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Logos President Advises Korean Government, Corporate, and Public Health Leaders

Logos president Helio Fred Garcia was one of four international crisis experts to speak in Seoul, Korea to government, corporate, and public health officials in the wake of several major crises that rocked Koreans’ confidence in their leaders.

In the last two years Korea has seen two major crises that were both mishandled and deadly:

An outbreak of Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) from May to July, 2015, that was mishandled in a number of Korean hospitals, resulting in 136 cases of the disease and 36 fatalities. The government’s failure, similar to the U.S. government’s slow and bungling response to the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, caused significant criticism of Korean president Park Geun-hye.
A capsized ferry and bungled rescue effort in April, 2014 led to the deaths of 304 people. Several bodies have not yet been recovered.

The two crises have elevated public and policy-maker appreciation of the need to have structures and capabilities in place to prepare, respond to, and recover from crises that affect public safety and security.

In response Cosunilbo, Korea’s largest newspaper, hosted the Chosun Issue Forum in Seoul on Monday, September 21. The forum was titled Crisis Management in Post-MERS Korea. Other speakers were:

Dr. Herbert Koch, President of International Association of Risk and Crisis Communication in Geneva.
John Bailey, Managing Director of Ketchum Singapore.
Melissa Agnes, President of Agnes+Day in Montreal.

Dr, Hoh Kim, left, moderating the panel discussion following the speeches. From left, Helio Fred Garcia, Dr. Herbert Koch, John Bailey, Melissa Agnes.

More than more than 500 government, corporate, and public health officials attended the Chosun Issue Forum.

Cultural Barriers to Effective Crisis Response

The first speaker was Dr. Hoh Kim, director of The LABh in Seoul.

Dr. Hoh Kim, The LABh, Setting the Context at the Chosun Issue Form

Dr. Kim is a crisis and executive leadership coach who studied with both Marshall Goldsmith and Robert Cialdini in the U.S. In his context-setting comments Dr. Kim explored the reasons for ineffective crisis response in Korea. He described four particular Korean challenges for effective management of crises:

A hierarchical culture. He noted that Korean hierarchy is more rigid even than Japan’s and 50 percent more rigid than in the U.S. As a result, subordinates are far less likely to challenge leaders who may want to ignore or underplay crises.
An imbalance in weight to minimizing legal risk rather than a focus on operational response or public support.
Fear of punishment or embarrassment, resulting in passivity in the face of crises.
Bureaucracy that often ignores expertise.

Dr. Kim quoted his teacher, Marshall Goldsmith, noting that

“The major challenge of most organizations is not understanding the practice of crisis management — it is practicing their understanding of crisis management.”

Showing You Care

Logos president Helio Fred Garcia was the first keynote speaker of the day. His presentation focused first on the core principles of crisis management:

Crisis management is the management of choices:
- Of the kinds of structures and monitoring and response systems to build;
- Of what to do and when to do it;
- Of what to say and when to say it.
Every problem is a business problem before it is a communication problem, and you can’t communicate your way out of a business problem. So Effective Crisis Response = What We Do + What We Say.
Trust is the consequence of expectations met; trust rises when expectations are met; trust falls when expectations are not met.
Most mishandled crises begin with leaders asking the wrong question: What should we do? This focuses attention on the leader, rather than on stakeholders.
The more productive question is: What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible organization or leader to do in this situation?
We can answer that question to a very granular level for each stakeholder group.
But there is one expectation that applies to all stakeholders: In a crisis, every stakeholder expects an organization and leader to care.
So effective crisis response is a timely demonstration that we care; and a persistent demonstration that we still care; for as long as that expectation exists.

Garcia then, at the Forum organizers’ request, outlined how the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had mishandled the flooding of New Orleans in 2005, leading to loss of trust and confidence in both FEMA and President George W. Bush. Garcia then described the structural and other changes to FEMA since then that have restored FEMA to a place of trust and confidence. Garcia also described the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and their response to the Ebola scare of 2014.

Crises from the European Perspective

Dr. Herbert Koch of the Association of Risk and Crisis Communication in Geneva described his organization’s work to put effective communication at the heart of all risk and crisis management. He then shared the experience of ten crisis in Europe, including:

Dr. Herbert Koch

The Costa Concordia cruise ship crisis, where the captain was later sentenced to 16 years in prison.
The Air France crash in the Atlantic of a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
The Germanwings plane crash caused by the pilot’s suicide/homicide.
The Ikea scandal involving horsemeat in the company’s famed Swedish meatballs.
The current crisis involving refugees from the Middle East into Europe.

He then provided a checklist to use to effectively understand and mitigate risk and prepare for crisis response. Questions on the list include:

Do I regularly update my risk management strategy to eliminate or reduce and transfer risks and to develop crisis preparedness?
Do I define and analyze risk groups and improve their resiliency capacities?
Have I prepared scenarios and selection procedures with regard to the most suitable crisis response strategies?

Best Practices When There Are Fatalities:

“Failure to Prepare is a Breach of Directors’ Fiduciary Duties”

John Bailey, managing director of Ketchum Singapore, and an expert on airline crashes, discussed best practices in crisis management. He noted that all crises are predictable, and therefore leaders and organizations should prepare for them. He noted that failure to prepare is a breach of directors’ fiduciary duty, and that failure to manage crises effectively can cause permanent damage to business, reputation, and relationships.

John Bailey

He noted that crises typically escalate when:

They reveal fundamental weaknesses or problems within the organization.
They confirm or reinforce negative impressions of the company or its products.
They cause the media or regulatory authorities to start “investigating.”
The company’s public responses — or lack of them — antagonize the media or other stakeholders.

He noted the example of the BP Deepwater Horizon accident, which killed 11 people and wounded dozens. BP’s ineffective response had significant consequences, including:

A three-month drop in share price of 46 percent, a loss of $130 billion in market value.
Total cash expenditures since the explosion of $54 billion so far.

He further noted that BP had a plan for such an explosion, but that the plan was not sufficient. He concluded,

“A plan is not a substitute for judgment.”

Social Media and Crisis Response

The final keynote speaker was Melissa Agnes of the Montreal crisis management firm Agnes+Day. Ms. Agnes is an expert in social media in crisis. She noted the excellent work of Emory Healthcare when the Atlanta hospital system came under intense criticism for treating two doctors who had contracted Ebola in West Africa.

