, it’s actually something my guest said about himself.

It comes from the opening of an audio biography which business coach and speaker, Hugo Heij, recorded with me earlier this year. Hugo knows a thing or two about feeling like a foreigner – and how learning another language (several in his case!) can bridge the gap. On the original show, he even talked about how his second language (English) eventually came first – so that he found himself struggling to present in Dutch to a Dutch audience!

His tip is about working in another country; but it’s equally relevant to crossing the language barriers we were talking about last time – and plenty more besides …

The first step, as Hugo said on the programme, is to be aware of differences. Awareness takes us into Programme 8:

‘What can we see through our ears?’

In this show, Dr Michael Proulx of the University of Bath made sense of our senses – debunking a few myths in the process!

As I told you when I first released the conversation with Michael, we met because we’d both been working on the potential of being able to translate one kind of sensory information into another. He came at it from the academic perspective, while I came from the commercial angle – but by happy accident, we arrived at exactly the same conclusions. Michael’s tip in this show sums up the underlying prinnciple …

Putting that principle into practice has major benefits, including allowing us to build better rapport, especially across physical distance.

Rapport and its foundations were the subject of Programme 9:

‘Why should we care?‘

My guest was Graham Music, Consultant Psychotherapist with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.

Graham talked about the most constructive kind of caring in a professional, and often in a personal, context – empathy. The tip I’ve chosen is about the workplace, but like Hugo’s advice earlier, it has much wider application …

The last word on this show, so on the series, is mine – presenter/producer’s privilege! It’s about why I had all these conversations and why I hope I’ve started one with you …

It’s also why I’m hoping to go on talking to you in 2015.

I’ll be blogging again from January and there will be a new six-part audio documentary series starting in May. We’ll be revisiting some of the topics we’ve dealt with this year, looking at them from different angles and we’ll be hearing again from some of this year’s guests; but there will also be brand new topics and voices.

For now, I must just say thanks again to:

• Rob
• Julian
• Sophie
• Ann
• Chris
• Colleen
• Hugo
• Michael and
• Graham,

for their time, expertise and support across the series.

Last – but by no means least! – thank you, for reading and listening.

As I’ve said on the programme, have a great Xmas and new year, if you’re celebrating – and if not, just enjoy the time off! If you’re working – and I know plenty of people are – I salute you!

Personally, I’m making the most of the break – next year looks like it’s going to be a busy one!

If you have any:

• Questions
• Comments or
• Communication issues to discuss,

you can still come and talk to me – although you won’t get much sense between 19th December ‘14 and 5th January ‘15! That said, if you want to leave me a voicemail or email in that time, you’re very welcome. All the details are on the website.

Thanks again – and ’bye for now!

Why should we mind the gaps?

The second section of the final show in this series asks the question:

‘Why should we mind the gaps?’

The quick answer is:

To avoid falling into potentially frustrating, embarrassing, or even destructive communication traps, which can be costly in every sense!

This part of the show brings together tips from Programmes 4, 5 and 6.

In Programme 4:

‘Do you speak Martian or Venusian?’

I spoke to Dr Ann Moir of Brain Sex Matters about some of the challenges of cross-gender communication and what we can all do to meet them.

As I said at the time, I thought very carefully about every single topic tackled over the past year – but I thought especially carefully about this one.

My work in general and this project in particular is about taking stereotypes apart, not reinforcing them. When I first saw Ann on TV in the wee small hours of a sleepless night, what she had to say looked really interesting – but if I asked her to get involved in the series, would I, I wondered, be in danger of perpetuating a simplistic myth?

At our first meeting, though, it was obvious that Ann’s work is about much more than men being from Mars and women from Venus! Ok, so a mix of:

• pre-natal environment
• Social conditioning and
• Adult hormones

means that generally, men tend to be more reductive communicators and women more expansive; but like so much in life, it isn’t a binary ‘either/or’; it’s a spectrum, with as many degrees as there are individuals.

The tip I’ve chosen from our recorded conversation sums that up …

Ann was a completely new acquaintance; but in Programme 5:

‘What’s that in English?’

I got to chat to someone I’ve known for several years – Chris Arnheim of Arnheim Solicitors.

We talked about the issue that gave us the first piece of common ground on which to build a professional relationship – jargon.

