If you don't follow English football, then you may not have heard about the massive refereeing error that cost Liverpool a goal against rival Tottenham. The short version is that Liverpool scored but a player was judged offside by the referee on the field. The call went to video review and that official saw that the player was clearly onside and that the goal should count. So he said, “That’s fine. Perfect,” meaning the goal was fine and perfect. 

But! 

The referee on the field thought the video reviewer meant the original offside decision was fine and perfect. So he didn’t give Liverpool the goal and restarted play in a match Liverpool ultimately lost 2-1. And when the video reviewer realized what had happened, he said a bad word.

That makes sense in a league where goals are rare and winning and qualifying for the Champions League is worth tens of millions of dollars. In other words, this is consequential stuff, and real damage was done here by someone not taking the time to be helpful and precise with their words.

This is something we are working on with my daughter’s soccer team as well. That’s because while we were practicing, I noticed players with the ball getting confused by all of her teammates yelling “Here!” when they thought they should get the ball.

Because where exactly was “here?” And what kind of pass should the player with the ball make? This would also be useful information!

So we stopped and talked about using words that might be more helpful and precise. Instead of saying “Here” (which gives no information), one could say “Drop” or “Switch” or “Far post” (which does).  And that incremental improvement in communication enables the player with the ball and the player calling for the ball to exponentially better collaborate.

Serendipitously, I was rolling all of these thoughts about effective communication over in my head when I lucked into the opportunity to spend a couple of hours talking with 5 Voices co-creator Steve Cockram. He and his co-author Jeremie have a new book coming out about communication codes and how to use them to have more productive conversations personally and professionally. The preview is that there are five material ways to communicate: critique, collaborate, clarify, care, and celebrate, and that you should have a shared understanding about which you’re doing with the person you’re communicating with in order to have the most productive conversation.

For the girls on the soccer team, it’s using words to collaborate with their teammates in order to play the best possible ball. For the referees who botched the Liverpool goal, it should have been clarifying what they saw and then what they heard before confirming the next course of action.

Because at the end of the day, words matter, and Steve and Jeremie’s frameworks are an interesting way to think about them and also use them wisely to maximize their value.

– By Tim Hanson

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