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One year ago, I organized a four-week book tour for the Chinese edition of Power of Communication, visiting more than 15 prestigious universities and participating in many events in four Chinese cities.

During the trip, I had one day off on my birthday while we were in Beijing. As a birthday gift to myself, I visited the Yonghe Temple (also known as Yonghe Lamasery), the largest and most perfectly preserved lamasery in China. It was built more than 400 years ago and was the imperial palace of the Yongzheng Emperor, the fifth emperor of the Qing Dynasty. After the Yongzheng Emperor’s ascension to the throne, the imperial palace became a Tibetan Buddhist lamasery.

The Yonghe Temple reminded me of my old days in Tibet – admiring the way lamas debated each other to come to a clearer understanding of Buddhism. It also reminded me of watching crows lingering over the top of the mountains. The smell of the incense and the poor-quality air at the Yonghe Temple mingled together smoothly. I do not subscribe to a particular religious tradition, but I respect all faiths. As I stood there, I reflected upon how religion and history intertwine in the same way those scents mingled together.

One year later, I gave myself another special birthday gift. Last Sunday, I visited the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. I decided to visit that place because there are some very significant Chinese notables buried there, including the former First Lady of the Republic of China (ROC).

My motherland China is famous for its five thousand years of history. My hometown Shanghai is famous as “The Paris of the East” during the 1920s and 1930s, the beginning of the ROC. I love everything about the old Shanghai and read many books by Ailing Chang, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Geling Yan, Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai and other writers who are either from that era or wrote a lot about that era. Everything from that era fascinates me. That is also why when I learned that the former First Lady of the ROC, the former Premier of the ROC, the former top diplomat of the ROC, and former governors of the ROC government and Central Bank are all buried in Ferncliff Cemetery, I knew I had to go.

The world lost several distinguished leaders this spring. We lost Nancy Reagan. We lost Harper Lee. We lost Umberto Eco. We lost “China’s Nightingale” Xiaoyan Zhou. We lost Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal. We lost Japanese writer Satoko Tsushima (daughter of the renowned Japanese writer Osama Dazai).

We are rarely able to decide the way we leave the world, but we can easily decide the way we want people to remember us. Even the space in which our bodies take our final rest connotes the way we will be remembered. For example, in the history of the ROC, some notables made their memorials very ostentatious, while others opted for more low-key resting grounds.

The three mausoleums housing the first ROC President, the first female Vice-Chairman of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the first President of modern ROC in Taiwan were all built in an extravagant way:

In his oral will, Sun Yat-sen, ROC’s founding father, wanted his remains to be embalmed for public display, just as the Soviet Union publicly displayed Lenin’s remains. But the Soviet Union did not agree to share their embalming techniques, as they believe that only Lenin can be “immortal.” In the end, China built a 80,000 square meter mausoleum for Sun in Nanjing, which is now a popular tourist attraction.
Sun’s wife, Soong Ching-ling, also known as Madame Sun Yat-sen and one of the “Soong sisters,” had served as the Vice Chairman of PRC and survived heavy criticism during the Cultural Revolution. Her tomb is located in Shanghai and has also become a tourist attraction.
Sun Yat-sen’s successor, Chiang Kai-shek, who ruled Taiwan as President of the Republic of China and General of the Kuomintang until his death in 1975, is “temporarily” resting in the Cihu Mausoleum in Taiwan. It’s temporary because he wished to be ultimately buried in his hometown in Zhejiang province once the Kuomintang recovered Mainland China from the Communists. He was not buried in the traditional way, but entombed in a black marble sarcophagus. He may end up being this way for a long time.
(Left: Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum; Right: Soong Ching-ling’s Mausoleum; Bottom: Chiang Kai-shek’s Mausoleum)

On the other hand, the former First Lady of the ROC, the other two of the three Soong sisters, the former Premier of the ROC, one of the most influential Chinese diplomats and core leaders of the former Chinese Central Bank are buried in a very low-key way in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York:

Chiang Kai-shek’s wife Soong May-ling, who was not only a First Lady of the ROC, but also Soong Ching-ling’s younger sister and Sun’s sister in law, is buried in a private room in the Ferncliff Mausoleum. Her lifespan covered three centuries (19^th, 20^th and 21^st). According to The New York Times, she is the only first lady during World War II who lived into the 21^st century[1]. She did not want to be buried with her older sister Song Ching-ling in Shanghai nor with her husband in Taiwan. Rather, she wanted to be buried next to her eldest sister, Soong Ai-ling, who died before her and was already buried in Ferncliff.
The eldest Soong sister, Soong Ai-ling, who was also a sister-in-law of both Sun Yat-sen and Chiang kai-shek, rests next to Soong May-ling’s private room in Ferncliff. Soong Ai-ling seemed to be the most low profile Soong compared to her Vice Chairman sister and her First Lady sister. However, she was Sun Yat-sen’s chief secretary after her graduation from Wesleyan College – all Soong sisters are Wesleyan’s alumnae – and gave the job to her younger sister Soong Ching-ling, who later became Sun’s wife. Soong Ai-ling was also the matchmaker for Chiang Kai-shek and Soong May-ling. Soong Ai-ling is buried with her husband, Kung Hsiang-hsi, and their children, making her the only Soong who is buried with her husband and has children.
Soong Ai-ling’s husband, Kung Hsiang-hsi, is buried alongside her and their children in Ferncliff Mausoleum. He was the former Premier, former Minister of Industry and Commerce, former Minister of Finance of the ROC and former Governor of the Central bank of China. He received a master’s degree in economics from Yale University.
Kung’s brother-in-law, Soong Tse-ven, is one level down in the same Mauseloum building. Soong Tse-ven was also highly influential in determining the economic and diplomatic policies of the ROC government in the 1930s and 1940s. After graduating with a master’s degree in economics from Harvard University and a doctorate degree in economics at Columbia University, Soong Tse-ven returned to China and served in the Kuomintang-controlled government as the Minister of Finance, the Governor of the Central Bank of China, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was the head of the Chinese delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in 1945, which later became the United Nations. He was in charge of negotiating with the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Moscow and in charge of negotiating with the 33^rdS. President Harry Truman in Washington, D.C.
The second youngest brother in the Soong family, Soong Tse-liang, is also buried in Ferncliff Cemetery. He was not as influential as his sisters and brother, but he also served as the Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the ROC government.
(Upper Left: Kung with
Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten

; Upper Right: Soong Tse-ven on TIME’s cover; Bottom Left: Soong May-ling on NBC; Bottom Right: Soong Ai-ling graduated from Wesleyan College.)

The Soong sisters are not the only Chinese notables in Ferncliff Cemetery. The cemetery listed three Chinese in their Celebrites & Notables list: Madame Chiang, Soong Tse-ven and Wellington Vi Kyuin Koo. Koo was a very prominent diplomat of the ROC. He attended the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 as one of China’s representatives; he served as an Ambassador to France, Great Britain and the United States; he was a participant in the founding of the United Nations; he sat as a judge on the International Court of Justice in The Hague in the mid 20^th Century.
(Photo of the members of the commission of the League of Nations created by the Plenary Session of the Preliminary Peace Conference, Paris, France, 1919.Wellington Vi Kyuin Koo is the 4th standing from right to left.)

Koo’s daughter, Patricia Koo Tsien, a senior official in the United Nations and the founder of the Ad Hoc Group on Equal Rights for Women in the U. N. Secretariat, is buried next to her husband on the second floor of the Ferncliff Mausoleum. Another influential Chinese diplomat, Dr. Victor Chi-tsai Hoo, the first Chinese Under-Secretary of the United Nations, is buried in the same building.