The tip I’ve picked from Chris’s show isn’t the obvious one. Yes, he did talk about how lawyers – and other professionals – can ensure they don’t blind their clients with science; but he also blew a common assumption out of the water – which is, as I said earlier, what this is all about! …

We talked a lot about assumptions being blown out of the water in Programme 6:

‘They speak English, don’t they?’

The other half of ‘we‘ in this case was Colleen Jolly of The 24-hour Company, which specialises in visual presentation – and the water was the Atlantic ocean!

We were looking at how geography can leave us divided by a common language.

I was spoilt for choice when it came to choosing a tip from Colleen’s show. I’ve gone for one which illustrates a central point of this series – that what we see from a distance is only an impression. It doesn’t give us the full picture …

If you listen to the whole show, you’ll find at least one other invaluable piece of advice – ’Don’t believe everything you read!’ ..

In the next post, I’ll take you through the third section of this show, which is the last:

‘What can we say about the future?‘

In what will be the last post this year, I’ll pick tips from Programmes:

7 ‘Who is this foreigner?!’
8 ‘What can we see through our ears?’ and
9 ‘Why should we care?’

I’ll also give you a tip of my own and tell you what’s happening next year.

In the meantime, as always, if you have any:

• Questions
• Comments or
• Communication issues you’d like to chat through,

come and talk to me! All the details are, of course, on the website.

How does empathy work in the workplace?

In the final part of the latest programme, Graham Music of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, talks about the benefits of empathy in our professional lives.

The innate human need to belong, which has played such a vital role in our survival throughout history (and, I’d argue, still does), means that being on the receiving end of empathy makes us feel better about ourselves. Feeling that someone is listening and understanding us gives us a sense that we and our experiences have value – which, let’s be honest, is very reassuring, isn’t it?!

Graham says this sense of self-worth is self-perpetuating – that the more empathy we receive, the more we’re likely to give to others.

On the show, he cites three diverse professions in which being empathic can oil the wheels of industry far more effectively than simple enforcement:

• Teaching
• Management and
• Catering.

I’m going to look at two more:

• Law and
• Medicine.

Back in another lifetime, as part of my law degree, I took an optional module on legal interviewing. It included some work around empathising– or at least, demonstrating empathic behaviour with clients.

The focus seemed to be on manifesting the external signs, rather than genuine internal understanding. From memory, a lot more time was spent on the role of asking what sort of journey someone had and nodding and ‘Yes, I see’ing than on actually trying to shift our own mental viewpoint; but for all that, I think it did plant the seed which has grown into the work I do today, on communication. It certainly got me thinking about the importance, for any professional, of stepping out from behind their own experti se to look at – and feel – a problem from their client’s perspective.

That can be a lot easier said than done, of course. Expertise of any kind is a great defence against all sorts of professional and personal vulnerability. That’s just one reason why, as we said in Programme 5, lawyers (among others) often cloake everything they say in their own special language. The argument in favour of this mystification is that legalese is much more precise than plain English; but as my guest, Chris Arnheim, pointed out, that precision is too often achieved at the expense of the client’s understanding.

Obviously, this isn’t just a lawyers’ problem. It’s also a major issue for the medical profession, where the cost isn’t limited to understanding. It can actually impact on patient health.

Recent studies have consistently shown that patients achieve better outcomes when their Doctor is empathic. This has been seen in relation to physical conditions, including diabetes, as well as psychological challenges, such as depression.

It isn’t just about feeling better sooner. Researchers have even seen measurable improvements in the immune systems of patients with empathic practicioners, as compared with those whose Doctors focus more on the condition than the person who has it.

So empathy makes us happier and healthier – and happier, healthier people are more productive.

All this backs up my argument, which I’ve been putting forward throughout this series, that empathy is so much more than a ‘pink and fluffy’ luxury for organisations. It’s an economic essential.

As Graham said in the third section of this programme, our mechanisms for dealing with stress work against our capacity for empathy. Empathic behaviour doesn’t thrive in highly competitive environments. So if you work in a very goal-driven, results-orientated setup, what I said in the last paragraph may well sound unrealistic – even a bit bonkers?!

My answer is that if competition, goals and results are important to your work culture, you might have more of a challenge on your hands, trying to introduce empathy; but a more productive team will give you a competitive edge; a more solid team (as opposed to a collective of individuals with their own agendas) is far more likely to reach its goals; and the results will speak for themselves.