Melissa Agnes

She noted that Emory was able to allay fears and panic by providing timely and emotionally resonant tweets and other social media postings illustrating both their capacity and readiness for treating Ebola patients and the way Ebola is transmitted. In the end, although the Ebola scare remained high, Emory was able to maintain the trust and support of its stakeholders.

She also described the BBC’s work to help contain the disease at its source in West Africa. BBC learned that a large number of people in West Africa communicated with each other via mobile phones on the WhatsApp application. BBC also learned that many people were unaware that some traditional funeral practices — such as family members bathing a corpse before a funeral — had the unintended effect of transmitting the disease to all family members. BBC launched a public education campaign using WhatsApp to educate people in West Africa about the disease, and about safe practices for caring for those who may be suffering from the disease.

Other sponsors of the Chosun Issue Forum included the Korean Ministry of Public Safety and Security and the Federation of Korean Industries.

September 23, 2015/by Helio Fred Garcia

Crisis Management Lessons Ten Years After Hurricane Katrina

Best Practices, Blog, Communication, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Ethics, Humility, Leadership, Power of Communication, Reputation, Strategy, Trust

Helio Fred Garcia | Bio | Posts
29 Aug 2015

Ten years ago today Hurricane Katrina made landfall. The rest, as they say, is history.

I won’t recount that history day-by-day here. There are plenty of special reports on TV and in the newspapers this weekend that help us see the horror as it unfolded. For a day-by-day timeline of the federal response, see Chapter 3 of The Power of Communication, or see Failure of Initiative, the final report of the U.S. House of Representatives Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina. That congressional report concluded:

“The Select Committee identified failures at all levels of government that significantly undermined and detracted from the heroic efforts of first responders, private individuals and organizations, faith-based groups, and others.”

But on the tenth anniversary of the flood, we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of that bungled response and to re-commit to the discipline of effective crisis response. I will hit the high points (or low points) of Katrina response as teachable moments.

I monitored the hurricane and flood and then deployed to New Orleans in the second week as part of a corporate response to the disaster. I saw first hand the consequence of the government’s ineffective handling of the crisis.

The author documenting Katrina damage.

The federal government’s response to Katrina was bumbling, disorganized, and dishonest. It cost hundreds of lives. Many of the nearly 1,500 deaths in New Orleans happened in the days following the flood. Many of those were preventable.

And the bungled response cost President George W. Bush his reputation. Until Katrina, President Bush had enjoyed a job approval rating above 50 percent. He had won re-election in a tough campaign just 10 months earlier. But after Katrina his job approval fell below 50 percent and never recovered. It fell first to 42 percent and a month later to 38 percent, and was below 30 percent the following year. President Bush finished his presidency with the lowest approval ratings of any president.

That loss of trust and reputation was preventable. Because most of the bungled response was preventable.

Effective Crisis Management is a Leadership Discipline

Crisis management is the management of choices – the management of decisions that leaders make when things have the potential to go very wrong.

Effective crisis management helps leaders and organizations make critical business decisions that can prevent, mitigate, or recover from an event that threatens trust, reputation, assets, operations, and competitive position.

There is a rigor to effective crisis management that is equivalent to the rigor found in other business processes. But that rigor is often unknown, ignored, or misapplied by many leaders, to their own and their organizations’ misfortune.

That rigor includes a systematic way to think in a crisis.

Many leaders who otherwise are gifted managers – managing finance, or engineering, or marketing, or any other professional discipline, or even a whole company or government – throw rigor to the wind when a crisis emerges. Then they either make up a response on the fly or try to cobble together bits of knowledge from other parts of their experience. Or they ignore the crisis until it is too late. Or they think that their problem is one of public relations that can be rationalized away.

All of these things happened in Katrina. Indeed, from the President to the Secretary of Homeland Security to the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, there was lack of situational awareness, ineffective and dishonest assurances of an imminent response, and then denial of their own mis-steps. They focused more on saying what sounded good, but were singularly unable to deliver on the assurances they made.

Washington, DC, August 31, 2005 -- Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, at a press conference at Homeland Security Headquarters, The press conference was also attended by Stephen Johnson from the Environmental Protection Agency, Secretary Michael Leavitt of the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Samuel Bodman of the Department of Energy, Secretary Norman Mineta, Department of Transportation, Rear Admiral Joel Whitehead, US Coast Guard, Acting Deputy Director Patrick Rhode of FEMA and Assisstant Secretary for Homeland Defense Paul McHale from the Department of Defense. Photo by Ed Edahl/FEMA

August 31, 2005 — Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, addresses the media. Photo by Ed Edahl/FEMA

Every Crisis is a Business Problem Before it is a Communication Problem

Crisis management is far more than skillful public relations. Seeing PR as the solution to a crisis is a recipe for failure.

Every crisis is a business problem before it is a communication problem, and you cannot communicate your way out of a business problem.

The government set the bar very high early in the Katrina crisis.

The day before the hurricane made landfall President Bush went on television to reassure the citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. He said,

“We will do everything in our power to help the people and the communities affected by the storm.”

FEMA Director Michael Brown also reassured the public:

“FEMA is not going to hesitate at all in this storm. We’re going to move fast, we’re going to move quick, we’re going to do whatever it takes to help disaster victims.”

FEMA chief Michael Brown alongside Governor Kathleen Blanco and Senator Mary Landrieu

FEMA chief Michael Brown alongside Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, center, and U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, left.

These were the right things to say.

But simply saying them was not enough.

Regrettably, both FEMA and the larger US government, having set those expectations, spent the next week dramatically under-delivering on them. As the horror that New Orleans experienced unfolded over the next few days, the government’s lack of effective action, and the disconnect between the rhetoric and the work, defined the president and his administration.

Crises play out in an environment of emotional resonance: fear, anxiety, anger, shame, embarrassment and other, often confused, emotions. Effective crisis communication, combined with effective management of other elements of a crisis, can address and even neutralize these emotional reactions.

New Orleans flooded on August 29, 2005

Crisis Response =
Effective Action + Effective Communication

Effective crisis response consists of a carefully managed process that calibrates smart actions with smart communication.

The key to making smart choices is to use the right decision criteria – the proper basis for choice. And that means asking the right questions.

Indeed, in my experience working on and studying thousands of crises over more than 35 years, the most effectively handled crises were the ones where leaders asked the right question. Ask the right question, and the solution can become clear within a matter of minutes. But asking the right question requires mental readiness; a readiness to shift perspective and to think differently.

