32 Improve your Communication Skills Our conversations all follow this simple structure. We cannot talk
about anything until we have named it. Conversely, how we name
something determines the way we talk about it. The quality of
our second-stage thinking depends directly on the quality of our
first-stage thinking.
We’re very good at second-stage thinking. We have lots of
experience in manipulating language. We’re so good at it that we
can build machines to do it for us: computers are very fast
manipulators of binary language.
We aren’t nearly so good at first-stage thinking. We mostly
give names to things without thinking. The cup is obviously a
cup; who would dream of calling it anything else? The marketing
problem is obviously a marketing problem – isn’t it? As a result,
most of our conversations complete the first stage in a few
seconds. We leap to judgement.
Suppose we named the cup as – to take a few possibilities at
random – a chalice, or a vase, or a trophy. Our second-stage
thinking about that object would change radically. Suppose we
decided that the marketing problem might be a production
problem, a distribution problem, or a personnel problem. We
would start to think very differently about it at the second
stage.
We prefer to take our perceptions for granted. But no
amount of second-stage thinking will make up for faulty or
limited first-stage thinking. Good thinking pays attention to
both stages. Effective conversations have a first stage and a
second stage.
An effective conversation manages structure by:
• separating the two stages; • checking that we both know what stage we are in; • asking the questions appropriate to each stage. ( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.
