I was trying to find out exactly what I asked: What should I be telling people your policy is? But they seemed incapable of understanding that that really was what I wanted to know, and seemed to think I was trying to push them into changing their policy.
That’s not a good accounting of your motivation. It doesn’t tell the other person why it’s important for you to tell other people about the policy.
Your motivation might be something like “I fear that there’s a chance that someone will ask me about what the policy is and I currently don’t know what to answer. I would feel more comfortable if I would have a clear answer that I can tell a person who asks me.”
The Radical Honesty way would be to start to openly communicate about your motivation in a case like this and not just ask the person to tell you their policy. If you would be open about your motivation for the question, the other person wouldn’t need to guess and could likely interact more productively with you.
There are political situations where Radical Honesty is not really possible but it would be helpful in a case like that.
Do you think that conveying my motivation for the question would significantly lower the frequency of miscommunications? If so, why?
I tend to avoid that kind of thing because I don’t want it to bias the response. If I explain my motivations, then their response is more likely to be one that’s trying to affect my behavior rather than convey the most accurate answer. I don’t want to be manipulated in that way, so I try to ask question that people are more likely to answer literally.
That’s not a good accounting of your motivation. It doesn’t tell the other person why it’s important for you to tell other people about the policy.
Your motivation might be something like “I fear that there’s a chance that someone will ask me about what the policy is and I currently don’t know what to answer. I would feel more comfortable if I would have a clear answer that I can tell a person who asks me.”
The Radical Honesty way would be to start to openly communicate about your motivation in a case like this and not just ask the person to tell you their policy. If you would be open about your motivation for the question, the other person wouldn’t need to guess and could likely interact more productively with you.
There are political situations where Radical Honesty is not really possible but it would be helpful in a case like that.
Do you think that conveying my motivation for the question would significantly lower the frequency of miscommunications? If so, why?
I tend to avoid that kind of thing because I don’t want it to bias the response. If I explain my motivations, then their response is more likely to be one that’s trying to affect my behavior rather than convey the most accurate answer. I don’t want to be manipulated in that way, so I try to ask question that people are more likely to answer literally.