How to Integrate Others' Reality Gaps, Perception Differences, and Achieve Effective Communication?
Like in this very telling image… but everyone seems to deny one of the root causes of this gap.
Here’s the image:
A monkey standing by the pool asks a giraffe who is already in the water, “How deep is it?”
And the giraffe replies, “It’s up to my neck!”
…Besides being an imprecise answer, the giraffe only takes its own reality into account.
A giraffe’s neck is long and starts two meters from its hooves.
This is a crucial element in coaching that is never addressed, yet it influences so many things.
(So, dear parents currently asking your teen questions about their career path…)
It’s not about a specific type of communication — it’s a principle.
YES, it is possible to simplify communication. This is the principle of cooperation.
Here’s how it works:
“The other person is asking me a question. Is it clear? What is this person really trying to find out?”
In any communication, there is always a sender and a receiver.
Some people respond without considering the situation, based solely on their own reality.
Like the giraffe in the image — the receiver — who answers without providing enough context for the sender (the monkey) to fully understand.
Others, unlike the giraffe, will realize that the monkey wants to know whether the water is shallow enough to stand in. They will analyze the context and reply accordingly. In this case, they would give a precise answer, such as:
“The water is two meters deep.”
The principle of cooperation is a key element in pragmatic linguistics.
It appears to have been developed by philosopher Paul Grice in 1975.
It refers to the implicit rules that speakers follow to make communication effective.
According to Grice, people naturally cooperate to ensure that their conversations make sense by adhering to several conversational maxims:
The Four Maxims of the Principle of Cooperation
- Maxim of Quantity: Provide enough information, but not too much.
- Maxim of Quality: Tell the truth and avoid statements without evidence.
- Maxim of Relevance: Be relevant in your statements.
- Maxim of Manner: Be clear, avoid ambiguity, and speak in an orderly way.
Example:
If someone asks, “What time is it?”, answering with “I’m not a talking clock!” would violate the principle of cooperation.
However, replying “It’s 10:30” adheres to the maxims.
Effective communication often requires cooperation between the sender and the receiver.
But the sender must also ask clear and precise questions. Otherwise, the receiver’s answers may be:
- “I don’t understand,”
- completely useless,
- or based on assumptions and guesses.
In short, we often fail to cooperate enough, even though the entire point of communication is to… well, communicate!
In social or business interactions, many factors are at play:
Ego, reputation, power dynamics, perceptions, intentions, and goals.
In a relationship where the goal is shared, and there is an open and calm dynamic, cooperation happens naturally.
But if that’s not the case, something else is likely at play.
In coaching, this cooperation forms the foundation for high-quality reflection and meaningful work.
