The IABC is a global association that serves professionals in the field of business communication, bringing together the profession’s collective disciplines.
The 2023 IABC World Conference, happening between June 4 through June 7 in Toronto, Canada, will bring together communication professionals from around the world for four days of collective learning, professional development, and networking. This year’s conference centers on how effective communication can deepen relationships, purpose, impact, curiosity, and more among teams and organizations.
“Disinformation is a problem well beyond the United States. It is responsible for political turmoil and oppression also in Latin America, Europe, Asia – around the world,” Garcia said. “This conference is a meaningful opportunity to connect with professional communicators from around the world to heighten their awareness and sharpen our individual and collective skills so that we may protect and promote civic order.”
Garcia’s keynote address will focus on the challenges professional communicators face in an environment of increasing mistrust and political turmoil. He will examine the ways in which disinformation and misinformation can – and have – put human life and democracy at risk. And he will share strategies that professional communicators can deploy to avoid becoming misinformation mercenaries and to help their clients and employers more likely communicate honestly and in ways that build trust, rather than erode trust.
“Disinformation and misinformation kill — both people and society,” Garcia explained. “And communicators have a critically important role in pushing back on disinformation. IABC’s Code of Ethics notes that professional communicators have the potential to influence society and affect lives. And with that power comes responsibility. The first two principles of the Code are: 1) I am honest. My actions bring respect for and trust in the communication profession; and 2) I communicate accurate information and promptly correct any errors.”
“The risks of disinformation and misinformation have never been more serious,” Garcia reflected. “And the need for communicators to protect the integrity of the communication process – and thereby to protect democracy – has never been greater.”
https://i0.wp.com/www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/IABC-2023-World-Conference.png?fit=851%2C283&ssl=1283851Logos Consulting Grouphttps://www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HQ-Lambda-Consulting-Lockup-1030x562.pngLogos Consulting Group2023-03-09 10:29:332023-03-08 16:35:08PRESS RELEASE: Logos President to Deliver Keynote at International Association of Business Communicators World Conference
One of the ways Logos Consulting Group serves our clients and our network is to identify troubling social trends and to raise the alarm when we believe those trends are likely to affect clients.
And in early 2009 we noticed a troubling pattern: A surge of incivility by prominent people and in unexpected places. We began advising clients of the risk of such incivility becoming normalized in the workplace and in the public square. And we worried that the trend would escalate.
Over the span of more than a decade we have further raised the alarm as incivility escalated into hate crimes, then terrorism, and then insurrection. All the while American civic life became fractured. And even as a pandemic has taken more than one million American lives, the polarization and turmoil continue.
And through it all we advised clients on how to protect themselves and their people, and to live their values, especially when their people were at risk.
Disruption
Incivility took tangible form in early August 2009, soon after President Obama proposed what later became the Affordable Care Act. As members of Congress, home for the August recess, held informational town hall meetings, so-called Tea Party activists loudly disrupted those meetings. While originally described as spontaneous uprisings of citizens, the media soon recognized that the disruptions were organized by well-funded Obama opponents and followed a playbook that included these instructions:
“Be Disruptive Early And Often: You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
“Try To Rattle Him, Not Have An Intelligent Debate: The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”
A month later, as President Obama tried to regain control of the healthcare narrative, there was another unprecedented disruption. Obama addressed a joint session of Congress and outlined many of the misperceptions the Tea Party had spread about his healthcare initiative. At one point, South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson interrupted the President with a shout of “You lie!” Wilson was later censured by the House, but raised millions of dollars in the weeks that followed.
The incivility moved from politics to celebrity with another unprecedented and highly visible disruption during the Video Music Awards. Breakout artist Taylor Swift won Best Video by a Female Artist. As the young musician took the stage to give her acceptance speech, she was startled as rapper Kanye West stormed onstage, took Swift’s microphone out of her hand, and declared that the rightful winner should have been Beyoncé.
And we saw clients experience similar acts of incivility in the workplace and in customer interactions.
