The Unexpected Lesson of Marte Meo
Many years ago, when my daughter was still very young, I came across the Dutch approach known as Marte Meo.
The name means "by one's own strength," and the method is often used with children and families. One of its central ideas is surprisingly simple.
Instead of merely doing things, you narrate what you are doing.
You make the invisible visible.
You tell the child what is happening.
You explain what you are about to do.
You describe what you see.
You provide a running commentary that helps the child understand the situation and your intentions.
Surely the child can see what is happening.
But that is precisely the point.
What is obvious to the adult is often not obvious to the child.
So instead of assuming understanding, you create it.
I found myself using this approach naturally with my daughter.
If we were going somewhere, I would explain where we were going and why.
If I made a decision, I would explain the reasoning behind it.
If something unexpected happened, I would tell her how I was thinking about it.
Not because she was incapable of understanding.
Quite the opposite.
I assumed she was capable of understanding if I gave her access to the thought process.
Over time, I noticed something interesting.
The explanations were often just as useful for me as they were for her.
Explaining forces us to clarify our own thinking.
Years later, I discovered that the lesson had applications far beyond parenting.
The surprising part was that I did not discover this while working with children.
I discovered it while dealing with adults.
Particularly adults operating inside institutions.
In my work as a social worker, I rarely feel the need to overexplain things to clients.
Many social work clients are remarkably perceptive.
They often understand very quickly what is happening and why.
In fact, if I constantly explained every step of my reasoning, some clients would probably feel patronized.
The opposite problem often appears when dealing with organizations, committees, managers, interview panels, or other institutional settings.
There I repeatedly encounter a strange phenomenon.
I assume that my reasoning is obvious.
I assume people can see why I am making a particular argument.
I assume they understand the chain of thought that led me to a conclusion.
Then I discover that they have only seen the conclusion.
Not the path.
What is obvious to me is invisible to them.
I have already connected the dots internally.
They have not.
As a result, I sometimes present the destination when what they actually need is the map.
Over the years I have learned that many misunderstandings disappear the moment I explain the reasoning that led me somewhere.
The surprising part is that I often feel as if I am explaining far too much.
I find myself thinking:
"Surely this is obvious."
Then the other person says:
"Now I understand."
And I am left wondering why it was not obvious from the beginning.
The answer, I suspect, is simple.
People cannot see our thought processes.
They can only see our conclusions.
What Marte Meo taught me as a parent was that understanding often requires narration.
What I learned later is that the same principle applies to adults.
Not because adults are children.
Not because they are incapable of understanding.
But because none of us can see inside another person's mind.
Sometimes communication fails not because people disagree.
Sometimes it fails because one person started the story on page fifty while the other person is still on page one.
The solution is not necessarily to argue harder.
Sometimes the solution is simply to explain how you got there.
That may feel inefficient.
It may even feel unnecessary.
Yet again and again I have discovered that taking people through the reasoning is often faster than assuming they can reconstruct it for themselves.
Marte Meo was designed for children.
One of its hidden lessons, however, may be that all human beings benefit from having the invisible parts of communication made visible.
The older I get, the less I assume that what is obvious to me is obvious to anyone else.