(Patricia Koo Tsien in 1989. Source: Columbia Library columns)

The last unexpected name I saw in Ferncliff Cemetery is not as famous as any of the rest, but completes the puzzle of a well-known Chinese romantic epic. There was a legendary Chinese poet Xu Zhi-mo in the beginning of the ROC. He was legendary in part because of his romantic poems, and his friendship with the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, but mostly because of his romance with three Chinese women. He had two sons with his first wife, Yu-Yi Chang, a woman he never loved but who he married at his parents’ direction. Xu finished his studies at Columbia University and flew to London, and fell in love with Chinese architect and writer Lin Hui-yin. His most renowned poem is about his feelings for her and their days together in Cambridge. By the way, Lin Hui-yin’s niece is Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Xu divorced his wife, but Lin only ever saw Xu as a friend. Xu later married another Chinese artist, Lu Xiaoman. This union was regarded as unethical because two divorcees getting married was not considered appropriate in China 90 years ago. Xu died in a plane crash in 1931. Lin Hui-yin died in 1955 and is buried in Revolutionary Cemetery in Peking because she contributed to the design of the Chinese national flag, the National Emblem of the People’s Republic of China and the Monument to the People’s Heroes located in the Tiananmen Square. Lu died in 1965 and is buried in Suzhou. Chang was not as famous as Xu’s other love interests, but she had another happy marriage after her divorce with Xu and lived much longer (she died in 1988). She is buried in Ferncliff Maseoulum. And her son with Xu and daughter-in-law are buried beside her.

(Lin Hui-yin,Rabindranath Tagore and Xu Zhi-mo)

I was surprised to see so many famous Chinese names in a cemetery in Westchester County, New York. But I am not surprised to see that a part of Chinese history is buried more than 7,000 miles away from China.

I still vividly remember the squawking crows in the cemetery in Hartsdale. I had never thought of the crow as a spirit animal associated with life and death until I saw them in Tibetan lamaseries, in Japanese Shinto shrines, and now in a cemetery in Westchester County.

People rarely visit a cemetery on their birthdays. I did. And I am still not quite sure if all human beings are born equal, but I am pretty sure all human beings are equal in death. If you visit any public cemeteries, you will find that Christian crosses and Jewish Stars, Chinese names and English names are standing next to each other – sharing together this hallowed ground.

Sidebar:

Ailing Chang (1920 – 1995)

Born in Shanghai, Chang is one of the most influencial writers in modern China. Her fiction is among the best Chinese literature of her time. As University of Southern California professor Dominic Cheung says: “Had it not been for the political division between Nationalist and Communist Chinese, she would almost certainly have won a Nobel Prize[2].” Her second husband, Reyher, was among those who helped to extricate German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and his family from Nazi Germany[3]. Chang was found dead in her Los Angles apartment where she had lived as a virtual recluse, according to New York Times Obituaries[4].

Geling Yan (1959 – )

Born in Shanghai, Yan is a renowned novelist and scriptwriter. She is a member of the Hollywood Writer’s Guild of America and the Writer’s Association of China. She served in the People’s Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution and later as a journalist in the Sino-Vietnamese War, achieving a rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel.

Kenneth Pai Hsien-yung (1937 -)

Pai is a famous writer, who wrote about the Old Shanghai, Taiwan, Chicago and New York. He was born Muslim, but attended missionary Catholic schools and embraced Buddhist meditation practices. His father was a well-known Kuomintang General. Pai won the Order of Brilliant Star award for ROC for outstanding contribution.

Leo Ou-fan Lee (1942 – )

Lee is a commentator and author. He was a professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong, Princeton University, Indiana University, University of Chicago, University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard University. He was elected a Fellow of Academia Sinica (Chinese Academy) in Taiwan.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/international/asia/24CHIANG.html

[2] http://china.usc.edu/usc-gains-treasured-chinese-collection

[3]http://digital.lib.umd.edu/archivesum/actions.DisplayEADDoc.do;jsessionid=17796A4CC5813ADDB316133EFC64CDC5?source=MdU.ead.litms.0037.xml&style=ead

[4] http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/13/obituaries/eileen-chang-74-chinese-writer-revered-outside-the-mainland.html

March 20, 2016/by Logos Consulting Group

Logos Conversation Series: An Interview with Kristin Johnson

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In the spirit of advising, sharing and reaching a global community, Logos opened its doors to a conversation with Kristin Johnson and Logos colleague Iris Wenting Xue, to talk about public relations, teaching, and the pursuit of learning.

You have worked in both large PR firms and a boutique consulting group. How would you compare the experiences?

My experience at PR firms and my experience at Logos are completely different. PR firms – while all unique in culture – have a certain structure and organization that feels consistent firm to firm. In PR firms, I knew that I’d work on a team, generally have two to three clients, and work with those clients on a consistent basis to achieve a stated public relations objective. Primarily, my client was in a communication role, such as a Director of Communication, or a Marketing Communication Manager.

At Logos, I work independent and on teams, for any number of clients (though never competing) for both limited and long-term engagements to address larger business objectives using communication strategy. Additionally, I spend quite a bit of my day reading, researching, and developing new models and approaches for helping clients identify, reach, and maintain their business goals. My clients are sometimes in a communication role, but more often they are experts in their ‘non-communication’ roles who need to be effective communicators in order to fulfill their leadership function. C-suite and senior executives, attorneys, doctors, non-profit and NGO leaders are all examples of clients.

I will say that at both PR firms and in my consulting work, I’ve had the great privilege of working with clients who welcome me into their world and trust me as an advisor and partner to help them solve critical business challenges.

You are simultaneously a senior advisor at Logos Consulting Group and an instructor at NYU. What is the relationship between these two identities?

My work at Logos Consulting Group and Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership, as well as my work at NYU, all focus on building executive communication and leadership skills.

At Logos, on the consulting side, I often help clients identify communication gaps that expose business vulnerabilities. For example, a client wanted to know if his/her company was prepared to address a crisis stemming from social media discussions. My team and I cooked up a realistic scenario of escalating proportion, based on the client’s business, and then put the client and client’s team through a realistic simulation. The outcome of the simulation revealed where the team’s response was weak, and allowed us to provide recommendations for improved preparedness.

On the Institute side of Logos, I work with senior level professionals from all industries to strengthen the effectiveness of their communication in preparation for high stakes presentations, such as media interviews or keynote addresses. I have a strong background in healthcare communication so one example is that I often work with medical researchers to simplify complex concepts for the lay community. There is a temptation for technical experts to be…well, technical. So my clients come to me to help them convey their messages to their audience simply, yet without sacrificing the significance of the scientific contribution.

At NYU, my students have varied work and industry experience, so I try to tailor each semester to class needs just as I tailor my coaching for my clients’ needs. In fact, I tell my students that I will treat them as my clients. However, unlike my Logos clients, I ask my students to treat me as if I were their client.

For any advising or coaching I do – be it clients or students – it’s important to define the objective of the project and establish expectations at the onset. If those two criteria are met, it will be a successful engagement.

There are lots of books about PR and about consulting, but you want to write a book about PR consulting. How did that come to mind?

I teach a class at NYU called, “PR Consulting.” It’s a course in the School of Professional Studies, as part of the elective options in the master’s program in public relations and corporate communication. I had the liberty to design the course when I started teaching in the Fall of 2014, and immediately looked to see what material existed on the topic. I was astonished to learn that while there are many books on management consulting, and many books on public relations, there is not one book that provides theory or practical structure for public relations consulting. When I think of PR consulting, I see it as a marriage between a public relations practice and all that entails, along with the art of effective client service and management. Based on student feedback the past few semesters, and feedback from others who I’ve counseled on starting a PR consultancy, I’m convinced there is appetite for a book that expands on this topic.

You were recently a student yourself. I know you earned your CFA certificate. With a communication background, was that difficult?

Well to back up, the Claritas^® Investment certificate is a non-credit certification awarded by the CFA Institute. The CFA Institute is the same body that governs and administers the Chartered Financial Analyst^® designation, which is one of the most rigorous certification programs for investment managers worldwide.