Incivility Turns to Violence
In 2011, during a Manhattan march by Occupy Wall Street activists, a New York City senior police officer pepper-sprayed the faces of peaceful protesters who were being detained behind orange netting. Police guidelines make clear that pepper spray may not be used in situations that do not require the use of physical force. Two months later, police at the University of California Davis were trying to remove several peaceful seated Occupy Wall Street protesters who were blocking a paved path on campus. A police officer systematically pepper-sprayed each of the protesters. Videos of both the New York and Davis incidents went viral on social and mainstream media. Eventually both the New York City police and the University of California Davis reached settlements with those who were sprayed.
The aberrant became normative in the following months as individuals began to use pepper spray against others. During a Black Friday sale at a southern California Walmart, a woman pepper-sprayed fellow shoppers who were trying to grab a video game in short supply. In New York City, a 14-year-old high school student used pepper spray against her classmates, sending nine to the hospital.
We advised clients to make clear that violence, including but not limited to pepper spray, was unacceptable in the workplace and that offenders would face significant consequence.
Black Lives Matter
In early 2012 Trayvon Martin, an African American teen, was killed in Sandford, Florida by a vigilante who told police the young man looked, “like he is up to no good or on drugs or something.” Although police advised George Zimmerman to not pursue the young man, Zimmerman did, eventually shooting Martin in a struggle. The police originally released Zimmerman, but after significant public outcry they brought charges. He was acquitted after claiming self-defense under Florida’s Stand-Your-Ground law.
Eighteen months later, Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teen in Ferguson, Missouri was shot multiple times by a Ferguson police officer. The police mishandled both the immediate investigation and the massive protests that followed.
These two shootings led to heightened visibility of police violence against unarmed African Americans. The Black Lives Matter movement emerged after Trayvon Martin’s murder and grew to national prominence following Michael Brown’s murder. In the years that followed, the movement grew further. In the summer of 2020, after the videotaped killing by four police officers of George Floyd, more than 25 million Americans took to the streets in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, the largest public protest in American history.
We advised clients in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and we were also retained by new clients who had responded ineffectively to changing stakeholder expectations to take Black Lives Matter seriously.
From Hate Crimes to Acts of Terror
In 2015 Donald Trump began his presidential campaign by demonizing immigrants and people seeking asylum in the U.S. Hate crimes against people perceived to be Latino surged. When candidate Trump called for “total and complete ban” of Muslims entering the U.S., hate crimes against people perceived to be Muslim surged.
Throughout his presidency Trump dehumanized groups and demonized groups, rivals, and critics. Acts of violence surged against those Trump targeted. In my book Words on Fire: The Power of Incendiary Language and How to Confront It, I describe the Playbook Trump used: twelve forms of communication that create the social conditions that lead some people to accept, condone, and commit acts of violence against those Trump targets.
In the run-up to the 2018 midterm election, Trump intensified his dehumanization and demonization of Latin Americans seeking legal asylum. Trump characterized these asylum seekers using some form of the words ‘invader,’ ‘invasion,’ ‘criminal,’ ‘animal,’ or ‘killer’ with increasing frequency. Trump said one or more of these words between eight and ten times per rally in early October. In the three days before the mid-term election, Trump said one or more of these more than thirty times per rally. His rally speeches were further amplified by his social media posts. He and his allies also asserted that the purported invasion was financed by George Soros and Jewish institutions.
Incivility morphed into acts of terror. Less than two weeks before election day, a white supremacist who embraced Trump’s language committed a terror attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 people and wounding two others. That same week, a Trump supporter sent 16 mail bombs to more than a dozen Trump critics whom Trump had demonized on social media. In August 2019, a Trump supporter killed 32 people he perceived to be Mexican in an El Paso Walmart. He said he was protecting Texas from a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
And during COVID-19, Trump continued to refer to the Coronavirus as the China Virus, or Chinese Virus, or even Kung Flu. This led to a surge of hate crimes against people perceived to be Asian.
Throughout, we advised clients on ways to help members of at-risk groups both be safe and feel safe.
Stand Back and Stand By
President Trump began laying the groundwork to claim that the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate as early as the Spring of 2020, discrediting the legitimacy of mail-in ballots. By election day he was actively claiming that the election was rigged and refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost.
