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Communication can be hazardous, and one of the main hazards is that we will be misunderstood.

Sometimes the misunderstandings are bad, the kind that ruin our relationships or careers.

You say something to a friend. It seems perfectly clear that you were joking.

But maybe you wrote it in an email, and there were not enough context for them to realize you were not being serious.

Or you have to give written instructions to a colleague about an important task. You think the instructions are unambiguous, but they misunderstand and screw up a task for a big client.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to avoid these situations?

There is! And it comes from an unlikely source. Abraham Lincoln.

One of the great dangers of communication is that people can misunderstand our intentions. We say one thing, we mean one thing, and people make something else of it. People make a completely different interpretation. They misinterpret our intention.

This can result in all sorts of trouble.

Old Abe did not have email, but he wrote a lot of letters and telegrams to cranky, oversensitive, narcissistic generals who were always on the verge of getting their gigantic egos bruised. So he developed a technique that would allow him to avoid the worst misunderstandings. He told people what he did NOT mean.

Misunderstanding – Cracking the Code

Communication is difficult and challenging. One of the reasons it's difficult and challenging is that we can't always make ourselves perfectly understood.

A lot of times we say something and we intend to mean something, and the people who we're talking to appear to hear something different. They draw different inferences than the ones we want them to. They come to different conclusions than the one we want them to. And it can create all sorts of difficulties when people do not understand our intended meaning.

It is really difficult to avoid this, because the whole goal of communication is to convey to another person our intentions, intended meaning, and the goal of the person listening is to understand the speaker's intentions.

But intentions are largely hidden, right? They're thoughts, and they're private. And we can try to make them public, but we almost never make them completely explicit. We say a bunch of things to try to clarify our intentions, but mostly communication is inferential. I've talked about this in the blog at great length.

People have the wrong idea about communication. They think it's like understanding a code, decoding a coded message. But it's really much more like solving a mystery. The idea is that the words a person speaks, as well as all the other information in the situation, are like clues. What we're trying to do is decode, understand, and unravel the mystery of what their intentions are.

We're like Sherlock Holmes. We're looking at every clue in order to understand someone's intentions. Often there are very few clues. We have the words people said, and we also have their posture, gesture, facial expression, the circumstances, the context, what I know about what they know, what I know about they know I know, our past history, the rate, volume and pitch of their speech, etc. All these things are clues to what they might mean.

But in the end I have to make inferences. I'm like Sherlock Holmes, putting all the clues together and solving the mystery. But the problem is that the clues are often incomplete, and therefore we can come to the wrong conclusion. We can misinterpret someone's meaning.

Tell Them What You DON’T Mean

Abraham Lincoln had a great strategy for avoiding this kind of misunderstanding. It's simple to use and we can all use it. I have 10 examples of Abraham Lincoln using this strategy, and it is simple:

Tell them what you don't mean.

Abraham Lincoln was almost always writing letters or telegrams to the generals in the field or to the public or Congress. He knew that the written word was without all the other non-verbal clues, like posture, gesture, facial expression, pitch, rate, volume. And he knew he was likely to be misinterpreted if he wasn't careful.

He was especially concerned about certain misinterpretations, ways where it might be tempting to misunderstand him. He also wanted to avoid some particular misunderstandings that would be very damaging to his relationships.

The way that he solved this was to tell people what he did not mean. He would explicitly say things like, "I do not intend…  do not misunderstand me…  let there be no misapprehension."

I want to give you examples of how he would do this. By using this strategy, he would clarify his intention, especially by saying what he did not mean. If people were likely to come to some wrong conclusion, he would just go on the record and say,

"Don't come to that conclusion. That's the wrong conclusion."

Let's see a couple of examples. We'll refer to the screen now. I've got some PowerPoint slides to show you this.

Example #1

The first one is from when he's on his way to Washington. After he's been elected president, and he's giving a bunch of speeches. He can't stop at every town to give a speech or he'll never get to Washington. So he has to decline some offers.

This is when he's declining an offer to give a speech.

"I mean no discourtesy to you…” – he's disclaiming.

"By my actions, don't interpret this as discourtesy. I intend discourtesy to no one." Okay. So he's clarifying his intentions explicitly.

"I wish you to understand that though I am unwilling to go upon this platform, you are not at liberty to draw inferences concerning any other platform with which my name has been or is connected." So he says, "You're not at liberty to draw inferences." Lincoln knows that communication is inferential. And he's telling them, "Don't draw any inferences. Those are the wrong inferences. I am not allowing you to draw those inferences." Of course he can't actually stop people, but he can discourage them from drawing the wrong inferences.

Example #2

Here's another one.