I am not an investment manager, nor do I aspire to be one! However, many of my clients are leaders in the financial community. I didn’t have more than an advanced lay understanding of the investment industry when I joined Logos, so I set out to know it well. The Claritas program provides a comprehensive foundational understanding of the global investment industry. It involves about 100 hours of independent study on everything from economics to investment instruments. There is a two-hour, pass/fail, proctored exam at the end of the studies.

I passed! The exam part was a bit nerve-wracking, but the actual studying was fascinating. It provided me with a behind-the-scenes peek at the systems and structures that keep world markets moving. It was an excellent overview and allowed me to better appreciate not only my financial sector clients’ work, but also business drivers in general from the financial perspective. The more perspective and knowledge I have, the better equipped I am to advise clients.

Congratulations on your 2015 NYC Marathon achievement! Did you bring any of your business skills to the race? Do you have any more races planned?

Thank you! It was my first marathon! I am a bit shy about the finish, since I didn’t achieve the time I wanted. During my 18-mile training run, about six weeks before the marathon, I injured my IT band. As a result, I was in PT twice a week leading up to the run. I was concerned I may not be able participate at all, but opted to complete the race with the expectation that I’d need to stop and stretch every mile.

What kept me going was a little gift that I left for myself at the finish line…another chance. New York Road Runners, which hosts the marathon, has a marathon qualifying program where runners who run nine qualifying races and volunteer for a race are eligible to run in the following year’s marathon. It’s called the “9+1” program. I arranged for the 2015 marathon to be my ninth qualifying race for the 2016 marathon, so I knew that no matter how well I did, crossing the finish line would guarantee me an opportunity to run in the next marathon…this year! I would say that goal setting, with a clear strategy for achieving the goal, is how my consulting work translated into my training. In advance of this November’s marathon, I’m running the Brooklyn half marathon in May, Napa to Sonoma half marathon in July, and of course some smaller qualifying races to secure my 9+1 for the 2017 NYC Marathon. The irony is that while I absolutely love the discipline of training, the camaraderie of races, and the joy of surpassing my limits, I don’t necessarily love the act of running. I have yet to regret a run, however, so I think I’ll keep going.

I think that’s a good note to end on. Thank you for your time.

Thank you! It’s usually my clients who are in the interviewee seat, so this was fun.

March 16, 2016/by Logos Consulting Group

Orwell Called It: The Dumbing Down of the Body Politic

Blog, Communication, Ethics, Framing, International Affairs, Language, Leadership, Politics, Power of Communication, Propaganda, Strategy, Trust, Worth Reading

By Helio Fred Garcia

This week the Donald Trump phenomenon seemed to reach a tipping point, with Republican leaders scrambling to prevent his continued wins in the primaries, and with debate discourse hitting new lows. Not only did we see him feign ignorance of David Duke and the KKK, but we were even treated to debate commentary about the relative size of the candidate’s genitals.

Trump: Not a Cause But a Consequence

But the rise of Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, and all the bipartisan angst it is creating, is not a cause but rather a consequence.

It is the predictable result of decades of degradation of political discourse, facilitated by a media more interested in grabbing an audience’s attention than in covering issues. And the worst part is that we should have seen it coming.

In fact, we could have seen it coming if we had known what to look for. And we should have known.

Even now as the frightening reality is finally being recognized, we seem to be grappling only with the symptom of the problem — what Trump says and how to prevent him from ever being in a position of authority — without recognizing that there’s a greater challenge that will continue regardless of how we address the immediate problem.

We can solve the Trump problem but still be as vulnerable to another authoritarian figure who energizes the disenfranchised, the angry, and the scared to similar effect.

Orwell Called It

Almost exactly seventy years ago George Orwell published Politics and the English Language. That brief essay served as the nonfiction treatment for what two years later would become Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Most educated Americans are familiar with Nineteen Eighty-Four. That popular novel is based in a dystopian future in a continuous state of war, where an intrusive and authoritarian government keeps people uninformed, and where political language is intentionally misleading. So the Ministry of Peace wages war. The Ministry of Truth controls all information, news, propaganda, and art. The Ministry of Plenty rations food. Our term “Orwellian” refers to the use of language to convey the opposite of reality.

But most educated Americans are not familiar with the essay that served as the novel’s basis. Sadly, Politics and the English Language helps us understand the current state of the American body politic, and it isn’t pretty.

Says Orwell:

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”

“Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties… – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

The problem arises when politicians use language in a disingenuous way, asserting things they don’t necessarily believe and making arguments that may sound compelling but that logically don’t make sense.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.”

But however damaging individual instances of political language, of insincere speech, or of intentionally misleading statements may be, it’s the effect of these that causes harm.

The central idea in Politics and the English Language is this:

Political speech has the effect of reducing citizens’ critical reasoning skills….
…This creates a self-perpetuating cycle…
…where as people become less discerning they become more susceptible to political speech…
…which further diminishes their critical reasoning skills…
…and so on…
…and so on…
…until a fully uninformed public creates conditions for authoritarian government to thrive.

A Cause Can Become an Effect, And So On:

It’s The Cycle That Matters

The key idea, though, is the relationship between cause and effect.

Orwell notes that an effect can become a cause, and a cause can become an effect. It’s the cycle that matters. And in the end the result is a citizenry that remains intentionally ignorant of the issues that matter, unaware of what is happening to them, and easily manipulated by politicians.

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.”

“Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

The predictable result of this cycle is a citizenry that is easily manipulated, that becomes immune to persuasion by evidence and reasoning, and that doesn’t notice the multiple contradictions all around.

Choosing Ignorance:

Identity-Protective Cognition Thesis

Three years ago Orwell’s argument that political language causes a decline in critical thinking was supported by research by professors at Yale, Cornell, Ohio State, and the University of Oregon. Their study, Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government, showed that math problems that seem to be about benign topics are easily solved by people with strongly held political views. But when the same math problems are framed in terms of polarized political issues — in this case, gun rights — both progressive-and-conservative-leaning participants have a very hard time getting the math right.

The authors conclude that

“Subjects [use] their quantitative-reasoning capacity selectively to conform their interpretation of the data to the result most consistent with their political outlooks.”

A 2011 essay in Mother Jones by Chris Mooney on the neuroscience of political reasoning helps us understand why this is so. The piece begins with seminal research from the early fifties by famous Stanford psychologist Leon Festinger, who concluded:

“A man with conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”

Mooney explains:

“Since Festinger’s day, an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions.”

“This tendency toward so-called “motivated reasoning” helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, “death panels,” the birthplace and religion of the president, and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts.”

Ten years ago, on the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Politics and the English Language, the New York Public Library hosted a conference conceived by five journalism school deans and sponsored by the Open Society Institute. The conference proceedings later were published as a book of essays called What Orwell Didn’t Know: Propaganda and the Face of the New Politics. Much of what was described ten years ago can be seen now.

For example, Susan Harding, a professor of anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, who has written extensively about the religious right, explained a process called “revoicing.” She described revoicing as creating apparent structures of legitimacy and embedding within them positions, points of view, or ideologies that would not pass muster in actual legitimate institutions. She says that this revoicing process leads to controversial positions and institutions becoming mainstream by co-opting the symbols and vocabulary of the mainstream. She gives an example of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell:

“Falwell’s church ministries, media and political organizations, and educational institutions were, in effect, a hive of cultural workshops in which both fundamentalist and secular ideas, images, narratives, and practices were smelted, refashioned, melded, packaged, and distributed with spectacular success.

Falwell’s Lynchburg Baptist College morphed into a liberal arts college, Liberty Baptist College, and then into a university, Liberty University. The Museum of Earth and Life History on its campus occupied the cultural space of a museum of natural history, but recorded displays of man and beast with the assumptions of creation science rather than evolution. Liberty Godparent Homes converted a former home for unwed mothers into a staging ground for pro-life save-a-baby narratives that in turn revoiced feminist story lines in born-again Christian terms.