In the first presidential debate in late September 2020, Trump was asked to denounce white nationalist groups, specifically the Proud Boys. Instead, he called on the group to “stand back and stand by.” The group’s leader replied on social media that they were standing by, and the Proud Boys immediately added the phrase “stand back and stand by” to their line of merchandise.
Following the election that Trump claims he won and months of misinformation, Trump called for his followers to come to Washington. Trump posted on Twitter on December 19, 2020, “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” January 6 was when the electoral college votes were to be certified by Congress.
As a result, what had been individualized self-directed acts of violence and terror became a coordinated event, with multiple players all participating in what became an insurrection.
Among those who responded to the call were the Proud Boys, which formed a new chapter for those coming to DC called the ‘Ministry of Self-Defense.’ On the day Trump called for people to come to DC, the head of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, spoke with Kelly Meggs, the Florida head of the militia group The Oath Keepers, which also had a meaningful presence at the January 6 insurrection. Meggs sent a message to his followers: “Trump said It’s gonna be wild!!!!!!! It’s gonna be wild!!!!!!! He wants us to make it WILD that’s what he’s saying. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir Yes Sir!!! Gentlemen we are heading to DC pack your shit!!”
On January 6, as the Congress was considering the electoral count in the 2020 election, Trump addressed a crowd of thousands gathered at the Ellipse near the White House. He rallied the crowd to march to the Capitol to disrupt the proceedings. He called on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election. Among his remarks:
“And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing … We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”
“Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about … We will stop the steal.”
“Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
The Proud Boys were among the first to penetrate the perimeter of the Capitol. Thousands of rally-goers eventually arrived, and more than 2,000 entered the building. Some called for the assassination of Vice President Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other members of Congress. One Trump supporter was killed by Capitol police as she tried to penetrate the window on a set of doors leading to the House chamber.
Five police officers who were present during the insurrection died, as did four of the insurrectionists. More than 130 police officers were injured. Of those, 15 were hospitalized, some with severe injuries.
We advised clients on ways to deal both with political polarization and the possibility that some of their employees may have been part of the Capitol attack.
And the incivility, polarization, and violence continue.
Where are We Now?
As 2022 comes to a close, the nation has experienced more than 600 mass shootings, defined as shootings with four or more fatalities, not including the gunman. This puts 2022 on track to meet or exceed last year’s record of 690 mass shootings.
Twitter’s new owner has eliminated many of the standards that previously restrained much violence-provoking rhetoric. As a result, as just one example, use of the N-word on Twitter has increased five times in the month of Elon Musk’s leadership of the social media platform.
And heightened political polarization in the new Congress is likely to spill out into the public square.
What’s Next?
What are we advising our clients? That it’s likely to get worse before it gets better; that it will likely take an inflection point of unprecedented proportion before the pendulum begins to move back toward civility.
As Trump faces a range of federal, state, and local criminal investigations, it’s just a matter of time before he is indicted. We need to take very seriously Senator Lindsey Graham’s prediction that there will be “riots in the streets” if Trump should be prosecuted.
So, what can leaders do to prepare?
First, note the pattern of the escalation of incivility… to dehumanization… to acts of individual violence… to acts of collective violence.
Second, call out the pattern and declare that you will hold people in your organization accountable for provoking or committing violence.
In the meantime, Logos Consulting Group will continue our trendspotting and share our concerns and insights with our clients and our network.
This reflective piece is part of our 20th anniversary celebration. Throughout this anniversary year, we will be sharing a series of reflections on the shifts and trends we have been following in business and in the world over the past twenty years, as well as advice to leaders and organizations navigating through the challenges we see today.
https://i0.wp.com/www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Logos-20th-Anniversary-Web.png?fit=851%2C315&ssl=1315851Helio Fred Garciahttps://www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HQ-Lambda-Consulting-Lockup-1030x562.pngHelio Fred Garcia2022-11-29 09:53:022023-01-09 17:26:18From Incivility to Insurrection: A Logos 20th Anniversary Reflection
Logos Consulting Group is pleased to announce that Logos President Helio Fred Garcia, a member of the Columbia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty, has been promoted from Adjunct Associate Professor to Adjunct (full) Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.