From next week, we start running the final programme in this series, which pulls together the previous nine. Through the magic of recording and editing, I’m bringing all my guests together, to share their tips on the next step. We’ve talked about improving our communication. So what can we actually do today to make it happen?

That show is out on 3rd December.

In the meantime, as always, if you have any:

• Questions
• Comments or
• Communication issues to discuss,

come and talk to me! All the details are on the website.

In summary, can we compromise?

In the fourth and final section of the latest programme, my guest, Chris Arnheim, talks about the pros and cons of one tool he uses to balance clarity and precision – the summary.

When I was in legal practice, I always tried to summarise the contracts I wrote for clients; but it’s true what Chris says on the show – that there has to be a ‘strong element of trust’ between lawyer and client. It’s physically impossible to say in three pages everything that can be said in a hundred. If not, we’d all write three-page contracts, wouldn’t we? Well, all except, perhaps, those who use language to maintain their professional mystique.

A good summary, of any complex communication – written or spoken, legal and otherwise – is a guide to the full version, not a substitute for it. As such, it has to be handled with care, by the person drafting as well as the one reading it.

My chat with Chris about the written word is a slight diversion from the main theme of this series – speech. So in this last section, I pull us back to the spoken word by mentioning lawyers who talk like textbooks. They aren’t the only professionals who are guilty of that, of course – and in most cases, across the board, it has a lot to do with professional, even personal, insecurity.

I know this from firsthand experience.

One of my earliest experiences as a public speaker was having to deliver a presentation about the then ‘new’ Companies Act, to a group of directors from a range of industries.

I worked on the piece for hours, trying to make sure that every reference was correct and complete, and that I could support it with evidence.

I was so scared of blowing my own credibility, and that of the event organiser who’d booked me, I wrote everything out in detail and stuck slavishly to my notes – which were probably longer than the text of the Act itself!

There’s no question that the presentation was very precise – but I have to say, it was deadly dull! It was bad enough for me, so I dread to think what it was like for the poor, long-suffering audience! The worst of it is, I suspect most of them probably zoned out after five minutes or so and didn’t remember anything I’d said! Even if they did remember, I wonder how much they understood. In that particular battle between precision and clarity, precision swept the board.

The most positive thing I can say about that incident was that the only way was up!

Jargon has its place; but it can also be a great smoke-screen, behind which we can hide a multitude of sins, from lack of experience to poor social skills. If relationships matter to our businesses, though (as they do to the vast majority), there are times when we really need to step out from the cover industry-speak gives us and talk to, rather than at, our customers, clients etc. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they won’t think any less of us – in fact, their opinion will improve.

So what of the one in a hundred who wants their lawyer, accountant, web-developer etc to ‘sound more professional’? Well, for them, it’s easy enough to lapse back into gobbledeguck, isn’t it? – although we still need to make sure they know what we’re on about, so it’s sometimes necessary to sneak a bit of plain English in through the back door …

In the next programme:

‘They speak English, don’t they?’

I’m looking at another situation in which knowing what someone else is on about can be a bit of a challenge – cross-cultural communication. Helping me with that is American businesswoman, Colleen Jolly, of the 24-hour Company. She’s based in the States, but has worked in the UK and in Australia – so she knows all too well that just because ‘they speak English’, it doesn’t mean we’ll always be able to make ourselves understood!

Join us for some tips on how not to do international business – and a lot of that universal language, laughter! – from 6th August.

In the meantime, if you have any:

• Questions
• Comments or
• Communication issues to discuss

come and talk to me. All the details are on the website.

Why isn’t Clarity Always good for the Image?

In the third section of the latest show, my guest, Chris Arnheim, takes a closer look at the communication tight-rope which all lawyers – and other professionals – have to walk, between precision and clarity.

Whatever business we’re in, the language we use should always be determined by the people we’re talking to, shouldn’t it? Among colleagues, we can use all the shorthand we like; with strategic partners in other sectors, we sometimes need to use some of their industry language; and with customers, clients or other end-users, we should be able to put our expertise into layman’s terms.

It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? No, of course it isn’t!

In this part of the show, Chris outlines the principles underpinning the Plain English Campaign – in particular, the idea that we ought to be free to throw out all the rules drummed into us at school, from grammar to syntax, if it helps to make language more accessible.