We can see this revoicing, this co-opting of mainstream symbols, vocabularies, and institutions, playing out over the last decade:

The Creation Museum, which has the look and feel of a science or natural history museum, but whose exhibits and educational material assert that the earth is only thousands of years old, that evolution is a fraud, and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.
The Intelligent Design Institute, which seems to be a think tank and educational organization is really a media and production group whose work is used to refute the scientific theory of evolution.
Fox News, ostensibly an objective news organization, but whose editorial focus in the promotion of conservative causes and candidates. It even has an appropriately Orwellian slogan, “We report, you decide.”

This process provides cover for those who would ignore mathematics, science, and observation and insist that reality is consistent with a particular political, social, or religious viewpoint. Take, for example, a fourth grade science quiz administered by a religiously-affiliated school in South Carolina. The student received a perfect grade for answers that would have been marked as incorrect in a school, religious or otherwise, with a mainstream science curriculum; in fact, some of the quiz’ questions would have been unintelligible in a more traditional science curriculum. But this approach is influencing millions of citizens and future voters.

Truthiness

At about the same time the revoicing discussion was taking place, the new late night comedy host Stephen Colbert coined the phrase Truthiness to describe political discourse. Parodying Fox News, he defined truthiness as preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. As Colbert put it, “I don’t trust books. They’re all fact, no heart.”

In 2005 the American Dialect Society named Truthiness the Word of the Year.

Sadly, what Colbert intended as a comedic take on misdirection has proven to be a defining element of much modern political debate. Candidates argue not the truth they know but the truth they wish, as if it were known.

Why All Heart Matters

Colbert differentiated between thinking with the brain and knowing with the heart. He actually hit on something profound about how humans make judgments, and why it’s so easy for political language to have the Orwellian effect.

As described by Chris Mooney in Mother Jones:

“The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience: Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call “affect”). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we’re aware of it.”

“That shouldn’t be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It’s a “basic human survival skill,” explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.”

“We’re not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn’t take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that’s highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.”

“We have seen this trend for several decades, where for political expediency citizens have been conditioned to not trust any source of news that includes conclusions contrary to those consistent with a political point of view.”

We Apply Fight-or-Flight Reflexes

Not Only to Predators, But to Data Itself

Such citizens, who reflexively flee from the facts, are unlikely to be aware of, or even care about, contradictions among any candidate’s positions. Simultaneously holding two contrary positions, the very definition of absurdity, would ordinarily dismiss someone as not to be taken seriously. But in the political world such contradictions seem not to matter.

In such an environment citizens literally are unable to notice absurdities. But the same part of the brain, the Amygdala, that causes the flight response also causes the fight response. So any intruder is seen to be worthy of a fight. And violence tends to ensue.

And as the French philosopher Voltaire once warned, “those who can make us believe absurdities can make us commit atrocities.”

So within a week of Trump calling for a ban of all Muslims entering the country, we saw a rash of attacks on mosques and on people perceived to be Muslim or Arab. We have seen people removed from his rallies while being taunted by Trump from the podium, calling for his supporters to punch the person being removed in the face; to have the crowd strip people of their coats before sending them into the freezing weather. This week, after his flirtation with the KKK and white supremacists, we saw peaceful non-protesting black students ejected from his rallies, and at least one white supremacist leader assault a black woman as she was being removed from the rally.

So what characterizes the Trump voters?

According to Derek Thompson in The Atlantic, the first common element is lack of higher education:

“The single best predictor of Trump support in the GOP primary is the absence of a college degree. ”

“Diplomas are what Ron Brownstein calls the “new Republican fault line.” In 2012, Mitt Romney struggled for months to consolidate support because, even as he had clear support among college-educated Republicans, he fared worse among non-college voters.”

So there’s more than a passing coincidence in Trump’s cheering “I love the poorly educated!” after the Las Vegas caucuses.

The second characteristic is feeling voiceless. A survey from RAND Corporation, found:

“Voters who agreed with the statement “people like me don’t have any say about what the government does” were 86.5 percent more likely to prefer Trump. This feeling of powerlessness and voicelessness was a much better predictor of Trump support than age, race, college attainment, income, attitudes towards Muslims, illegal immigrants, or Hispanic identity.”

This helps explain voters’ reports that they support Trump because he speaks what they feel.

There is also a fear of the other:

“Trump has clearly played on fears of non-white outsiders, by likening Mexican immigrants to rapists, promising to deport illegal immigrants and to build a wall between the U.S. and its neighbors, pledging to keep Muslims out of the country during the Syrian diaspora, and playing coy with his relationship with the KKK.”

“But he has also told a simple three-part narrative to attract the despondent demographic: America is losing; Donald Trump is a winner; and if Trump becomes president, America will become a winner, too. This Great Man Theory of political change, however, strikes others as potentially dangerous…”

Fourth, Trump voters want to wage war against outsiders, both those within and those beyond our borders. According to Matthew MacWilliams of University of Massachusetts, Amherst,

“The classic definition of authoritarianism implies a tradeoff — more security for less liberty — but MacWilliams says it’s also about identifying threatening outsiders and granting individuals special powers to pursue aggressive policies to destroy them. The best predictor of Trump support… [is] “authoritarianism … [and] a personal fear of terrorism” that best predicted Trump’s support across the state.”

“Trump’s foreign policy, like his policy for anything, is a muddle. He’s cautious toward the Israel-Palestine conflict, yet he told Fox News he would kill the families of ISIS members to stop their advance, something awfully close to a public pledge to commit war-crimes.”

“But it’s his domestic security policies that have been astonishingly hawkish. He’s promised to shut down mosques, keep a database of Muslims, and round up the children of illegal immigrants. Indeed, when you put it together, Trump’s hysterical promises to protect his white in-group from non-white outsiders looks like race-baiting…”

His support seems to be strongest in places with history of racial animosity:

“According to the New York Times’ Nate Cohn, who used data from Civis Analytics, Trump’s support is strongest from the Gulf Coast, through the Appalachian Mountains, to New York, among marginally attached Republicans (possibly former Democrats). It is a familiar map for some demographers, since it’s similar to a heat map of Google searches for racial slurs and jokes. “That Mr. Trump’s support is strong in similar areas does not prove that most or even many of his supporters are motivated by racial animus,” Cohn writes. “But it is consistent with the possibility that at least some are.”

And what to Trump voters care about? According to a Public Policy Polling survey of Trump voters in South Carolina,

70% think the Confederate flag should still be flying over the State Capital; only 20% who agree with it being taken down.
38% of Trump voters say they wish the South had won the Civil War; only 24% are glad the North won and 38% aren’t sure.
36% of Republican primary voters in the state are glad the North emerged victorious; 30% are for the South, but Trump’s the only one whose supporters actually wish the South had won.
By an 80/9 spread, Trump voters support his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States.
31% would support a ban on homosexuals entering the United States as well, something no more than 17% of anyone else’s voters think is a good idea.
There’s also 62/23 support among Trump voters for creating a national database of Muslims and 40/36 support for shutting down all the mosques in the United States, something no one else’s voters back.
Only 44% of Trump voters think the practice of Islam should even be legal at all in the United States; 33% think it should be illegal. To put all the views toward Muslims in context, though, 32% of Trump voters continue to believe the policy of Japanese internment during World War II was a good one, compared to only 33% who oppose it and 35% who have no opinion one way or another.

Fixing The Body Politic

So what can the nation do to halt the decline and to make things better?

The first thing to note is that things will surely get worse before they get better.

The second is to recognize that there is no easy fix.

Again, Trump is not the problem. He’s the current symptom of the problem. South Carolina voters do not hold their positions BECAUSE of Trump. Trump is merely the person who happens to appeal to their views now.

Rather, the problem is that authoritarian government depends on uninformed, scared, and angry voters, who can channel their negative emotions toward others, and who see in their candidate some relief from their anxieties.

Orwell told us that. And we have seen it play out over the last few decades.

