Mitigated Speech: Outliers book discussion

I regularly cheat on my book club with other books (though not other clubs). Last month I read through half of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. This month I finished the rest of it and also The Imperfectionists, which I will bitterly refer to as "the book that should have been picked". This post is about Outliers, specifically, about a small portion of its second half.

In the first half of Outliers, Gladwell analyzes how your day of birth within the calendar year, your year of birth in relation to significant economic events, your place of birth and the profession of your parents makes a huge difference to your chance of success, taking you from someone who is doing well for him,herself to someone who is an outlier by way of being hugely successful.

The second half explores how your cultural background, both from where you grew up as well as the cultural setting you are operating in, have an impact on your success. He introduces two concepts (researched by others, particularly in the area of aviation safety): Power Distance Index (PDI) and Mitigated speech.

PDI is the distance that the person in power wants to put between himself and someone not in power. Consequently, this is also the perceived difference in status as seen by someone lower in power. The US is a low-PDI country. But before the entire western world pats itself on it's back for being classless, they point out that Belgium and France are high PDI nations. As is much of south America and Asia. You can never talk back to a superior in India.

Mitigated speech is the deemphasis of what you are saying. For instance, instead of saying "Rewrite your piece of crap code", you might say "This code will look better if it is rewritten". Or, "Would this code not look better if rewritten?". Or, "I might like this better written differently". Or, at the bottom end, "I think I've seen slightly different looking code that does this.".

People from low PDI countries don't bother mitigating their speech because they consider each other equal and hence don't expect offense to be taken at direct speech. They also interpret mitigated speech as a lack of definite opinion rather than as respectful speech. Across the globe, it is another story.

As I read this section, I realized how rooted I am in the culture I grew up in. MrM often complains I don't state a strong preference and later find myself disappointed that my hints weren't taken. I find myself frustrated he can't hear my voice. I often complain that he is too emphatic even about small preferences, and I automatically demote my own medium preferences to make way for what I perceive incorrectly as a strong preference.

Obviously, this problem is just as strong in the workplace as well, where I work with a dozen men and can barely maintain myself as more than a blip on the radar. I state things as suggestions, I stay away from asking the same question twice even if it isn't answered, and in general come off looking a lot more emasculated than I really am. The only time I actually got past this and into my own was in CA, where I worked enough years to finally break out of my mitigated mode.

This trip to India has highlighted a lot of the general emasculation process you go through as a child, adolescent and entry level worker. Even more so, as a woman, who despite being on the wrong side of 35 has to formulate mitigated sentences to her dad, be okay with being escorted everywhere, and learn to pick which battles for independence to fight.

Since I live in the US and it is my home now, the problem of mitigation is mine rather than anyone else's. This is going to be one of my personal projects for 2012. My ultimate success will be if the Meera that exists after two drinks or in the company of good friends can exist sober in the company of strangers. Obviously, I'm setting myself easier goals in the interim.