The Touro Communication Club Notes #83

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Communication Quote of the Week

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan – the late illustrious New York Senator who combined academics, politics and social change. He was involved with much important legislation affecting every day citizens.

This Week: Wednesday, August 5, 2009

2 pm - Room 223 – Midtown

“Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable”

Never a day goes by when we don’t disagree with something someone says or does. Now we have two choices: we can choose to remain silent or we can choose to disagree. Maybe we can be clever and become passive-aggressive in our disagreement. We’ll begin to explore this volatile topic and develop some productive strategies and tactics.

A Note to Communicators:

Strategy: To explore the interrelationships between emotions and reason in decision making.

Tactic: To discover how the baggage that we all20carry impacts on an event and affects it.

Keeping a Cool Head in Emotionally Charged Situations

This week’s “Beer Summit” has galvanized media hoopla and hundreds of barber shop and water cooler arguments. President Obama brought the “combatants” Professor Gates and Sgt Crowley together for a beer on the White House Lawn. With that barely announced the next pot boiler was the choice of beer – local or imported. The contents of the discussion were fortunately off-the record, but apparently Gates and Crowley will continue their discussion over a future lunch. No doubt this incident will be analyzed to death in future replays.

When passions are ignited – whether race or love or beer – the mind shuts down. Emotions trump reason in a crisis every time. If that is a truism, then what are the elements which can precipitate an explosion? How can an individual control his/her emotional responses to make a productive contribution to the resolution of a volatile situation?

In Malcolm Gladwell’s second best seller, Blink, he brings together a variety of evidence from the art world to the world of police behavior to understand how we behave in a blink of an eye. What are the factors that operate when we make snap decisions?

We make snap decisions all the time. That person is pretty or good-looking. That professor sucks. That applicant won’t work out. That movie was terrible. This pizza is bad. The old cliché, “You don’t have a second chance to make first impressions,’ is wise advice in most situations.

However, when a snap decision is made as the emotional temperature of the situation is raised to near boiling, explosions are a heartbeat away from all hell breaking loose. How to prevent these explosions is important.

Sgt Crowley brought extensive training to the potentially explosive situation with Professor Gates. Apparently, Crowley has taught police seminars about behaving under the stress of racially charged situations. "Keeping cool under fire” is the soldier’s mantra.

Most people have never had this kind of training. Some people explode instantly when another disagrees with them. Others cave in and are silent and resentful, only to explode later or carry a permanent grudge.

Our brains don’t normally come wired with the skills of productive behavior. We have to be taught, by life, by a teacher or mentor or by one’s self. Reacting to a pin prick produces an immediate “Ouch.” This is a reflex action. Reacting to a physical assault can be reflexive. But your reaction to an insult involves a clear mental choice.

This self- training begins with becoming AWARE of yourself – of your thoughts, your behavior, the reactions others have to you, the space you occupy, etc. Here are some thoughts on how to keep a cool head in an emotionally charged situation.

• Recognize your emotional reaction beginning to appear in your solar plexus and use your training to guide and direct it. Actors are trained to develop their emotions and then to guide them to a productive outcome.
• “Go to the balcony,” as Roger Fischer and William Ury suggest in “Getting to Yes.” Cut the umbilical cord between your mind and you emotions and mentally separate yourself from the situation.
• Recognize that you have a choice - free will – in what you do with your words and actions.
• Choose not to be reactive to your opponent’s words or behavior. Shooting from the lip or shooting from the hip usually doesn’t work well.
• Slow the process down. Rushing your words and your actions exacerbates a tense situation.
• Choose your words very carefully.
• Make no overt actions that may be misinterpreted.
• Rehearse or be trained in a procedure that is embedded in our emotional musculature.

As Rudyard Kipling reminds us in his famous poem “If,” to keep our heads when all about us are losing theirs and blaming it on us.

UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:

August 12 – “Charisma” It’s called the “X” factor. What is that certain “something” that makes some people more magnetically attractive than others? Are you born with it? Can you learn it? In the era of so many PR manufactured celebrities and situations, it’s hard for the untrained eye to know what is really “charismatic” in a person or what is fake charisma -just smoke and mirrors. As always, a riveting topic.

August 19 – “Professional Communication” What is it? Why do you have to know about it? How do you learn it? Comedian Dave Chapelle says that he is bi-lingual. He knows how to talk among his friends and then when he goes into certain situations, he flips his linguistic switch to “job interview” speak. We do this kind of switching all the time – on a date, talking to our professors. We need to be aware of this switch in many other situations. Charles Mason suggested the topic.

