Let me use the words of the ‘Cookie Thief’ poem by Valerie Cox, I recite at trainings and the ‘ladder of inference’ developed by Coghlan & Brannick (2014, p.31) to attempt to figure out why we have misunderstandings. I will interrupt the poem and use the seven steps of the ‘ladder of inference’ model during the interludes in this attempt.

 A woman was waiting at an airport one night, with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

 She was engrossed in her book but happened to see, that the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be. . .grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between, which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene. Continue reading “Understanding and Dealing with Misunderstandings” →