Americans are concerned about government spending, debt, jobs, and keeping the homeland safe. They expect us to focus on these core issues until we get them right. In the year ahead, there is much work to be done, and the task before us is clear. We need to get Americans back to work and remain focused on keeping America secure and putting our nation back on the road to prosperity. Republicans look forward to working with the president on these shared goals.
--Senator Mitchell McConnell of Kentucky, Responding to President Obama's Speech
How can you make sense out of this legislator's statements? Of course, the party of the person who said this (Republican) is irrelevant. It could have been written by an Independent or by a Democrat.
But, the first question to be asked about any statement is to ask what you mean when you say. . . ? Define the terms. Specifically, what spending, what debt, what kind of jobs and what timeline are we talking about? McConnell is in agreement that something should be done. Nothing is stated, though, about why it should be done, how it should be done or or when it should be done ("until we get them right").
With none of the process issues (why or how) explained. I can only suspect that one purpose of the statement might be to leave the impression that the Republicans want to work with the Democrats.
Currently, the polls show satisfaction with the Republican party at half the level of satisfaction with the Democratic party. Satisfaction with the Democratic party runs below the fiftieth percentile. Perhaps the opposition party believes that if it says something positive about the President's speech it might help their poll numbers.
So, McConnell has done an excellent job of saying nothing, but he wants his readers to believe that he's positive about the speech. That leaves a lot of wiggle room.
So my elementary analysis is obvious to you? Hmmmmm. I hardly ever hear anyone in business analyze statements from the point of definitions. The assumption, instead, must be that the listener understands, or the "rules" don't permit that. Yet, that's the most obvious reason for misunderstanding.
The most basic step for avoiding breakdowns and misunderstandings is to ask one simple question: "What do you mean when you say . . . ?"
Here's another example. Following the State of the Union speech and the Republican rebuttal, I took 10 minutes to watch the CNN panel discussion, hoping that David Gergen might have an insight or two. Instead, one of the panel members stated her opinion on the speech. In effect, she opined, it was an awful speech. "It wasn't presidential." I waited, and waited. Not a single soul asked the defining question: "When you say the speech wasn't presidential, what, exactly do you mean?" Or, "What would a truly presidential speech sound like?" Or, "Why do you believe the speech wasn't presidential?"
I can only conclude that the "rules" of the panel were that a member should never ask another to define her terms. It must be very important to never embarrass or threaten anyone in public. Check out my conclusion. You'll see the rule followed in the majority of relationships. The consequence of this failure is that no one learns, grows or actually engages in any sort of problem solving. Instead, the two word phrase, "not presidential," goes all over the ether. Google the phrase. It has a long history of signifying nothing. Indeed, it's quite possible that the panel member brought in a list of phrases she could use to emphasize a point, and "not presidential" was on her list.
Chris Argyris points out that such routines in business make it highly likely that individuals, groups and organizations will not detect or correct a statement that might embarrass or threaten another because of three social rules:
- Always bypass such statements and act as if it was not said. That was exactly what the panel members did.
- Make the bypass undiscussable. No one would ever think of discussing the fact that they'd ignored the "no presidential" statement.
- Make it's undiscussability undiscussable. (Why can't we talk about the rule that we can't talk about this?)
There is one hilarious exception to the rule from CNBC in 2007. On Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski refused to read the lead news story about Paris Hilton. She tried to burn the written announcement with a cigarette lighter, and when her colleagues stopped her, she shredded the page in plain sight of the viewer. It was, as one writer noted, "The shredding that was heard around the world." She explained to her colleagues and viewers exactly why the story was too irrelevant to be read.
At last count, the shredding was viewed over 3,780,00 times on YouTube. She made the undiscussable quite discussable--and in plain sight.