That’s a laudable idea. The only trouble is, some of those rules provide more than a framework for our words. How we say something carries a subtext; a layer of meaning beyond what we say. It’s part of that all-important context we were talking about in the previous section.

Although the first clip in the intro to this programme – where someone says that the ‘foreign’ language’ of jargon can be ‘quite reassuring’ – might sound like a cop-out, there is some truth in it.

Most of my own legal clients really appreciated my efforts to speak and write in plain English … most, but not all.

On a handfull of occasions, when I presented a client with a draft contract containing as few ‘hereinafters’ and ‘theretofores’ as possible, instead of being relieved that they didn’t have to ask me to translate, they looked worried and said something like:

‘Are you sure this is legal? Will it stand up in court?’

One or two even asked me to put some jargon back in – ‘to make it look more professional’.

For them, legalese had a power that ordinary words just didn’t have. Whether it was for their own reassurance, or because they thought it would be more likely to impress – or intimidate – the other party, I was never completely clear. Looking back, I suspect a bit of both; but either way, there were times when clients needed their expectations to be confirmed, not confounded. They wanted their lawyer to look and sound like a lawyer ‘is supposed to’ – even if that meant they themselves couldn’t easily understand what she was saying!

On the other hand there are, as Chris points out on the programme, lawyers who impose their professional language on clients for the sake of their own image, rather than to reassure the client – and of course, the same is true in other professions.

Last week, I mentioned how I nearly ran into trouble over my use of the word ‘cut’ in a media context. Fortunately, the producer who pointed out my mistake was professional enough, and experienced enough, not to feel the need to score image points. So he used his common sense to determine what I really meant. I’ve worked with others (no names, no pack-drill!) who have insisted on the ‘correct’ terms being used and made me feel quite small if I slipped up.

Whatever the language barrier, embarrassment rarely builds a bridge across it. It just reinforces the sense of being ‘one of them’.

In the law, it’s always seemed to me that this kind of standing on ceremony is much more common among younger, less experienced – less professionally secure – colleagues. I saw a perfect illustration of that within a particular firm a few years ago. I interviewed two members of the team, separately. The first, a young, newly-qualified Solicitor, talked like a textbook. The second, the senior partner, walked into the radio studio where I was about to interview him live (a first for him), and chatted away quite happily. His balance between clarity and precision seemed effortless.

Achieving that balance is what we’re talking about in the final section of this programme:

‘In summary, can we compromise?’

More on that here next time.

In the meantime, if you have any:

• Questions
• Feedback or
• Communication issues you’d like to chat through

come and talk to me. You’ll find all the contact details on the website.

Should we look at jargon in context?

The second section of the latest show, with Solicitor, Chris Arnheim, is all about the vital role of context in deciphering the meaning of jargon. Chris focuses on legalese, but he could just as easily be talking about the language of medicine, finance, education – even business!

As I’ve said before (and you no doubt knew already), all that’s needed for basic ‘communication’ to occur is:

o A message
o Sent by one person and
o Received by another.

That’s true as far as it goes – but it isn’t, as they say in all the best courtroom dramas:

‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth’!

For a message to be ‘received’, it has to be ‘understood’ – so it has to be in a language which both the sender and recipient can understand.

Even that isn’t the whole story though. When we use a language we’re both familiar with, words can still be open to several different interpretations, can’t they? Just take two of the clips in the intro to this show!

Heard in isolation, ‘jelly’ conjures up images of kids’ parties and ‘SEWP’ means lunch, or maybe the first course of a good dinner. I’d bet you wouldn’t think ‘social working’, or ‘the Super-electronic Workstation Program’ respectively?! No, me neither …

In extreme cases, it’s perfectly possible to end up in a situation where the message as sent is diametrically opposite to the one received – and context can play as big a part in the confusion as it can in clarification!

I ran into that problem when I changed careers.

Having started my legal studies back in 1988, by 2007, I was fluent in the language of law – from ‘heretofore’ to ‘thereinafter’ – and all points in between! I was much less familiar with the language of the media industry.

These days, I happily handle every aspect of audio production, from planning to distribution; but back at the beginning, although I could plan and present, I couldn’t edit. So I had to decide what needed doing, then hand the job over to someone else, with a detailed set of instructions – what I now know as an EDL – ‘editing decision list’.

