Foreign Language Communication:

Operating Beyond Your Scope of Knowledge

You know how when the internet company comes to your house to diagnose your WiFi problems and starts talking about the router and the modem and the 5G and the megabits and all the other things that are over your head?

Or when some Millennial-coworker asks you to send the PDF via Google Drive or save the file as a JPEG instead of a PNG but resize it to fit as a mail attachment?

How about when the barista asks if you want the nitro brew or cold brew and you’re like “Is that the same thing as iced coffee?”

We’ve all been caught in circumstances outside our scope of knowledge. And it literally feels like trying to communicate in a foreign language.

Just last week, an HVAC tech came to our house and ran through the problem with our system: our return was fitted with a 16 to 20 fit and we needed the 16 to 18.

I nodded like I understood, knowing full-well I had too many questions to ask to be able to understand what he meant.

Dealing with things beyond our understanding is hard.

Logistically, it’s frustraing, and Egotistically, it can feel like a blow. Not understanding is such a vulnerable, helpless place to be. You know this if you’ve traveled abroad and tried to ask for directions, help, recommendations—anything— from a non-native English speaker.

But we need not travel abroad to come across “non-native” speakers in our work almost every single day. No injured worker understands the work comp system they’ve been living in for years. They arrive feeling like the Boomer trying to keep up with the Millennial’s tech speak, the everyday-average-Joe trying to understand the professional HVAC tech, the non-coffee drinker trying to order a speciality coffee beverage: they are well beyond their scope of knowledge.

Ask them about diesel mechanics or front-end loaders and they’ll talk circles around you. But MSAs, IMEs, SMOs…? It’s a foreign language.

We can all relate to that feeling. And we do ourselves and the people we serve—personally and professionally— a favor when we remember that feeling and bring it into our work.