Dan Erwin

WHAT HAPPENED TO AMERICAN CONSERVATISM?

In a recent article in The Atlantic, the New York Times opinion writer, David Brooks, asked what happened to American Conservatism? A spot-on question. I've only voted for a Republican presidential candidate once in my voting life of 65 years. I voted for Richard Nixon--and for the wrong reason. I thought--at the time--that I didn't want a Catholic in the White House. That was a serious mistake for that reason alone. I left that prejudice years ago. And teaching at a Benedictine University was not the only dagger to put an end to such personal naivete. But I am perturbed by the fact that the majority of Supreme Court justices are Catholic. The notion that their faith doesn't impact their rulings is utter nonsense. With my Protestant background, I disagree on a number of faith issue that seriously influence their rulings. I have enough psych background to understand that religious neutrality in the practice of the law is nonsense. 

Still, I had a lot of satisfaction with many espousing a conservative judiciary, Republican legislators and governors for whom I did not vote, until--that is--McConnell took over the senate. It wasn't just Trump and Trumpism. I flirted awhile with Libertarianism until I realized that it was utterly pagan and totally irresponsible--a stupid stance. I've been a middle-of-the road Democrat with an occasional infatuation with progressive ideas. Unlike many older people, I haven't gotten more conservative over time. But I thought David Brooks' article spelled out the kind of Republican conservatism that managed the state of Michigan very well in my early years.

Much of my readership is too young to have experienced that healthy conservatism, so here's some Brooks' insight and commitment that made the two party system work for years--even though I disagree with some of his Burkean thought. But here some of his insights from the Atlantic article (January-February 2022).

The setup is that "the rich philosophical tradition I fell in love with has been reduced to Fox News and voter suppression....I fell in love with conservatism in my 20s. As a politics and crime reporter in Chicago, I often found myself around public-housing projects like Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes, which had been built with the best of intentions but had become nightmares. The urban planners who designed those projects thought they could improve lives by replacing ramshackle old neighborhoods with a series of neatly ordered high-rises."

But Brooks came to his conservatism uniquely. .

Deception and Lies Can Be Okay, But . . .

big whoppers will always catch up with you. Deception is not only inevitable in business, but sometimes necessary or strategic. If you track “deception” or “lying” on my blog’s Google search, you’ll find a number of blogs dealing with the issue. See, for example, my blog, Powerful people are better liars.

Clearly, I seriously question the notions of authenticity and truthfulness for all situations. My mind always dredges up an interaction with a very close friend, an ordained minister who was also an astute psychologist. As a professor, he had taught students to be open and authentic. But he told me years afterward that he had changed his mind. Those behaviors, he said, assume an inherently fair and just world—a naïve perspective that could sometimes lead to career destruction. It was a decision I had made long before him, but never shared. Indeed, there are plenty of reasons for deception. But before you engage in the behavior think seriously about the issue and its implications.

On the one hand humans don’t naturally seek the truth, but tend to avoid it. Sure, people instinctively accept information they’re exposed to, and sure, they have to work hard to resist falsehoods. And yeah, they cherry-pick data to support their own perspective, and certainly, as the Nobelist Daniel Kahneman has pointed out, they’ll steer clear of facts that might force them to think and work harder. Some of us were even taught to lie. It was often the only resource for avoiding undeserved punishment. All that just might suggest a role for some deception in business—and in life.

Negative personal impact
But unless you’re very careful about deception, you’ll negatively impact your personal reputation. Liar or deceiver is not a tag that you’d want to be labeled with. There’s extensive research demonstrating that most people respond best to people whom they both like and respect. Respect, built on expertise and trust, goes a long way in careers. It makes managing and leading simpler. It can provide you with better opportunities, better salaries and faster promotions. And it also can make it easy to access information and resources from others, needed commodities in today’s business world. So, you want to keep a positive reputation relatively intact. 