Here’s a sample from one of my early attempts:

‘The section runs:

From (me): “I said in the introduction” – 0 48
To (Jenny): “Totally unsolicited” – 49 44

‘Cut:

‘Sue:

‘From: “Such as this event we’re at now” – 4 17
To: “Take leads. So” – 4 30’.

After a couple of lists in similar terms, my producer at the time pointed out that he knew I was using ‘cut’ in the sense of ‘get rid of’; but for him, the ‘cut’ was what was left behind!

If I hadn’t been in the studio while the magic happened (yes, there is a real ‘magic of editing’!), that could have been a disaster!

Of course, context’ in communication isn’t just about the meanings of the words we use, is it? It’s at least as much about the environment in which a communication happens:

• The medium used
• The physical surroundings and even
• The emotional environment –
o The general relationship between the parties and
o How they both happen to be feeling at the relevant time.

That came up in Programme 4, when Dr Ann Moir was talking about the differences between all-male and all-female communication – and how more ‘feminine’ communicators are inclined to add emotional tags to their understanding of messages received, of which more masculine senders of those messages are completely unaware!

I’ll come back to the topic of the communication environment when I talk to you about Programme 8.

That show, about our senses, was recorded last week, back in the studio where I recorded the first show in this series – and where, several years earlier, I had the original conversation about ‘cuts’ versus ‘cuts’.

The next section of this show goes back to another kind of linguistic wrangle, which I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago – ‘clarity’ versus ‘precision’. This time, Chris and I look at the question:

‘Why isn’t clarity always good for the image?’

For now, if you have any:

• Questions
• Feedback or
• Communication issues you’d like to discuss

come and talk to me. All the details are, as ever, on the website.

In plain English, what’s jargon for?

The story behind the latest ‘Conversation with the Invisible Woman’ goes back to 2007, when I decided I didn’t want to be a lawyer any more.

That’s when I started developing the concept which would eventually grow up to be Speak For Yourself. It all began with the idea to give businesses access to plain English legal information, via podcasts and other resources – and help them to connect with the right provider in the process.

Here’s what I wrote in 2011, about the initial conversation with my guest on the latest show:

‘In most cases, I was genuinely amazed by the enthusiasm with which the idea was greeted – because that’s all it was at that stage – an idea. A concept.

‘Not that everyone was immediately sold. I had a very challenging phone conversation with London lawyer Chris Arnheim (a shrewd businessman as well as a highly-experienced and very approachable ex-City solicitor). His parting shot was,

“It’s an interesting idea, but at the moment I don’t quite see how it’s going to work. Keep me posted though.”’

(From ‘Finding My Voice: A Forty-year Apprenticeship in Sound’)

That’s sometimes the sort of thing we say when we’re being polite, isn’t it?; but Chris obviously meant it because when I put out the first show, he was among the very first to email me, to let me know he’d listened. His response – typically straight to the point – was:

‘I love what you’re doing – when can we meet?’

We met in London a few weeks later.

He was right to be cautious about the original concept; but still, he became one of the founder members of the group who kickstarted the company I have now.

As I said at the end of the last show, although Chris is fluent in the lawyer’s native language, legalese, he’s also committed to talking to clients, verbally and on paper, in plain English where and whenever possible.

So who else was I going to pick on when I wanted to make a show about jargon?!

Put two lawyers in a room together – even if one of them hasn’t practised for several years – and it won’t be long before they start defining what they’re talking about.

When Chris and I met at his home a couple of weeks ago, even before I switched on the recorder, we were trying to pin down what jargon actually is and what it’s for.

We tend to think of it as the language of professionals, don’t we?; but as Chris pointed out:

‘Everyone has jargon. Whether it’s a football group, or a community group, they all have words which mean something special to them and they don’t have to go into long explanations every time they use them’.

So it’s a private language within a language, exclusive to a relatively small group. As such, like language generally, it helps to keep the ingroup in and the outgroup out. That’s usually fine for social purposes (unless it creates tension, of course); but when the ingroup’s role is to help the outgroup, it can be a very different story.

In this show, we focus mainly on lawyers and their clients, because that’s the world Chris and I have in common – the ingroup to which we’ve both belonged; but everything we say applies just as much to media, medicine, technology, education – and whatever group you happen to be part of.

You may not think you have jargon, but I’d be willing to bet there are words and phrases you and your colleagues use, which you take for granted because you’ve been hearing them every day for years, but which would leave your customers, clients or end-users feeling like complete outsiders?!