The Leadership Discipline of Mental Readiness

Most counter-productive crisis responses begin with leaders asking some version of What should we do? Or What should we say? The challenge with this kind of question is that it focuses on the we – on the entity or leader in crisis. This results in the consideration of options that may make the people in midst of crisis feel good. But it is unlikely to lead to what is necessary to maintain trust, confidence, and support of those people whose trust, confidence, and support are critical to the organization.

What is needed is a different kind of thinking that begins not with the I/me/we/us but rather with the they/them – with the stakeholders who matter to the organization. The leadership discipline of mental readiness – the readiness to shift frames of reference from the first person — I/me/we/us — to the third person — they/them — makes all the difference.

And that’s because of the way trust works.

Maintaining Trust: Meet Expectations

A common goal for most organizations and leaders in crises is to maintain the trust and confidence of those who matter – shareholders, employees, customers, regulators, residents, citizens, voters, etc.

Trust arises when stakeholders’ legitimate expectations are met. Trust falls when expectations are unmet.

Asking What should we do? runs the serious risk of failing even to consider stakeholders’ expectations. Worse, it further risks the leader becoming stuck in his or her own perspective, in I/me/we/us. Hence, such crisis whoppers as BP CEO Tony Hayward’s “I’d like my life back,” or even President Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”

Most crisis response failures can be traced back to the ultimate decision-makers focusing on their own frame of reference rather than on their stakeholders. This was the case in Katrina.

The right question to ask when determining the appropriate course of action in a crisis is not What should we do. Rather, it is this: What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible organization or leader to do when facing this kind of situation?

Framing decisions in light of stakeholder expectations leads to smarter choices faster, and maintains stakeholders’ trust.

For any stakeholder group we can answer the question, What would reasonable members of this stakeholder group appropriately expect a responsible organization or leader to do? to a very granular level. And at the very least, one way to determine stakeholder expectations is to reflect on the expectations we ourselves have set. So, in Katrina, President Bush set the expectation that the the federal government would do everything in its power to help the people affected by the storm. FEMA chief Michael Brown said that FEMA would not hesitate at all, but would move fast and do whatever it takes to help disaster victims.

But when FEMA was seen to be slow and to create obstacles to rapid response, and when the U.S. government was not seen to be responding or even acknowledging the gravity of the situation, trust began to fall simply because the expectations the government itself had set were not being fulfilled.

Photo by the author.

We can inventory expectations to a very granular level for each stakeholder group, and we can then work to fulfill those particular expectations.

But regardless the particular expectations of any given stakeholder group, there is a common expectation that applies to all stakeholder groups all the time: In a crisis, all stakeholders expect a responsible organization or leader to care. To care that something has happened; to care that people need help; to care that something needs to be done.

One of the common patterns in crisis is this: The single biggest predictor of loss of trust and confidence, of loss of reputation, and of financial and operational harm, is the perception that the organization or leader do not care.

So effective crisis response, at a minimum, begins with a timely demonstration of caring. And it continues with a persistent demonstration that the organization and leader continue to care, for as long as the expectation of caring exists.

This is what was sorely lacking in the government’s response to Katrina. Officials said they cared; but the tangible demonstration of caring didn’t match the rhetoric.

New Orleans flooded on a Monday. Throughout that day and Tuesday, the government kept assuring the news media that FEMA and other agencies were on the ground and helping the victims. But news coverage showed little federal presence except for U.S. Coast Guard helicopter rescues. But no staging areas for victims; no shelters; but hundreds of people, mostly African-American, struggling against the rising waters and without help. On Tuesday the news media persistently questioned why there was little evidence of federal help for the city, noting even that dead bodies continued to float by.

On that Wednesday the media not only covered the lack of a FEMA presence on the ground, but also how FEMA prevented or stalled potential aid from other sources. For example, a fourteen-car caravan arranged by the sheriff of Loudoun County, Virginia, carrying supplies of water and food, was not allowed into the city. FEMA stopped tractor trailers carrying water to the supply staging area in Alexandria, Louisiana because they did not have the necessary paperwork. CNN also reported that during the weekend before the flood Mayor Nagin had made a call for firefighters to help with rescue operations. But as firefighters from across the country arrived to help victims, they were first sent by FEMA to Atlanta for a day long training program in community relations and sexual harassment. When they arrived in New Orleans, the volunteer firefighters were permitted only to give out flyers with FEMA number, but were forbidden from engaging in rescue operations. The media reported not only the resentment felt by the first responders, but also how FEMA’s policies hurt those people who were begging for aid in New Orleans.

That day Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff held a press conference in which he said,

“We are extremely pleased with every element of the federal government, all of our federal partners, have made to this terrible tragedy.”

That day Mayor Ray Nagin went on the radio and blasted the federal government for its failure to respond quickly:

“I don’t want to see anyone do any more g*d-dammed press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don’t tell me forty thousand people are coming here. They’re not here!”

On Thursday, the news media reported that hundreds of people who had been sheltering at the New Orleans Convention Center without food, water, blankets, or any other help. FEMA Director Michael Brown went on four network news programs and admitted that FEMA had been unaware of the people at the convention center until the news media reported it.

That day commentators and late-night comedians began to question Mr. Brown’s fitness to serve.

On Friday President Bush visited the area, and famously praised Mr. Brown, addressing him by his nickname:

“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

President George W. Bush addressing FEMA Director Michael Brown: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

That caught people’s attention (and became a defining quote of the President Bush’s tenure as president). Media analysts wondered why the President would say that: Did he not know how incompetent Brown seemed to many people? Did he know and not care? Or did he actually want the ineffective response? It showed a president out of touch, or worse. This meme began to make its way across the television networks.

That night, Friday, on a live televised concert to raise funds for Katrina victims, entertainer Kanye West gave voice to the pent up frustrations of many:

“George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

Kanye West gave voice to pent-up frustrations when he declared on live TV: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

This changed the dynamic completely. The next morning, six days after the flood, the President spoke to the media in front of the White House. Flanked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Meyers, and Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff, the president acknowledged shortfalls in the federal response and committed to direct a more effective response. He said,

“Many of our citizens are simply not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable.”

After six days of seeming out of touch, the acknowledgement of the inadequate response seemed a heartening development. That day a larger federal presence was seen in New Orleans and President Bush ordered over 7,000 troops and an additional 10,000 National Guardsmen to the disaster area.

On the weekend talk shows, the focus shifted from why the response was inadequate to who was to blame for it.

