Party Language
A collective experience that shows how unclear everyday language is
If you said, “I’ll probably go to the party” what would that mean? Would that mean there is a 100% certainty of you going or 50% or 20% or 0%?
Answers vary radically to this question, and we find people are always shocked to see how much the meaning of people’s language varies.
Party Language is an activity that makes people reconsider everyday communication, presentations, emails, meetings, and social life itself. Here’s how to run an insightful five minute activity with your team.
The Design
Every participant in the virtual or live training is presented with the same question:
“Are you going to the party?”
Participants are then asked to make inferences about what other people’s responses to this question might mean. To do this, participants are shown five responses:
“Yes, I’ll definitely be there.”
“That sounds good.”
“I’ll probably be there.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Maybe.”
Then participants are asked to indicate for each of the five:
“What’s the percent likelihood that someone would actually attend the party if they gave you that response?”
The Result
Inevitably, people’s answers vary widely—and we mean really widely.
For some people, “That sounds good” means a 95% likelihood the person will come to the party, and for others it’s more like 10%. For some people, “Maybe” is above “I’ll probably be there,” and for others it’s not.
Even you do this with a group of the closet friends in the world, you’re likely to get different responses.
The Main Lessons
People are shocked to find not everyone interprets these responses the same way.
It makes people reconsider everyday communication, emails, meetings, water cooler banter, social contracts, and more.
The results can be supported by deep discussions of behavioral science findings including projection bias, empathy gaps, and politeness theory.
The Take-Away
The activity is always a fun, interactive, and insightful way to establish the serious value of clear communication as peers, often close peers, see in front of their eyes how greatly they differ in understanding.
In sum, Party Language is participatory and visual, and it does an amazing amount of the heavy lifting before the more subtle lessons from science or practice that follow.