As Chris says in the first extract, jargon is useful ‘shorthand’; but it can create real misunderstandings, with all sorts of costly consequences. It’s often implicated in the ongoing battle between two old legal adversaries – clarity versus precision.

Any message can mean different things in different contexts. Even what we think of as the plainest of plain English is open to more than one interpretation depending upon where, when and even how it’s said.

Context is especially important to legal communications, so that’s what we’re talking about in the second extract from this programme.

I’ll say more about that here next time. In the meantime, if you have any:

• Questions
• Feedback or
• Communication issues you’d like to talk through,

come and talk to me. All the details are on the website.

How can we make ourselves understood?

In the final section of the latest show, Dr Ann Moir of Brain Sex Matters leaves us with some practical tips, to help us reap the benefits of closing the communication-style gap.

So what are they?

Well, as with any kind of distance, the first benefit of bridging it is better understanding – moving from seeing the broad features of a ’type’ to focusing in on the finer detail of an individual.

Within that fine detail, we’ll probably see weaknesses, but we’ll also see strengths – sometimes hiding behind the weaknesses! It’s always worth remembering that a frailty in one situation can be an essential quality in another.

The strongest, most productive teams are, of course, made up of people with a range of communication styles. A group who are all goal-focused would compete ruthlessly with one another – and quite possibly kill a project – if not each other! – in the process! On the other hand, a bunch of relationship-focused individuals would have a great time getting to know one another and talking about what they wanted to do, but might never actually do very much to make it happen!

Get the right blend of styles from across the spectrum, though, and the whole will be so much stronger than the sum of its parts.

For instance, research has shown links between the number of women on a team and the team’s overall capacity for creative problem-solving. Now, it would be stupidly simplistic to suggest that all women, or even all ‘feminine communicators’ are creative; but it is true that those of us who look at issues more intuitively and expansively are more likely to see past the usual questions:

• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why? And
• How?

and ask:

• Why not? And
• What if …?

Those last two questions are the keys which open up a problem. They let us link the unlinkable – and think the unthinkable –the foundations of creative thought.

My next guest on the show, Chris Arnheim, flagged up another piece of research illustrating this point.

It comes from Randall Kiser’s book:

‘Beyond Right and Wrong: The Power of Effective Decision Making for Attorneys and
Clients’.

and deals with ‘plaintiff decision error’ rates in the US legal system. In plain English, these are situations where someone would have received more compensation if they’d settled out of court than they were actually awarded when they took the case to trial.

Out of 5600 cases, between 2002 and 2007, there was an error rate of 60%; but within that, the rate was much lower – 46% – where the legal team included both men and women.

It seems likely that this was at least partly due to better decisions about which cases really needed to go to court.

When I was in practice, my focus was always on achieving the best possible out-of-court settlement, so avoiding the costs – in terms of time, money and stress – of a trial; but successful negotiation, like any successful relationship, needs time and attention. Two reasons cited for the difference in the stats are:

• Overconfidence of all-male teams and
• Overwork –

neither of which creates an environment where time and attention are top priorities!

Looking at this from the opposite perspective, as a relationship-driven ‘mad creative’ (my words), I know only too well the value of having at least one systematic, goal-driven person on my team. Without them, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you now – I’d still be talking to someone else about ‘this great idea for a series …’!

So you reductive processors need us expansive creatives and vice versa; but we both need more than that. We need to understand, not only our own perspective on communication, but each other’s.

Establishing that understanding starts, as does any change we want to make, with awareness – of our differences, our similarities, where they’re likely to come from – and our huge individual capacity to change. Perhaps the most powerful message I took from making this programme was:

‘Biology isn’t destiny’.

Even if we can’t become really fluent in each other’s languages, we can develop a working knowledge, which will let us save time, money and other resources by building more effective teams.

I’ve already mentioned my next guest, Solicitor, Chris Arnheim. In our show:

‘What’s that in English?’

released on 9th July, Chris and I talk about another kind of language barrier which can spring up between people who think they’re speaking the same native tongue – jargon. Chris is a lawyer with years of commercial experience and he has some interesting and revealing things to say about:

• What jargon is for
• The issues it can create and
• How we can deal with them.

In the meantime, as ever, if you have any questions, feedback etc, please, get in touch. All the details are on the website.