I fully agree that there are often clear distinctions between intent and impact, and that people should become more aware of this distinction and of the impact of their words.
> In particular, in your personal relationships I highly encourage you focus on your impact rather than what you meant to say, especially when apologizing.
I’d be more careful with this though. Ideally, this needs to look more like mutual respect/trust, and both parties are ideally:
1. Considering the impact of what they’re saying
2. Giving the other person the benefit of the doubt when something doesn’t sound right, and talking about it when things seem misaligned
Caring about impact is important. There’s also a failure mode here that results in complete communication breakdown as one party tries not to upset the other.
Communication is intrinsically a shared experience, and both parties bear some responsibility for how things are interpreted. As long as both parties engage in good faith and communicate about confusion, everyone learns/grows and it’s a self solving problem.
> In particular, in your personal relationships I highly encourage you focus on your impact rather than what you meant to say, especially when apologizing.
I’d be more careful with this though. Ideally, this needs to look more like mutual respect/trust, and both parties are ideally:
1. Considering the impact of what they’re saying
2. Giving the other person the benefit of the doubt when something doesn’t sound right, and talking about it when things seem misaligned
Caring about impact is important. There’s also a failure mode here that results in complete communication breakdown as one party tries not to upset the other.
Communication is intrinsically a shared experience, and both parties bear some responsibility for how things are interpreted. As long as both parties engage in good faith and communicate about confusion, everyone learns/grows and it’s a self solving problem.