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It's not what you say, it's what people hear

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“Many of the conflicts that arise in daily life are the result of one person thinking that they are saying/writing one thing and the listener/reader receiving something entirely different,” says The Very Rev’d Dr Peter Catt from Resource Church St John’s Cathedral

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“It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear” (Frank Luntz, Words that Work) 

On Saturday I had the privilege of being a workshop presenter at “Earth Wisdom, Hope in Action, the ARRCC (Australian Religious Response to Climate Change) Conference.

The conference gathered people of all faith traditions with the aim of seeking to build a supportive, focused, hope-filled community. Speakers concentrated on how we might use the wisdom of our faith traditions to assist the whole community to deal with the challenge of climate change.

My workshop was a reiteration of an offering that several of us have worked and reworked over the past few years as we have reflected on the art of communicating well, and how that can assist us to deal with issues that are complex, emotionally charged and subject to influence by political and other powerful actors.

The purpose of the workshop was not so much to lecture people on how to communicate well, but rather to invite them into an ongoing journey that sees us observing, reflecting, experimenting, observing, reflecting, experimenting…as we seek to learn how to make a positive difference through the words we use.

Our approach is based on some work undertaken by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) about 10 years ago that discovered that about 50 per cent of the population is open to being persuaded one way or the other when it comes to approaching an issue such as responding to people seeking asylum. They also found that the key to winning over the “persuadable” people was to use words that enable them to hear what you are trying to say. One has to use words that work for them.

The big learning for those of us who were active in that area at the time was discovering what people were hearing when we spoke. Often, they did not hear what we thought we were saying because of social conditioning, the framing provided by certain sections of the media, historical influences and so on.

The ASRC developed a resource called “Words that Work” that helped us get our message across. It made a huge difference to refugee and asylum seeker advocacy and eventually made for a more humane policy as public opinion shifted.

Our current work seeks to develop similar words for use by those who want to make a positive contribution towards dealing with climate change. If you are interested in the work, you can access our resource on the Cathedral’s website.

I think that Frank Luntz’s idea that we need to focus more on what people are hearing when we speak or write than on what we think we are saying applies to our wider life in general. Many of the conflicts that arise in daily life are the result of one person thinking that they are saying/writing one thing and the listener/reader receiving something entirely different.

One of the learnings that I am reflecting on is the need to check with the writer/speaker that what I think I am hearing is what they thought they were saying.

First published in the Precinct eNews on 7 October 2024. 

Editor’s note: The “Climate and creation care communications — engaging Queensland Anglicans” resource is a Resource Churches initiative. The resource has formed the basis for Anglican and ecumenical workshops that have been held online and face to face locally, nationally and internationally. 

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