During her presentation at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Land Administration conference this past year, Bente Nelson used the FedEx sign as an illustration. She asked us if we could see the arrow within the FedEx logo, which, after a few seconds most of us were able to pick out. A few days later I was driving my daughter Sarah to school and we were stopped behind a FedEx truck so I asked her if she could see the arrow. She was not able to at first, but after I pointed it out for her she could. There was a pause and after a couple of moments she said, “it’s hard to un-see it now”.
It was an interesting comment. Sometimes once you have seen something it is hard not to see it; it just sticks with you. It is like that with many of those optical illusion pictures where once you see the ‘hidden’ object it is difficult to see anything else unless you really make the attempt. I think the same can be said for words, perhaps even more so. When we hear something, whether it is about us or someone else, it can be hard to forget it.
If this is true, then I think it would give us pause when it comes to what we say to others; or what we say about them. I assume that many of us have had that experience when words have left our mouths, and as they have done so we realize we probably should not have said them. We usually try to recover by saying something like, ‘forget I said that!’ but the reality is the other person can’t, our minds do not work that way. Once we hear something – especially when it is negative, although not always – we cannot ‘un-hear’ it.
Understanding what we say in this way can have a great influence. We interact with many people daily and most of us do not think much of those interactions. But if this perspective is true then paying a little closer attention to what we say and how we say it may be important. This applies to those we work with as well. Our teams at work are made up of individuals, some of whom we may interact with easily and others who may take more of an effort. Working in teams and with people who are wired differently than we are can be challenging. But our interactions with our teammates can be greatly enhanced when we choose our words carefully, respectfully, thoughtfully; understanding that once they leave our mouths, it may be very difficult for others to ‘un-hear’ them.
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It’s Hard to Un-See It
It was an interesting comment. Sometimes once you have seen something it is hard not to see it; it just sticks with you. It is like that with many of those optical illusion pictures where once you see the ‘hidden’ object it is difficult to see anything else unless you really make the attempt. I think the same can be said for words, perhaps even more so. When we hear something, whether it is about us or someone else, it can be hard to forget it.
If this is true, then I think it would give us pause when it comes to what we say to others; or what we say about them. I assume that many of us have had that experience when words have left our mouths, and as they have done so we realize we probably should not have said them. We usually try to recover by saying something like, ‘forget I said that!’ but the reality is the other person can’t, our minds do not work that way. Once we hear something – especially when it is negative, although not always – we cannot ‘un-hear’ it.
Understanding what we say in this way can have a great influence. We interact with many people daily and most of us do not think much of those interactions. But if this perspective is true then paying a little closer attention to what we say and how we say it may be important. This applies to those we work with as well. Our teams at work are made up of individuals, some of whom we may interact with easily and others who may take more of an effort. Working in teams and with people who are wired differently than we are can be challenging. But our interactions with our teammates can be greatly enhanced when we choose our words carefully, respectfully, thoughtfully; understanding that once they leave our mouths, it may be very difficult for others to ‘un-hear’ them.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2014 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.