How would you reply to this comment? If need be provide an…

Question Answered step-by-step How would you reply to this comment? If need be provide an… How would you reply to this comment? If need be provide an additional link if used.  “I thought the video and “The Curse of Knowledge” were particularly enlightening. They both talk about how important the use of concrete language is. I did reflect on the language I use in my professional career and in my personal life, along with the language of my superiors and others. The video presented a few examples that helped give you an idea of what might be considered vague language and then corrected them with concrete wording and provided helpful and practical tips at the end. I think too many times in my job or personal interactions everyone uses these vague terms and try to guess what they mean even almost as if it were second nature. It would be more effective to use concrete language when communicating so that everyone is on the same page and there’s no room for interpretation. “The Curse of Knowledge” was something that resonated with me. There are times when I interact or communicate with others, I tend not to know how to explain things in the most effective manner because I don’t know what the other party knows or doesn’t know. Which then results in me either rambling on or not talking much. And I envy those that can effectively communicate with the masses. The story of the FedEx delivery driver and the point the writer was trying to make in “The Curse of Knowledge”  was insightful and helpful. I truly believe the stories are a fantastic way to connect and send a message to people. I completely agree with the points made in the video and article that we should be using more concrete language in our lives though I also do believe these vague terms and words have their Though I believe that vague terms and words have their place in the world, I do agree with the video and article that we should be using more concrete language to avoid any confusion or misinterpretation. The tips have been helpful and I will be conscious about how I communicate with others in the future.”  Reference:The Curse of Knowledge Abstract:This article focuses on a phenomenon known as the curse of knowledge, in which experienced executives use broad, abstract statements to define strategy that to them is a summary of their wealth of concrete data, but only opaque phrases to frontline employees. In 1990, a Stanford University psychology graduate student, Elizabeth Newton, illustrated the curse in an experiment in which listeners had trouble guessing songs from finger-taps alone. The problem is that once we know something, we find it hard to imagine not knowing it, and have difficulty sharing it with others because we can’t readily re-create their state of mind. Many sensible strategies fail to drive action because executives formulate them in sweeping, general language. “Achieving customer delight!” “Becoming the most efficient manufacturer!” “Unlocking shareholder value!” One explanation for executives’ love affair with vague strategy statements relates to a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge. Top executives have had years of immersion in the logic and conventions of business, so when they speak abstractly, they are simply summarizing the wealth of concrete data in their heads. But frontline employees, who aren’t privy to the underlying meaning, hear only opaque phrases. As a result, the strategies being touted don’t stick.In 1990, a Stanford University graduate student in psychology named Elizabeth Newton illustrated the curse of knowledge by studying a simple game in which she assigned people to one of two roles: “tapper” or “listener.” Each tapper was asked to pick a well-known song, such as “Happy Birthday,” and tap out the rhythm on a table. The listener’s job was to guess the song.Over the course of Newton’s experiment, 120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only three of the songs correctly: a success ratio of 2.5%. But before they guessed, Newton asked the tappers to predict the probability that listeners would guess correctly. They predicted 50%. The tappers got their message across one time in 40, but they thought they would get it across one time in two. Why? When a tapper taps, it is impossible for her to avoid hearing the tune playing along to her taps. Meanwhile, all the listener can hear is a kind of bizarre Morse code. Yet the tappers were flabbergasted by how hard the listeners had to work to pick up the tune. The problem is that once we know something – say, the melody of a song – we find it hard to imagine not knowing it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. We have difficulty sharing it with others, because we can’t readily re-create their state of mind. In the business world, managers and employees, marketers and customers, corporate headquarters and the front line, all rely on ongoing communication but suffer from enormous information imbalances, just like the tappers and listeners. Leaders can thwart the curse of knowledge by “translating” their strategies into concrete language. Consider Trader Joe’s, a specialty food chain whose mission is “to bring our customers the best food and beverage values and the information to make informed buying decisions.” That’s the company’s abstract umbrella statement, and it hardly serves to distinguish Trader Joe’s from other retailers. But shopping at Trader Joe’s is nothing like shopping at Wal-Mart, and its aisles are full of inexpensive but exotic foodstuffs like Moroccan simmer sauce and red-pepper soup.Trader Joe’s beats the curse of knowledge and pours meaning into its strategy by using concrete language elsewhere. It touts its reputation as the “home of cheap thrills,” describing its target customer as an “unemployed college professor who drives a very, very used Volvo.” The image is a simplification, obviously; at any given moment, there are probably zero of these “target customers” in Trader Joe’s. But because it simplifies a complex reality, the description ensures that all the employees of the organization have a common picture of its customers. Would the professor like the red-pepper soup? Yes. Stories, too, work particularly well in dodging the curse of knowledge, because they force us to use concrete language. FedEx, for example, uses a story related to its Purple Promise award, which honors employees who uphold FedEx’s guarantee that packages will “absolutely, positively” arrive overnight: In New York, a FedEx delivery truck broke down and the replacement van was running late. The driver initially delivered a few packages on foot; but then, despairing of finishing finishing her route on time, she managed to persuade a competitor’s driver to take her to her last few stops.Stories like this are tangible demonstrations of the company’s strategic aim to be the most reliable shipping company in the world. A top sales executive can use the New York story to say “This is how seriously we take reliability.” A new delivery driver can use the story as a guide to behavior: “My job is not to drive a route and go home at 5 PM; my job is to get packages delivered any way I can.”Concrete language and stories defeat the curse of knowledge and make executives’ strategy statements stickier. As a result, all the members of an organization can share an understanding of the strategies and a language for discussing them.  Arts & Humanities Writing ENGLISH 111 Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)