It’s all in how you look at it

Early on in my career I was asked to train a Sensory panel located in England, outside of London.  The company didn’t want to spend the money to send me over to train them in person for the weeks it would take, so we were trying to conduct training remotely through emails, phone calls, and even a series of house-made training videos (these were the days before videoconference calls). I knew my topic (toilet paper), the panel was receptive, and on the surface it should have been easy – after all, it was literally a two-dimensional product.  Time went by, more and more training sessions were conducted, and the phone calls got more and more frustrated over the lack of synergy between the US and UK programs.  Something wasn’t adding up, but what?  This should have been easier than other international panels I had trained, not the least of which was because I didn’t need to do everything through a translator.  We all spoke English, right?

Finally, after months of frustration, I was sent over to conduct training in person, hopefully to get to the bottom of the disconnect.  I found the team to be delightful, and eager to make the project a success.  The problems started to appear on the very first day. I tried to explain a procedure for evaluating the fuzziness on the surface of a paper product.  You’re looking for what feels like a subtle movement under your fingers, I told them, almost like fibers on a piece of flannel.

“You’ve said that before,” one of them challenged me.  “Do you feel any fibers?”

Yes, I asserted.  I remember touching the piece of bath tissue we were using and checking myself.  Definitely – little, thin, almost microscopic hair-like fibers were moving under my fingers as I made little circles on the paper. 

One of the women, a veteran of the plant and very straightforward, gave me a very skeptical look.  “You’re mental,” she declared.  “That doesn’t feel like any flannel I’ve ever touched.”

It took a bit of discussion, but I suddenly had a toilet paper epiphany.  What did they think flannel was?  My frame of reference was a soft, normally cotton-based cloth, usually used to make warm winter items like sheets, pajamas, and the chicest of deer hunter’s garments (I was living in Wisconsin at the time).   But one of the members of the UK panel mentioned that he used “a flannel” to wash his face.  They were thinking of a washcloth, not the “brushed cotton” I was thinking of.  We were using the same word, but two very different ideas.  (Personally, I’m very glad they weren’t finding washcloth-length fibers on the sheets of toilet paper they were testing.)  That a-ha led to discovery after discovery as to why they had gotten so confused over my instructions.  On the surface we spoke the same language, but in the end the words I used made my instructions almost incomprehensible.  In some ways, I found it easier working with a group that speaks a completely different language.  When you know every word is different, I find myself not making as many dangerous assumptions.   

I had a similar experience later when conducting a chocolate tasting demo with a client group in the UK.  I wanted to have a very straightforward demonstration of large differences between a grouping of familiar chocolates.  I had learned the hard way to make the differences between products in my demonstrations almost over the top in their obviousness – far too often, something that seemed like a notable difference to trained Sensory personnel was lost completely when trying to recreate the experience with people of unknown sensory ability.  I had chosen a high quality dark chocolate in the 70%+ cacao range, a mass-market chocolate in the 50% cacao range (around a semi-sweet), a very common US milk chocolate bar that I figured should be easy to obtain and was distinctive in its flavor profile, and a corresponding UK chocolate bar that was ubiquitous across the areas where I’d be traveling, also distinctive for its very caramel-like cooked milk notes. 

I was feeling quite confident in this presentation – a notably bad sign all around, as that’s when things started to go sideways quickly.  The team contacted me – they found everything I requested except the “common” US chocolate.  It seems it was not sold in that area.  In fact, it didn’t seem to be commonly sold in England.  No worries, I thought, rushing out to purchase multi-packs of bars to pack in my luggage (I got some interesting looks going through TSA with that one).  I arrived safely with only a few broken bars – disaster averted! 

Ha!  The disaster was waiting for me when I tried to run my demonstration.

“What… IS this?” was the common reaction when presented with the US chocolate bar.    It’s American milk chocolate I told them, a bit surprised by the negative reaction.  After all, this was a candy familiar to just about every child in the US. 

“Tastes like baby spitup,” one declared, promptly going on to the English chocolate bar.  “Now THIS is chocolate!”  The rest of the demo was cut short, as the distraction of the unfamiliar sour dairy note in the US chocolate bar was so unsettling to them that the discussion quickly started to devolve away from the topic.  I had made the same mistake as with the flannel cloth – assuming that since we all were using what I thought were the same words, that it meant we were thinking the same thing. 

I think of those two lessons quite frequently when trying to explain Sensory concepts in my role.  The context and cultural weight behind words and terms can be of huge significance.  Think about it – do you describe cooked eggplant as having a “silky” texture, or “slimy” (like my mother)?  What about the interior of a ripe mango – is it “custardy”, or “squishy”?  I’ve had some groups describe horseradish as “pungent”, while another group tasting the same sample came up with descriptions closer to putrid (I believe the most memorable term from that particular training was calling it “stinkweed”).  And dealing with a sour taste in the US you’ll commonly hear “tart”, but if you insist on the European-favored term of “acid”, you’re bound to get a very negative reaction from a US group (not the least is a questioning of the safety of ingesting any sample where you’re asking them to look for the “acid” in it). 

My flubs (and there have been many more!) have me always looking for a better way to communicate.  Whether that’s working with an international team (which includes a lot of intergenerational aspects as well as multi-cultural backgrounds), clients who bring an array of both corporate culture and personal background to the table, or trying to express ideas across a wide range of remote readers whose context for words may be a complete mystery to me (hello LinkedIn community).  At a minimum I try to tailor my approach as much as I can.   I may not always get it right, but the flannels and chocolate bars of my past keep reminding me it’s important to try. 

So how do you avoid contextual missteps?  For one, it’s an old one, but no less true – do your damnedest not to assume.  That’s a hard one, because sometimes you don’t even realize you’re making an assumption.  But leave yourself open to at least the possibility that there’s something you don’t know.  Even if you feel you’re an expert on some topic, I would hazard to say there’s always something new to learn, or a different way to look at it that might inspire your communication about the subject. And I find a good way to check to see if I’m making unintentional assumptions is often to concentrate more on asking questions, than telling people what something should be.  At least at first.

Which hopefully means I won’t have to worry about toilet paper that feels like a washcloth again.