Here he's writing to one of his generals. And he was often angry at his generals because they poorly served him. Lincoln often had to write them and criticize them. They were very egotistical, these generals, and always getting their feelings hurt. So he would always have to be cautious about their feelings.

He scolds one of these generals, but he says, "Don't take this as a reflection on your efficiency or patriotism. On the contrary. What I really mean is we have the fullest confidence in your ability to perform any duty required of you."

Example #3

This letter Lincoln was sending to General Fremont, who was one of his most frustrating generals. He was a famous explorer of the West of the Grand Canyon, but a very bad general.

"This letter is written in a spirit of caution and not of censure." So here he's explicitly saying what the meaning is supposed to be. I'm cautioning you, General Fremont. If you do this again, I'm going to fire you.

“…and not of censure.” I'm not censuring you. To be censured is to be officially scolded and reprimanded.

Example #4

To the People of Maryland, Lincoln writes, 

“To guard against misapprehension…” – he knows it's possible that this message is going to be misunderstood, or to use a fancy word, it's going to be misapprehended. He's made a proclamation, and it's probably beautifully written because he was a beautiful writer, but he wants to make sure it's not misunderstood.

Example #5

The next one he is writing to Buell, one of his other frustrating generals.

Lincoln was the president of the United States. So anything coming from his mouth, as commander in chief, could be construed as an official order. He was concerned that some of the things he said as suggestions, or just as points of discussion, might be interpreted as orders by his generals. And he was eager to avoid that misunderstanding.

So he would often say something like this. "I do not intend…” I searched for the phrase "I do not intend" and he says it multiple times in his collected papers.

Example #6

Here he writes to another one of his generals.

This is an inquiry, not an order. So he's reminding the reader, what is the nature of this letter? Actually, what speech act is being performed? He's clarifying that “this is an inquiry, not an order,” guarding against the danger of it being misinterpreted.

He says, "Have you sent anything to meet him at Martinsburg?" He's afraid the general will hear that as an order. But he says, "This is an inquiry, not an order."

Example #7

Again to Fremont, who just won't listen when Lincoln talks to him.

He begins this letter in the most direct way. You can use this exact phrase. He knew Fremont was an egomaniac and was likely to feel criticized, and would start whining that Lincoln was criticizing him. So he says, "Don't misunderstand me. I do not say you've not done all you could. I assume you've done all you could and run into difficulty."

Example #8

Here's another one where he uses a similar explicit phrase. This letter is to another one of his generals.

He says, "I am anxious that you shall not misunderstand me." So he uses this phrase over and over and over again. He's constantly aware of the risk of misunderstanding and seeking to avoid it. "I'm anxious that you not misunderstand me." Another phrase which we could use. It's a little formal, but it's great.

"In no case have I intended to censure you or question your ability." See, over and over again, Lincoln's generals whine like little children, and their feelings are hurt very easily. Their egos are wounded very easily. He constantly has to guard against their egos being wounded.

"I have intended, in no case have I intended to censure you." He's telling them what he does not mean. "Or to question your ability." I'm not questioning your ability.

“In Colonel Haggard's case I meant no more than…” again clarifying what he does not mean.

Example #9

Here he's writing to the secretary of Navy.

He uses this over and over again. "My dear sir, it is not intended to be insinuated that you have been remiss in the performance of your arduous and responsible duties." So he knows that there might be some insinuation, right? Some implication, some indirect suggestion that this officer had been remiss in his duties. But Lincoln is eager to say, no, no, no, that's not what I mean.

“I take pleasure in informing your department, which I take pleasure in affirming has in your hands been conducted with admirable success." So he tells him what he does mean. "I really admire you."

Example #10

He says to Rosecrans:

"Do not misunderstand." He uses that phrase again. You could use that in your own writing. "Do not misunderstand." You can be writing a difficult email or a difficult memo or letter, or you could just be face-to-face with someone and say, "Please don't misunderstand me."

Then you have to tell them what you didn't mean and what you did mean. "I am not casting blame upon you." Almost all of these letters to these egomaniacal generals are trying to relieve them of the feeling that they're being blamed. "I am not casting blame upon you. I rather think by great exertion, you can get to East Tennessee," etc.

Then he says again, "I make no order in the case – that I leave to general Halleck and yourself."

Summary

Those were 10 examples of Lincoln saying what he does not mean.

Communication is risky. One of those risks is that people will not solve the mystery of our intentions correctly because we haven't given them enough clues.

So one way we can help people understand us, our intentions, and help them avoid misunderstanding our intentions is to tell them explicitly what we do not mean. If we're concerned that one particular meaning might be offensive to them and might cause them hurt, we can tell them explicitly that is not what we intended.

I think it's a great strategy. I think along with Mark Twain and William Shakespeare, I think Abraham Lincoln is the greatest communicator in the English language. We have so much to learn from him.