It was one of the moments you want to slow down. I was in Wellington with my parents over the long weekend watching my daughter perform at the national Shakespeare festival. Two generations sitting in the darkness of the glorious St James Theatre, watching her hold her composure on the big stage. #proudmumma.... setting the scene, bear with me ;)

Sunday night we went out to dinner with extended family. Mum's cousin brought her husband along. He's a retired civil engineer, spent much of his career in water reticulation before moving into software. Brilliant man, with the kind of intelligence that fills a room without trying.

Somewhere over the classic pub food of venison curry (Wild Food Challenge time of year), potato gnocchi, and beer battered fish n chips, my business that is turning 1 year old this month came up. The question is kind of standard now as family and friends try to put my business into a box they know and understand. "What is it you actually do, Margot?" I gave my usual answer, and then added that a lot of my work is translating the language of engineers, planners, and scientists into information that communities can actually work with.

He paused. Then he said he wasn't sure there was anything to translate. Wasn't this just spin?

Spin is the deliberate shaping of information to serve the people who already hold power. It works through bias, selective emphasis, and half-truths, which is what makes it hard to call out and easy to mistake for legitimate communication. It has nothing to do with what I do. My work is grounded in integrity and sits at the opposite end of that spectrum. The goal is to make complexity accessible to everyone in the room so they can effectively participate. It neutralises information power imbalances, so you don't have to be a subject matter expert to provide informed judgement.

But I didn't say any of that at the dinner table. I asked him what he would do if a community meeting started pushing back. If people got angry. What words would he reach for?

He answered the way I expected. He would explain more, more thoroughly, until people understood.

I pushed a little. What kind of words? Engineering terms? Things someone without your background might not know?

I was waiting for defensiveness that surprisingly didn't come. What followed was a conversation based in curiosity about each other's skill sets.

When people feel their knowledge or judgement is being questioned, the brain responds as if it is under threat.

This is not a character flaw. It is the nervous system doing what it was built to do. Under that kind of pressure, we reach for what we know best. For technically trained people, that almost always means more technical language, delivered with more conviction.

More explanation delivered in the same language misses the point. We want to build understanding within the conversation, but this approach creates division rather than an invitation to navigate together, creating shared understanding through helpful framing and plain English.

The person on the other side of the table is also under pressure. Their nervous system is registering threat too. They are not hearing expertise. They are hearing confirmation that you do not speak their language, that you don't understand what matters to them, their values, or their life.

I told him about a young water engineer I met on a site visit. He was showing me around the plant with the kind of pride that comes from loving your work. At some point I asked him how he would explain what was happening to a class of twelve year olds.

His whole face changed. He lit up and described the bacteria cleaning the water in a way so vivid I have never forgotten it. That explanation was always inside him. Asking a different question brought it out.

The retired engineer has recently become a grandfather, and when I told him that story, something rang true for him that hadn't before.

Talking plainly is not dumbing down. Learning to communicate across different backgrounds and levels of expertise is a skill, and like any skill it is learnable. It sits alongside technical expertise without diminishing it.

Conscious awareness is the first step. A basic toolkit and some practice in the field come after. Getting it wrong will happen. What matters is getting back up and trying again.

As far as pub conversations over a beer go, this one was a good reminder of how lucky I am to work alongside some of the most intelligent people I have ever met, and that we each bring something different to the table.

Until next week,