Most Organizations Get Stuck on One Part of the Ladder of Abstraction

After my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, I went with him to see doctors.

They used medical terms that probably carried precise meaning to the people saying them. But sitting beside my dad, I often felt as if we were being handed words without anything solid to hold on to.

We knew the situation was serious. We just couldn’t see it clearly.

Then his primary care doctor told him plainly:

“You have a mass the size of a grapefruit in your lungs.”

A grapefruit.

The comparison didn’t make the diagnosis easier. It didn’t answer every question or tell us what would come next. But it gave the uncertainty a shape. For the first time, a father and son without medical training could understand the seriousness of what we were facing.

I don’t know why the earlier explanations hadn’t reached us. The doctors may have been choosing their words carefully. They may have been waiting for more information. Or the language of medicine may have become so familiar to them that it no longer sounded specialized.

They understood the words.

We needed to understand what the words meant for us.

Reading about the Ladder of Abstraction gave me language for what happened in those rooms.

The ladder describes how language moves between broad ideas and concrete particulars. Higher on the ladder are concepts such as health, security, opportunity and trust. Lower down are things we can picture, observe or experience: a grapefruit, a medical scan, a first appointment, a payment due on Friday.

Neither end is inherently better.

The higher rungs help us make meaning. The lower rungs help us see what that meaning looks like in the world.

The problem begins when communication gets stuck.

## Different professions, same altitude

I began noticing this pattern in nonprofit writing. Words such as *impact*, *empowerment* and *opportunity* pointed toward meaningful work but often left me wondering what had actually happened.

Then I started hearing it everywhere.

Financial advisors offered “holistic wealth management.” Attorneys promised “personalized legal solutions.” Healthcare organizations described “patient-centered care.” Consultants proposed “transformational strategies.”

Different professions. Different expertise. Same altitude.

None of this language was necessarily wrong. That was what made the pattern interesting.

The people inside these organizations understood the work behind the words. They had seen what personalized, holistic or patient-centered looked like in practice.

The people outside encountered only the abstraction.

A prospective client reading “comprehensive financial planning” may still wonder what will happen during the first meeting. Will someone help them understand whether they are behind? Will they be judged for not knowing the terminology? Will they leave knowing what to do next?

Those questions live lower on the ladder. They are closer to the decision the person is trying to make.

This doesn’t mean organizations should abandon larger ideas. “Comprehensive planning” may be an accurate description. “Patient-centered care” may express a genuine commitment.

The language simply has to come down far enough for someone else to recognize it.

“Comprehensive financial planning” might become:

> We’ll look at your retirement, taxes, insurance and estate plan together so one decision doesn’t quietly create a problem somewhere else.

“Client-centered legal counsel” might become:

> Before recommending a course of action, we’ll explain the likely cost, timeline and tradeoffs in language you can understand.

The lower versions don’t replace the larger ideas. They make those ideas visible.

## The ladder goes both ways

Coming down is only half the work.

Organizations can also get trapped in details. A nonprofit may report that 340 people completed a program. A healthcare system may count 1,200 appointments. A firm may describe every step in its process.

The information may be accurate, but accuracy alone doesn’t tell us why it matters.

What became possible for those 340 people?

What does the appointment number reveal about access to care?

How does the process help a worried client make a better decision?

A concrete detail needs to climb toward meaning. Otherwise, it is simply a fact sitting at the bottom of the ladder.

That creates a two-way obligation.

When the language becomes abstract, ask:

**For instance?**

What does this idea look like when it becomes real?

When the language becomes concrete, ask:

**So what?**

Why does this fact, moment or example matter?

“For instance?” brings the idea down.

“So what?” carries the meaning back up.

Good communication keeps moving between the two.

## Helping meaning survive the trip

I have been thinking about the distance between what an organization means and what people understand as the Translation Gap.

The Ladder of Abstraction helps me see one place where that gap begins.

The organization says “personalized.” The customer is trying to imagine the first conversation.

The organization says “trusted.” The customer wants to know what will happen if they arrive unprepared or ask a question everyone else seems to understand.

The organization says “patient-centered.” The patient wants someone to explain what the diagnosis means for Tuesday morning.

The intention may be sincere. The expertise may be real.

But expertise is not fully useful until someone else can find themselves inside it.

My dad’s doctor did not remove the uncertainty when he compared the mass to a grapefruit.

He gave the uncertainty a shape.

Sometimes that is where understanding begins.

Take one sentence your organization uses all the time. It might appear on your homepage, in a proposal, inside a donor email or at the beginning of a presentation.

Ask it two questions:

*For instance?*

*So what?*

You may discover that the sentence is accurate.

It may simply be stranded on one part of the ladder.