Future topics

“Does Gossip Affect Communication?” Of course it does. But How gossip changes the communication is important for us to explore. Is gossip valid? Do people believe gossip? Why are we fascinated with it? We are inundated daily with gossip – from our family, friends, teachers, politicians – and most of all from celebrities. The media makes a ton of money by recycling all kinds of gossip. We won’t name names, but we’ll look at how and why gossip is so much of our lives.

“How do You know You Don’t Understand?” This is a familiar feeling for many of us. Situation: Someone is saying something to you. As this person talks, you slowly realize you don’t understand what he/she is saying. Or: Same situation: You realize you haven’t been listening. Or: Same situation: You disagree with the person. There are dozens of other situations. What do you do in your mind? Then what do you do?

What happened on Wednesday, July 29, 2009?

“Ethics and the Golden Rule”

Our hardy band of regulars included Pamela Sheppard, Ronald Johnson, Lorinda Moore, Carlisle Yearwood, David Nussbaum, Charles Mason and Hal Wicke. Newcomer Dr. Sabra Brock of the Business faculty, recently returned from a semester teaching at Touro Berlin, joined us at the end.

Predictably, Hal started the discussion with a Yes/No question to get clear the points of view.

Question: Do you believe there is a right and wrong?

Yes 3

No 1

Ronald argued that we are all born with an innate sense of right and wrong. Pamela said she knew right from wrong from a feeling in the pit of her stomach. Lorinda said that everybody had their own sense of right and wrong. Then we began a brief discussion about what is truth and what is real.

Question: Did President Obama make a mistake when he commented in a new conference on the Gates/Crowley incident?

Yes 3

No 2

Much discussion followed here. The question was asked, “Why is there so much disagreement? Does the disagreement come from an ethical foundation?” More discussion.

What happens if you think a decision is wrong? In a family? At work? I look for consensus, said one person. If I am the father, I make the decisions, said another. That comment produces much reaction. At one point, when does a child become an adult? At age 12-13 – the time for the bar and bas mitzvah.

The discussion moved vigorously around the Obama-Gates-Crowley incident with comments flying all around. Colin Powell’s comments were highlighted. Gates’ being handcuffed in front was a sign of police courtesy. There was a consensus that emotions trumped reason and Obama made a mistake when he injected himself into the incident when he said the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.”

Why does a master strategist like Obama make a mistake like that? Charles Mason asked. Hal offered two items, “A Grand Master Chess champion is reputed to have some 3,000 moves in his head at any one time.”

Was Obama considering the consequences of a response before he opened his mouth? No one could read his mind, but this kind of momentary pause before saying something is explored in Malcolm Gladwell’s best seller, Blink.” Gladwell reports that the 41 shots that killed Amadou Dialo were fired in 1.4 seconds. Fear and the officers’ groupthink exacerbated situation.

After the group agreed on the general position that Sgt Crowley acted professionally and Professor Gates did not, Hal asked “What would happen if you had this same discussion on the corner of 125^th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem?” Everyone chimed in, saying that the conclusion would probably be the opposite. Charles commented, “Move and you bring the neighborhood with you.”

The discussion moved to the harsh Rockefeller Drug laws on the 1970s. Many anecdotes were exchanged.

Question: What if everyone is cheating in class, what do you do? Do you report the cheating? Do you stand up to the pressure? The extreme example is to give one’s life for a cause, as did Martin Luther King, Jr.

Question: Do you act ethically 100% of the time?

Yes - 4

No – 3

Several defined ethics as traditional civil behavior as men opening doors for women. Hal suggested that, although civil behavior is a small aspect of ethics, the word refers to moral concepts of right and wrong. More clarification is needed.

We agreed that some people are ethically challenged. We also cleared up the frequent confusion of ethnicity with ethics.

Dr. Sabra Brock joined us for the last few minutes. She spent the last semester as visiting professor of Business at Touro Berlin. Asked to compare SGS students with the Touro Berlin students, she observed that the German students were conditioned to bear the guilt of Hitler’s actions and were often confused by having to bear the burden of actions of their ancestors 60 years ago.

As we closed at about 4:15 pm, we focused on upcoming topics. Following up on issues of courtesy, the group supported Charles Mason’s suggestion of “Professional Communication” as a future topic.

We barely scratched the surface of our topic for the week. Allowing the discussion to follow its own course, we never really explored the Golden Rule. There seems to be an unresolved division of feelings that our discussions should go where they lead us and that they should be guided more.

Despite this reservation, everyone becomes entirely engaged for more than two hours, candidly sharing ideas and anecdotes. As Samuel Beckett says, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

As always, these sessions are open for everyone to attend. Bring a friend and join the excitement. See you next time.

Hal Wicke