Garcia is in his sixth year teaching in the school’s Professional Development and Leadership program. He teaches the required course on Ethics and Integrity for Engineers to all incoming M.S. and PhD students. He also participates in the required first-year undergraduate Art of Engineering course to provide an introduction to ethical decision-making for undergraduate engineering students.
In the M.S. and PhD programs, Garcia teaches a number of electives, including Crisis Management for Engineers, Crisis Prevention for Engineers, Advanced Ethical Decision-Making, and Advanced Leadership Communication for Engineers. He also teaches once-per-semester workshops on Lessons for Leaders from the COVID-19 Pandemic. Garcia also mentors PhD students.
Additionally, Garcia partners with his fellow Adjunct Professor (and brother) Chuck Garcia to team-teach an online course on Leadership, Followership, and Teamwork. The two brothers also co-lead the school’s PDL Fellows program, where a select number of M.S. students participate in a multi-dimensional enhanced leadership opportunity.
Columbia Engineering’s Professional Development and Leadership (PDL) program was launched in the school’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and has since expanded school-wide for all degree programs. The program’s goal is to enhance the Columbia Engineering education by providing enrichment and development opportunities. The program assists students with in a number of ways, including:
Obtaining skills to find and keep a role
Learning how to grow and cultivate a career
Recognizing effective leadership
Learning to become an effective team player and follower
Cultivating ethical behavior and values
… and striving to have fun while doing these things!
Garcia did his graduate studies at Columbia University in the late 1970s and early 1980s, where he studied ancient Greek philosophy, ethics, and political philosophy. His studies included advanced ethics.
In addition to his faculty position at Columbia University, Garcia has been on the New York University faculty since 1988, where, among other things, he has designed and taught courses on business and communication ethics. He is the author of five books on leadership, trust, and related topics.
https://i0.wp.com/www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Website-Post-Image-Size-Template.png?fit=851%2C315&ssl=1315851Logos Consulting Grouphttps://www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HQ-Lambda-Consulting-Lockup-1030x562.pngLogos Consulting Group2022-09-23 16:56:412022-09-23 17:27:21Logos President Helio Fred Garcia Promoted to Adjunct Professor at Columbia Engineering
The following is an excerpt of a guest column by Helio Fred Garcia published on August 10, 2022 by New York University School of Professional Studies’ biweekly LinkedIn newsletter, The Pitch.
Misinformation kills. Both people and democracy.
In May, the head of the Food and Drug Administration warned that misinformation has become the leading cause of death in the United States.
In 2020 misinformation about COVID-19 led to the worst handled pandemic response in the developed world and caused hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. Starting in mid-2021 misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine and vaccinations continued the wave of preventable fatalities.
As of mid-summer 2022, more than one million Americans – one in every 324 – has died of COVID-19.
The risks of misinformation go well beyond public health. The January 6 Committee hearings show how misinformation inspired thousands of people to attack the Capitol on the day that the 2020 presidential election was to be certified. Some of those domestic terrorists sought out and threatened to assassinate Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other members of Congress.
But misinformation doesn’t just put human life at risk. Misinformation risks killing democracy itself.
Political misinformation continues as hundreds of candidates for state office persist in trafficking in the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and promise to take control of the voting bureaucracy in many states. Misinformation also erodes civic trust and the public’s confidence in civic institutions, which are essential for democracy to work.
COVID-19 Misinformation
Cornell University’s Alliance for Science conducted the first comprehensive study of COVID-19 misinformation. It reviewed more than one million articles with COVID-19 misinformation published in the first six months of the pandemic. It found that President Donald Trump was directly quoted in 37 percent of all instances of misinformation. But when the researchers included Trump misinformation that was retold by others, they concluded that he was responsible for fully 50 percent of all misinformation statements about COVID.
The study concluded that Trump was “likely the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation ‘infodemic.’”
“These findings are of significant concern because if people are misled by unscientific and unsubstantiated claims about the disease, they may attempt harmful cures or be less likely to observe official guidance and thus risk spreading the virus.”
