The Pictionary Paradox – why your messages and visuals make perfect sense to you but confuse everyone else

Communication is hard. That should not come as a surprise to anyone who has tried to communicate.

 One of the hardest parts of communication is seeing where our messages might be confusing. The problem is that our messages (written, visual, spoken) always make sense to us.  I call this the Pictionary Paradox.

I was reminded of this while re-watching an episode of the Big Bang Theory[1].

In the scene, Sheldon and Leonard are competing against Penny and Amy in a game of Pictionary. Sheldon is drawing.

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[Sheldon draws what looks like three sausage links]

Leonard:  Oh, oh, oh, uh sausage.

[Sheldon smiles and points at Leonard encouraging him to extend his thinking]

Leonard: Uh, uh, uh, bratwurst?

[Sheldon continues to egg Leonard on]

Leonard: Oh, oh a hot dog.

[Sheldon, exasperated, moves on to a new image.  This one is a series of concentric circles with small, filled-in circles on each ring]

Leonard: A solar system

[Sheldon points at Leonard approvingly.  Then points back to the “sausage” picture.]

Leonard: Uh, uh, uh, uh, um, unidentified flying liverwurst?

[Sheldon gives another frustrated look.  He draws a final picture of a woman lying horizontally with “X”s where her eyes should be. She has a small rectangle in her hand.]

Sheldon:  Come on, Leonard, I am spoon-feeding this to you.

Leonard: I don’t know, Casper the alcoholic ghost.

[Sheldon gives a final look of exasperation]

They quickly lose to Amy and Penny. Penny draws a picture of a hand, draws a line on one of the fingers to represent the nail, and colors in the nail, to which Amy calls out “polish”.

Sheldon: Wait, no, no.  The word is "Polish". See look [pointing to sausages] POLISH Sausage. [pointing to Solar System] And the model of the solar system developed by Nicolaus Copernicus, a POLISH astronomer. [Pointing to woman lying down].  And then, finally, if that wasn’t enough, which it should be been, this is Madame Curie killing herself by discovering radium. Who, although she was a naturalized French citizen, was POLISH by birth.

The scene ends with Penny pointing out that the “p” in polish was lowercase.

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The Pictionary Paradox is hard to remedy. Here is why. You know what you are trying to communicate before you communicate it.  As a result, no matter what you say, draw, or write, it will be obvious and clear (to you).

In another part of the Pictionary scene, Leonard is drawing what is supposed to be a chocolate chip cookie. Sheldon makes several wild guesses related to physics models. 

This is the other problem with the Pictionary paradox.  We tend to represent our messages and ideas from our point of view.  But our audience attempts to make sense of them from their point of view and perspective.  One person’s “cookie” is another person’s “quark -gluon plasma”.

The Pictionary Paradox happens a lot with Powerpoint slides. Often our slides contain a lot of information but no meaningful headline. We assume that our audience is going to focus on the same data points and come to the same conclusions as us. That is not always the case. Most often, their focus is on things that are most relevant to them, not you.

When reviewing your communication (emails, documents, slides), do not stop with a simple, casual “proofread”.  It will always make sense.  Instead, scrutinize each point or picture carefully.  Ask yourself what other conclusions can be drawn.  Put yourself in someone else’s shoes (different function, department, role) and consider how their filter might impact their understanding.

Good communication is hard because everything we say, draw, or write makes sense…to us.

 Brad Kolar is an executive consultant, speaker, and communication coach at Avail Advisors.  Contact Brad at brad.kolar@availadvisors.com

[1] You can see the full scene at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNCKPt0ghqs. There are additional examples of how the drawings are obvious to Sheldon but completely unclear to Leonard.