Words Are Magic

"Words were originally magic and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power." --Sigmund Freud

We all talk: sometimes to particular persons; sometimes to anyone who will listen; and sometimes to ourselves when we can’t find anyone to listen. In this blog, however, we’re only interested in one piece, one element of talk--and research: words--and how they work in any context. Word choice, perhaps more today than any other time in business, is a unique expertise, a technology made necessary by the knowledge economy. Writers understand the importance of word choice, but the notion that word choice is very important in business doesn't seem to get much play. There's little carryover from literature or, say...medicine. Of course, most people understand the necessary accuracy of words chosen by physicians, especially when making a diagnosis. Today, the smart, up-and-comer in business can facilitate his career with expertise in words. Words, you see, are still magic.

This is not solely because of the technology economy, but also because of newly described understandings of communication and modern rhetoric and how words work. The starting point of conversation is words. They are the symbols of talk, research and artificial intelligence, symbols that we attach, by consensus and tradition, to objects, experiences, ideas and relations that create responses in us and others. It’s very important, therefore, to recognize a number of inherent characteristics about words—and how they impact messages in conversation--and how they make a familiar experience or problem unique...sometimes for the good. But other times for the bad.

Five characteristics of words define both their potential and their complexity:  

Words are dynamic
Words do a lot more than merely convey information. Although the meaning of a word can change drastically over long periods of time, words are also tweaked in most conversations. Their meaning is associated with what one person is trying to get across and how the other is responding. So tweaking may emphasize values, emotions, defensiveness or empathy and clarify priorities, goals, strategies, commitments or success. That’s true for both sides of an interaction: initiator and responder.

A caveat: Although some believe that the dynamic nature of words means that talkers are free to use words any way they like and break the rules of proper English, that’s an absurd parody of “dynamic.”

"Words were originally magic and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power." --Sigmund Freud

We all talk: sometimes to particular persons; sometimes to anyone who will listen; and sometimes to ourselves when we can’t find anyone to listen. In this blog, however, we’re only interested in one piece, one element of talk--and research: words--and how they work in any context. Word choice, perhaps more today than any other time in business, is a unique expertise, a technology made necessary by the knowledge economy. Writers understand the importance of word choice, but the notion that word choice is very important in business doesn't seem to get much play. There's little carryover from literature or, say...medicine. Of course, most people understand the necessary accuracy of words chosen by physicians, especially when making a diagnosis. Today, the smart, up-and-comer in business can facilitate his career with expertise in words. Words, you see, are still magic.

This is not solely because of the technology economy, but also because of newly described understandings of communication and modern rhetoric and how words work. The starting point of conversation is words. They are the symbols of talk, research and artificial intelligence, symbols that we attach, by consensus and tradition, to objects, experiences, ideas and relations that create responses in us and others. It’s very important, therefore, to recognize a number of inherent characteristics about words—and how they impact messages in conversation--and how they make a familiar experience or problem unique...sometimes for the good. But other times for the bad.

Five characteristics of words define both their potential and their complexity:  

Words are dynamic
Words do a lot more than merely convey information. Although the meaning of a word can change drastically over long periods of time, words are also tweaked in most conversations. Their meaning is associated with what one person is trying to get across and how the other is responding. So tweaking may emphasize values, emotions, defensiveness or empathy and clarify priorities, goals, strategies, commitments or success. That’s true for both sides of an interaction: initiator and responder.

A caveat: Although some believe that the dynamic nature of words means that talkers are free to use words any way they like and break the rules of proper English, that’s an absurd parody of “dynamic.”

Why Do Chameleons Get Ahead?

The chameleon's success is built on their ability to self-monitor for the sake of impression management. It’s not that they’re manipulative, but that they’re superb at assessing situations and exceptionally astute at adapting to organizational needs.

Most employees make getting ahead a very high objective. Promotions can drastically change the lives of both those who stay in a company and those who move to another company. Promotions do more than provide different job duties and better rewards. They can also change where you live and who you get to interact with. In today’s high-pressured workplace, gaining new skills and working with different people can help keep you on the learning curve—and provide for job security.