We saw just this phenomenon play out in the summer of 2020.
In the final two months of Trump’s presidency, vaccines were approved and distributed to the individual states. But there was no plan on how to get the vaccines into people’s arms. Even worse, there was no public education campaign to help citizens understand the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, or to promote the civic duty to get vaccinated in order to stop the spread.
U.S. Army four-star general Gus Perna, who managed Operation Warp Speed (OWS), which developed and delivered vaccines in record time, notes that this failure gave an opening for misinformation to flourish:
“Where was the long-term strategy for getting people ready to start taking the vaccine? … That was not part of the OWS portfolio. It’s a personal choice to get the vaccine or not. But where was the presentation to inform everybody, so that they could make the best decision? Where was the responsibility to not let this get politicized? … It just didn’t exist.”
And in that information vacuum, vaccine skeptics, and later political actors opposed to President Joe Biden, spread vaccine misinformation that continues to the present day. More than a third of Americans are not fully vaccinated. A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis in April concluded that nearly a quarter million COVID-19 deaths between June 2021 and March 2022 could have been prevented with vaccinations:
“These vaccine-preventable deaths represent 60% of all adult COVID-19 deaths since June 2021, and a quarter (24%) of the nearly 1 million COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began… Unvaccinated people now represent a small share of the population, but a majority of COVID-19 deaths.”
The Fraud About Election Fraud
The January 6 Committee hearings have definitively demonstrated that the Big Lie claiming that the 2020 election was stolen was not only false but known by President Trump and his inner circle to be false.
Then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who for 22 months had been sycophant-in-chief for Trump, eventually told truth to power. After the 2020 election Barr told Trump that the Department of Justice had investigated all the claims of voter fraud and concluded that there was none.
“I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit.”
After the January 6 attack failed to prevent the certification of electors, Trump was still repeating the lie that he had actually won the election. In out-takes of a video the day after the attack, presented by the January 6 Committee, Trump told his staff, “I don’t want to say the election is over.”
In early July 2022, more than 20 months after the 2020 election, Trump called the Wisconsin House Speaker and urged him to overturn Wisconsin’s 2022 election results. In its coverage of that phone call, NBC Newsnoted that Trump “has repeatedly claimed without evidence” that there was widespread voter fraud.
In mid-July 2022, more than 18 months after the January 6 attack, Trump told a rally in Arizona, “I ran twice. I won twice and did much better the second time than I did the first, getting millions more votes in 2020 than we got in 2016.” While the second half of the sentence is true – he did get more popular votes in 2020 than in 2016 – the first part of the sentence, for which the second is support, is false. He did not win the presidency twice. In 2020 Joe Biden received more popular and electoral votes than Trump did. But much of the news media ran his quote without noting that it was false.
Communicators’ Professional Obligation to Combat Misinformation
Tim Snyder, Yale history professor and author of On Tyranny, wrote in the New York Times after the January 6 attack,
“Post-truth is pre-fascism… Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around.”
Silence, in the face of misinformation, is complicity. Whether among civic leaders or communication professionals – in journalism, public relations, marketing, and public affairs.
The slogan on the Washington Post masthead is “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It refers to the news media’s obligation to truth, especially when misinformation is putting democracy at risk.
Public relations professionals share a similar duty. The Public Relations Society of America’s Code of Ethics makes clear how those of us whose profession is influencing public opinion have a particular duty. The Code’s first principle is:
“Protecting and advancing the free flow of accurate and truthful information is essential to serving the public interest and contributing to informed decision making in a democratic society.”
Under the Code, the first three obligations of a public relations professional are:
“Preserve the integrity of the process of communication. Be honest and accurate in all communications. Act promptly to correct erroneous communications for which the practitioner is responsible.”
So what can professional communicators do?
We can recognize that misinformation is a significant problem and that communication professionals have a particular standing to take the problem seriously. And once we take the problem seriously, we can deploy our gifts to tackle the problem head on:
First, don’t be a misinformation mercenary. Don’t create or disseminate misinformation, on your own or for a client. Just say No when invited to help others lie.