Meet The Press host Tim Russert with Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press and was questioned by host Tim Russert. Russert asked whether Chertoff or anyone who reported to him would resign given the poor response. He quoted the Republican senator from Louisiana, David Vitter, who gave Secretary Chertoff a grade of F. He noted that Mitt Romney, Republican governor of Massachusetts, said that the U.S. is now an embarrassment to the world. He then challenged Secretary Chertoff:

“Your website says that your department assumes primary responsibility for a natural disaster. If you knew that a Hurricane Three storm was coming, why weren’t buses, trains, planes, cruise ships, trucks provided on Friday, Saturday, Sunday to evacuate people before the storm?”

Secretary Chertoff gave a response that was, at best, disingenuous. He said,

“Tim, the way that emergency operations act under the law is – the responsibility, the power, the authority to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials.”

Even if the statement were true, it was a sharp contrast from President Bush’s and FEMA Director Brown’s assurances that the federal government would do everything it could to help those affected by the storm. But as a PBS Frontline special pointed out, evacuation is a shared responsibility. The law establishing FEMA spells out:

“The functions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency include…conducting emergency operations to save lives and property through positioning emergency equipment and supplies, through evacuating potential victims, through providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to those in need, and through restoring critical public services.”

By the following Friday, 13 days after the flood, Secretary Chertoff announced that operational responsibility for the Katrina response was shifting from FEMA to the Coast Guard, and that Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen would take charge. FEMA Director Brown resigned the following Monday.

9 Lessons for Leaders and Communicators

The Katrina anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on foundational principles of effective crisis management. These include:

Leaders are judged based on how they deal with their most difficult challenges. Crises can literally make or break reputations.
Crisis management is the management of choices – the management of decisions that leaders make when things have the potential to go very wrong.
There is a rigor to effective crisis management that is equivalent to the rigor found in other business processes. But that rigor is often unknown, ignored, or misapplied by many leaders, to their own and their organizations’ misfortune. That rigor includes a systematic way to think in a crisis.
Every crisis is a business problem before it is a communication problem, and you cannot communicate your way out of a business problem. Crisis management is far more than skillful public relations. Effective crisis response consists of a carefully managed process that calibrates smart actions with smart communication: Crisis Response = Effective Action + Effective Communication.
The key to making smart choices is to use the right decision criteria – the proper basis for choice. And that means asking the right question: What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible organization to do in this situation?
Trust arises when stakeholders’ legitimate expectations are met. Trust falls when expectations are unmet.
Framing decisions in light of stakeholder expectations leads to smarter choices faster, and maintains stakeholders’ trust.
In a crisis, all stakeholders expect a responsible organization or leader to care. To care that something has happened; to care that people need help; to care that something needs to be done.
The single biggest predictor of loss of trust and confidence, of loss of reputation, and of financial and operational harm, is the perception that the organization or leader do not care. Effective crisis response, at a minimum, begins with a timely demonstration of caring. And it continues with a persistent demonstration that the organization and leader continue to care, for as long as the expectation of caring exists.

August 29, 2015/by Helio Fred Garcia

Logos President Remembers Service in the US House of Representatives

Blog

Logos President Helio Fred Garcia wrote a personal account of his time as a page in the US House of Representatives on the US Capitol Page Alumni Association website.

For more than 180 years, messengers known as Pages served the United States House of Representatives. Pages were high school juniors and had to be at least 16 years of age. Many prominent Americans served as Congressional Pages. They include Microsoft founder Bill Gates and George Washington University law professor and media analyst Jonathan Turley, plus dozens of current and former members of the United States Congress.

Pages in the House enjoyed an unparalleled opportunity to observe and participate in the legislative process in “the People’s House.” The expectations and experiences of House Pages, regardless of when they served, have been linked by certain commonalities—witnessing history, interacting with Representatives, and taking away lifelong inspiration to participate in civic life.

Pages also serve in the United States Senate and United States Supreme Court.

On August 8, 2011, the House of Representatives decided to shutter the House Page Program and with that, the era of House Pages came to a close.

A documentary about the House page program, Democracy’s Messengers, will be broadcast in the Fall. Logos President Helio Fred Garcia is an associate producer of the documentary. Here is a trailer for the film:

In his reflections on his service as a page Garcia noted that he had a unique opportunity, as an immigrant to the United States, to witness history: the impeachment by the House and then resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.

Garcia’s reflections follow, below.

It Pays to Read the Fine Print

By Helio Fred Garcia, House 1974

I am an immigrant to the United States. I arrived as a young child from a country where a military dictatorship had ousted a democratically-elected government.

In 1974, when I was 16, my high school history teacher suggested that I apply for a position that our local congressman had posted in the paper. Rep. Ben Gilman (R-NY) was in his first year in the House. He conducted an open competition for his first sponsorship of a page. There was an application, a test, an essay, staff interviews, another essay, and then a final interview with the congressman himself. I made the cut, and reported for duty on June 1, two weeks after my 17th birthday.

The first order of business was for the dozen or so new pages to be sworn in by the Doorkeeper of the House, William Fishbait Miller. I recognized Mr. Miller as the person who began every State of the Union with the announcement, “Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States!” Mr. Miller asked us to raise our hands and repeat: “I, [state your name], being a citizen of the United States,…”

I interrupted, “Sir, I’m not a citizen of the United States.” He was shocked, and said, “then you can’t be a page.” I replied, “No-one ever asked whether I was a citizen, and nothing I have read says that’s a requirement.” He said, “Sit over there and we’ll sort it out.”

He swore in the rest of the incoming class, then tasked an aide to research the requirements. After several hours of looking, the aide reported that there was in fact nothing in writing requiring citizenship. The Doorkeeper told me to stand and raise my hand. He swore me in, and I went to work.

This was the first session of the 93rd Congress, under Speaker Carl Albert.

Helio Fred Garcia, left, in 1974 with his Congressional sponsor, Rep. Ben Gilman (R-NY23)

This was also the summer of the Watergate hearings, and one of my first tasks was distributing to members on the floor the Writ of Certiorari asking the Supreme Court to take the case United States v. Nixon, after the President had refused to comply with a district court order to release certain tapes and documents to a special prosecutor. I also took the opportunity to read that writ.

Throughout my tenure, I would take as many trips as I could to watch the House Judiciary Committee consider impeachment proceedings against the President. And I got to witness such leaders as Rep. Peter Rodino, Rep. Barbara Jordan, Rep. Charles Rangel, and Rep. Robert Drinan speak eloquently about how no individual, however powerful, was above the law.

