THE HUMAN MIRROR · The Stories Between Us

Why Two Reasonable People Can Experience the Same Conversation Differently

Disagreement about what happened often conceals different interpretations of the same event.

One meeting, several legitimate records

Imagine a project lead ends a discussion with “We will revisit this next week.” One colleague hears a sensible pause pending evidence; another hears a decision being postponed indefinitely. Both heard the same words. Their conclusions reflect different histories, expectations and consequences. The immediate temptation is to determine which account is correct before establishing what each person actually observed.

Imagine a project review in which a manager says, “We need a realistic date.” The manager intends to expose delivery risk before a commitment is made. The project lead hears an accusation that the team has been careless. A finance colleague hears a warning that funding may be reconsidered. Each has attended the same meeting, and each can quote the same sentence, yet they leave with different working assumptions. The difference need not be evidence of poor character or poor listening. People enter conversations with different responsibilities, recent experiences and information about what is at stake. Those differences influence which parts of an exchange they notice. When the meeting ends, each person may remember a coherent sequence that fits their original concern. The practical question is not which account wins immediately, but which facts and interpretations must be reconciled before further decisions are taken.

Consider what happens after a meeting in which a manager says, “We need to be more disciplined with costs.” Finance may hear a commitment to tighter controls, the delivery lead may hear a warning about staffing, and an employee whose proposal was deferred may hear a judgment that their work lacks value. None of these interpretations is irrational. This is the kind of meaning-making that Weick and colleagues discuss in their work on organising, although their conceptual account does not diagnose this hypothetical meeting. The interpretations arise from different interests, histories and information. The mistake is to assume that because one sentence was spoken, one message was received. Leaders can improve clarity by naming the decision, the reason for it and what has *not* been decided. Those distinctions are less elegant than a decisive slogan, but they reduce avoidable rework and suspicion.

The trouble with a complete story

A useful distinction in difficult conversations is between an event, an interpretation and the meaning assigned to it. “You changed the agenda” is observable. “You wanted to silence me” is an inference about motive. “My input does not count” is a further conclusion about the relationship. These layers can influence each other, but they are not interchangeable.

A story is often useful because it explains what happened and predicts what may happen next. It becomes hazardous when the explanation hardens faster than the evidence. A delayed reply becomes disrespect. An abrupt question becomes hostility. Silence becomes agreement. Once such inferences are treated as facts, later behaviour is interpreted through the same lens. People may begin responding to perceived motives rather than to stated requests. Equally, we should not dismiss every interpretation as a cognitive error. Repeated dismissive conduct, broken promises and credible signs of exclusion matter. The distinction is between making a reasonable provisional inference and treating it as established truth. That distinction gives people room to ask clarifying questions without pretending that relationships are entirely neutral or that past behaviour has no evidential value.

Cultural conventions complicate this further. A direct question may communicate efficiency in one working relationship and disrespect in another; hesitation may signal concern, politeness or simply the need to translate a thought. It is tempting to convert these differences into fixed cultural profiles, but individuals vary widely within every group and adapt their styles across settings. Rather than assuming what a behaviour means, ask about expectations relevant to the current work. Who was supposed to decide, how were objections expected to surface, and what did participants believe silence authorised? These are answerable questions. Their answers can reveal mismatched process assumptions that no amount of urging people to be empathetic would resolve. They also provide a bridge from interpersonal interpretation to practical coordination: agree the decision protocol, the opportunity to challenge and the meaning of sign-off before the next consequential conversation.

It is tempting to prescribe greater empathy as the remedy. Empathy can matter, but imaginative perspective-taking is not a reliable substitute for asking somebody what they understood. Research by Eyal, Steffel and Epley tested whether instructions to adopt another person's perspective improved the accuracy of interpersonal judgments; their work cautions against assuming that trying harder to imagine another mind will make one's guesses correct. In professional conversations, the equivalent is to replace prediction with inquiry. Rather than saying, “I know why you object,” a manager can ask, “Which part of this decision creates the greatest concern for you, and what assumption am I making that you would challenge?” The answer may expose a factual disagreement, a competing priority or a history of promises not kept.

Repair requires an accurate account of the disagreement

People rarely experience their interpretation as a provisional hypothesis. Context is compressed into a story that feels like a direct account of reality. The more consequential the conversation, the more attractive certainty can become. Yet it is possible for two people to possess genuinely different information. There may also be a real power imbalance; asking both parties to “see the other side” must not erase that fact.

A familiar response to conflict is to urge everyone to “see the other side”. Often that is too vague. The parties need to identify where their records diverge. Was the disputed event the wording of a sentence, the decision made afterward, or an unstated expectation from an earlier meeting? Did one person have information that the other did not? Did the disagreement concern the facts, the meaning of the facts, or the legitimate interests involved? A useful facilitation question is: “What did you observe that led you to that conclusion?” Follow it with: “What else could explain it, and what evidence would help us decide?” These questions do not require false equivalence. If there is a clear breach of policy or a material power imbalance, the organisation still needs to act. Clarification is not a substitute for accountability.

Consider a senior sponsor who leaves a workshop convinced that the team agreed with a proposal. A participant leaves believing they had merely agreed to investigate it. The phrase “we should take this forward” had not specified who would decide or what commitment was being made. Days later, the sponsor sees resistance, while the participant sees an unexplained escalation. Neither necessarily acted in bad faith. A short decision record could have prevented the dispute: what was agreed, what remained provisional and who had the authority to turn the proposal into an obligation. This is why shared understanding cannot be judged solely by the pleasantness of a discussion. Smooth conversation may conceal differences that become visible only when people are asked to act. Clarity is achieved when the meaning of the conversation survives beyond the room.

There are limits to this approach. Some disagreements are not misunderstandings waiting to be clarified. The parties may understand each other well and still have incompatible interests. A salary negotiation, a contested promotion or a decision about whose budget to reduce involves distribution, status and legitimate differences in preference. Better language will not abolish those conflicts. What it can do is reveal where the disagreement actually sits, so that the leader does not spend an hour repairing tone when the unresolved issue is power, fairness or resources. That distinction prevents the language of communication skills from obscuring a genuine management decision.

A conversational habit with organisational value

When a disagreement repeats, ask each person to describe the same short sequence: what was said or done, what they inferred, and what they needed at that point. Compare observations before discussing intent. A practical early signal is the emergence of previously unknown facts or assumptions. The method fails if the facilitator insists that all perspectives are equally supported or asks a less powerful person to disclose concerns without protection.

At the end of a consequential discussion, invite each participant to state the decision, their understanding of why it was made, and the most important unresolved concern. The exercise takes minutes but tests whether apparent agreement survives contact with independent interpretation. If the responses differ, distinguish a disagreement about meaning from a disagreement about commitment. Then document the parts that will affect later action. A frequent failure is to use the exercise as a comprehension test: the senior person speaks, and everyone is expected to repeat their answer. Another is to record so much that the useful distinction is buried. The purpose is to expose consequential differences early, not to create a perfect transcript. Teams do not need to think identically, but they need to know which differences they are carrying into execution.

The objective is not to prove that everybody has their own truth. It is to discover which parts of a disagreement concern facts, which concern meaning, and which concern legitimate differences in interest.

References

Lee Ross (1977), The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings

Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstfeld (2005), Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking

Eyal, Steffel & Epley (2018), Perspective Mistaking