The 1967 prison film Cool Hand Luke is remembered, among other things, for a line spoken by the prison warden to Luke, an inmate who persistently rebels against authority. "What we have here," says the warden, "is failure to communicate." Both of them know that communication is not the issue. Luke understands the warden, but chooses to defy him. What the warden really means is "failure to do what I want you to do".

The above is a quote from Deborah Cameron, Oxford University Professor of Language, from the recently released book called "the Myth of Mars and Venus". In it, she disputes a range of ideas put forward by self-help and populist science about gender and use of language, concluding that men's and women's methods are not so different after all. As she makes this point, it reminded me of some issues for communication about change and especially about change for sustainability. That is, don't forget the content. . .