When the Spanish conquistador Cortés and his men first arrived in what became Mexico, they asked the people they encountered, “What is the name of this place?”

The native Mayans consistently replied, “Yucatán,” which means…“I don’t understand you.”

There are competing theories as to how the Yucatán Peninsula got its name, but I like this one best because it is amusing and entirely plausible. It reminds me of a technical team meeting I once ended as a brand new employee incapable of understanding the conversation because it was filled with acronyms, product names and parts, and technology I did not yet understand.

As I struggled to glean anything intelligible, two of the participants went back and forth a number of times in an effort to design around a problem they had encountered. When they stopped, I had no idea what they thought they had agreed upon, but I was pretty sure they hadn’t actually agreed.

“Did you just agree to do,” and I repeated the last bit of gibberish I had heard. As one replied “Yes,” the other replied “No.” Simultaneously.

Maybe one had been speaking Spanish and the other Mayan. That might explain why it was so hard for me to understand what they were talking about.

Truth be told, they were preoccupied with their own thoughts, feeding off each other, but listening for what they wanted to hear. Who knows what kind of mess would have unfolded had I not pointed out their folly.

What’s really sad, is that none of the other engineers in the room, all seasoned, all capable of understanding the conversation, noticed the disconnect.

Are you like Cortés’ men and assume you’ve been understood? Or like those two engineers who listened mostly to themselves and what they wanted to hear instead of what was really being said?

We need to listen the way a defensive driver drives:

• What am I missing?
• Where are we not really agreeing?
• What’s not being said?
• What critical distinctions must be made?
• What assumptions am I making?
• What assumptions are the others making?

We need to listen for disconnects, not agreement.