The Touro Communication Club Notes #84

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Two Communication Quotes of the Week

“Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.”

Laurence J. Peter, American educator & writer. Author of “The Peter Principle”(1968) which states "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence ... i n time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties ... Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."

As Winston Churchill said, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

This Week: Wednesday, August 12, 2009

2 pm - Room 222 – Midtown

“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.

A Note to Communicators:

Strategy: To discover ways to apply theory to practice.

Tactic: To become aware of how many obstacles there are to productive communication

Not Keeping a Cool Head in an Emotionally Charged Situation #2

Well, this week the Club meeting (described in some detail below) failed miserably in our mission to disagree without being disagreeable. In I reflecting afterwards on what happened, I offer the following obvious and not so obvious truisms:
Communication is complex – always. It always has many layers.
Communication is difficult - always.
Communication is fragile -always.
Communication is filled with invisible obstacles.
It is hard for people to listen.

· It is hard to refrain from interrupting.

· Often people start talking without any apparent awareness of where a discussion will lead them.
Often there is no internal guidance system.

It doesn’t take much to set off a disagreement, particularly on a volatile topic.

· You never know what is going to set off an emotional reaction. Imagine an invisible time bomb
waiting to explode.

· Some people are struck dumb when an angry interchange occurs. The argument suddenly
becomes a spectator sport.

· Spectators rarely move toward mediating. an argument.

· When there are no apparent consequences, an angry emotion can burst forth without
constraint.

· Anger reduces language to a series of short, monosyllabic bursts.

Ad hominum attacks (attack the person, not the issue) are frequent.

· The expressed anger feels like an oil geyser was spewing out without any internal control. The mind is by-passed.

· Although no swearing was used in Wednesday’s angry interchange, the atmosphere was poisoned by the acrimony.

· Most communication situations do not have a referee (In this case, Hal Wicke was present to keep peace.) But where’s the cop when you need him?

· Communication exchanges within a clearly prescribed hierarchy can minimize hostile outbreaks because the structure is clear and everyone knows who is in charge. Police, judge, military officer, teacher, priest/minister/rabbi/imam, parent.

When the power balance between participants appears to be equal, then verbal manipulation becomes visible in order to gain advantage.

· When the power balance between communicators is unequal, (boss/employee, teacher/student, judge/lawyer, police/citizen, parent/child, priest/believer), verbal manipulation is constrained by the power relationship. Some kind of punishment is the feared reward for challenging the authority.

I’m sure there are many more Communication principles that I could extract from the meeting, but that’s enough for now. Mind you, all of this is arguable, so write your comments at the end of this blog. I’m looking for light, not heat.

Clearly we have much more work to do in the Club to be able to internalize a sense of productive communication that does not deteriorate into argument – and bloodshed. Since the beginning of time, people have used guns and knives and bombs to solve problems because they did not know how resolve their difficulties any other way. They also did not believe there was any other way than to resolve disagreements. The way is negotiation – long, arduous negotiation to a resolution.

Let me turn briefly to three items in the national news this week where there is major disagreement.

· The confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor by the Senate.

· The health care debate

·
President Clinton’s role as Superman saving the American Way as he shepherded the release of the two American journalists from North Korea

In the last decade, American citizens have become familiar with a deadlocked Congress, just as New Yorkers have become used to a dysfunctional Legislature in Albany. President Obama promised bi-partisanship but the Republicans didn’t hear him. In both the health care issue and the Sotomayor confirmation proceedings, both Democratic and Republican members of Congress seem to take intractable sides. Regardless of what is said on either side, no one moves. Each side is right. There is no middle ground. The disagreement seems to have become embedded in our politics. To give an inch is to lose.

Unlike the previous eight years, one party, the Democrats this time, has the power of sixty votes in the Senate (if you count the ailing Senators Byrd and Kennedy).Who needs bi-partisanship when you have the power? Remember Teddy Roosevelt’s “Speak softly but carry a big stick”? We’ve seen that power work with the vote on Sotomayor. We wait to see how the power unfolds on the health care issue.

In a splendidly surprising resolution of a temporary conflict with North Korea, Bill Clinton put on Clark Kent’s cape to save the two American women, sentenced to 12 years in jail for wrong doing in the eyes of Kim Jong Il. But Kim has a fatal flaw in his standoff with the United States. He wanted meet Bill. The message got to the Clinton White House too la te. President George W. Bush wouldn’t have anything to do with an “axis of evil” country. Then Kim saw his chance when Barack got elected. Through back channels, he wants Bill to come to dinner. But how to do it? Ah, two innocent Americans could be arrested and accused of bad things. “I’ll use them as hostages until Bill comes to rescue them,” Kim thought. And so, as it is writ, it came to pass.

