Saying the Same Thing

I am working on a deal with a new colleague of mine. I had sent him my non-circumvention, non-disclosure agreement (NCNDA) a little over a week ago, but had not heard back from him.

[The agreement is a pretty standard form that basically says we will each respect the others' contacts and not share any of their information with third parties, nor approach the other's contacts directly in the future.]

It turns out that his e-mail response had not made it back to me, so he tried to recap his e-mail to me. In his recap he spelled out essentially the same terms as were in my NCNDA, but was unwilling to sign my NCNDA.

I sent him back an e-mail explaining that he was the first person unwilling to sign my NCNDA and that I didn't understand this because the agreement was to protect both of us and was in alignment with the terms he requested regardless.

This morning I received an e-mail back from him and shortly thereafter, a fax of the signed NCNDA. He said that upon looking back he agreed that the NCNDA was the same as what he was asking for.

Wow, that seems a bit long-winded on my end to get to the point here. The point is that we often are saying the same things as others, but in different ways. When we stop to listen, we may learn that there is more than one way to say the same thing.

The awareness for today is to listen to what the other party is communicating in any situation and not hold too rigidly to the exact words that are being used.
~Paul