“If you cannot explain something in simple terms, you didn’t understand it in the first place.”
This statement may look good in a marketing blog, but if you hold it as a mirror in normal life, it doesn’t hold good. There are some cultures in India — maybe internationally too — that has a unique ability of not being able to translate thoughts into words. And we are not talking about language as a barrier.
Some people quite simply have a fundamental inability, maybe disinterest too, to “explain” things.
Other than “I say, I do”, these people have a supermarket of choices. “I do, but I don’t say”, “I don’t do, I don’t say”, etc. Doobiedoobiedo.
If you are a dramatic speaker and leave pregnant pauses expecting responses or interjections, your pregnancy could be everlasting.
These people take silence seriously. A “stick ’em up!” command will get them sticking them up, silently. They do, but won’t say anything. They may go down fighting like a warrior, but still not say anything.
Laughter, despair, jubilation, remorse or any other feeling. There’s a silence for every occasion in these cultures.
On a cricket field there’s a saying: “He let his bat do the talking”. Wish there was such a solution everywhere.
Now when these folks start playing roles — parent, child, employee, husband, wife, etc — complications start. Mounam samhitam — silence is affirmation — may be highly misleading here. Because even dissent meets with the same stoic silence!
And since we have tools like the Honorable ChatGPT, we can find out a lot about what’s to be said. And? Let’s deliberate on how to say it. Or maybe rely on text to voice tools. Voicebox disqualified, of course.
You might do a lot of speculation on the reasons for this lack of articulation, but it may not contribute to your overall education anyway.
You might think, oh well, the ears get a well deserved rest. But sometimes the silence is deafening.
Clearly, when it comes to voicing out, some cultures leave a lot unsaid. Maybe they follow the saying for fish…if you don’t open your mouth, you won’t get caught.
These are general observations. Now imagine if applied to employees. Your employees.
