The human brain processes information faster than people speak. We’re thinking a lot, even when we are listening. Most of us have relatively good filters, so we monitor and manage a stream of thoughts and feelings during any conversation.
What’s problematic is when we censor ourselves to the degree where we say one thing but think and feel something entirely different.
When you don’t say what you think and feel, you leave the most critical part of you out of the conversation — and you know it. You’re suppressing what’s known as the “left-hand column.”
Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, former professors at Harvard and MIT respectively, created a tool designed to improve communication effectiveness called the “left-hand column framework.” In his classes, Argyris would ask students to take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. In the left-hand column, they’d jot down what they were thinking during a conversation but did not say. In the right-hand column, they’d write what each person actually said. In most cases, the two columns looked quite different.
In a difficult conversation, our left-hand column is often full of toxic thoughts, feelings, judgments, accusations, assumptions, and criticisms. We don’t ask for a left-hand column; it’s usually a reaction to something upsetting. These unspoken thoughts appear and rise to the surface like bubbles in a glass of champagne.
Everyone knows when someone is not entirely truthful with them — we pick up on their tone of voice and body language. So, when you have a left-hand column, people sense it.
We know that blurting out our left-hand column in its raw, toxic form is unacceptable — we’ll feel bad about saying something rude, and we will badly damage the relationship. But if you keep that left-hand column to yourself for long enough, you may eventually say something you regret.
100 Words Everyday 