Rep. Barbara Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee, Summer, 1974

Here is just a brief sample of what I witnessed in the hearings:

When the president resigned on August 8, I was blown away. This immigrant kid had a front-row seat to history; to a peaceful transition of power. I said, “I want to be part of this.” As soon as I turned 18 I applied for citizenship; I became a citizen three years later.

In college I majored in political science, with a specialty in congressional procedure. I later went to graduate school, and have been both a business consultant and business professor for more than 30 years. Early in my career I was a registered lobbyist and got legislation introduced in the House and Senate. My work and teaching have taken me to dozens of countries on six continents, and I do meaningful public service, mostly as a volunteer on not-for-profit boards. Most of my graduate students are from outside the U.S., including from countries where citizens have no role in electing a government. I spend a lot of time helping them decipher what’s happening in American politics and government. I’m proud to be one of Democracy’s Messengers.

And I still well up at the thought that this nation opened its government to an immigrant kid. And 41 years later, I still well up when I hear the Doorkeeper announce, “Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States!”

Helio Fred Garcia, House, Summer 1974, is the president of Logos Consulting Group and an adjunct professor at New York University. He also holds faculty positions in Europe and China.

August 11, 2015/by Helio Fred Garcia

Logos Consulting Group and Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership Welcome Iris Wenting Xue

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Iris Wenting Xue

Logos Consulting Group and Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership welcome Iris Wenting Xue as Research Associate and China Business Development Associate.

Prior to joining Logos full-time, Iris contributed to Logos part-time for several research projects, including the third edition of Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication. She also conducted research and prepared analysis for clients from a range of industries, including consumer goods, nonprofit, financial service, fashion, and for Logos intellectual property. She published her original crisis model on the Logos blog. She has been a guest speaker and teaching assistant at New York University’s School of Professional Studies and a guest speaker in NYU Stern School of Business Executive MBA program.

Iris managed the Chinese Business Development Project for The Power of Communication this past March. She coordinated more than 20 seminars in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and Tianjin for 15 top universities including Tsinghua University and Peking University, NYU Shanghai, and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Nanjing Center, as well as for the second largest English Newspaper Shanghai Daily and for several other high-profile corporations and non-profit organizations. She provided simultaneous interpretation when needed during these seminars.

Her working experience includes, but is not limited to, a one-year internship in U.S. corporate at Prada, serving as a media buyer for Omnicom (Shanghai office), and a researcher and analyst role for a China Cross-Strait Research Development Center. Iris also worked as a journalist and freelancer for distinguished newspapers and weekly publications in China and in the U.S.

Iris earned her master’s degree in Public Relations and Corporate Communication from New York University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Translation and Interpretation (English and German) from Shanghai International Studies University where she won scholarships each semester. She was one of the “Top Ten Campus Writers in Shanghai” in 2006.

Iris considers herself a citizen of the world and is on a constant pursuit to understand the global landscape and cultural differences. She was selected to a Munich University summer exchange program in her youth. She is fluent in Mandarin, English, German and Shanghainese. She is currently pursuing her Japanese-Language Proficiency Test.

Iris has left her backpacking footprint all over the world. Her top three favorite places are Tibet, Taiwan and Heidelberg.

July 1, 2015/by Logos Consulting Group

Finding the frame: how 37 words diminished five decades of success

Blog, Framing

By Kristin Johnson

Thirty-seven words sparked global outrage last week:

“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.”

Tim Hunt, a British biochemist with a 51-year career in scientific research, owns these words. His distinctions include a Nobel Prize in 2001 for his work on cell cycles, and the conferment of knighthood by the Queen of England. Speaking at the World Conference of Science Journalists last week, Dr. Hunt had an opportunity to further distinguish himself among his peers. Instead, in 37 words, the 72-year old scientist ignited a vocal, angry discussion around the world. Three days later, the global indignation prompted Dr. Hunt to resign from his position as honorary professor with the University College London Faculty of Life Sciences. He was subsequently asked to step down from the European Research Council, where he was a long-standing committee member.

A week out, there is more perspective on the issue. Dr. Hunt apologized, though many argue his apology was insufficient. Also, personal details of his life emerged, adding texture to his relationships with women. In addition to being the father to two daughters, Dr. Hunt happens to be the husband of Mary Collins, a senior immunology researcher, who is a professor and former dean with a 20-year career at the University College London. She is a self-proclaimed feminist who agrees her husband’s remarks were stupid, but defends his character and long record of collaborating with and mentoring female scientists. Some of those associates, mentees, and even Dr. Hunt’s first wife also came to his defense in media reports over the weekend. But the damage was done.

How did someone with a lifetime of achievement nosedive to global contempt? The public response may have less to do with Dr. Hunt’s 37 words, and more to do with the disgust of a greater misogyny pervading the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions. Unfortunately for Dr. Hunt, the thoughtlessness with which he spoke about women in science – jokingly or not – wove an irresistible media story in which he was the main character in a tale full of conflict, controversy, and contradiction. And for whatever story traditional media had to share in print and on the air, the social media sphere quickly made the shaming viral. For Dr. Hunt’s life and legacy – his words mattered.

This post is neither to condemn nor to pardon Dr. Hunt. That is another discussion. What I do want to raise is the power of words. Words have a remarkable ability to shape business outcomes. Words help individuals and businesses enhance positioning, but also have the potency to slay a reputation. Words alone, however, are not sufficient to cause people to think or do something different. For that, emotions are necessary, and emotions come when language shapes a mental structure, or “frame.”

The current frame around women in STEM is a contentious one. Women are underrepresented in both STEM degree programs and STEM positions for a variety of complex reasons tied to gender inequality. Perhaps Dr. Hunt, who referred to himself in the same controversial talk as a “has been scientist,” thought he was being humorous, during what could be considered a dry, scientific discussion. He failed to appreciate that within the frame of discussion around women in STEM, female efforts are persistently marginalized, and this needs to change. Therefore, any collegial, emotional appeal he was seeking fell short. Instead of head nods and laughs, he received an uncomfortable silence from a stunned audience.

If Dr. Hunt were a stand-up comedian, it could be presumed that people came for jokes and perhaps he would have received some laughs in a forum where comedy is often off-color. The reality, however, is that he was representing a greater scientific research community and his sexist comments were no laughing matter. The response to his remarks was swift and harsh, and fit the frame society has placed around the importance of elevating women in STEM. Whether or not the global vitriol fit the offense is another topic.