The problem is a body politic that is comfortable being uninformed and suspicious of facts, data and people with whom they don’t agree or connect.

But the problem arose because of the convergence of social, technological, political, economic, and demographic trends over decades. The solution is also decades-long. Regardless of who happens be be the next president.

The central question of our republic is this: Do we continue down the path where authoritarian government becomes both inevitable and seemingly natural, or do we recommit to actual democracy?

There is much we would need to do.

But over the long term, the only sustainable solution will be a restoration of a core founding value of education. Of elevating the ability of voters to think clearly and to discern carefully.

Indeed, founding father Thomas Jefferson called for education as the key to democracy.

Jefferson becomes the antidote to Orwell.

Jefferson: An Educated Citizenry

is Necessary for a Thriving Democracy

Throughout his life, including before and after serving as president, Jefferson noted that education is the key to accepting others and to exercising effective citizenship. (Indeed, on his tombstone, he lists only three accomplishments: author of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom; author of the Declaration of Independence; and founder of the University of Virginia. His term as president didn’t make the cut.)

Among his views on the relation between education and democracy:

“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
“The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.”

And, as if in direct rebuke to Donald Trump:

“No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity.”
“[I have] a conviction that science is important to the preservation of our republican government, and that it is also essential to its protection against foreign power.”

A Decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind

But of all the Jeffersonian notions, the one that most directly speaks to remedying the challenges Orwell describes is a little-remembered but central idea from Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. In the opening paragraph, Jefferson describes why the Declaration was needed in the first place. He declared:

“…a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

That decent respect for the opinions of mankind goes in many directions:

A decent respect by politicians for the opinions of citizens.
A decent respect by citizens of this nation for the opinions of those in other nations.
A decent respect by governments for the people.

But decent respect has been sorely missing in American politics for some time. Orwell called it…

Fred

Please note: Helio Fred Garcia is executive director of Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership; board chair of the Interfaith Alliance Foundation; and an adjunct associate professor of management and communication at New York University School of Professional Studies, MS in Public Relations and Corporate Communication, where he teaches, among other things, communication ethics. But the views expressed here are solely his own and not necessarily reflective of any other entity.

March 6, 2016/by Helio Fred Garcia

Negotiating With The Enemy: The Failure of Syrian Peace Talks

Blog, Communication, International Affairs, Uncategorized

by Michelle Cioffoletti

“If you want to move people, you need to meet them where they are” –Helio Fred Garcia, The Power of Communication

In communication, we learn that in order to be an effective leader we must first meet people where they are. In conflict resolution, we learn that in order to reach success we must also meet people where they are.

We must appeal to not just the demographics of the group but to what really matters to them. We must dig beyond the surface.

As the United Nations halts Syrian peace talks in Geneva, the prospects of a resolution or even a ceasefire in the near future are dim. The five-year ongoing conflict has been characterized by tremendous war crimes, atrocious violence and a dire humanitarian situation.

So what’s next for Syria? Are the international community, the Assad regime and the opposition truly ready for peace? The quickly interrupted beginnings to peace talks have fallen to intensified air raids by the Russians, coming to the aid of the Assad regime. As Aleppo continues to burn, what is the true prospect of peace for Syria?

Meet the Opposition

The web of actors involved in the prospective peace talks is expansive and complex. Jordan has reportedly assisted in the U.N. Special Envoy to Syria to draw the thin line between opposition groups and terrorist organizations.

While the self proclaimed Islamic State and Al-Qaeda affiliate, Jahbat Al-Nusra are the two strongest opposition groups in Syria, they are internationally recognized as terrorist organizations and are not invited to any UN backed peace talks. The two groups will not be included in talks yet both carry a significant weight in the Syrian conflict.

The most prominent countries involved in the opposition are Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia. Qatar and other Gulf countries have also been influential in talks alongside their longtime Saudi allies. Turkey and the United States also play integral roles.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have long fought for regional dominance. Both Iran and Russia have come to the aid of Assad for their own regional advantages. Russia and Turkey have also had a strained relationship following the downing of Russia’s SU-21 Bomber in November 2015 by Turkish forces. The involvements of Hezbollah, the Syrian Kurdish Forces (PYD), along with other rebel faction group have also contributed to substantial tensions in the potential of talks.

The Higher Negotiating Committee (HNC), a Saudi-led opposition coalition has adamantly insisted that they will be involved in talk only if the Syrian government lifts sieges on rebel led towns or commit to a ceasefire. To the surprise of few, the Assad regime has not complied.

Assad Does Not Negotiate

While politics have taken the front seat, the reality of the situation in Syria is appalling. With more than half of the prewar population internally displaced or fleeing abroad, the Syrian people have endured extraordinary suffering at the hands of opposition groups, with Assad being no exception to the violence.

In fact, Assad has contributed significantly to the casualties and displacement of Syrians. If talks continue, Syrian delegation will be lead by Syrian Ambassador to the U.N., Bashar al Jaafari. While Assad’s Foreign Minister Walid Al-Mallem has confirmed the government’s desire to engage in peace talks, many question the true prospect of peace with Assad being involved in the talks. Does Assad even want peace?

If the prospect of peace involves Assad’s immediate and guaranteed departure, it is clear Assad wants no part. It is no coincidence that the beginning of peace talks was overshadowed by intense attacks on the opposition. Assad has repeatedly shown his lack of interest not only in meeting people where they are, but in any form of negotiation or resolution.

Bashar Al-Assad has not quivered in his no-negotiation policy, initially firing at peaceful protestors, igniting the conflict that continues to rage on today. Al-Assad has been able to withstand the surrounding revolutions in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia.

The involvement of Russia has allowed Assad to make significant territorial gains against the opposition. Yet at what cost? He has maintained control via brutality, zero tolerance to opposition, and the ruthless war crimes against his own people.

The Assad regime has committed grave violations of humanitarian law; the use of chemical weapons against its own people, the complete leveling of entire villages, the use of bomb barrels (with the backing of Russian air-strikes) and starvation as a political tool.

The chaos that today is Syria has manifested as a result of political instability and social unrest. The unrest cannot be viewed separately from Al-Assad’s authoritative regime. Terrorist organizations, most notably the so-called Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra, have aims far larger than the demise of the Al-Assad regime, yet the organizations have been successful in capitalizing on the unrest in Syria.

The peace talks were intended to follow a two-track negotiation. With governance and humanitarian subjects being the centers of the conversation. To believe that Assad will partake in the negotiation of his own departure not only threatens the chance of any productivity but also is sadly naive.

The parties will meet separately prior to having any form of conflict resolution together. Unfortunately, the prospect of peace is what U.N. mediator Staffan De Mistura has described as an already ‘uphill battle’, in which regional powers, opposition groups, international terrorist organizations and the Assad regime have all become heavily intertwined.

The fight for Syria cannot be resolved if the parties involved are not willing to go beyond their immediate concerns. Syrian President Al-Assad’s cabinet has shown little desire for peace, raising the question as to whether Syria can truly exist without his departure.

A simplistic view of the situation does not do justice to the complicated road ahead. The process to end the violence in Syria is multifaceted and carries social, ethnic, religious and political weight.

The parties that can find common ground for the future of Syria as a country will likely be more successful than those that are fighting to continue to their own personal reign over Syria. The world will be waiting for the resumption of talks, as the feeble prospect for peace in Syria continues to wither.

February 8, 2016/by Logos Consulting Group

The Power of Why in Business: Guest Blog by Jocelyn Jaixin Cao

Blog, Communication, Framing, Language, Leadership, Power of Communication, Reputation, Strategy, Worth Reading

Introduction by Helio Fred Garcia:

This is my fourth in a series of guest blogs featuring my recently-graduated capstone (thesis) advisees in New York University’s Master’s in Public Relations and Corporate Communication.

