How often have you had a scenario like asking a girlfriend why she didn’t even call when she didn’t come home after the concert last night? Her response: “my phone went dead and I was hanging out with Vika and we had some wine and then it became late and I was tipsy enough not to want to drive and the car was parked just far enough away…..”

Comm. lag is the notion of the amount of elapsed time when I finished asking a question and when the person I asked answers it.  Junior comm. lag is the interval between me finishing asking a question and the respondent beginning their answer.

Some people never answer the question directly.  The girlfriend’s phone going dead does not answer why, in a world where everybody over the age of 12 owns a phone, she didn’t call.  The car being far away and her being tipsy doesn’t explain why she didn’t call. Neither does hanging out with Vika.

Politicians specialize in comm. lag. Their credo, summarized by the architect of the Vietnam War, John McNamara, is “never answer the question you were asked, answer the question you wish you were asked”.  This is an example of infinite comm. lag. The question never gets answered.

Most people never notice comm. lag. The person asking the question talked, and the other person talked.  Most people can’t remember the question, and the majority of people responding to a question don’t answer it precisely, if at all. Most members of our society never observe that the question was sidestepped. As long as there is an interchange of words, people rarely listen very closely, unless it’s a court cross examination or some other specific situation, like the girlfriend who didn’t keep her promise.

Communication lag is a significant predictor of incompatibility between people. Individuals with a large variance in their communication lag can literally drive each other nuts. Routine miscommunication about simple things like: Did you go to the store?” “Well, it was raining”. Or, “what would you like to eat?” “Well, Stacey told me I was getting heavy and then I skipped lunch because I was mad and I feel so mad at her…What would you like to eat?”

Some of the various forms of communication lag are:

• Talking without answering the question efficiently, if at all. Continuing to talk after having lost track what the questions was.
• Sidestepping or avoiding a direct, truthful answer. See the girlfriend above.
• Refusing to give a direct answer to avoid responsibility (“you pick the restaurant and movie”, thereby providing room to later say “you always pick lame movies and I really didn’t enjoy that restaurant”)
• Counter asking to deflect. “So what did your boss say when you finally turned in your report?”
• “Why can’t you just trust me?” Treating a question as a personal attack when the question was merely a request for information.

An inverse example of comm. lag is when someone starts answering the question before the questioner has finished asking it. This also tends to be perceived as disrespectful, especially if done as a regular pattern. “What did you have for l…(gets cut off)” “I had the chicken salad, as always.”

In summary, comm. lag is everywhere now that you know what it is. Start noticing how often comm. lag occurs. It is surprisingly commonplace, and before learning about this concept, I was completely unaware how imprecise and non responsive communication can often be.