Terrence Seamon, an HR/OD guy from New Jersey, has taken time to weave very interesting insights around a very common (Terrence, would you say overused?) word.
What's it got to do with Employee Engagement? Not so much, but that's OK.
Got That? Got It!
In a job interview recently, I was struck by the interviewers use of
the statement "Got it." The interviewer said it after almost everything
I said.
I guess I was communicating pretty well, eh?
Reflecting
on it afterwards, I wondered what the interviewer's frequent use of
"Got it" really meant? Could it have been a Type A person's display of
impatience with my lengthy, story-laden, answers?
How do we know
what another person is "getting" anyway when we are trying to convey
something important about ourselves to them? As David Berlo once
famously said, Meanings are in people. In other words, what I am
intending may or may not be what the other party is getting.
The
little word "get" appears to be a very old one, going way back to
German roots, meaning "to obtain." And it has many and varied uses
(almost 60 in Webster's) in the English language, including:
- To receive, as in to get a gift
- To reach someone over a distance, as in to get him on the phone
- To kill, as in they got him with one shot
- To irritate, as in she gets to me
- To understand, as in I get the joke
As
a Communication Guy, I love language and am fascinated by where words
come from and how we use them to connect with others and create shared
meanings.
Get it?
Get it I do, Terrence. And thank you. Let me get involved with some of those 60 or so meanings…
- To catch or be afflicted with: Put on your shoes before you get a cold!
- To bear, endure or survive: Can we get through this economic mess?
Terrence, I'm betting your interviewer wasn't equating your answers with either a runny nose or the stock markets' rundowns.
And then we can look to Hebrew. A Jewish get is a divorce. Which means if the marriage isn't working, one might choose to get a get.
Tags: Communication, language