(See my earlier posts, On Wall Street, Reputation, and Recovery: Guest Blog by Julia Sahin here; On Changing Narratives in Oil Conflict Regions: Guest Blog by Claudia Espinel here; and A 10-C Model for Apologies: Guest Blog by Iris Wenting Xue here.)

In this blog, Jocelyn Jaixin Cao applies a foundational principle of effective persuasion – start with Why – to the core identity of companies. She notes that the most successful companies are those which make the Why a central part of their work, both in their statement of values, vision, and mission, and in the day-to-day decision criteria they use.

Quite presciently, among the many companies she studied, she contrasts Google, which has a very strong Why identity, and which just overtook Apple as the largest company in the world, with Yahoo, which has always been a What company focused on features and benefits but without clear purpose, and which is now struggling to survive, never mind remain relevant.

You can see the complete capstone here.

……………………………………………..

DEVELOPING THE “WHY” FRAME IN BUSINESS DECISION-MAKING AND COMMUNICATION:

GUEST BLOG BY JOCELYN JIAXIN CAO

Jocelyn Jaixin Cao

To stand out from competitors and to survive in a rapidly changing business environment, most companies spend the majority of their time in differentiating their products or services. However, studies show that differentiation is not enough to establish trust and loyalty. Companies need to earn trust by communicating and demonstrating their core values and beliefs clearly and consistently to their audience. Creating a “why” frame that includes these values and beliefs within the corporation becomes vital.

Companies influential on a global scale, such as Google, Facebook, and Uber, follow a similar communication strategy. They tell us first why they exist before talking about what they are selling. They know that to successfully connect with their audience, they need to first address what the audience cares about, not what is important only tothemselves. The origin of the “why” comes from the genesis story and the core values embraced by the company. It is not simply a slogan for the purpose of grabbing attention, but something the corporation truly believes in and is willing to fight for: it is the foundation of a corporation’s mission and vision.

The Importance of “Why” in Business Decision-making and Communication

Google, Facebook, and Uber all have a clear “why” of their existence in the first place. The origin of their “why” is not for themselves, but for better serving the society. Google was created because Larry Page and Sergei Brin wanted to improve people’s search experience at that time; Facebook was brought into being because of the desperate need by Harvard students for a comprehensive online social network based on real identity; Uber was built to tackle the common issue of frustrating taxi services in major cities around the world. They are all originated from finding solutions for problems experienced by people at that time, and this is valued more than making money.

In addition, they all place their “why” at the center of decision-making, whether for big business decisions or day-to-day management. When Google’s engineers were developing a new project, they were encouraged to ask the question “Is it best for our users? Is it evil?” When hiring new employees, Google ensured that the person not only had the skills needed, but also fit into its “smart creative” culture – a culture that is “willing to question the status quo and attack things differently.”

Facebook rejected advertisers whose businesses were not relevant to a college social culture even though they were companies like Goldman Sachs that could bring large amounts of money to them at their early stage. Later, it also turned down several deals with big investors such as Viacom and Yahoo because Mark Zuckerberg did not think those companies understood Facebook’s vision. When Uber was facing the huge backlash from the taxi industry and government officials, they did not fight back immediately, but focused on presenting their “why” to their customers and local governments through face-to-face conversations. It did not work out in every city, but it provoked a worldwide discussion on this issue, which to some extent increased Uber’s brand awareness.

Moreover, they all never stop enlarging and enriching their original “why” frames, which shows their constant thinking about the “why.” Google interpreted its “why” clearly to the public through the “Ten Things We Know To Be True”. Facebook revised its mission statement several times since its first establishment in 2004. Uber positioned itself as a lifestyle and logistics company, rather than a car service company, with its new trials such as Uber Ice Cream and UberCARGO.

In contrast, many of the competitors in the history of Google, Facebook and Uber failed to create their “why” or prioritize their “why” in communications. Therefore, they either lost the competitive advantage quickly or simply could not compete at all.

(1) Facebook vs. MySpace: MySpace existed and was widely welcomed before the inauguration of Facebook. It targeted the same audience – college students, received a lot of early press, and generated huge valuation among its investors. However, Facebook quickly overtook its market share. One crucial reason is that after being purchased by the News Corporation, MySpace’s original “why” no longer fit into its new reality. News Corp tried to guide MySpace by using the “professional management” approach. Leaders from News Corp sat down describing where the business would head, where they would invest and how they would earn a positive ROI by carefully calculating what would work. Those professional leaders at News Corp had no idea about the nature of social network among college students and they ran MySpace like a professional business. Contrarily, Zuckerberg allowed Facebook to go wherever the market wanted it. His team looked into the comments of their users and understood their audience well.

(2) Google vs. Bing: On May 28, 2009, Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, publically demonstrated Bing for the first time at the All Things Digital Tech Conference in San Diego, California. In the live interview at the conference, when asked the reason Microsoft decided to rebrand the name of Live Search as Bing, Ballmer said the search engine industry was a large growing market and Microsoft should be in that market. To make their presence more obvious, they needed a short and crispy name that could “verb it up.” Reports also showed that Microsoft was planning to spend $100 million for the marketing campaign of Bing. Compared to Google, Bing indeed differentiated itself in many aspects to demonstrate its specialty. However, after six years, statistics shows that Google is still the dominant search engine with 66% market share around the world while Bing only accounts for 12% even after its partnership with Yahoo. When companies lose their “why” at the beginning, it is usually hard to catch up later. Microsoft did not know clearly why they rebranded their search engine. Therefore, even though they successfully differentiated the product from competitors’ via marketing campaigns, loyalty did not follow.

(3) Uber vs. Lyft: On May 22, 2012, John Zimmer and Logan Green launched Lyft to “give Uber some low-priced private driver/taxi competition.” Lyft differentiated itself from Uber by adding two more pillars to its business: ride sharing for long-distance car rides, and a University program where Lyft charges colleges for specific campus car-sharing programs. Now three years after its launch, Lyft has indeed received positive reviews from its community and is growing steadily in the U.S. However, compared to the sensation Uber has created around the world, Lyft looks more like a different version of Uber, rather than having its unique corporate identity. When a company’s “why” is mainly based on business competition, rather than the solution to the problems cared by its users, it may see a sound short-term gain by differentiating the services, but will soon be replaced by new companies with better products. Zimride, Lyft’s predecessor, is a failed example.

Developing the “Why” frame

The process of creating the “why” frame can be divided into two parts:

The first part is the formation of the original “why.” Usually, a company’s genesis story is at the core of its original “why.” Page and Brin created Google in Stanford dorm as part of their PhD research, and their academic backgrounds and personal beliefs later influenced many aspects of Google’s growth. Zuckerberg’s dramatic founding story distinguished Facebook from other startups at that time, and was later brought live on the big screen by Hollywood in 2010. Uber’s original “why” emerged in a raining night in Paris when Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick were annoyed by the taxi services there. At that moment, they decided to crack the problem. These stories were not just stories, but later became core elements of their corporate cultures.

The second part is the enlargement of the “why.” To successfully fulfill the mission of the original “why,” leaders need people who share their vision to make it real together. At this time, corporate culture becomes significant for a company to convey and to represent its “why” to the outside world. Both Google and Facebook establish their unique cultures at very early stage. Both of them adopt the bottom-up management style and the flat corporate structure as they believe in openness and transparency, but despise bureaucracy. Both of them use the working environment to demonstrate and communicate the values to their employees. They build up their offices based on those values so that employees can be constantly reminded and inspired.

Implementing the “Why” Frame in Daily Communications

The implementation of the “why” begins first internally among employees. Google and Facebook start very early on establishing an effective communication mechanism within the corporation. Whether it is Google’s weekly all-hands (TGIF) meetings, the quarterly OKR (Objective and Key Results) reports, or Facebook’s Q&A session every Friday with Zuckerberg, the regular Hackerathon competition, leaders at Google and Facebook know clearly the importance of internal communication to a corporation’s long-term success. Employees are, after all, a company’s best and most valuable brand ambassadors. An inside-out approach to engagement empowers employees in this process by allowing them to personify the company’s values externally. Therefore, companies should first think to develop an efficient and sustainable system for internal communication – to create a culture of “why” within the company.