The lesson? Words matter. The frame, which gives context to words, matters even more. The next time you speak, consider how your message could be received beyond your immediate audience. Dr. Hunt’s talk and fallout is an easy example since his words were unarguably condemning to female scientists, whether it was his intention or not. In smaller, more subtle ways, however, it may be difficult to think beyond oneself or the immediate audience. If we find ourselves ever saying, “what I mean is” – and we all have – then it’s wise to think more critically about the words we choose and the frames that are so fundamental to shaping them.

June 16, 2015/by Kristin Johnson

Corporate Social Responsibility Leadership Course

Blog

Logos Senior Advisor Anthony Ewing will moderate a panel discussion on combatting human trafficking in supply chains at the Corporate Social Responsibility Leadership Course offered by Fordham University School of Law and the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice. The course for lawyers, professional service providers, CSR practitioners, business professionals and graduate students takes place June 11th and 12th, 2015 in New York.

June 8, 2015/by Logos Consulting Group

Anthony Ewing Leads Teaching Workshop

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Logos Senior Advisor Anthony Ewing recently co-led the Fifth Annual Teaching Business and Human Rights Workshop at Columbia University.

Anthony is a co-founder, with Joanne Bauer of Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, of the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum, a unique platform for collaboration among individuals teaching business and human rights worldwide. As demand for university and professional business and human rights education grows worldwide, individuals teaching the subject face common challenges and opportunities. The Forum seeks to promote and strengthen business and human rights education by connecting individuals teaching the subject in different faculties and geographies. Since 2001, Anthony has taught the seminar “Transnational Business and Human Rights” at Columbia University, where he is a Lecturer in Law.

The Forum grew out of an inaugural workshop in May 2011 at Columbia University that convened twenty professors from the United States and the United Kingdom to share teaching strategies and resources. The Forum has since grown to include more than 200 members teaching business and human rights at more than 115 institutions in 26 countries on five continents.

This year’s Workshop, on May 18-19th, brought together 35 individuals teaching business and human rights at schools of law, business and international affairs worldwide, including professors from Canada, China, Denmark, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Topics of discussion included teaching non-judicial grievance mechanisms, recent national policy and legislative developments, and key issues in emerging economies like China.

May 26, 2015/by Anthony Ewing

Logos Institute Celebrates 2015 Graduates

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The Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership is pleased to congratulate 2015 graduates. In particular, the Institute recognizes the work and achievement of New York University’s School of Professional Studies Public Relations and Corporate Communication (PR&CC) newly minted master’s students.

Helio Fred Garcia with NYU PR&CC graduates

Several members of Logos Institute are adjunct faculty in the PR&CC program, teaching several courses including Crisis Management; Strategic Communications; Communication Ethics, Law, and Regulation; and Public Relations Consulting.

Logos Institute members who also serve as NYU PR&CC faculty participated in Sunday’s commencement ceremony, which took place at Madison Square Garden.

The graduation stage at Madison Square Garden

Following the commencement, Logos hosted an open house for graduates and their families, as well as NYU faculty, administration, and past graduates to celebrate scholarship and friendship.

Kristin Johnson signs a student program

About Logos Institute

Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership stands at the intersection of scholarship and practice, providing both rigorous analysis and practical application of key leadership principles. We illuminate best practices, current trends, emerging issues, and leadership skills.

Logos Institute is a thought leader in its field, conducting research, publishing, and providing an extensive range of executive education workshops, seminars, conferences, and highly-customized coaching of senior executives of all sectors, around the world.

Logos Institute creates and maintains an inventory of Best Practices, along with attendant tools and concepts that can inform our clients of what works and why, and that can help our clients to enhance their capacity to perform at higher and higher levels.

May 19, 2015/by Logos Consulting Group

Part 2: Bridging the Sociocultural Gap: Lessons from The Power of Communication China Trip

Blog, China, Communication, Framing, International Affairs, Language, Leadership, Power of Communication

by Iris Wenting Xue

Last month, my mentor and boss, Helio Fred Garcia, and I visited more than 20 organizations, including top universities and prestigious corporations, in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Tianjin.

During our visit, we have experienced different learning approaches and different cultural styles of lecture attendants. We had international students from joint-venture universities; Chinese students at top Chinese universities majoring in business (both MBA and Executive MBA), communication, and other liberal arts and sciences; senior PR managers from multinational groups; mid-career bankers from a national banking commission; and officials from local governments.

This post is the second in a series of posts on how to understand and overcome sociocultural obstacles. I learned three lessons about sociocultural and linguistic gaps during the Logos The Power of Communication China trip. In my last post I described the first gap: different languages. We can easily bridge the language gap by translation.

Today I will describe lessons about two other gaps that are harder to solve, although we constantly talk about them.

Lesson 2: Different Learning Approaches

In order to demonstrate how hard it is for audiences to pay attention, we showed many of our audiences the video Invisible Gorilla. You can click on it and watch before you keep reading. You will be surprised about your counting skills.

I first watched this video during my strategic communication course at New York University in the Public Relations and Corporate Communication Graduate Program.

In this 30-second video, six people – three in white shirts and three in black shirts – pass basketballs around. The task for the audience is to count the number of passes made by the people in white shirts, and spot a gorilla that strolls into the middle of the action, thumps its chest and then leaves.

At that time I had a robust discussion with my classmates about 1) why was it so hard to accurately count how many times the players passed the basketball and also to spot a gorilla among human beings, 2) how to understand cognitive tunneling, which is what makes the tasks so hard, and 3) what we could learn and apply to our work from that exercise.

This time in China, I discovered some interesting learning approaches beyond these three takeaways – each specific to different groups of people.

1) PhDs

When we showed this video to a group of, let’s say, 50 people, there were always 15 who counted accurately, 10-ish who came close but got the number wrong, 10-ish who got close but chose a different number, 7-ish of some less-close number and two or three people who counted very wrong.

So one of our conclusions was “Counting numbers under 20 is not as easy as we thought it’d be.”

However, when we showed the video to a group of people including Ph.Ds in China, one of their conclusions was: “The answers could be plotted as a curve.”

This was the first time we discussed The Invisible Gorilla with PhDs. And this was the first time we received a response with the word “curve.” So, we responded with their language, “Gaussian distribution,” to acknowledge their worldview, to motivate them, to deepen the conversation.

2) Bankers

After the count, we typically asked: “While you were counting how many times the players passed the basketball, did you see a gorilla?” People either saw it or did not see it, so when they watched the video again they either were proud of their observation skills or disappointed that they had missed the gorilla.