Recently, studies have assessed the power of personality traits to impact promotion and rewards. The studies have ignored the actual performance of individuals and focused, for example, on the Big Five personality traits: conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion and neuroticism. Systematic studies have found that personality can predict job performance fairly well—but only under certain conditions. In fact, you may have lots of job relevant talent and personality traits, like conscientiousness and extraversion, but nevertheless fail to gain power or get promoted. . .

Russian Trolls and the Information Wars

Surprisingly, the most powerful source of false information is neither Trump nor the Russian trolls. It’s a unique American business model that drives the false information.

With all the hullaballoo about false information, the Russian trolls and Trump's ritualized falsehoods on Twitter, I’ve been at a loss to understand the reality and the actual facts behind all that’s going on. So I was delighted to see the data and insights in an article by Vera Tolz in the December 3 issue (“Shortcuts”) of the London Review of Books. Tolz holds an endowed professorship in Russian Studies at the University of Manchester (UK). My review is indicative of a slight bias toward Brit scholarship on issues like this.

The data presented and the resulting conclusions offer a far better background for our understanding of fake information and Russia’s supposed role in it. In addition, given the Washington riots of January 6, which happened after the article was written, we now have a far richer understanding of the role of the internet.

As Tolz argues, Trump’s November 5 press conference in which he claimed he won the election and there had been massive voter fraud are indicative of the fact that we had learned nothing from the election of 2016. The left claimed the press and broadcasters were indulging the right. In contrast, the right claimed that the media hadn’t indulged them enough.

Russian trolls?
By that time, there was a strong liberal consensus that much of the internet misinformation had come from Russia. Pro-Trump Russia wants to disrupt elections, create chaos and interfere with balloting. Tolz points out that both the States and the UK have fallen into the trap of believing in this “information war” paradigm. The paradigm assumes that the main threats to both countries come from the outside. A fact the data does not support.

It’s true that a history of Russian trolls attempting to

“Setting” Boundaries Versus “Negotiating” Boundaries

Is there a substantial difference? Or are they just two words for the same thing? And does it really matter? Prior to the 1950s, they would have been just two words for the same thing. That is, if anyone ever used the term “negotiating” boundaries. The practice of “negotiating” boundaries comes primarily out of the 1980s with the flattening of business hierarchies and the strong orientation to women’s rights. With the exception of sales negotiation, it was rare to talk about negotiating relationships until the mid-1980s. And since then there has been tons of research and some training solely in the practice of negotiating interpersonal boundaries. In simple terms, setting boundaries is one individual determining boundaries for others. Negotiating boundaries is two or more creating a workable agreement on the boundaries between them.

So, there’s a significant difference between setting and negotiating boundaries. Major business leaders as well as many community leaders recognize these differences even without distinguishing between the two terms. But, ask the right questions and they can clarify immediately. I’ve learned, sadly, that these same professionals are typically incapable of using the negotiation competence in their family. Shifting competencies from one context to another without training is highly problematic—even for top business school grads. Similarly, lower level bureaucrats, patriarchal families, pastors, the Roman and Evangelical churches, small and medium-sized privately held owner-firms lack insight to the distinctions and sometimes have a lot of resistance on their hands as a result of their ignorance.

Creating still more difficulty, my psychologist colleagues have no rhetorical format for negotiation. Common formats provide the means for improving, changing or even rejecting former ways of communicating. Without a common format, they’re always attempting to reinvent the wheel, a strategy which readily results in failure or limited success. They talk a good talk about “setting boundaries,” but lack awareness of the extensive implications of differing boundaries. This is surprising, because the counseling profession knows that ignoring or flagrantly setting boundaries is one of the major causes of family breakdown. And there are plenty of other people and organizations in the dark and looking at abject failure because of their ignorance and unwillingness to operate on the basis of negotiating boundaries.

