Proclamation And Persuasion: Learning To Communicate In Polarized Times

The irony in Congress is the aisle is in denial at the moat used to be able to just wander across to the other side. You no longer can we hate each other and criticism has become contempt. This is Tracy Greg's director of communications at NC family sitting in for John Reston this week. Today, we hope to challenge all of you to be countercultural regarding how you choose to communicate on the issues we are facing today, especially a lot of the enormously emotional issues we deal with here in NC. Family had two very special guests with me this week. Two guys who are providing a great service to all of us who struggle on a daily basis to communicate better.

Tim Downs and Tom Barrett are the communication guys and they post a weekly podcast by that same name Tim and Tom. I was going to ask you to introduce yourself, but unconcern shall be modest about your own accomplishments and why your uniquely qualified to talk to us about communication. So I'm going to ask you to introduce each other crazy.

We never have a problem with modesty.

So I love to brag about my colleague Mrs. Dr. Tom Baratz Tom holds two masters degrees and a PhD in clinical psychology. Tom spent 20 years in private practice in the greater Washington DC area and get this Tracy Tom has spent more than 10,000 hours. Meeting one-on-one with members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and he is still saying that's no small accomplishment just barely jostled clearly but down now travels all over the world. He is a communication expert and trainer and he is a world renowned expert in the psychology of success. So that's Maya, my partner Tom Barrett and for my partner Tim Downs that he is equally an amazing individual. And I say that with the data the back it up a meadow due to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from Indiana University. He'll spend a lifetime researching and writing about the nature of communication. What makes for effective smart communication. He has taught it for decades.

He teaches it professionally. He models it and that he is one of the premier experts in the country on understanding what makes for smart sound effective communication you're here on our family policy matters radio show today because I was listening to a podcast that you did recently called take a stand or take a seat and I thought that topic would be a great one for our listeners as well. At the beginning of the podcast you explain that the title of your episode might be a bit misleading. Would you explain why it is an interesting thing were living in a time where people are big on taking a stand and people thought coming to our podcast that that's what would be all about. We were saying you don't have a voice tell people what you think but actually we were saying the opposite were living in an age of proclamation and we were saying it is a time to take a seat to take a seat at the cultural table to participate in the larger cultural conversation to take the time to listen not to share the thoughts that are on your mind because this is the most polarized culture of the world has ever seen. And that's what Tom and I are trying to resist. It's one of the reasons we began the communication guys were trying to teach people to listen to ask smart questions to understand your opponent before you offer an opinion of your own and so that really was the point of the podcasts we were saying in a week. We don't have to stop just taking a stand when you learn to take a seat. I think I think that certainly is true and and history buffs.

Of course, will know that political opponents used to go fiercely against each other on the floor of Congress, other meetings and then afterwards some he would pat somebody on the backing they go grab lunch together.

You know, invite him to dinner and I think Tom you said in your podcast. This is just really not what you're seeing today on the hall in the halls of Congress to want to talk about them here is a reality. Unfortunately Tracy but the truth of the matter is years ago on Capitol Hill. Men and women could fight like cats and dogs but they did respectfully and they did not attack each other.

They actually did not disdain the opinion of someone else is just what will we don't see was the same way, and actually was okay for them to be friends. We could go out and have a dinner or drink afterwords and it was really no harm, no foul. Will those days are long gone. While the need for civility and kindness and discourse has never been greater. It's never been less evident and in fact now the mood up on Capitol Hill. I equated to gang members if you're a member of one game and you were seen talking to someone in another gang you are actually putting yourself at risk. Your gang members.

What are you talking to them so literally.

I can be watching the floor of the Senate or the House and I can see people pool into their own private tribes and if they were to dare to go across the aisle, or even to speak to someone within their own party that isn't aligned with their specific internal group within the party were you doing over there. What's with that we don't even have the freedom to be gracious to talk to inquire anymore. It's a serious issue. We've got a face and we certainly have to find a way to fix some talk little bit briefly about why this problem. Why does this create issues for us as a nation we can't be civil to each other. It was kind of the nature of the culture they were in. Now if you think about even the nature of social media.

It was designed for you to share your thoughts, but our social media are are not inclined toward listening or nuance, or understanding another position.

So I liken it to a snowball fight. We all hide behind our walls until we got a snowball. Then we pop up, get off a good shot duck back down again so were living in a culture and our people basically shout across the wall to each other and as Tom is saying. The irony in Congress is the aisle is in denial at the moat used to be able to just wander across to the other side.

You no longer can we hate each other and criticism, which is actually a negative statement about a behavior or an idea is become contempt and contempt is where you've moved from criticism to attacking character. What kind of idiots would think that was sort of a moron would hold that view. When you do that, we just polarized and the problem is first solve the complex problems in our world today. We have got to be able to connect with one another. So we've got to solve this problem. Polarization was like that to Tim and that he would gotta be able to connect and say we have the illusion of connection and we need to remind ourselves a declaration is not at all. The same thing as dialogue and actually were like people that walk around with walkie-talkies member the walkie-talkies we had his kids. It was push to talk if you want to listen. You had to take your hand off the button. We live in a world where everyone thinks the only thing that matters to me is I get to push to talk and we can do it through social media. I can say whatever I think I can say it as soon as I think it I don't have to matter about the words I used to say it and then once I am done talking I just keep my finger on the button because I'm not interested in listening to any other response. It's an extraordinary moment in time you're listening to policy matters a resource from Portland to listen to our radio show online and from what resources that will be a voice of persuasion in your community to our website.org will you started off your podcast.

