The Touro Communication Club Notes - #118–June 2, 2010 Tourocommunicationclub.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. Quotations about “Success Strategies”

2. Upcoming Club program: “Success Strategies” Wednesday, June 2, 2010 @ 2 pm in Room 223

3. Logical Fallacy of the Week # 9 – “The Hasty Generalization”

5. A Note to Communicators: “Success: The American Ideal”

6. Upcoming Conversations

7. Possible club topics

8. What happened last week: “Negotiation”

Eight Quotes about Success Strategies

“We were born to succeed, not to fail.”

Henry David Thoreau, 19^th century American poet and philosopher

“When you’re really trying to make serious change, you don’t want people to get caught up in emotion because change isn’t emotion. It is real work and organization and strategy. That’s just the truth of it. I mean, you pull people in with inspiration, but then you have to roll up your sleeves and you’ve got to make sacrifices and you have got to have structure.”

Michele Obama, the current First Lady

“A sly rabbit will have three openings to its den.”

Chinese proverb

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.”

Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”

Robert Collier, 20^th century American motivational writer.

“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

Bill Cosby. American comedian

“Seventy percent of success in life is showing up."

Woody Allen, American comedian and film maker

"Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed."

Emily Dickinson, 19^th century American poet

The Touro Communication Club

2 pm - Wednesday, June 2, 2010– Room 223

June 2, 2010 – Success Strategies – Are they different for men and women?

Dean Donne Kampel and Dr. Sabra Brock both research and publish about how women and men carve out pathways to success. They will compare notes on how men and women manage. They will share some of the secrets and tips they’ve uncovered. They will even discuss the perception of some as to whether or not the leadership/success “pipeline” continues to be more difficult for women than for men.

Logical Fallacy of the Week #9: “Hasty Generalization”

In light of the current oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, this week’s logical fallacy could not be more appropriate. Each week there is another new “quick fix,” none of which has solved the immediate problem of gushing oil, let alone the catastrophic environmental damage for decades to come.

[I wonder if the repair of the gusher a mile under water would be any quicker if the workers could see what they were doing.]

· When we – students and teachers alike – take limited information to be the sole criteria for a conclusion. The conclusions of term papers, speeches, lectures are supported with flimsy evidence.

· When one piece of unsubstantiated gossip defines a person or an activity. A woman has a bad experience with a male. She says, “All men are dogs.” And the reverse as well.

· The Hasty Generalization can be used strategic purposes. The Republicans deliberately label the President Obama’s health care program as “socialism.”

· Racial profiling and its current manifestation in the new Arizona law on immigration are egregious examples of the Hasty Generalization at work.

· All political and commercial advertising use the Hasty Generalization to persuade us. This is why bumper-sticker thinking is so effective.

The Hasty Generalization is a faulty short-cut of the mind. As humans, we desire to understand, but we are impatient and don’t want to put the work into a full understanding of a person, an idea or a point of view. So we take the short-cut of the Hasty Generalization. We want quick answers so we use Cliff Notes or Spark Notes or plagiarize from the Internet.

Strategies: The usual: Listen carefully Ask questions. Think the opposite. Carry the proposition beyond the immediate situation. Catch the fallacy as it is presented.

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.A Note to Communicators:

Success – The American Ideal

Achieving “Success” seems to be part of the American Dream. The lady in New York harbor promises a future for all the huddled masses which come ashore. Horatio Alger is the prototypical American rags to riches success story. . Touro exclaims, “Join us on the road to success.”

For most people success is measured in external terms. We read and see about physical manifestations of success. The bigger toys, the most money, the bigger house, fame, fortune, the biggest title, the most handsome and most pretty – these are typical yardsticks for American success.

In a bus advertisement I saw last summer, Sean John has a new fragrance for men, “I am King.” When a guy splashes on the odor, he expects the world to bow down to him. His philosophy: “My way or the highway.” Then the flash of lightning: “I am successful,” the guy says to himself.

Sad. But it sells products.

These are the benchmarks for which many people strive. Why? Because any other measures are invisible. No one sees what went on in the mind of the successful person prior to their external success. No one saw the 10,000 hours that the Beatles put in practicing and playing in the Hamburg, Germany, strip joints before they burst on the American scene in 1964. (Thanks for Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers.”)

In New York City, we witness so many images of external success. “The Big Apple.” “New York is the world’s center of the arts, entertainment, finance, fashion, media, sports, education, etc.” We get so used to being in the “best” city in the world; we begin to think that it rubs off on us. It does – it’s the “New York attitude.” We are inside our own bubble talking to ourselves.