The role of power
Although I’ve never heard anyone make the distinction between setting and negotiating, it’s time to start using the rhetoric much more carefully. Why? Because, the distinctions are primarily about power: who’s got it and what are the most effective ways to use it.

In business organizations power is traditionally viewed from three perspectives: vested, expert and network. Simply put, vested power is the legitimate power given to an individual to run teams, projects or disciplines within an organization. Expert is the power conferred on an individual who has the necessary knowledge others require for success. And network power is that of a person who knows a terrific amount of people who are capable of providing the necessary support and insight which individuals or groups require to succeed. Obviously simplistic, but occasionally useful clarity.

However, as a result of the unique work of the French academic, Michel Foucault, we understand that power is a lot more complex than the above little model. Foucault emphasizes that where there is power, there is also resistance. So, it’s all the more important to understand that successful power has much more to do, for example, with how a person or an organization chooses to organize ideas, make comparisons, and locate new ideas, often metaphorically, within highly respected old ideas. To an obvious degree, knowing what to say, how to say it, and what not to say in a given culture can be powerful negotiation strategies. That kind of expertise is usually necessary for successful boundary negotiation, which at its core is a matter of interaction around “I’ll do this if you’ll do that.” Simple relationships can sometimes be negotiated in three minutes, while major organizations or nations may take ten to twenty years to negotiate their differences in order to achieve mutual goals...

Is It Just Possible That Trump and Trumpism Have Been Good for Us?

I suggested to one of my daughters just yesterday that Trump has actually been good for us, an idea that has crossed my mind over the last six months. Actually, it's an approach that any rhetorical critic understands: to argue against a case, you have to understand the opposing case in spades. And it's especially helpful if the opposing case can be clarified by experience and behaviors on the ground. In my comments to my daughter I explained (poorly) why Trump just might have been helpful to the nation. 

So it's fascinating to see an opinion article by Nicholas Kristof in today's Times making the same point. But he does a far better job of arguing the case.

Our nation is a mess, but overlapping catastrophes have also created conditions that may finally let us extricate ourselves from the mire. The grim awareness of national failures — on the coronavirus, racism, health care and jobs — may be a necessary prelude to fixing our country...

“How do you write like the Economist?”

A new member of the Economist staff asked as he began to compose his first leading article for the magazine some years ago. “Pretend you are God,” a senior colleague replied. But since the deity regularly fails to comment directly on current affairs, as Stefan Collini amusingly wrote in the London Review of Books, that anxious recruit may have had difficulty putting this recommendation into practice. Though I’ve occasionally found errors and unreasonable bias in the Economist, it seems to happen far less in their magazine than others I regularly peruse. Or, they admit to their perspective. So, it has remained a weekly practice for more than forty years.

Over the past few decades the divine model has served the magazine exceptionally well. In 2017, the firm generated operating profits in excess of $70M alongside its related enterprises. This, despite being part of an industry where increasingly large losses are the norm. In fact, just a few days ago McClatchy, which operates the Miami Herald and The Kansas City Star among its 30 newsrooms in 14 states, announced it has filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring.

Still, my commitment to the Economist is not unusual, even in a world in which other sophisticated magazines have difficulty just staying alive, much less keeping readers for decades (except, of course, the New Yorker)...

What I Wrote More Than Ten Years Ago Is Clearly Nonsense Today!!

Thankfully! I'm very happy about that change. The post, published in 2010, was written still earlier. At the time, my coaching revealed that it was absolutely necessary. This single post garnered more than 35,000 readers and something like 32 comments, half profoundly rejecting and the other half profoundly reinforcing. I published most of them on the site. When I got into executive coaching in 1984 there were very few women VP's, much less CEOs. One client, a CEO from a well-known consumer product company, talked to me at length about women in executive roles. I got McKinsey on my side and we encouraged them.  After more than six years at the consumer firm in the mid-1990s, they gradually promoted eight or ten women to VP. Today, women have a significant role at that firm. Though plenty of firms are still male driven, that has been changing over the past ten years--and drastically. I should indicate--with a sense of pride--that my eldest daughter is a vice-president of a leading non-profit.

