Say it Better

Why We Seeking Meaning in Most Any Action, Sometimes Getting Us Into Trouble

Even when shown circles, triangles and other geometric objects randomly moving about on a screen, we tend to turn them into familiar objects.  Then we instinctively attempt to determine what they mean, a study found.

Two examples:

1. “When asked what they had been watching, the subjects used words like ''chase'' and ''capture.'' They did not just see the random movement of shapes on a screen; they saw pursuit, planning, escape.”

2. They “spontaneously endowed the geometric figures, on the basis of their motions, with ‘human’ properties. The larger the triangle shown, the more likely it would be seen as ‘aggressive, war-like, belligerent, mean, angry, etc.’”

Whether we love, dislike or don’t know someone, when we see that person doing something we instantly try to figure out what it means. Every apparently minor remark or action causes us to do this. 

The difficulty usually happens when we project onto that person what she or he intends by that action. It is rare that we take a moment longer to step into their shoes to see what their action means to them (even if they may not be conscious of it).

The best way to see what it means is to recall what it meant when that person acted that way in the past. A pattern of action, tied to that person’s intention, is usually accurate.  That’s why it is especially valuable when seeing people for the first time, to keep an open mind – before making up our minds about them.  Of course such behavior runs counter to our instinct to survive where we rush to find meaning and decide whether to flee or stay.

From the psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel who first studied our desires to see meaning, even in abstract images, we learn: 

• "It is safer to mistake a twig for a snake than vice versa.

 • Stories help us make sense of what's happening but we do have a tendency to overreact to over-interpret.

• Leaders (well everybody really) should be always thinking about their actions and what stories will people be telling themselves as a result of their actions.”

 My takeaway is to recognize again the value in Going Slow to Go Fast. That is to purposely pause when in a situation to look longer, to understand what that person really means before responding. I often fail at this and act too quickly. 

To succeed in life and in work and to savor our time with others our first goal would seem to be to bring out their better side. That matters mightily if we are to get in sync. Only then can that person see and support our better side. This is not a one-time lesson unfortunately but one I must constantly re-learn.

"If you're for de-clawing cats, raise your hand"

How vivid and relevant is the image associated with your cause, club, company, product or organization? 

Clue: Does it get people talking?

The Paw Project, an animal advocacy organization, put this message on a billboard in West Hollywood.

Tip: What credible, briefly-stated points (never more than three) do you provide in support of your image and main message?

At the project’s website learn three gripping points in support of their campaign:

1. The human hand on the billboard is a graphic and anatomically-correct representation of declaw surgery performed on cats.Since a cat's claw grows from within the last bone of its toe, declawing requires the amputation at the last "knuckle."

2. Declawing is one of the most painful surgeries routinely performed by veterinarians according to veterinary experts.

3. There is a dramatic contrast between “a cougar who suffered painful and crippling health problems after declawing, and the natural, pain-free range of movement in an undeclawed healthy cougar” as shown in a video.

By the way, the city of West Hollywood seems to be the first in the U.S. to outlaw the de-clawing of all animals, including domestic cats yet, across the bay from me, San Francisco may follow suit.

 

Could You Slip Your Main Message Into the Conversation Before Colbert…..

… interrupts?  Could you do it without looking obnoxious, foolish or flustered? Watch Bill McKibben stay on message, albeit earnestly as befits his character and his topic yet still look likeable. 

Look for the dry line of humor Bill throws back at Stephen Colbert mid-way through the interview – without either person missing a beat. Perfect foils for each other. 

I doubt that I’d perform on all cylinders about my most passionate cause yet watching this short clip several times does help me practice. There's also the worry that others will stop listening before I stop talking.

The Unfolding Conversation That Captured a City’s Attention, And You Can Too

When a fancy waterfront restaurant was opening soon in Buffalo, the smaller, nearby, homegrown restaurants, including Garcia’s got worried. For just $20,000 Garcia’s hired a scrappy ad agency to create a campaign around which everyone was sworn to secrecy. It got the town talking, won an Obie and, on a momentous day, pulled an eager crowd to their restaurant.  Perhaps you, too, can pull customers into your place of business, using the same penny-pinching, conversation-based and conversation-provoking campaign elements…..

Design your campaign to be:

Specific

Begin with a specific, situation-based question, directed - not at the masses – but to a person, thus involving us.

Brief

Use few words so that:

• You have honed down to your simple, core story, making every word count. 

