Thought #2
January 2009
Author: Bill Thurston
A Helpful Tool when
Listening to our Government Officials
How often do you listen
to one of our government officials and when they are done speaking, you ask
yourself "What did he or she just say?". I will share a tool that can help you
understand these government officials and you will have fun doing it. One
condition for the tool to work is that you are listening for content, not how
emotionally you are moved. This is the United States so you may do as you choose
but this Thought focuses on evaluating what our government officials are
communicating to those they serve.
There are 3 steps to
the process.
Step
#1
You
must be of the right mind set. We all listen and speak differently based on our
audience. Choose any subject and the communication will be different if
communicating with your spouse, son or daughter, religious leader, or a
celebrity. So, what should be your mind set when listening to government
officials? Well, you pay their salary, they manage your programs, they get hired
either directly or indirectly by you. That makes you their employer or manager
and they are your employee.
When they are speaking
to us, they are giving us an update on what they are doing for us. In so doing,
they have a special burden placed on them because you can't ask questions to
clarify a point. Therefore, if is very important they communicate so we can
clearly understand them.
So the proper mindset
for you when listening to your government officials is that your employee is
"sitting in your office" giving you an update on what he or she is doing for
you.
Step
#2
You need to analyze the
content of the communication quickly because usually you are watching on
television. Here is what you do. Listen to every sentence and then quickly judge
the value of that sentence to you as the employer listening to an update. Put
you interpretation of the sentence into one of two categories. The first
category is for useful information. When something useful is said, shorten the
thought and try to remember it. When something is said that isn't useful to you,
categorize it as "blah blah blah" and count it as one "blah". You can use a
different word other then "blah" if it makes you feel better. Most other words
that you could use couldn't be published in this newsletter. Don't be concerned
that you wouldn't be able to remember all the information because it will amaze
you how much of the communication is "blah". Forget all "blah".
Step
#3
Summarize the update
into just a short though or set of thoughts. Remember about what per cent of the
update was "blah". Keep it simple like 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%. Yes, you
will encounter updates that are near 100% "blah".
Helpful Hints
You might ask, how do I
classify sentences as valuable or "blah".
Here are some ideas:
"I'm
glad to be here today".
This may or may not be true be it is useless in an update so count one "blah"
and forget it.
"I
am a maverick".
This may or may not be true be it is
useless in an update so "count another "blah" and forget it.
"We
are all working hard to fix the situation".
As your employer we hired you to work
hard and, by the way, did you cause the situation?" Another "blah".
"We".
If you are trying to include me, I don't believe I was part of "we". Replace
with "Me and the people helping me".
Whenever you hear the
words "more", "less", "longer", "sooner", or "after
further consideration", replace it with " I made a mistake the first time and
now it will take more ....".
"After
further consideration, we believe it will take longer"
This translates to " Me and the people helping me made a mistake the first time
and now it will take longer". I didn't tell you how much longer so another
"blah".
You will find this is
really easy to do and the results will amaze you.
If you would like to
walk through an example, I have attached a recent speech and condensed it using
this method. Both the speech and condensed speech using this method are
attached. In the example, the "blah factor" is over 75%. There are 85 "blahs"
and 23 informative sentences.
If you ever analyze a
transcript on "paper", email it to us and we will publish it.
Enjoy.
Send
this Thought to someone you know.
Get a Free
Subscription
Go to the
Archived Thoughts
Unsubscribe
Contact us by mail:
Thurston Group Incorporated, PMB #111,
2880 Bicentennial, Ste 100, Henderson, Nevada, 89044-4484 Contact us by email:
aboutthisUS@cox.net