One of our mantras at CAM (and we have many) goes like this: “the brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.” We say this often because coaching relationships often bump up against this truth. Sometimes it’s a friendly bump and other times it’s a hurtful collision.

The human brain wants to match the novel to the known in order to deal with the novel more efficiently and more effectively. It’s this pattern-matching ability that lets us avoid needing to learn how to open every single car door we encounter (they all work pretty much the same way). Pattern-matching is also what allows us to use metaphors to understand and engage in new situations.

There is, however, a dark side to pattern-matching. As Malcolm Gladwell demonstrated in his class book Blink, sometimes our pattern-matching works and sometimes it leads us astray. We can jump to conclusions, overly trust faulty intuition, and hold onto assumptions way past their expiration date. One way we experience the dark side of pattern-matching in coaching is what I call “false synonyms” – mistakenly confusing two distinct terms.

Here are some examples of false synonyms you will want to beware of:

Simple and Easy. When I was 12 years old, I had to dig a trench approximately 50 yards long, 2 feet deep, and six inches wide. I knew the two points the trench connected: a water supply line from a well and a building in need of water from that supply line. I knew how to use the mattock and wear gloves. The task was simple. It was not easy.

I have a client who wants to write a book. She knows her topic inside and out. She’s a good and capable writer. She’s motivated. But she does not have a book. Why? She suffers from the delusion that writing a book is easy. Her delusion stems from the confusion of easy and simple. Writing a book is fairly simple, but it is far from easy. Confusing the two has depleted her of motivation because expecting something to be easy and finding yourself struggling is a perfect recipe for giving up.

Category and Example. Recently I was teaching a leadership class and I asked the room of about twenty people for one-word descriptions and definitions of leadership. I wrote the words on the dry erase board as they said them. I was hoping someone would say “influence” and I was not disappointed; it was the second word mentioned. After we had a dozen or more words on the board, I circled influence and said, “Bottom line, leadership is influence.” Someone spoke up in disagreement, saying, “No, I’ve come to see that leadership is more about inspiration than influence.” He had confused category and example because in this context inspiration is an example of how a leader might exert influence.

A similar confusion often occurs with the term “success.” A client recently said that he sees success as less important than significance. Instead of aiming for success, we should aim for significance. Without being too smug, I told him that success is whatever one aims for. He defines success as significance instead of wealth or happiness or status or whatever, but he’s still aiming for success.

Morally good and Competent. A company I coach is revamping their job descriptions. They want to make sure they have “the right people in the right seats on the bus.” That’s a noble and worthwhile aim. However, a few of the leaders have been reluctant to remove people from ill-fitting seats. They know, objectively, that the person is not a good fit for the position, but they confuse that truth with the issue of the person’s moral goodness (and even intrinsic value): “But she’s such a good person.” Once they recognized clearly that being competent for a job has nothing to do with a person’s moral goodness, character, or value as a human being, they were free to do the hard work of moving (and removing) some people.

Wisdom and Foolishness. The challenge here isn’t confusing wisdom for foolishness (or vice versa), it’s confusing what is wise in one situation with what is wise in every situation.

I have a coaching client who runs a marketing business and she recently needed to “fire” a client. As she processed the decision, she confessed, “I should never have taken on the client. It was obvious from the beginning that it was not a good fit. It’s foolish to ignore the obvious truth.” Her mistake was in confusing wisdom and what is obvious. Sometimes trusting the obvious is wise, but other times trusting the obvious is foolish. After all, it’s obvious that the earth is flat.

Sometimes it’s wise to trust your instincts, and other times your instincts will lead you straight to hell. Sometimes it’s wise to trust what you know and are familiar with; other times wisdom would have you take a risk or explore a new option. Wisdom is its own criteria, there is no synonym, shortcut, or easy replacement for wisdom.

Coaches pay attention to language – or at least we should. We notice when a client confuses, conflates, or otherwise distorts reality with the words they choose. As you coach, be on the lookout for false synonyms; doing so will provide your client with true clarity and high value.