Children love to play “Telephone”: a leader starts a message, which is whispered down from one person to the next. The last person in line announces the message out loud. It’s hilarious when the message received by the last person is completely different from the message started by the leader.

Surprisingly, Telephone is played all the time at work and messages are misinterpreted all the time—even though no one is whispering them!

What gives?

Clients and team members give directions like, “the story is missing here,” “we need to share this with everyone else,” “jazz this up.” Generic directions like these are called labels. By their nature, labels are interpreted differently by givers and receivers.

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen lay out how to constructively clarify ambiguous direction in their book Thanks for the Feedback.

When receiving such generic directions, INVESTIGATE WHAT’S UNDER THE LABEL: clarify the advice; clarify consequences and expectations; be open to different interpretations from the way you believe it should be (shift from “wrong spotting” to “difference spotting”).