I contrasting two styles of communication, proclamation and persuasion you go into quite a bit of depth on the topic and your podcast of people can go there to learn more, but briefly, what do you mean by that what we think there are two fundamental styles of communication today.

They are proclamation and persuasion.

The differences proclamation is me oriented speaker oriented where my thoughts what's on my mind.

What do I want to say all I have to do as Tom described is put my finger on the talk button and say it and I never have to listen to anybody else in our media today make that possible for people more than ever before. But there's also this firewall of anonymity that's out there and that's the danger, is I can tweets I can post and nobody knows who I actually am so because of the anonymity because it's in impersonal communication. This is where all the flaring comes from. This is where the anger comes from.

So proclamation is me centered. It's me communicating my thoughts.

Persuasion, on the other hand, is audience centered, his listeners centered is being able to take the perspective of the other person is willing to do the hard work of understanding why they might believe what they believe and if there's actually anything to their arguments. Anything that I could learn from it and it's doing the hard slow work of actually changing somebody else's mind and you you cannot do that in hundred and 40 characters cannot do that in a quick post on Facebook.

It takes time and work and I think today we've become either too uncaring or little too lazy to do the work to do it. So were living in a world of proclamation when were trying to encourage people to move to the model of persuasion and it's interesting we say to him the hard work and it's not just the hard work of having them understand us.

It's us being willing to do the hard work of understanding them and that's the law skill in many ways that's lost mindset. Listen, I know what I think and I know what I wish I could get you to believe about my thoughts that you just simply accept them, embrace them and run with them but actually maybe we should begin by saying help me to understand you. Help me to have passionate curiosity about understanding where are you coming from. Help me understand how did you arrive at that and I am listening not to judge not to pounce.

But I am assuming there is a reason driver behind your conclusions and perspectives about life and I would like not to judge them. But Cali I would love to understand that there's gotta be some substance in your thinking that drives the conclusions you have it so today I want to suspend my judgment and rather I would get love to get into your mind into your heart and you tell me that just what you think. Why does it matter so much. How did you come to that conclusion.

That's a very different way to dialogue well and that's actually a radical thing to say in this day and age just assuming that the other side might actually have correct motives are good motives or right motives, you make a point in your podcast about trying to figure out what it is that you want. Why is that important because you tend to get what you want. You tend to hit what you aim at and that's why were saying to people. Are you about to try to communicate. Ask yourself the hard question. What is that I really want from this because the honest truth many times is all I want is to vent all I want to do is yell I want to put the other guy down. I want to show everybody what an idiot is were trying to say if that's all you want, that's all you're going to get, but instead, if you could shift that motive to know you know I I would like to ask a smart question.

I'd like to draw this person out. I'd like to understand more about what it is they actually believe and why they would hold to this so tenaciously. If you shift that motive you get that to soar asking people look in your own heart and ask yourself what is it you want.

So what is the benefit to all of us to pursuing this kind of communication do you think it gives us the opportunity to break down the polarization of our society.

It gives us the opportunity to reduce the amount of background anger.

It's out there and to actually possibly connect so that we can move forward. We all know that innovation increases when people can share ideas and were at a point where we need innovation and we need fresh ideas at a point in history where we are poor at communicating than ever before. And as Tom said that's the irony of the age where were high on conductivity. I can pick up my smart phone and talk to a nomadic tribe on the other side of the planet.

But there's a difference between conductivity and connection an actual human connection is that's what it all comes down to is very interesting to live in a day were people think will how many people are tracking me, following me and then to proclaim something and what they really want to note how many likes that I get when he thumbs up. Well, that's one goal that doesn't mean you communicated something that was wise and we have no way of knowing that offend other people or were you only talking to people in your group, your tribe, your click and all you've done is discovered that you aggregated some people who unilaterally agree with you that's not real connection that's not real communication and sometimes the advantage of slowing down. Learning the art of asking questions and evening.

Ask even asking questions of people around the country and around the world and in different socioeconomic groups.

You quickly discover it's not how different we are.

It's how unbelievably similar we are in hearts and motives and longings and desires and cares and priorities, we may express them differently, but were not as different as we sometimes think and when you begin to look for that commonality of drivers and longings. It's were actually a lot closer to each other rather than further apart than we imagine. I wanted to give you guys a chance to do a shameless plug for your assets are celestial teacher that you guys can tell us where you can go to sign up to listen to your weekly podcasts and perhaps they will enjoy going there and hearing more about this topic. There are weekly podcasts or 30 minute podcast is called the communication guys and the easiest way to find it is just to go to our website communication guys.com and there you'll find all of our past episodes and if you go to our website munication guys.com just to sign up for our weekly email free for the asking will give you a book that Dr. Barrett put together called how to become the person everyone wants to talk to thank you once again we've been talking to Tim Downs and Tom Barrett from the communication guys. Thank you, thank you family policy matter of production and to listen to our radio show online resources and information about issues important to families in north Carolina website and see family.org and follow us on Twitter and Facebook