The following story is one that I heard many years ago in a history class. It stayed in the back of my mind for many years, but now, seeing our President use Twitter to communicate with World Leaders, it has become something I think about every day.
1945 Japan, allied leaders meeting in Potsdam send Japans terms for which to surrender, Japan studied the terms; Truman and Churchill added in the message that any negative answer would be met with “prompt and utter destruction,” (National Security Agency, n.d.)
The Japanese Press in Tokyo; asked the then Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki, about the country’s reaction to these demands, waving the reporter off, he uttered one word “mokusatso,” or “no comment.”
Except that that word has many different translations. And because of the way it was delivered to the Press, the Press took it to mean the worst of those translations, which translates to “we have contempt for, we will kill with silence.” It could also mean, we are “ignoring it” or “we take no notice of it.” (National Security Agency, n.d.)
The word went out to Japan and finally a translator for the Domei Press, brought it to the allies, “The Japanese ignore this, and we are determined to continue our fight until the end.”
It was simply made to convey, “No comment!” The Japanese had not had the time to consult and were simple considering the manner.
But the allies received a different message and ten days later, there was indeed “prompt and utter destruction,” as the U.S. attacked with Atomic Bombs and the world changed forever.
We live in a world now that seems to be heading into the same murky waters of World War; and people who are using these divisions to create the type of chaos that will create conflict. After all, Wars are declared by people in power, but fought by the general population, often making the people in power very wealthy in the process.
What seems to me is how willing the 24 hours news media is willing to participate in these games of words and miscommunications; for example, Fox News has a culture that leads to a completely different interpretation than say that of CNN.
One of the things we have to do however, as we go dive deeper into a globally interconnected world is really figure out the meaning of words and what our intentions are when we use them. It’s not just about non-verbal communication, but also about knowing a culture’s ambiguous words, picking the wrong word can often time leads to problematic situations.
In the section of Chapter 2: Using English with Non-English Speakers, there is very wise advice,
“Companies work had not only to ensure accurate translations, but also to achieve fortuitous translations. Accurate and fortuitous translations is dependent upon knowledge of the intended group’s culture and how their cultural values influence their perceptions.” (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014)
Let’s elevate the way we communicate as globalists, and chose our words with wisdom as we step forward into leadership roles in this inevitable global village.
References
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences. London : Routledge.
National Security Agency. (n.d.). declassified-documents. Retrieved February 5, 2017, from NSA.Gov: https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/tech-journals/assets/files/mokusatsu.pdf
Hello Ms. Nieves,
I enjoyed your post. Nonverbal(s) is an interesting subject, to include one word meanings. I read a book on body language a while back because I was interested to know what certain things meant. All of our nonverbal behaviors such as the gestures we make, to how fast or how loud we talk, to how we sit and how close we stand, how much eye contact we make can send strong messages.
Oftentimes, when we speak and how we communicate through our body language are two totally different things. When we are confronted with these mixed signals, the listener must choose whether to believe verbal or nonverbal messages and in most cases, they are going to choose the nonverbal signs because it is a natural, unconscious language that broadcasts our true feelings and intentions at any given moment. In this case “no comment” was interpreted in a negative way. It is hard many times to convey exact emotion through words alone.
Hey,
I really like this story and, not only was it an important lesson back then, but today it teaches us about how to communicate without ego. If only the allies would have stopped and asked what Japan meant with this response? If only the media would have taken the time to ensure that their interpretation was THE true representation of the then government, maybe we would never had gone to war and lives wouldn’t have been lost over a misunderstanding.
I fear that America will eventually be the victim of a severe misunderstanding that has been conveyed in 184 characters or less. What is shocking is that the President is a business man and I would assume that his communication skills would have been a lot better than they currently are.