We played the same video to a group of mid-career bankers. When we rewound the video, they denied that they had missed the gorilla:” We saw it, but we didn’t think it was a real gorilla. Instead, it was a human with a gorilla costume.”

This was the first time we had showed bankers The Invisible Gorilla. This was also the first time the audience challenged the content of the video. We respected the different habits, so we reframed the “gorilla” as “a human in a gorilla costume” based on their descriptions, to keep the conversation going.

3) Heads of Communications

Our routine at the end of the discussion was – “Any other thoughts and comments?”

Typically audiences will respond with their opinions about their counting skills or the missing gorilla.

But when we showed the same video to a group of PR directors, heads of public affairs and senior PR managers — from Standard Chartered, General Motors, Estée Lauder Companies, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical Company and some other multinational enterprises — some of their final thoughts went far beyond the counting and the gorilla. Some of them knitted their brows and raised questions like “Are you manipulating us?”

They provided an interesting reason why the curve occurred, and why the gorilla, or the human with a gorilla costume, was overlooked. They insisted that the designer of the experiment manipulated the audience through putting a black gorilla among black-and-white-shirted players. They argued that since they concentrated on counting the passing of the white-shirt team, they could not pay attention to the black team and the black gorilla. If it had been a light brown gorilla, they would easily have dentified it.

How would you respond to this tricky question?

Lesson learned: “Understand your audience” appears in the slides we show to our clients. But we have to walk the talk and meet our audience by observing their approach and adopting their language.

Lesson 3: Different Cultural Styles

Before we landed in China, we thought we would face one group of audience – Chinese audience. To our surprise, our audience differed in certain ways: Some of them were shy but smart; some of them were as open like those in the States; some of them stayed in their own world, and it took us a long time to understand their thoughts.

I use the word “cultural style” to emphasize their subtle differences beyond imagination. To my surprise, I found in my research that Professor Dan Kahan of Yale Law School blogged this conception based on his study with his collaborators on Joseph Gusfield:

“The term “cultural style” is, for me, a way to describe these affinities. I have adapted it from Gusfield. I & collaborators use the concept and say more about it and how it relates to Gusfield in various places.…

Examples of these are cultural generations, such as the traditional and the modern; characterological types, such as ‘inner-directed and other-directed’; and reference orientations, such as ‘cosmopolitans and locals.’”

I agree with Kahan about how people differ from each other due to the difference of location or character and share the affinities with each other due to time or education background.

Below are the four main cultural styles during our trip:

1) Top Local University Style

We visited four of the top ten universities in China. Not to our surprise, the institutions are powerful. Here are some recent updates of some of them:

Tsinghua University celebrated its 104 anniversary this past Sunday and posted some old pictures of its famous alumni, including current President Xi (graduated from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences Department and later got an LLD degree), former President Hu (graduated from the Water Conservancy Engineering Department); the governor of the People’s Bank of China Xiaochuan Zhou (got a Ph.D. degree in Automation and System Engineering), and the controversial Chinese-born American Nobel Physics Prize winner Chen-Ning Franklin Yang (received a Master’s Degree and later became an honored director).

Xi Jinping, as a student at Tsinghua University, and now as President of China

Shanghai Jiaotong University, through its School of Media and Design (at which we spoke) and the University of Southern California jointly established The Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry (ICCI). Ernest J. Wilson III, Dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, visited the same campus we visited one month after our visit.

To our surprise, some of their current students were not as vocal as we expected. Lectures we held in the top local universities were much more silent than those we held in joint-venture universities, although we discovered later that they had brilliant thoughts. In general, they are proud about being “blue blood”, and they tend to appear modest but think aggressively. They were reluctant to share their personal opinions about some topics until we pushed them several times.

2) Joint-Venture University Style

Elite universities in China and other countries are already on the path of exploring partnerships with universities from other countries. For example:

In 2004, The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) was set up by the University of Nottingham (UK) with the cooperation of Zhejiang’s Wanli Education Group in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.
In 2006, the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) was jointly established by University of Liverpool and Xi’an Jiao Tong University in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.
In 2012, Duke Kunshan University was organized as a collaboration between Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, with Wuhan University, and the city of Kunshan, Jiangsu Province.

Among joint-venture universities we visited in China this time, we were impressed with New York University Shanghai, Johns Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, and Sino-British College.

NYU Shanghai is NYU’s third degree-granting campus. Its enrollment started in Fall 2013, and now there are only Freshmen and Sophomores. Students are not only from China, or other Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea and the Philippines, but also from the States, Canada, France, Dubai and many other countries.

The Johns Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies is a joint educational venture between the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University. It has been operating in Nanjing since 1986.

Sino-British College is an international university college in Shanghai, China, jointly established by the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST), and nine British universities (The University of Bradford, The University of Huddersfield, The University of Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan University, Liverpool John Moores University, Manchester Metropolitan University, The University of Salford, The University of Sheffield, and Sheffield Hallam University).

These three joint venture universities have built global classrooms with a global view, where students are open and comfortable hearing other opinions and sharing opinions themselves. The diversity of student and faculty kindled the diverse discussion we typically associate with academia.

3) Business Style (Communicators and Non-Communicators)

Business audiences tended to be more worldly and more serious. For example, when we talked about crisis management in a Corporate Social Responsibility Forum in Shanghai and showed a picture of an oil platform explosion to the communicators, participants immediately identified it as “BP”. It was self-evident. They were aware of what was happening in the crisis management field, even though they live in a country where people tend to whitewash scandals. Also, some of them asked tricky questions like “Is it a smart crisis strategy to find another crisis that will shift the focus and will thus save our company from the spotlight?”

Here is another sign of how seriously the business community takes professional development. When the largest residential real estate company in China (which has an office in New York) invited my boss, Helio Fred Garcia, to hold a speech about The Power of Communication, they not only offered a huge auditorium of 200 people, but also live broadcasted it to 40 other national offices. Each office was equipped with live broadcasted lecture and real-time slides. Each office had at least 20 attendants. And even though it was a Friday evening lecture, the company told us that they had an attendance rate of over 90 percent and that nobody left in the middle of the speech.

Executives at a Vanke regional office spending a Friday evening watching Prof. Garcia’s workshop via remote technology

4) Local Government Style

We coached 90 officials from Nanyang, a “small” city of 10 million residents in Henan Province.

They were being trained in crisis management because they were working on a huge national project “South–North Water Diversion”. (Think of the drought in California, and imagine diverting a major river 800 miles to California.) Due to this project, a huge amount of Nanyang residents had to relocate. So government officials were eager to be trained for if (or when) a crisis might happen.

