When I sat down to speak with intercultural communication expert Taruni Falconer, I expected to learn about culture. Instead, I found myself rethinking communication itself.
Why I invited Taruni Falconer
When I created On Experience, the first person I wanted to invite was Taruni. She exudes the three qualities I want in my guests: she has deep experience, is thoughtful and reflective and she is humble (not self-promoting).
We’ve known each other for many years, attended each others programs, helped with client work and shared many meals.
Most people know her as an intercultural communication specialist. She is internationally regarded in her field, but that wasn’t why I invited her. I have watched her over many years in the careful way she works to help people understand each other. While her career focus is on cross-cultural matters, she naturally brings this into her day-to-day conversations.
I knew we would have a good conversation on culture, but I was secretly hoping this might be a conversation about experience.
It was.
A story I can’t stop thinking about
Taruni shared about her time in South India. They had an Ayah who looked after their 14-month-old child and who also cooked for the family. Taruni was working full-time and new to the culture of South India. Coming from the egalitarian culture of New Zealand where people are treated equally, she invited the Ayah to sit with them and enjoy dinner together. The Ayah backed off and said, “No, madam, no, no” and retreated to the kitchen. Taruni felt like she had broken a cardinal rule. “I cook for you, but I do not sit at your table because I am here to serve you.”
While this sounds like a simple misunderstanding, there is a deeper story here about the assumptions each person brought into the moment.
Neither Taruni or the Ayah said anything wrong or had bad intentions. But the contrast between the way they both experienced the same situation could not be more profound. What appeared to be kindness on one side caused affront on the other.
It made me wonder whether most misunderstandings aren’t caused by poor communication at all. But, perhaps they’re caused by the different assumptions we bring into the same conversation.
What surprised me
While I expected to learn about communicating across cultures, I found myself questioning communication itself.
Taruni wasn’t really describing cultural differences, she was describing the invisible assumptions we all carry into all of our conversations.
Then Taruni described arriving at the Victorian town of Port Fairy. She looked at the beach and her immediate reaction was: “This isn’t a beach.”
It wasn’t that the beach was wrong. It was that her internal picture of what a beach should look like had been formed growing up in New Zealand.
What changed for me
Before this conversation I would have said experience changes what we see. But, now I think it also changes what we expect to see.
Long before we speak, we’ve already interpreted the situation, already decided what feels normal and already filled in the gaps.
The conversation doesn’t begin with words, it begins with experience.
I’ll never walk into another conversation quite the same way again.
I’m still wondering…
Taruni tells a lovely story about questioning the way a meeting room had been arranged.
The organisers replied, “It’s just common sense.” Her response struck me: “It’s not common sense. It’s cultural sense.”
It left me wondering… How much of what I call common sense is simply the result of my own experience?
A question for you
What’s something that once seemed like “common sense” until your experience taught you otherwise?
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