We Don't See the World as It Is. We See It as We Are.

Have you ever left a meeting convinced everyone was on the same page...only to discover later that everyone had walked away with a completely different understanding?

A couple of years ago I was a member of the Board for a local non-profit. The organization was struggling financially due to the impact of COVID on our fundraising, and we spent the day in a strategic meeting to determine how best to move forward. During the meeting, everyone seemed to agree on what needed to be done, who would do it, and how we'd strengthen the organization. I left feeling hopeful. We had tackled difficult conversations with honesty and respect, and I truly believed we had a solid plan.

But—we didn't.

In fact, over the coming months things fell apart even more.

Turns out, we were not all on the same page. Although everyone attended the same meeting, people left with different interpretations of what had been decided. Assumptions were made about responsibilities. Some viewed timelines as suggestions, while others saw them as commitments. By the next meeting, little progress had been made. Feelings were hurt, defenses were high, and everyone believed they were being reasonable—they just felt misunderstood.

So what happened? How could seven intelligent, well-intentioned people leave the same meeting with seven different understandings? It's pretty simple, really. We don't respond to reality. We respond to our interpretation of reality.

Every one of us experiences life through filters—our upbringing, experiences, successes, failures, fears, values, personality, and behavioral tendencies. None of us experiences the world objectively. We experience it through ourselves.

For years I believed communication was mostly about choosing the right words. Today, I think it's much more about understanding the filters through which those words are received. While I still try to say the "right" thing, I also recognize that my words are only half the equation. What someone else hears may be shaped as much by their own experiences as by the words I chose. Remembering that helps me stay calm and curious instead of defensive and demanding.

Over time, I've become much less interested in proving that I'm right and much more interested in understanding why someone else experienced the same moment so differently than I did. That doesn't always change the outcome, but it almost always changes the conversation.

People don't need fixing. They need understanding. And that understanding begins when we recognize that no two people experience the world in exactly the same way.