Second, call out the misinformation when you see it. Diminish the likelihood that it will take hold and become the new normal. Our obligation as professional communicators extends well beyond not lying. It includes preserving the integrity of the communication process. Communication professionals are far more likely to recognize intentionally misleading information early than the public at large is. As important, we have the capacity and tools to call attention to it.
Third, rally other communicators – journalists, PR people, marketers, public affairs leaders – to do the same.
Just one example: In late July public relations wise man and executive editor of Business in Society John Paluszek wrote a LinkedIn column in which he called misinformation a “pandemic of the mind.” He provided tools and links to help communicators and others become well informed about misinformation and its antidotes.
Paluszek called on journalists and PR pros to work to confront the pandemic. At the strategic level, he says, it requires prioritizing the issue; committing for the long term; and persisting. And at the tactical level, Paluszek advises, “communicate, communicate, communicate.”
I am doing that now, in this column; and you can as well. Engage your network, as we professional communicators know how to do, and turn our individual efforts into a movement.
One way to think about American democracy and misinformation is the proverbial frog in a pot of water on a stove. American democracy is the frog. The information environment is the water. Misinformation is the flame that heats the water. And many Americans may not notice the water getting warmer. It’s our job to sound the alarm, and to remove the water from the source of heat – before it is too late.
The power of communication has never been stronger. The risks of misinformation have never been more serious. And the need for communicators to protect the integrity of the communication process – and thereby to protect democracy – has never been greater.
https://i0.wp.com/www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/NYS-SPS-The-Pitch.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Logos Consulting Grouphttps://www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HQ-Lambda-Consulting-Lockup-1030x562.pngLogos Consulting Group2022-08-10 10:14:002022-08-11 10:14:25GUEST COLUMN: The Dangers of Misinformation and Communicators’ Unique Role in Combating It
You are about to have what you know is a difficult conversation. And in the moment before or at the beginning of the conversation, you notice that your heart starts to beat faster. You feel the need to take a deep steadying breath. Your mouth becomes dry and your gut clenches in anticipation. And as your body is physically reacting in this way, you find it incredibly hard to think clearly and respond calmly while you speak, reacting in ways that you later struggle to understand or fully process.
If you’ve had this experience, you are not alone. Nearly all of us have had this experience when we enter a difficult conversation. It is one of the reasons why we dread having difficult conversations – because difficult conversations, when not navigated effectively, can feel awful – physically, mentally, and emotionally.
But why is that? Why are difficult conversations so…difficult?
The answer is surprisingly simple: our biological programming.
When we enter what we know is a difficult conversation – either as the initiator or on the receiving end of the conversation – our biological fear response is triggered.
Our biological fear response lives in the amygdala, the oldest, most primitive part of the human brain. It developed to help early humans overcome the threats of the day – such as a wild beast preparing to attack. Over time, our amygdala became hard-wired to instinctually respond when we recognize a threat to our safety – specifically to either fight back, take flight, or freeze. Since the early days of humankind, our biological fear response has helped our species survive.
However, while the rest of our brain developed over the millennia, this part of our brain has not evolved much since early humankind. As a result, our amygdala does not have the ability to distinguish between emotional and intellectual threats and physical threats. So, in the modern age, when we are more likely to face intellectual or emotional threats on a regular basis than physical ones, our amygdala still responds the same way it did for early humans facing physical threats.
In other words, when facing a difficult conversation, the most primitive part of our brain reacts as though we are being attacked by a wild beast.
And there are consequences to this biologically hard-wired response. When our biological fear response is triggered, our brain diverts blood into our arms and legs – the parts of our body that enable us to either fight or take flight – and away from the parts of our brain that are responsible for higher-level reasoning. Therefore, once our biological fear response is triggered, our problem-solving and critical thinking skills become hindered.
When our fear response is triggered and our critical thinking is impaired, we tend to default into one of two predictable, self-defeating patterns of behavior:
We go into attack mode: We push back, we accuse, we name-call, we monologue, we label – we do whatever we can to fight back against the other person in the conversation.
