The Leader Lab. Tania Luna

      Source: Rorschach Inkblot Test, Pearson Scott Foresman. (Public Domain).

Don't worry. We’re not testing you. Some folks see two people facing each other. Some see a crab. Some see lungs. Some see something entirely different. Which answer is right? Obviously, it's a crab. Just kidding – it's none of them. This is an intentionally ambiguous inkblot, meant to be open to interpretation. This inkblot-related insight will be obvious to anyone familiar with the Rorschach Test, but what wasn't obvious to us until we started studying the BUs of great managers is that conversations are splattered with inkblots – words that can be interpreted differently by different people. We at LifeLabs Learning have dubbed these “blur words.” Some common examples include “better,” “worse,” “less,” “more,” and the ever-popular “as soon as possible.”

       Great managers are always on the lookout for blur words. They notice when people use them. They notice when they themselves use them. Then they apply the BU we've called Deblur. They turn ambiguous words into information that is clear enough for everyone to understand. Here are some sample Deblurring questions they ask.

Sample Deblurring Questions

      Practice Station

      Mia has decided to hire a new person, but getting input from her team members is harder than she expected. Take a look at the comment below about one of the candidates, and mentally (or physically) underline the blur words you spot:

      I don't recommend hiring this candidate. She was closed-off and standoffish the entire time. The other candidates we interviewed were much warmer. I wouldn't even suggest inviting her to the next interview round. The other candidates were also much more qualified.

      Which words in this example are blurry? Here are the biggest blur words:

      I don't recommend hiring this candidate. She was closed-off and standoffish the entire time. The other candidates we interviewed were warmer. I wouldn't even suggest inviting her to the next interview round. The other candidates were also more qualified.

       Notice how easy it could have been for Mia to leave the comment blurry and move onto the next candidate? Our brains are wired to fill gaps with snap interpretations. When we hear words like “standoffish,” “warm,” and “qualified,” our brains make instant assumptions about what these words mean. We take for granted that we are talking about the same behaviors when, in reality, we might have vastly different meanings. For example, when we asked three people to Deblur a term as simple as “warm,” we heard:

      How does Deblurring help managers become better faster?

Three of the Biggest Reasons Managers Benefit from Deblurring

      1. Deblurring Prevents Miscommunication Faster

Blur words lead to misunderstandings of all shapes and sizes. Consider the experience of Sara, who got a frantic email from her manager (let's call him Sam). It went something like this: “Sara, the client needs the report by EOD. It's really time sensitive. Can you make it happen?”

       The email came in at around 4 p.m. Sara knew the report would take hours to compile, and she had dinner plans with her cousin who was in town for just one night. Sara had been looking forward to dinner, but she was eager to make a good impression on Sam. So, she sighed, called her cousin to cancel, and spent the next four hours preparing the report. By the time she was finished, she was exhausted and hungry but proud. That is until she got

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