Route of the Water Diversion Project to bring water from the South to the greater Beijing area

I did the simultaneous translation for the lecture. My observations are as follow:

The officials were focused on the lecture, even though the majority of them cannot understand English beyond “Hello” and “Thank you”.
They were the only group of people that were uniformly unfamiliar with Professor Garcia’s references to Greek tragedies. Every other group understood immediately when he referred Greek tragedies as the example that people remember bad things rather than good things. They were the only group of people that could not get our point of “Greek tragedies are all about choices — Do I kill my father and marry my mother?” Every other group, including students from universities and even engineers from big companies, laughed at the reference. The officials remained silent.
They were eager to share a Confucius quote, and insisted that I translate it simultaneously for Professor Garcia. They also expected his response and feedback to the Confucius quote. In other words, they were the group who seemed to ignore others culture, but emphasize their own culture.

Zeus hurling thunderbolts; Confucius

Lesson Learned: When social patterns and cultural differences are involved, we have to be very careful about what is happening to people who do not share the same learning approach and same cultural style as ours.

The two lessons we learned today are much harder than the first lesson. Accordingly, there is no single solution for each of these gaps. But one large takeaway from the trip is that we need to take seriously not only differences in language but also differences in learning approach and cultural style.

April 28, 2015/by Iris Wenting Xue

Bridging the Sociocultural Gap: Three Lessons from The Power of Communication China Trip

Best Practices, Blog, China, Communication, International Affairs, Language, Power of Communication, Uncategorized

by Iris Wenting Xue

Earlier this year I organized last month’s four-week China book tour for my mentor and boss, Helio Fred Garcia. The Chinese edition of his book, The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively, and Logos Institute’s approach to leadership, communication, and crisis management, were well received and highly appreciated by Chinese readers and audiences.

We visited 15 prestigious universities and had many public events in four Chinese cities. Our audiences were from such disparate organizations as:

Top Chinese universities such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Communication University of China, Nankai University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Shanghai International Studies University;

Joint-venture universities such as New York University Shanghai, Johns Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, and Sino-British College;

3) Large corporations like Vanke, the largest residential real estate developer in China, and

4) Renowned media organizations like Shanghai Daily.

We dealt with varied groups of people, from 20-something college students to 70-something millionaires; from public relations majors to MBAs, and EMBAs; from journalists to government officials; from crisis managers to bankers and engineers…

As a result of this exchange, Logos Institute is now in discussion with several top universities for longer-term academic collaboration, but that is not the most valuable result of the trip.

Right of Prof. Garcia, in green, Dr. Xiaojun Qian, Professor and Assistant Dean, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua university; Left of Prof. Garcia, the publisher, Wendy Yang of Publishing House of Electronics Industry

We have built relationships with several institutions and companies for future cooperation, but again that is not the most valuable result.

Lessons Learned

As a communication practitioner, a tour observer and a translator, I discovered three lessons to be the most valuable outcome of the trip; lessons that can help us all to better understand, respect, and bridge the communication gap between different audiences.

We should understand, respect and bridge the gaps caused by:

Different languages
Different learning approaches
Different cultural styles

These three lessons are universal and universally applicable.

Below I elaborate on the first lesson, different languages. In a subsequent post I will elaborate on each of the remaining two lessons.

Lesson 1: Different Languages

One obvious gap between the American author, Helio Fred Garcia, and the Chinese audience is language. We can easily overcome this obstacle by translation; translating both the slide content for visual reinforcement, and simultaneous or consecutive translation of the spoken word.

Some universities and organizations in Shanghai, and Johns Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, did not require simultaneous or consecutive translation because most lecture attendants spoke fluent English.

But on most other occasions I translated the lecture, the Q&A session and even the meeting with deans, professors, or other leaders.

These two scenarios were easy to handle compared to the third scenario – The audience or the leader had the illusion that they were fluent in English, and then the misunderstanding came as expected.

This illusion of fluency has consequences, sometimes tragic, sometimes comical, but often just frustrating.

Throughout the trip, I discovered many of the challenges associated with the illusion of fluency. I offer just two representative examples:

1) “Publicity” or “Propaganda”?

Chinese is one of the three hardest-to-master languages in the world (The other two are Arabic and German).

One difficulty is its brevity. One Chinese character could easily have five or six meanings, so there could be various explanations for one Chinese word.

For instance, the Chinese word 宣传 (“Xuan Chuan”) can be accurately translated in English as both “propaganda” and “publicity.” In English the word “propaganda” is derogatory. But “publicity” is benign, if not commendatory. Because of this linguistic phenomenon, many Chinese cannot understand the subtle difference between publicity and propaganda. They interchangeably use them, just as Americans in a big city might interchangeably use “subway” and ”metro.”

To add to the confusion, there is a Chinese Central Government Department called the “Xuan Chuan Department.” Technically, it should be translated as “Department of Publicity.” However, because many Chinese conflate publicity and propaganda, they simply translate that department as “Department of Propaganda.” Many even prefer the word “propaganda” because, as one person confessed to me, it “looks premium and shows the translator’s profound English vocabulary.” This can create a deep sense of suspicion among native English speakers that “this Chinese Central Government Department does nothing else but propaganda.” Fortunately, the official name of this department is now “The Publicity Department.”

2) God uses [a] VPN (virtual private network)?

It is commonly acknowledged that many Chinese popular foods are hard to translate. CNN and HuffingtonPost featured some humorous accounts of this.

For example, “Fo Tiao Qiang” is a southern China dish or soup originating in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). It contains shark fin, quail eggs, bamboo shoots, scallops, sea cucumber, abalone, chicken, Jinhua ham, pork tendon, ginseng, mushrooms, and taro. The literal meaning of the name is “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall.” It is meant to suggest that the dish is so enticing that even Buddha would be unable to resist its lure, and would jump over the wall of his temple to be able to taste the soup.

But last month we saw the soup translated as “God uses VPN.” Some context: In China much of the internet is blocked behind a firewall. But Chinese people know how to access some of the forbidden parts — Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.– simply by using a virtual private network (VPN) to get past the firewall. The same Chinese words lead to dramatically different English translations.

So, the delicious dish traditionally translated as “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall” on at least one menu is now rendered “God uses VPN.” How can we understand it without the context?

In my next post I’ll address the two remaining questions:

How to understand, respect and bridge the gaps caused by

Different learning approaches
Different cultural styles.

April 17, 2015/by Iris Wenting Xue