We retreat into silence: We mask our feelings and thoughts, we avoid the topic, we please, we pretend, we withdraw (physically and/or mentally) – we do whatever we can to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible.
When we default into one of these two modes of being, we are far less likely to successfully navigate that conversation. And when we fail navigate these conversations effectively, we end up not fully addressing the underlying problem(s) that provoked the conversation in the first place. Sometimes, we can even make those problems worse, or cause new problems to emerge.
Here is the bad news: As difficult conversations are inherently interactions between two human beings, both parties’ biological fear response is likely to be triggered. Therefore, both you and the person in a difficult conversation are likely hindered your ability to think clearly and access your problem-solving, higher-reasoning skills.
This begs the question: How does anyone effectively navigate difficult conversations?
This is where the good news comes in – and there is good news. There is a method for overcoming our biological fear response and reigniting the part of our brain responsible for critical thinking and problem-solving. And that method is deceptively straightforward.
Ask questions.
Simple right?
In fact, it is slightly more nuanced than just asking questions. Because the kind of questions you ask determines whether you will inflame your biological fear response or ignite your critical thinking skills.
For example, have you ever asked yourself any of the following questions before or during a difficult conversation:
Will the problem I am trying to address actually be solved?
Will they understand my point of view?
Will it make the problem worse?
Will they blame me?
Will I be punished for speaking up?
Will I harm or make my relationship with this person worse?
Will I be hurt in this conversation?
Will I hurt the other person by voicing this problem?
Is it better just to stay silent than to bring up this issue at all?
If you ever asked yourself any of these questions, note that these questions are rooted in fear. As a result, these questions will only serve to feed our biological fear response.
Therefore, we need to make sure we are asking the right questions to overcome our biological fear response. And the right questions are complex, abstract, and open-ended questions.
Our amygdala cannot process complex, abstract, and open-ended questions. The only part of our brain that can process those types of questions is our pre-frontal cortex, the part of our brain responsible for critical thinking and higher-level reasoning. When we ask ourselves complex, abstract, and open-ended questions, our body sends blood back to our pre-frontal cortex and reignites our critical thinking abilities, effectively calming down our biological fear response.
Once our critical thinking and higher-level reasoning skills are reignited, we are far better equipped to engage effectively in a difficult conversation. We can use complex, abstract, and open-ended questions to prepare ourselves before the conversation and to ground us during that difficult conversation. And we can ask the other person complex, abstract, and open-ended questions to reignite their critical thinking and high-level reasoning skills.
Now, asking the right kind of questions alone is not necessarily enough to have a successful difficult conversation. However, it is the starting place to effectively navigate difficult conversations and to begin addressing whatever issue lies at the heart of your difficult conversation.
So, if you are gearing up for a difficult conversation and want to overcome your biological fear response, start by asking yourself the right kind of questions.
https://i0.wp.com/www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/3.png?fit=851%2C315&ssl=1315851Katie Garciahttps://www.logosconsulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HQ-Lambda-Consulting-Lockup-1030x562.pngKatie Garcia2022-06-28 12:15:482022-06-27 15:41:52Slaying the Beast: Overcoming Fear to Effectively Navigate Difficult Conversations
On Saturday, April 23, 2022, Helio Fred Garcia participated in a panel discussion on Science and Partisanship at the National Undergraduate Conference on Scientific Journalism. The conference was hosted by the National Undergraduate Consortium for Science Journalism, which is a consortium of 17 undergraduate journals across the nation, chiefly interested in STEM research at the undergraduate level.
This year’s conference brought together hundreds of student-scientists and multiple undergraduate research journals from across the nation to discuss research ethics and practice, the publication process, the role of student journals, and more.
In addition to Garcia, the panel discussion on Science and Partisanship featured Professor Mark Cane from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, The Earth Institute, and Columbia University, and Professor Daniel Cornfield from Vanderbilt University. The panel was moderated by Taylor Ginieczki, NUCSJ Director of Civic Engagement and student at the University of Oregon.
Watch the full video of that panel discussion here:
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On Tuesday, February 15, 2022, Logos president Helio Fred Garcia’s interview on the PR Pace Podcast was released. PR Pace, hosted by Annie Pace Scranton of Pace Public Relations, breaks down each week the biggest news stories through a PR lens.
