The Digital Difference: How to Communicate with the Most Difficult People

John Grinder and Judith DeLozier tell an interesting story in their book Turtles All The Way Down. They describe an anthropological study of a tribe of people who exclusively live in a dense forest.  So dense is the forest that they have no vocabulary for describing objects at a far distance.

They discovered this when they took someone, (a tribal elder, chief or shaman) out of the forest in their jeep.   Off in a distance, they pointed to a cow in a field and asked the elder what he saw.  He replied “a dog.”

So they slowly took the man closer and closer to the cow, all along the way asking him what he saw.  He always replied “a dog.”  This continued right up a point where he replied “a cow.”

Now, that the man knew it was actually a cow, they started retreating again and as they got a little farther away, he again described what he saw as “a dog.”

That is one of the best descriptions I have heard about people having a digital shift in thinking.  It is a Dog or it is a Cow, but it is not a Cow at a distance.

Digital refers to a system of discrete categorization.  For computers, it is a “1” or a “0.” Apparently for some tribes it is a cow or a dog.

To digital thinkers, everything is black or white

You may have met people like this.  That’s wrong!  It’s not right!  I’m right.  The more you try to counter example their pronouncement, the more they get locked into their position on the subject.  And, when faced with a counter example, they respond; “no that’s different, I’m talking about . . . ”

Digital thinkers categorize most everything.  She loves me she loves me not.  He’s a winner, he’s a loser.  Rather that having a sliding scale it is just either /or.

It’s a dog
It’s a dog
It’s a dog
It’s a dog
It’s a COW

It can be very frustrating, if you are an analog thinker to try to communicate with a digital thinker.

So what is analog thinking?

Analog thinkers live in the world of shades of gray.

Analogs reflect continuum and are more about scope.

“I can see what you are saying, I agree with some of what you are saying but not all of it.
“She loves me a little, but I’m growing on her.”
“He’s  had some hard times, but he’s not a bad guy”.

It rarely works to corner a digital thinker
Trying to get a digital thinker to change their position on something by backing them in a corner will get you nothing.  All it does is help them reenforce their position and strengthen their category.

If you want the digital thinker to come to your sense of reasoning, you need to do one of two things.

• Express yourself in a way that it creates a new category of experience for them and one they can agree with
• Frame your communication in such a way that your point fits nicely into a predefined category they already have

Good luck trying to pin down an analog thinker

For digital thinkers, it can be frustrating trying to pin down an analog thinker.  For example, analog thinkers are more likely to embrace situational ethics.  The digital thinker asks the analog thinker, “well what do you think of X, don’t you think that is wrong/right?”

The analog thinker responds, well it all depends.  What is the context? Who are the players? And so on.

To communicate with analog thinkers it is important to artificially narrow their scope.  In your communication you need to be very specific.

• In this situation
• under these circumstances
• given these players
• wouldn’t you agree that . . .

The good news is that we all have a little analog and digital in us

We all have both analog and digital tendencies.  About somethings, particularly subjects about which we think we know very little, it is likely we think in analogs.  We simply don’t know enough to have a right or wrong sense about the subject.

The more we consider ourselves an expert on a subject, the more we may be inclined towards digital thinking.

And of course there is an exception to this.  Often people will get very digital when they are insecure about their beliefs on a subject matter.  They are afraid of questions that might expose their lack of understanding or ignorance on a subject.

Insecure people may not know if something is a good idea so they just say no.  After all, any further discussion would simply prove their ignorance or discomfort with the subject.

Just listen, you will soon know which communication style to use

When you are having a discussion with someone, particularly if it gets a little emotional or heated, STOP.

Take a breath and listen.  Ask yourself:

• What language patterns am I hearing?
• Is this person in digital or analog mode?
• Am I in digital or analog mode?
• How do I have to shift my words to address them in their mode?

We are all tree people in many ways.  Our forest may not be made up of wood and leaves, but it is there anyway.  Our forest is what we believe and those things we think we know the best.

The subjects about which we have the least vision are typically those about which we think we know the most.

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