We know the world comes crashing to a halt when there is a big difference between understanding and reality. Those crashes happen more frequently when the parties involved believe they are speaking the same language, yet not communicating. When people assume there are differences like differences in costumes or cuisine, people can more readily grasp the differences and thus, understand them. The problems arise when you automatically assume the meaning of a word or phrase is understood by the other party, just because you speak the same language. Recently, I had just such an experience. While discussing business plans with our subsidiary in the USA, one of our managers asked the General Manager of Operations to express his business plans in the form of the acronym 5W1H . He looked very puzzled, and had no idea of what we were talking about. So I stepped in and explained, "It stands for 5 W's and 1 H. He is asking you to express your plan in terms of 5W's and 1H, so you are very specific in plans and actions." The General Manager still looked totally lost. His confusion caused us to be confused, because we had been taught in school that this is the most basic method of expressing ideas. We don't have an equivalent to 5W1H in Japanese, and since it consists of English abbreviations we assumed this had been taught in the USA as well.

The look on the American General Manager's face appeared to be saying, " Don't confuse me with some new Japanese management ideas?!"

And our faces probably appeared to be saying, "Something must be wrong with this guy. He doesn't even understand his own language. Americans taught this to us. Don't you remember anything you learned at school?"

Naturally, this type of misunderstanding is a recipe for disaster. Just imagine what might occur if such a simple misunderstanding occurred during heated political or military issues; both parties would be assuming they were communicating because they were speaking the same language; when in reality one is thinking the other is an idiot because he does not understand a very basic concept of his (the other's) own language, and the other would be thinking the first is a fool because he has some mixed up idea about an antiquated phrase or slang. English has become so universal, it is no longer the exclusive domain of the United Kingdom or the USA. There are many new phrases coined by nonnative-English speakers which often carry local flavor, but which make absolutely no sense to English speaking people. However, because English speaking people have such an advantage (after all, they don't need to spend a great deal of effort in learning foreign languages), they must be more tolerant of those "local favors." A rather recent example was Sony's use of the term "Walkman". Initially, there was some discussion about how the incorrect grammar made no sense. But the term painted a simple picture with which people could identify.

I have since learned that the cause for the confusion could have been that in the USA, it was referred to as "the 5 W's", not "5W1H", which may be more complete and simpler to remember, like "Walkman."

In business, or in life, it is much safer to assume that speaking the same language alone is not enough to ensure clear communication.

Just in case some in the audience are still lost in this topic, 5W1H means "who, what, where, when, why and how."

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