Crossed wires

Today I was exchanging emails in a way that I do everyday.

The speed at which we do this somethings is crazy, we believe our responses are thoughtful, but really how much thought goes into a 3 minute reply?

Well today I blasted one email off and immediately I got a response which took me aback.

I had seemingly offended my dear colleague, it read like I had incorrectly paraphrased some of her work and as a consequence she was angry with me. She was pointing out that the information she had shared had been just for my eyes and although I had changed some of the wording and made it look less critical, it seems that she had felt misrepresented.

Oh my! This had not been my intention. My intent had been to share her work and give her credit for it, the wordsmithing had been done so that I had some skin in the game and was meant to build on her good insights.

I tried to respond. I typed. I deleted. I retyped. I deleted. I tried different words. I deleted. And I thought for a while. It then came to me. Just call her. Sounds obvious, well maybe, but it took me a while.

We have a good relationship and she would know my intentions were good.

So I cautiously dialled her number and waited.

I hadn't planned what I was going to say, but an apology was the best place to start.

After the apology, she sounded perplexed. Why are you are sorry she said. It was me who should have been more careful. Eh??????

It quickly became clear that there was cross wires. She was not at all angry with me, but rather she had wanted to express that if she had known that I was going to use her work for, she would have reworded it, so that I didnt have to.

Agh!!!!!

So we had a good laugh and it was done.

But it made me think about how often we have cross wires in life. How often do we miscommunicate? How often are we misunderstood? How often do we misunderstand?

Yet how often do we find out that that is what happened?

How often do we invest the time and effort to uncover the meaning behind it all?

We operate at record speed and there is very little time for thought and debrief.

So maybe a little more pause is needed and a breath in between read and reply just to ensure that a little reflection is present in our work.

Does not seem much to ask does it?