After having a solid “why” internally, companies will have more confidence in external

communication. One key principle in external communication is to meet audience where they are. This requires companies to shift their focus of communication from brand itself to its audience because the audience, or the market, is always the “why” brands exist in the first place. By first addressing what the audience are concerning about, companies create a frame of communication that provides meaningful context for introducing the facts and features of their brands. It is also a process to activate and connect with the frames already existed in the audience’s minds. Companies should always ask themselves why the audience should care about what they are saying.

Start with Why

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” This is the core argument Simon Sinek articulated in his TED Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” and his book Start With Why. Sinek says there are only two ways to influence human behavior – manipulation or inspiration. Business decision-makers can easily grasp and reproduce manipulative strategies such as reducing prices or increasing marketing campaigns to grab attention, while generating inspiration usually requires richer thoughts and deeper motivation. Developing the “why” frame starts the company on a journey of self-exploration and lays the foundation for a steady flow of inspiration.

…………

Jocelyn Jaixin Cao received her BA in English Language and Literature from Southern Yangtze University School of Foreign Studies and Honors School in Wuxi, China. She studied linguistics in the Global Studies program at University of California, Davis. She received her MS in Public Relations and Corporate Communication from New York University in December, 2015. She is a certified interpreter in the New York City mayor’s office.

Jocelyn Jaixin Cao with her professor and Capstone advisor Helio Fred Garcia.

February 5, 2016/by Helio Fred Garcia

Iris Wenting Xue earns the Japanese Language Proficiency Certificate

Blog

The Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership is pleased to announce that Iris Wenting Xue earned the Japanese Language Proficiency Certificate N3, which is certified by the Japan Educational Exchanges and Services in collaboration with the American Association of Teachers of Japanese.

The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (in Japanese:日本語能力試験/にほんごのうりょくしけん) or JLPT, is the largest Japanese-language test in the world, with approximately 610,000 examinees in 62 countries and areas worldwide. It is a standardized test to evaluate and certify Japanese language proficiency for non-native speakers, covering language knowledge, reading ability, and listening ability.

The JLPT has five levels: N1, N2, N3, N4 and N5. The easiest level is N5 and the most difficult level is N1. This is Iris’s first test and she passed the N3 level.

Iris also earned the highest level of German Language Certificate of the Education Ministers Conference (in German: Deutsches Sprachdiplom der Kultusministerkonferenz Stufe II). She was born in Shanghai, China. Her native languages are Mandarin and Shanghainese. She is fluent in English, and understands Cantonese in professional working proficiency.

January 27, 2016/by Logos Consulting Group

The Zero Moment of Reputation

Blog, Communication, Framing, Reputation, Strategy, Trust

by Iris Wenting Xue

Eleven years ago, in the book The Game-Changer, Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley defined the First Moment of Truth as the moment when consumers are physically reaching for the product they intend to purchase. The concept was further developed, as the Second Moment of Truth and the Third Moment of Truth, referring respectively to the moment when consumers purchase the product and the moment when they share reviews after using the product.

Five years ago Google released its study on the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT): the moment when consumers research before they decide whether to buy. According to Google, 88% of US consumers explored online before actually buying a product (ZMOT, 2011). The number is still rising as Internet and mobile technology have advanced in recent years to make buying products online and on a phone easier than ever before.

(Source: YouTube)

ZMOT was a revolutionary idea in brand management and marketing by quantifying consumers’ behavior patterns before they bought a product. While many focus strictly on the “numbers” around ZMOT, the impact of this insight could be applied far beyond just numbers. And beyond just brands and marketing.

As I watched the ZMOT video above and read other journal articles about the topic, I found an interesting parallel between this concept and what I have learned and practiced when working with clients on how to manage their reputation. Just as with Moments of Truth when products are being judged, and those same critical moments exist when a company, leader, or organization is being considered and judged. If we understand those moments when organizations can influence the perception of their stakeholders, what I call Moments of Reputation, we can be more prepared to maintain the strong reputation no matter what happens.

Before I translate the four moments of truth into four moments of reputation, we should note that a company’s reputation is not only determined by consumers, but also broader stakeholders such as investors and employees. Reputation symbolizes an organization on a macro-level. It goes beyond the goodwill on the balance sheet. Reputation is the way in which a company is perceived by those who matter most to the company. The same is true of brand reputation, and even an individual’s reputation.

The Four Moments of Truth:

Zero – Consumers research a product prior to their purchase decisions.
First – Consumers are physically in front of the product.
Second – Consumers buy the product.
Third – Consumers share their thoughts and experiences about the product.

The goal of the brand or company is to sell the product.

The Four Moments of Reputation:

Zero – Whether positive, negative or neutral, every stakeholder holds his or her own perception of an organization. Note: No perception is also a perception; it counts as neutral and is very easy to change.
First – Something happens. Sometimes that something is planned (a product launch); sometimes that is accidental (an acute crisis); sometimes that something is not bad enough cause criticism; sometimes that is so good that it evokes envy.
Second – Stakeholders are influenced by whoever describes that event first.
Third – Stakeholders follow what happens next and judge the company the through a tinted lens. Most of the time, the tinted lens is comprised of what happened in those first three moments.

The goal of the company, leader, or organization, is to maintain their reputation.

These Moments of Reputation can help us understand when a company, leader, or organization has the greatest chance to influence the perception of the company to stakeholders.

From what we can see, after the Zero Moment of Reputation, a company’s perception is taken to some degree outside of their control – something has happened, good or bad, that the company has to manage. This means that first and foremost, companies need to invest in the Zero Moment of Reputation, because this moment is when the company has a greater degree of control in building up the perception of the company to stakeholders, before something else happens that makes them visible.

However, companies also need to be prepared for when that First Moment of Reputation arrives, that turning point for the company and its reputation. It is hard to predict what will happen at any minute, so companies should be equipped with mental readiness the moment something happens to respond quickly and effectively. Most of the time, they rely on the communication department to clear up a messy situation. They think they are safe once they have a communication director, a spokesperson; a media list spreadsheet and a 100-page crisis plan.

But they are not necessarily as safe as they think. This mental readiness goes beyond any practical tactics. It is also about being strategic – how can the company maintain the trust and confidence of their stakeholders. It means thinking more clearly about those practical tools already available to the company with critical eyes. Does the communication director leverage both internal and external partnerships? Does the company have an appropriate spokesperson and is he or she well trained? Is the media list double-checked? Is the crisis plan up-to-date? Can the company seize the initiative when the First Moment of Reputation occurs?

Reputation is hard to measure and manage. The Zero Moment of Reputation is a good opportunity to examine whether a company is prepared for anything that will make it suddenly visible. Once a company passes this first test, it is more likely that it will control the other critical moments when their stakeholders are making judgments about them.

The Zero Moment of Reputation is an undeveloped blue ocean. I will continue study and research this topic. Stay tuned.

January 19, 2016/by Logos Consulting Group

What About Yemen?

Blog, International Affairs, Uncategorized

by Michelle Cioffoletti

On the hunt for contraband? Search no further than Yemen. Yemen: a land with a plethora of weapons for sale, lucrative smuggling ports, immense poverty and nearly a complete institutional breakdown. Not to mention a principal base for Al-Qaeda and increasingly ISIL operating out of the Arabian Peninsula.

So why is nobody talking about Yemen? While Syria has rightly taken a strong focus in international and political rhetoric, Yemen appears forgotten. Saudi Arabia and Iran have taken a strong interest in the failed state, yet many countries outside of the Arab world lacked to give Yemen adequate attention. Despite John Kerry’s meeting with exiled Yemeni President Hadi in Riyadh in May 2015, the U.S. political rhetoric surrounding the conflict has been limited.