But attitude is not substance. It is arrogance covering up anxiety. The mask of superiority has nothing behind it. External success can be a void, empty. We are frauds and fearful of accepting that notion. As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar reminds us, “Attitude determines altitude.’

Preparation for success occurs in private – in one’s head first. How we think determines in large part the level of internal success we want for ourselves. Our brain sets goals. But our emotions have other ideas. Our best intentions are compromised by the conflict.

Regardless of Sean John’s idea of success, each of us writes our own definition of success. Nevertheless whatever we write, our behavior demonstrates what we’ve written. The two may not coincide. When the external matches the internal, then we arrive at our definition of success.

One thing is sure: any definition of success must include our ability to focus, to concentrate. If we are distracted, we become prisoners to a dream without a deadline. Aesop’s fable of the grasshopper and the ant is a warning. While we enjoy the summer sun, we cannot forget that winter follows too quickly. Pause, rest, continue the journey.

UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:

June 9, 2010 – Imagination – Many people limit this human ability to the arts and artists, but everyone has an imagination which can be the springboard for all kinds of enterprises in business and the professions. We’ll talk about what imagination is and can do. If we’re lucky, we’ll even do some imagination exercises.

June 16, 2010 - “Rodney King: ‘Can’t We Just Get Along?” In 1991, Rodney King was the subject of a violent beating at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department which was videoed and shown around the world We won’t recount here the details which led up to the beating, but the acquittal of the LAPD officers led to the 1992 LA riots. During the riots, King appeared on television, pleading with the rioters, “Can’t we just get along?” His question continues to reverberate in any discussion about peace. We’ll examine the many sides to King’s provocative question.

What about one of these topics?

“Repetition”

“Meaning”

“Why Does History Repeat Itself?”

“Heroism”

“Concentration”

“Coping with Adversity”

Student Poetry showcase

“Empathy”

“Connecting the Dots”

Role play of cynical people

“Cold Calling in Sales”

“He’s Just Not That into You”

“Money”

“Critical Listening Institute: Ravel’s ‘Bolero’”

“Criticism – Giving and Receiving”

“Freedom II”

“Gender Communication II”

“Anger”

“SPAR Debate”

“Distraction II”

“Getting Organized”

“Negotiation II”

And dozens of others!

Compare the notice of the session with what really happened!

What happened on Wednesday, May 28, 2010?

“Negotiation”

We know how to get into conflicts. But do we know how to negotiate ourselves out of one without fighting? Negotiation is an important skill that we forget exists when tempers rise. We’ll do an autopsy on the negotiation process with a couple of role plays.

Six familiar faces joined in the conversation. Richard Green, Markus Vayandorf, Michael Mattocks, Ahmet Foruk Colok, Chui Hing Yau and Hal Wicke participated with the three faculty members dominating the conversation – unfortunately. It was exam week and everyone seemed preoccupied.

Until Chui Hing Yau, Ahmet and Michael arrived, the three faculty members had a jolly good time exchanging views. The exchange at times bordered on a dialectical exchange of ideas, in a primitive Hegelian sense.

Hal wanted to broaden the definition of negotiation from the more formal process that politicians, diplomats, lawyers and business people use to one which is more personal. In the formal setting, the various parties usually have a third-party mediator, usually a lawyer, who shuttles between the different groups to arrive at a common conclusion – a treaty, a legislative bill, a business agreement or a divorce settlement.

But what about when you don’t have a disinterested third-party who will be dispassionate about each of the sides? You are forced to do negotiate with the other party or have the negotiation degenerate into a fight.

What about the negotiation you do in your head? Most people call that thinking or decision making.

· Should I take that piece of cake?

· Should I put a quarter in the parking meter and hope the cops don’t give me a ticket?

· Should I take that money that is lying on the ground?

· Shall I take something I found on the internet and put it in my term paper and not give it a footnote?

· I’m at a party with my fiancé. Should I flirt with that gorgeous guy?

· Should I use a cheaper piece of equipment in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and save money?

The list goes on.

The exchange was so interesting that Hal forgot to take notes. Oh, well.

The only two notes Hal had were:

· You can’t negotiate with gravity.

· What about the Trojan horse? People use trickery in their negotiations.

A good discussion with a topic that needs to be recycled for more people.

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We always have a great time exploring these issues. So often our daily life never focuses on these Communication issues. If you have something you want us to discuss please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.

Next time bring a friend. The Communication Club is always an open discussion, limited only by time. Everyone gets a chance to speak. All opinions are welcome. Here is an opportunity for students to challenge professors’ views outside the class without any homework or assignments. You just have to show up and listen and talk if you want.

Hal Wicke