After reading this, I hope you can have a good laugh at me, and then add your own notes. You'll note my defensiveness in response to some of the early comments. Amusing, but ah well.

The post, originally published on April, 26, 2010, is entitled 7 Behaviors That Keep Women From Getting Ahead

On numerous occasions over the years, I've coached women managers and execs.  Recently, while going through my file on influence management, I stumbled on an old article by Mary Ellen Drummond entitled, Seven Things We Do That Keep Us From Getting Ahead, from a now defunct (?) magazine called Women Managers.  Although these recommendations don't apply to a few female execs that I've worked with, they certainly apply to a large number.  Drummond doesn't mention the basis for her conclusions, but because of my studies in nonverbal research I'm well aware that a number of the recommendations have a research basis.  This information seems to go in cycles in business circles, but I've seen a number of recent articles on personal presentation.  I'm also aware that the top business schools, including Booth, Kellogg, Harvard and Stanford give time in their program for personal presentation, usually in leadership development programs that focus on interpersonal communication.

I've found that typically, because of their socialization, women are not aware of these issues.  The issues surface out of the assumption that business is a man's world, and that if a woman wants to succeed, she'll need to mimic some of the male behaviors.  (Although I've seen and read all kinds of responses to that assumption, I recommend a great deal of flexibility in these issues.  FYI: I've noticed more than a few men that need help with their business behaviors.)...

Can Charisma Be Learned?

There are actually two questions here: can charisma be learned, and will it positively impact business outcomes? Since I’ve worked over the years with clients to develop their charisma, I find the questions, well…amusing. Because the answers to both questions from those in the disciplines of rhetoric and communication is yes. Of course. We’ve known that for years. In fact, for centuries.

But what’s especially interesting about recent research (2011) by the psych and economics faculty at the University of Lausanne is that they look at the question from the perspective of economics in the European context, confirming the power of the discipline of charisma.

But there’s a lot more pragmatic stuff to be added to this research as well as most blogs and studies. The discipline of charisma is inevitably viewed from a public address format: a speaker addressing a group. But for career people, there are far more opportunities to practice and learn in a one-on-one or small group. Furthermore, it’s best to start adding charisma from your tool-kit early on, rather than waiting until you get a managerial promotion. It’s also far less intimidating to learn in a one-on-one or small group, than to wait until you’re a manager and have large group responsibilities.

Given my assumption, let’s ignore the research laundry list of tactics, and the unique opportunities provided by public address settings. Besides, if you gain the competencies in small groups, you can automatically transfer them to the public address context. So, skip those long lists of skills to gain the competency, and focus on just two very significant tactics that will set you on the path to charisma. Furthermore, with just a bit of reflection, these two skills for one-on-ones and small groups will readily open up other strategies..

5 Steps to Get Buy-In from Your Colleagues (and Your Boss)

Many people do not seem to recognize that getting buy-in for their ideas is not only key to organizational success--but also to personal and career success. This is an issue that does not seem to go away or get old. Furthermore, the inter-disciplinary set-up of businesses today just makes the competency both more difficult and more valuable.

Surprisingly, there is a definite process for how actionable recommendations evolve and gain acceptance. When I say “process” I’m revealing that much of communication is built upon protocols. To a degree, communication process can be compared to software development process—to coding.  

But don’t misunderstand. Though the analogy to coding is insightful, the behavioral consequences of communication are far more unpredictable and the inferences can be strikingly different and even more political. Still, basic processes exist for many communication competencies. Once internalized these communication processes (I prefer “rhetorical processes”) can be applied and adapted to differing contexts and interactions. In short, there is specific, learnable process for how actionable recommendations can have a better chance of gaining support.