A lesson in impact: finding gold in the communication gap
Above the line, below the line – and how to unlock value in the space between.
When you watch a game of high-quality water polo, what you see from above the water line is phenomenal athleticism, highly skilled athletes jumping out of the water to masterfully pass and shoot a ball into a goal, swim around and jump to intercept passes. Harmony, skill, systems that work.
If you watch a game of water polo from below the water line, you see a completely different game. You see grabbing, kicking, pulling, twisting, sometimes a pained face desperate for air. No beauty, no harmony, no impressive displays of skill (although I guess this depends on your definition!).
Same game, but depending on the perspective you’re viewing it from, you’re seeing a completely different show.
This idea of what’s happening above the line and below the line can be applied to many situations in business and life. Communication (and associated problems) is one of them.
Just for fun… here’s a throwback to me playing water polo for my European team!
The value lies in the space between
The distance between what’s happening above the line and below the line is often where the opportunity to unlock value lies. Not so much in water polo, but certainly when it comes to communication.
*There’s many different ways that ‘above the line’ and ‘below the line’ are interpreted and defined in public discourse. For the purposes of this article, I mean:
Above the line: What is intentionally communicated, the messages that are projected in public.
Below the line: The communication happening behind the scenes, repeated among audiences, or reported about you without your input.
Let’s look at some examples.
If your CEO says something at a town hall (above the line), and the water cooler conversation is overflowing with questions, theories and speculation (below the line), there’s a disconnect; an opportunity to communicate better and unlock value.
If what your colleagues, leaders or team members say about you when you’re not ‘in the room or on the zoom’ (below the line) isn’t congruent with how you think they perceive you (above the line, based on what you’re intentionally projecting about yourself), then there’s an opportunity to narrow the gap and realise value.
If the messages you’re communicating to your investors, stakeholders or media (above the line) are not what’s being reported and repeated about you or your company (below the line), there’s the same potential to narrow the gap and realise value.
If your significant other doesn’t understand why you want to do / see / buy something or go somewhere because you haven’t clearly communicated above the line, there’s infinite potential assumptions made (below the line) – and this never ends well!
The impact of a widening communication gap is significant at both a personal and professional level. If your audience isn’t understanding your message as you intend it, you’re not communicating your value effectively and will consequently miss out on opportunities.
Find the low hanging fruit
Narrowing the gap between above the line and below the line communication is often where the ‘low hanging fruit’ is – the little things that will help improve the impact of your words.
To be clear, this is not about whether your audience agrees or disagrees with a message. You can disagree with everything a leader says, but still understand the concept and the argument he or she is presenting and be able to echo the facts and reasons. You don’t need to join the dots and link incomplete messages with your own assumptions.
It is not easy – and perhaps not even possible in some cases – to entirely avoid gossip or echo chambers that ad-lib on facts, tenuously link messages based on assumptions or cascade messages as they are intended. But the further we can narrow the gap between messages circulating above the line with those circulating below the line, the clearer and more effective our communication becomes.
How do you narrow the gap?
As a wise friend says, you have not communicated effectively unless your audience can replay the message back to you as you intended it.
Here’s three tips to help you start unlocking the opportunity that lies in the space between above the line and below the line communication.
Get curious. Really, intentionally curious about how communication is received and repeated. Spend time at the watercooler. Start observing what people are saying outside of formal environments; ask friends or colleagues (honest ones) how they describe you, and if they’ve heard people describe you in other ways. In my experience, most people start noticing opportunities to narrow the gap as soon as they start actively observing it.
Ask your audience to playback your message. You can ask your team members, your colleagues, your family or friends to play back what they understood your message to be when you’re talking about ideas, projects, tasks or instructions. It’s perfectly acceptable to say you’re working on your communication clarity and you want the feedback (this avoids the sometimes patronising request to repeat an instruction back). You can also say something like: Did that make sense? I can’t remember exactly what I said – can you?!
*Tip: you can do this with emails too – ask a trusted colleague what they understood from your email to gauge feedback about its clarity.
Set up some informal feedback loops. The most effective business leaders usually have trusted relationships with colleagues at various levels throughout a business that they go to for insights as to how messages are being received, what questions people have and whether they’re understanding the asks. Corporate communications teams often play this role for leaders, but it’s easy to set up your own feedback loops with colleagues, friends or industry peers. The key here is to be clear about why you want the insights, then listen and understand whatever comes back – getting defensive defeats the purpose!
You might be surprised at the opportunities you uncover to clarify your message just by observing and understanding the situation more closely.
The clearer we are with our communication and the closer our actions align to what we’re saying, the less need there is for assumptions to be made or incongruent dots to be joined in the gap.
And finally…
This concept also applies to your self-talk and its impact (the analogy doesn’t work perfectly here but let’s assume self-talk is ‘below the line’).
Many years ago when I was wearing the green and gold, playing water polo for Australia (above the line – walking the talk of an athlete), I never truly believed I should be there (below the line). My internal state screamed ‘imposter’.
Imagine the value I could have unlocked if my self-talk had been “I’ve put in the hours of training, I’ve learnt the skills, I’m healthy, fit and fully equipped to be here and take on this challenge”.
I see the impact of below the line self-talk cripple truly capable people all the time in professional environments. It’s worth becoming an observer of your self-talk and starting to unlock the value there, too.
Happy Easter to all who will be celebrating this weekend, and as always, thank you for being here.
Larissa
This is great. So often people don't hear what you you want them to hear. Ever since my kids were little, after we tell them something we always ask them to repeat what we've said. They are 16 and 14 and it still works a treat. Thanks for sharing.