In their conversation, Garcia discuss how to effectively in a crisis. Garcia describes the work we do at Logos Consulting Group, how we approach our work across industries and around the world, core principles of crisis response, how PR professionals can win a seat at the table, and more.
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On Thursday, October 14, 2021, Logos president Helio Fred Garcia’s interview on the Pursuing Perfect Podcast was released. In this podcast, lifelong entrepreneur Marc Kashke interviews leaders on notions of perfection and how they discovered how to reach perfection in their work.
In this episode, Garcia and Kashke discuss the power of communication, both to affect powerful change and to inflict meaningful harm. In their exchange, Garcia describes the rigor required to communicate effectively at work and in positions of leadership, what communication is designed to do when used effectively, the ways in which rhetoric can (and has) been used to provoke violence, and more.
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This is an excerpt of a guest column by Helio Fred Garcia, originally published on Commpro.biz on September 21, 2021, in honor of International Day of Peace.
Around the world, and here at home, ideologically-driven opportunists are very good at using communication in ways that lead to oppression, exclusion, and violence.
Communicators of good will have an opportunity to channel our gifts to counter this prevalent and dangerous trend.
“speech that increases the risk for violence targeting certain people because of their membership in a group, such as an ethnic, religious, or racial group. It includes both speech that qualifies as incitement and speech that makes incitement possible by conditioning its audience to accept, condone, and commit violence against people who belong to a targeted group.”
We see examples of such dangerous speech all around, here and abroad:
Fundamentalists of every stripe hijack the identity and vocabulary of religion to promote oppression, exclusion, and violence in the name of religious purity.
Nationalists hijack national identity and the vocabulary of patriotism in ways that lead to violence in the name of racial, ethnic, national, and ideological purity.
Supremacists hijack the vocabulary of science and society to commit cruelty and violence against immigrants, religious and ethnic minorities, and those who support such groups.
Even some American governors hijack the language of liberty and freedom in ways that put their citizens at risk of contracting a deadly disease. And they stand idly by as their hospitals overflow with unvaccinated patients and announce that they can no longer accept patients with other life-threatening conditions. Worse, citizens so mobilized commit violence and threats of violence against healthcare workers, school districts, restaurant owners, and others who are simply trying to protect themselves and the people in their care.
There is much hand-wringing in the media and elsewhere about just how polarized American society has become. And with good reason.
But engaged citizens can do something about it, here and elsewhere in the world.
In particular, members of the communication profession can challenge the use of communication to divide and to oppress. We can model communication in ways that protect those at risk. We can call out the dangerous speech and its consequence when we hear it. We can hold leaders accountable when they persist in using such language.
And we can help institutions to reclaim their identity and vocabulary to more fully fulfill their missions:
We can help religious organizations reclaim the identity and vocabulary of religion as a source for peace. We can highlight the deeply-held and widely-shared moral teaching of all faith traditions: kindness, reciprocity, and service to community.
We can help reclaim national identity and the vocabulary of patriotism to show that we are part of a common civic enterprise. We can show that not only are all created equal, but all are also equally deserving of respect and dignity.
We can help at-risk communities harness their power, and we can hold those who attack those communities accountable for the consequences.
And we can use the ballot box to hold accountable those political leaders who know better but who pander to an ideological agenda that puts their citizens at unnecessary risk of catching and succumbing to a deadly disease.
Silence in the face of oppression always helps the oppressors. If ever there was a time for communicators to up our game and deploy our gifts, it is now.
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On September 3, 2021, Logos President Helio Fred Garcia was quoted in Loss Prevention Magazine on how 7-Eleven has invested in technology to better execute crisis communication.
7-Eleven has heavily invested in both crisis communication processes and software to ensure both company leadership and franchisees can share information with each other and report on specific needs and issues.
Garcia noted the importance of having multiple communication channels available for times of crisis to lessen any communication gaps in times of crisis. “You also need to plan for redundancy in the manner of delivering messages. If phone lines are down if the email is down, you still need to communicate,” he explained.
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