That's Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships
 
Author: Deborah Tannen

Review by Linda Tannehill, Alaska Cooperative Extension Service, Kenai
Peninsula District

"Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations. This book is meant to assure you that when conversations seem to be causing more problems than they're solving, you aren't losing your mind."- Deborah Tannen
 
Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University, says, "Our personal worlds are shaped by conversation". In this book she shows how communication works, or fails to work.
 
Tannen breaks conversation down into two components. The message is the information conveyed by the meaning of the words. The metamessage is what is communicated about relationships- attitude toward each other, what we are saying,
and the occasion. People tend to react most strongly to the metamessage.
 
The highlight of what I gleaned from this book is that one of the challenges of conversation is to balance our need for both involvement and independence. Tannen writes, "Closeness threatens our lives as individuals, and our real differences as
individuals threaten our needs to be connected to other people."
 
In balancing involvement and independence, politeness comes in to play- the effect of what we say on other people. Tannen shares a set of rules related to politeness from linguist, Robin Lakoff:

   1.Don't impose; keep your distance.
   2.Give options; let the other person have a say.
   3.Be friendly; maintain camaraderie.

Tannen uses many examples while exploring conversational signals such as loudness of voice, pacing and pausing, and pitch. In fact I found the use of examples somewhat excessive and annoying. I caught myself fast-forwarding through the examples to get to more of the facts. This could be because I was hurried to finish this book by July and just wanted the facts. However, the examples I actually read did help clarify the points she was making.
 
I appreciate her discussion of indirectness. Tannen states, "The payoffs of indirectness in rapport and self-defense correspond to the two basic dynamics that motivate communication: the coexisting and conflicting human needs for involvement and independence. Since any show of involvement is a threat to independence, and any show of independence is a threat to involvement, indirectness is the life raft of communication, a way to float on top of a situation instead of plunging in with nose pinched and coming up blinking."
 
This book made me look at myself and think, as a leader, how I communicate with people, especially during the difficult conversations. This introspection made "That's Not What I Meant" worth reading.