• The message (typeface) can be large and easy to read

• More people will pay attention to a “quick read.”

 

Emotional

Tap into a universally-felt emotion via a familiar situation feeling. In this case, love and courtship.

 

Personal

Craft lines of conversation (rather than ad copy) from distinctly different personalities to:

• Evoke a voyeuristic sense of eavesdropping is extremely hard to resist.

• Make us feel we’re a part of a real, unfolding story.

 

Mysterious

Don’t give too many details at a time so they can fill the rest in from their memories and imagination – and want more.

 

Build-up

By releasing a detail at a time over time (whether on a billboard, email or online) you heighten anticipation – just like the classic Burma Shave billboard campaigns.

 

Suspense

May them want to see how the story ends.

Us

Give them a way to participate – and bring friends to share the experience.

Thank you Drew McLellan for discovering this story and describing it so well. I can see why all those companies seek your advice.

By the way, you could use the same elements to involve attendees in the multi-sensory moments of the unfolding story of your conference or other event.

How Your Words Reveal Your Self-Image, World View and More

Who’s the VIP in the room? Find out by listening to the words people use. The higher one’s status in a situation, for example, the less one uses “I” in conversation.  We also use “I” less in the weeks after a major cultural upheaval like 9/11 for Americans. As we age we tend to use more positively emotional words and refer to ourselves less. The higher one’s social class the fewer emotional words one uses.

From our truthfulness to dominance or our mood we are enormously revealing to others – if they know how to recognize the content and style of our words.  That’s what University of Texas psychologist James W. Pennebaker is discovering.

Style words, according to Pennebaker, include conjunctions, articles, pronouns, prepositions and auxiliary verbs. Content words are nouns, regular verbs, and most adjectives and adverbs. The content words are what someone is saying and style words are how they are saying it.

Women use more negations, social words, pronouns, verbs, and references to psychological processes than men do. (Surprise.) Men tend to use more big words, numbers, articles and prepositions.

Pennebaker also discovered that: 

• One’s health is more likely to improve, not with the increased use of “emotion” words (sad, happy, joyful) but with more use of cognitive words (know, realize, understand).

• Public figures speaking in press conferences use more 1st person singular when they are depressed or prone to suicide.

 • When people tell the truth, they are more like to use first person singular pronouns.

 • When people’s testosterone levels increased rapidly, they dropped in their use of references to other people.

 • People who talked about traumatic experiences are physically healthier than those who kept such experiences secret.

Three free ways to learn how you see yourself and your world

 One

Learn about your personality from the style words you use by taking Pennebaker’s online questionnaire. He will analyze the results for you for free if you’ll allow him to use the results in his research. Discover whether you are high or low in the classic “big five” dimensions of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

Two

You can quickly glean insights about how you see the world depending on how you describe something as simple as a bottle, using what Pennebaker calls “the meaning extraction strategy.” 

Three

Or take just 15 minutes to describe yourself and learn even more.

Team Writing a Landmark Speech

Anyone who is preparing a speech can glean some takeaways from this fascinating backstory on crafting a speech for Cairo, when Obama chose to “not be cautious.”

1. Have a single and singular goal for your talk.

Obama saw the speech as an effort to "speak the truth" about U.S. relations with the Muslim world.

2.  Determining tone is as important as choosing the content.

Together they create the metamessage that the audience will grok. Considering your audience, what is the main tone you want to embody with your audience? Obama, for example, giving his first speech from a "major Islamic forum" chose a respectful tone to maximize the chance to be credible with his bold – some say blunt  - content.

The secondary and reinforcing tones were steadiness and strength.  They were vital when Obama took (content) stands that alternatively discomforted different audiences he wished to reach.

For example, bringing up women’s rights upset some Arab audiences.  And “Some Israelis and American Jews recoiled at the way Obama juxtaposed the suffering of the Holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitic persecution with the experience of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.”

I agree with Nick Morgan that Obama still has room for improvement (as do I) to make his body language get in sync with his message.

3. Ask for insights from people who have first-hand knowledge of the audience. You may not have a speech-writing team like Obama yet you can get some first-hand insights rather easily.

That’s why, as a public speaker I ask the meeting planner who hires me for the names of three disparate leaders in the group. I interview them in advance, beginning with open-ended questions. A helpful starter question is “What are the top-of-mind issues for opportunities for them?”