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May 2007
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
8:24:00 AM EDT
This follows a blog I wrote for Huffingtonpost.com. I didn't intend to be cagey about specific ways to persuade a President who is clearly a Commanding type leader, unable in his case, to stretch to Logical, Inspirational, and Supportive styles. But you can't tell someone how you intend to persuade him. What we do know is that power matters to George Bush. He has to feel he's won. In as sense that's a window into reaching him. But it requires skill.
Backing him into a corner works only to let him know it's possible to do so. Then the task is to find a way to bring him out, where he wants to be, on your terms but doing so via his language. It take persuasion mastery. The tendency is to try to persuade someone on the basis of how he should think rather than how he does. It's a common, fatal error.
Yet, too many of us misconstrue learning how the other side thinks as some sort of weakness. It's the opposite. A champion chess player doesn't decide moves only on how the other side ought to act. They have to know how they will act. The same perspective applies here.
Now, the trouble with George Bush is his inability to stretch to another style. He's trapped in his own brain. And that's dangerous for us. Nevertheless, even the worst of entrenched can be nudged with skill. It takes what I describe in It's All Politics as "speaking like the duck." You don't become the duck. You don't learn to like the duck. But you learn to sound like the duck so you can reach him/her. Teaching yourself duck-like tendencies, which is what Democrats must now do, while not becoming too gentle with the duck. This duck is hard-headed at best. But if you know what a duck like this needs, you're half way there.
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8:24:00 AM EDT
Leadership Style
This follows a blog I wrote for Huffingtonpost.com. I didn't intend to be cagey about specific ways to persuade a President who is clearly a Commanding type leader, unable in his case, to stretch to Logical, Inspirational, and Supportive styles. But you can't tell someone how you intend to persuade him. What we do know is that power matters to George Bush. He has to feel he's won. In as sense that's a window into reaching him. But it requires skill.
Backing him into a corner works only to let him know it's possible to do so. Then the task is to find a way to bring him out, where he wants to be, on your terms but doing so via his language. It take persuasion mastery. The tendency is to try to persuade someone on the basis of how he should think rather than how he does. It's a common, fatal error.
Yet, too many of us misconstrue learning how the other side thinks as some sort of weakness. It's the opposite. A champion chess player doesn't decide moves only on how the other side ought to act. They have to know how they will act. The same perspective applies here.
Now, the trouble with George Bush is his inability to stretch to another style. He's trapped in his own brain. And that's dangerous for us. Nevertheless, even the worst of entrenched can be nudged with skill. It takes what I describe in It's All Politics as "speaking like the duck." You don't become the duck. You don't learn to like the duck. But you learn to sound like the duck so you can reach him/her. Teaching yourself duck-like tendencies, which is what Democrats must now do, while not becoming too gentle with the duck. This duck is hard-headed at best. But if you know what a duck like this needs, you're half way there.
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This entry has 2 comments: (Add your own)
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Part One
Your ideas are all well and good for a dictatorship like those seen in Central American or South American countries. Something like your suggestions probably even helped those eager people right below those key insiders who had Hitler's ear especially as the year 1945 approached. However, the United States is merely a capitalistic society that has been carefully schooled to acquire wealth and all manner of material things that routinely increase in size and cost even though their durability is purposefully of the lowest rank. I mean to say we’re very proud of our great thinkers who developed empires that flourished under capitalism since they were larger than the average countries now listed in the UN’s records, of our great entrepreneurs who secretly moved original code from one behemoth company and used it as the basis of the first PC’s logic board and out of that we got the exploitive and deadly Internet, of the wonderful car companies who hire only engineers who cannot allot one moment towards any car design that will guarantee its owner 30 miles or more to the gallon, of all those thousands of credit card companies who have devolved a system of charging outrageous interest-on-interest on even the smallest amount—say anything over 51 cents—while simultaneously plying us with mailers and TV ads screaming about this and that breakthrough product—even a country estate, in some cases!--and then spend the rest of their time offering us endless lists of products all the way from battery chimes for our sluggish cars through whistling condoms for our frail and exhausted sex organ.
5/2/07 5:24 PM
Your ideas are all well and good for a dictatorship like those seen in Central American or South American countries. Something like your suggestions probably even helped those eager people right below those key insiders who had Hitler's ear especially as the year 1945 approached. However, the United States is merely a capitalistic society that has been carefully schooled to acquire wealth and all manner of material things that routinely increase in size and cost even though their durability is purposefully of the lowest rank. I mean to say we’re very proud of our great thinkers who developed empires that flourished under capitalism since they were larger than the average countries now listed in the UN’s records, of our great entrepreneurs who secretly moved original code from one behemoth company and used it as the basis of the first PC’s logic board and out of that we got the exploitive and deadly Internet, of the wonderful car companies who hire only engineers who cannot allot one moment towards any car design that will guarantee its owner 30 miles or more to the gallon, of all those thousands of credit card companies who have devolved a system of charging outrageous interest-on-interest on even the smallest amount—say anything over 51 cents—while simultaneously plying us with mailers and TV ads screaming about this and that breakthrough product—even a country estate, in some cases!--and then spend the rest of their time offering us endless lists of products all the way from battery chimes for our sluggish cars through whistling condoms for our frail and exhausted sex organ.