“Inshallah”, and other massive sources of FQ drain
Did you read about the recent fiasco in Lebanon with the clocks going forward for Spring?
The government decided to endorse 2 different time zones in an attempt to appease Muslims and Christians at the same time, with Christians putting their clocks forward immediately and Muslims being allowed to wait a month.
Now whilst this was very nice of them to do on one level (I mean great EQ all round), as you can imagine it caused all world of problems on another as most people would have to interact with both time zones until both were aligned — I read a great story about one person that became double-booked as a result because they now had 2 appointments at exactly the same time, 9am in Christian Time and 8am in Muslim Time 🤦🏻♂️.
Not only can a decision like this create this direct logistical challenge where people have to choose between 2 events, it also adds more confusion as people have to clarify each time they suggest a time which one they mean. On top of this you require the timings of previously made appointments having to be re-confirmed and if not, then potential problems occurring as people turn up earlier or later than required. What if airlines don’t co-ordinate? What if vital time-sensitive healthcare devices aren’t programmed correctly? And so many other terrible scenarios that I’m sure we can think through …. 🤔
Fortunately, the Lebanese government has subsequently reversed this decision so panic over 👏.
The Arab world is full of FQ diminishers like this
I should be clear that I love the Middle East and the Arab culture in general [I mean I’m of Palestinian roots so it would be weird not to] but stories and situations like this drive me mad. The massive impact to FQ caused by a decision like this is staggering and I’d love to say this is the only example of such a thing.
Alas the Arab world is rife with situations like the one above and probably one of the biggest culprits for FQ distraction is the word “Inshallah”.
If you’ve never heard of the word, it’s direct translation is “If Allah/God wills it”.
However, it’s usage in Arabic can cover anything from actually “If God wills it” to “We both know this isn’t going to happen but for politeness we’ll pretend it’s up to the will of God”.
In fact, it has so many potential meanings that unless you know the other person well and the context of the situation you are in then you can easily get very confused. Even worse, you can make terrible mistakes because of Inshallah.
Let me give you an example of how Inshallah creates FQ problems
Just last week, I was in Oman, and a classic Inshallah moment came up.
I was training a group of future leaders from across the globe in a week’s course on leadership skills and before the start of day 2, one of the participants asked my Arab co-facilitator (their boss) what time we broke for lunch.
“At 1pm Inshallah”, he replied.
Having spent enough time in the Arab world, I knew his answer to mean that “we are aiming for 1pm but this might not happen”.
However, the participant that asked was from a Western culture and took the answer to mean that we were definitely breaking at 1pm. Off the back of this piece of information, they then arranged an important call with their client for 1pm.
What do you think happened next?
Of course, our session didn’t break until 1:25pm and because the junior attendee was intimidated by the boss, they ended up turning up late to their very important call.
Later that day, they came up to me to complain and I could completely empathise with their situation.
Because of one word, and the subsequent lack of clarity, they had burnt their bridges both with their client and their boss (who had been irritated watching them trying and leave the room early).
All this because of one word.
It’s not only the Arab’s that cause this confusion
Throughout the rest of my week in Oman, I saw more and more examples of this problem and others caused by a clash of cultures.
I wouldn’t want you to think this is a problem unique to the Arab world; many other cultures use phrases that sound like one thing but mean another (I’m looking at you Brits with your passive aggressive colloquialisms).
As I’ve indicated above, the real problems arise when cultures clash and nobody provides a handbook or translation.
One great exercise I regularly do with cross cultural teams is to read out the statement “It’s probably going to rain tomorrow” and ask them each to write down on a piece of paper what probability they think it will rain tomorrow.
It always amazes everyone when the papers are turned over as invariably we will get percentages covering the range from 0%-100%.
All this from one simple sentence; no wonder FQ is such a hard thing to maintain.
What’s the solution to any confusion situations?
As with most problems, the solution begins with being aware of the problem. In the case of Inshallah or any other potential for confusion, I always instruct teams to do the following:
- use the simplest language possible when communicating — really get rid of jargon and uncommon words
- signpost and provide clarifications for any thing that has even the slightest potential to be confusing — for example don’t just verbally agree a time, send an actual calendar invite
- check in with others regularly to see what they understood from what was said — by this I mean every couple of minutes
- create as comfortable an environment for people to speak up unprompted if they are unsure — this is the holy grail of psychological safety
So, what’s my takeaway?
Knowing what I know, have I stopped using the word Inshallah?
Hell no! It’s a great word and I use it a lot (often in jest) but what I do nowadays do is provide some backup explanation if the other person is unfamiliar with the word.
In the meantime, me and the team at Shiageto are always there to happily facilitate teams and train leaders to minimise these confusions so as to get them working better together and make sure they can deliver on their strategies mor effectively.
Hopefully, thanks to my blog, a few more of you might just be aware of some of these FQ challenges out there and make fewer of those mistakes.
Good luck!
Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness.
Success = IQ x EQ x FQ
