President’s Blog – Week Three

A common bumper sticker comment is “what we need is action, not talk.” Or other words to the effect that talk wastes time, let’s act.

How often do you also hear “we need to get everyone on the same page”?

Whether or not talk wastes time depends on what sort of talk it is. Whether talk doesn’t lead to effective action depends on what sort of talk it is.

Consider our popular sport of football.

Before a play becomes action, there is a huddle to call the play. Before the huddle, there is practice – lots of it. And the practice includes both physical effort and mental effort. The physical effort is easy to see. The mental effort is less visible.

The mental effort is in the teaching, the skull sessions, the analysis of one’s own strengths and weaknesses, the scouting of opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, the watching, and the weighing.

The result is a game plan, a strategy for what will work best to meet a particular challenge. And the more extensive the work done to prepare the strategy, the more effective are last second adjustments to deal with new circumstances. That’s why “the plan” can be a trap. A plan is a well-conceived strategy, but it is open to learning and adjusting.

Deliberative talk to make more creative choices is talk that creates a workable game plan and capacity to adapt it to changing circumstances. We use the word deliberation because it literally means to weigh carefully.

Football is not the only analogy. The same mental patterns are critical to building a sturdy house, cooking a good meal, sewing an attractive garment, growing a bountiful garden, creating a sustainable business, fostering a healthy neighborhood, and so on. The mental skills that build creativity and sustainability apply to individuals, and they apply to individuals seeking to act together more effectively.

Faced with creating a new nation, Ben Franklin said, “we will all hang together or we will hang separately.”

Not just any sort of talk will do for critical tasks. Choosing together means talking through choices, not just about opinions. And choosing to act together in sustainable fashion has to engage differences more than persuade others that their differences are unimportant.

In my next several notes, I will talk through with you what deliberative talk does.

Bob McKenzie