Yemen is characterized by civil war, humanitarian tragedy and is a known breeding ground for terrorist organizations. Both Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIL operatives are present in the failed state, adding another dimension to the already complicated civil war.

Much like Syria, Yemen is host to a sectarian conflict exacerbated by terrorist organizations. The conflict in Yemen reveals a deeper understanding of world and regional politics and sets the stage to an increasingly volatile proxy war.

Why Yemen Matters

Yemen is not only a key interest for combatting terrorist organizations, specifically AQAP and ISIL but is also a crucial spot for understanding regional tensions.

The conflict in Yemen exists between forces loyal to President Hadi, who is Sunni and backed by a Saudi-led coalition and a Shi’a rebel force known as Houthis backed by Iran. The Zaidi Shi’a Houthis are supported by Iran, despite the difference in Shi’a sects. The rebel force evokes fierce anti-American sentiments, calling for death to both the United States and Israel in their chants.

While the origins of the conflict are clear, the current state of the conflict has been complicated by international terrorist organizations and the financial and military backing of external actors, notably Saudi Arabia and Iran.

As stability in Yemen continues to deteriorate, the opportunity for organizations such as ISIL to gain control continues to rise. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) uses Yemen as a safe haven, feeding off of the lack of institution and the breakdown of order.

While civil war continues to rage, both AQAP and increasingly ISIL have exploited the chaos as an opportunity to gain a stronghold. Opposed to the Shiite Houthis, the terrorist organizations are using the destruction of the Shiite rebels to preach their distorted message of creating a Sunni caliphate.

The Proxy War: Saudi Arabia & Iran

In an attempt at regional influence, both Saudi Arabia and Iran have crucial interests at stake in Yemen. Saudi Arabia as the principal Sunni power in the region and Iran representing the key Shiite power. Much like both countries’ interest in Syria and Iraq, the fight for Yemen is not simply a geographic battle or a battle against terrorist organizations; the clash is sectarian, evoking a struggle between the two dominant sects in Islam.

For Saudi Arabia, Yemen remains an essential strategic location. Sharing a direct border, Saudi’s interest lies not only in the prospect of potential geographic expansion but over geographic access. Yemen offers Saudi Arabia direct access to the Arabian sea, giving the Gulf country an opportunity to a secure trade route that would avoid the volatile Strait of Hormuz.

With the recent Iranian uproar over the execution of Shiite Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia, the prospects of peace talks in Yemen has inevitably been stalled. Saudi Arabia insists the execution is a domestic issue. The Iranian storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran has only furthered the uproar in the region, forcing countries such as United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait to all stand strong with their Saudi allies. The Iranians accuse the Saudis of intentionally attacking their embassy in Yemen.

Weapons Without Words: The U.S. Policy Towards Yemen

The U.S.’s lack of public communication surrounding the conflict perhaps speaks louder than any words. The Obama Administration’s lack of explicit rhetoric surrounding Yemen despite the grave importance displays a resistance to show direct involvement in a perceived regional conflict.

A brief mention of Yemen as an Al Qaeda operative home base in the G20 Press Conference in Antalya Turkey (November 16, 2015). A reference to “situations like Yemen” in an Address on Iran at American University (August 5, 2015). A shared reference of Yemen with Somalia in the National Counterterrorism Center Address (December 17, 2015). Yet zero mention of Yemen in the United Nations General Assembly Speech (2015) or the Oval Office Speech on Foreign and Domestic Counter-Terrorism Strategy (December 6, 2015).

Despite Obama’s focus on Syria, Al Qaeda and ISIL in the mentioned speeches, the purpose of excluding Yemen is powerful. The Administration has been reluctant to show direct involvement, a communication policy inconsistent with their constant military supplying and support of the Saudi-led coalition. The United States has carried out drone strikes in Yemen in an attempt to destroy Al Qaeda. President Obama used Yemen as a model for U.S. counterterrorism strategy as recently as last September. However, the situation in Yemen has quickly deteriorated and become increasingly dire.

The long time alliance between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based in a secure supply of petroleum and military assistance. Although not an official member of the Saudi-led coalition, the United States has been a strong supporter of the coalition in intelligence sharing, weapon supplying as well as blockades.

How Far is Peace

Despite the lack of communication surrounding the conflict in Yemen by the President Obama, the U.S. supports attempts to foster U.N. sponsored peace talks between the Houthi rebels and the exiled Yemeni government.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees of the United Nations (OHCHR) has expressed grave concern over the tremendous amount of civilian deaths, exacerbated by the airstrikes. The multilayered conflict in Yemen has only worsened the already dire humanitarian situation. With a population of 26 million, three out of four of the population is in need of humanitarian aid.

According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), 14.4 million Yemenis are considered food insecure, with more than half of that number considered severely food insecure. While the United States has increased humanitarian assistance, the aid distribution is complicated by a lack of institution and organization.

Saudi Arabia’s recent internal issues prove a potential setback towards peace in Yemen. Iran’s denunciation of the execution of prominent Shi’ite Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr has only aggravated pre existing tensions. Despite Iran’s trade ties with countries such as the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf countries have been quick to take sides with Saudi Arabia. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran must proceed with caution as continued conflict in Yemen represents a broader continued conflict in the region.

January 8, 2016/by Logos Consulting Group

Kristin Johnson Moderates Social Media Panel Discussion at Stupid Cancer’s OMG! East Summit

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On Saturday, September 26, Logos Fellow Kristin Johnson served as a panel moderator for Stupid Cancer’s 2015 OMG! Summit East, in New York City. The OMG! Summit, hosted on both the East and West coasts annually, is one of the most influential and impactful health conferences for the young adult cancer movement worldwide. The Summit is part of several programs hosted by Stupid Cancer, the largest US-based charity that comprehensively addresses young adult cancer.

The panel, “Be Your Best Digital Self,” addressed important considerations, impacts, and outcomes of sharing – or not sharing – one’s cancer experience online.

Expert panelists included:

Kenny Kane, Co-Founder & COO, Stupid Cancer
Thea Linscott, Board of Directors, Stupid Cancer
Rachel Becker, LMSW, Senior Manager, Programs, Cancer and Careers

The panel was well received and will be replicated at the 2015 OMG! Summit West, which is scheduled for Saturday, November 21 in Orange, California at the UC Irvine Medical Center. For details, visit www.omgsummit.org.

Photo courtesy of Stupid Cancer

September 29, 2015/by Logos Consulting Group

Logos Welcomes Michelle Cioffoletti

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Logos Consulting Group and the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership welcome Michelle Cioffoletti as a Research Analyst.

Michelle Cioffoletti

Michelle has experience in both the government and nonprofit sectors. Prior to joining Logos, Michelle worked as a communications consultant at Religions For Peace, the world’s largest and most representative multi-religious coalition promoting a peaceful interfaith dialogue. She was responsible for implementing a strategic communication plan, drafting monthly newsletters and press items, and managing communication work at high impact events such as the Interfaith Summit on Climate Change. As a communication staffer at the Interfaith Summit in collaboration with the United Nations’ Secretary General’s Summit on Climate Change, Michelle worked with top religious leaders, donors and press. Additionally, Michelle interned at the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security where she managed and updated the intranet and worked on drafting press releases for both internal and external press for the Department. Michelle also held internships at multiple New York State Supreme Courts, including the Bronx County and Westchester County higher court systems.

Michelle earned her B.A. in International Affairs at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, with a concentration in conflict resolution. Her final project in conflict resolution focused on the changing political and cultural paradigms present in Turkey as a result of the Syrian refugee crisis. Michelle has a keen interest in human rights, international law and international security studies. During her time at GW, she was enrolled in the Hispanic and European Studies Programme at Universidad Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.

Michelle has a passion for exploring different cultures and for travel. Her favorite cities include New York, Istanbul, London and Tokyo.

September 24, 2015/by Logos Consulting Group