The clue to resolving a conflict – albeit a minor one in this case – is to have an ace up your sleeve. Have something the other guy wants. (We got Clinton. Kim wants him.) Then he will capitulate. That was easy.

Now let’s raise the stakes. If Kim were to have held the women hostage or tortured them in exchange for something intolerable, like recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power, I don’t think Obama would have caved in and Bill would not have been able to wear Superman’s cape.

UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:

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, August 5, 2009?

“Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable”

For two hours, our band of regulars demonstrated that we have a long way to go in understanding the topic. Too often hot buttons were hit and shouting and ad hominum attacks ensued. Thankfully, there was no cursing and the group was able to come down and exchange apologies. Teachable moments are sometimes very painful.

The group included Pamela Sheppard. Donne Kampel, Charles Mason, Lorinda Moore, Ronald Johnson, Robert Bohr, Brian Brown and Hal Wicke. Markus Vayndorf peak in during a break in his class.

On the teacher’s desk in Room 222 was a stack of TIME OUT magazines, the current Student Guide issue – “Everything you need to know about the world’s greatest city.”

Someone had noticed in the magazine a photo of a nude woman sitting in a chair. The caption read “Be a Nude Model” at the School of Visual Arts. It was in the section “Easy Money” – ways people can make extra cash. According to the ad, the prerequisites are “stillness, boldness.”

Sensing the possibility of a disagreement, Hal asked the group, “Do you think this issue of TIME OUT magazine should be distributed at Touro?”

Despite much chatter and cross-talk about the photo, Hal extracted the following vote

YES the magazine should be distributed at Touro – 3

NO the magazine should NOT be distributed at Touro 4

Hal did not vote.

For the sake of transparency, the vote was divided along gender lines. Three men said “yes.” Three women and one man said “no.”

As best as Hal could record them amidst the noise, the reasons for saying “no” included:

This is an Orthodox Jewish school and such pictures are not allowed.

It is offensive to women and reinforces their history of being objectified in society

We have too much of this on television.

This is pornography.

The reasons for saying “yes” included:

There is nothing offensive about the photograph.

·This is a college and the students here are adults.

You see this kind of nudity in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is not pornography.

Censoring the photo violates freedom of speech.

During the discussion, several people left the room to return after a few moments.

Someone said, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

As the opinions flew quickly back and forth, the decibel level in the room rose appreciably. There was shouting and some name-calling. (Ad hominum arguments), labeling as well as the introduction of several irrelevant issues

The momentum of the exchange slowed occasionally only to speed when someone hit a new nerve. Several issues were clarified:

The responsibilities of a private institution are different from a public one.

·
A person’s response would vary according to the situation. Is it a personal opinion as a private
citizen? Or is the person functioning in a role of a teacher or administrator?

·
Shouting doesn’t work to persuade people to your opinion.

·
We have to agree on what is a fact and what is an opinion. (this is a current issue with the
Birther’s movement challenging President Obama’s birth certificate.).

·
We argue for “no reason.” (I wonder about this one.)

Hal’s suggestion of inserting a pause between an action and a reaction was lost in the noise.

As the arguments began to repeat themselves, Hal called a halt to the discussion. He asked
the group to suggest ways to come together and restore the positive feeling we usually have
during these sessions.

One person suggested that we should have a three step procedure:

1 – Introduce everyone.

2 – If you are wrong, you should apologize.

3 – One person at a time should speak.

Hal suggested that when we feel ourselves becoming angry, we mentally choose to “Go to the Balcony.” This strategy, often taught in anger management classes, is taken from “Getting to Yes” by Roger Fischer and William Ury, the classic negotiation book developed by the Harvard Negotiation Project. It was used by President Jimmy Carter in his shuttle diplomacy over between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat in the 1970’s.

The principal adversaries apologized to each other and helped to clear the air.

Ultimately, Hal failed in his job Facilitator turned to referee as Hal’s role changed during the session, trying to referee a modicum of decorum among the many opposing shouted opinions. Fortunately, he was not forced to stand and separate the verbal opponents.

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

This was Brian Brown’s last session with the Club. As we reported in a previous entry, he is moving next week to Texas to enroll in a college in Austin, Texas. He will be keeping in touch via the blog. Brian’s address and email are:

Brian Brown

164 Ashwood North

Kyle, TX 78640

Email: bbrown812@gmail.com.

UPDATE: The edition of TIME OUT magazine in question was collected and put in the trash.

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

Hal Wicke