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Examples we can productively study

Backchannels

Models, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , ,

backchannelDiplomats, mediators and leaders of all sorts make extensive use of backchannels.  They know that the expressive needs of individuals are sometimes at odds with the goal of finding face-saving solutions.

Imagine that you are at a party with five other close friends.  In the course of a conversation with the group, the host mentions that he is pleased to have found a new employee to work in his small business. The new hire who he identifies lives in the same small town, and is known to you and some of the other guests. You also know that others who have worked with the employee have reported that he is an unreliable worker, showing up late and sometimes making careless mistakes.  Should you say something to the host?

Do you:

  1. Tell the host immediately and in the midst of the gathering that they have probably made a mistake in extending the offer of a job?
  2. Say nothing?
  3. Follow-up privately with the host, mentioning the doubts that you have?

Most of us have been in this situation, where there is no perfect answer. The first option of saying something immediately in the presence of all is what many would see as an obligation of good friendship.  Friends save friends from making bad mistakes. The sooner, the better. In addition, an opinion aired within a group is more easily disputed or affirmed by others who are present: a kind of base-line value built into American patterns of more open communication.

Some, though probably not many, would say nothing, believing that both the host and the new worker deserve the advantage of a clean slate.  After all, the employee is being judged partly on hearsay, and in advance of the record they might establish in their new job.

And some would choose the last choice, what I call the backchannel option.  They might wait until later to tell the host privately that the new hire could be problematic. This option protects the host from the embarrassment of being asked to publicly disown the positive view they just stated.  And it allows a little more time to assess the reliability of the pessimistic view.

It’s often a good idea to opt for a backchannel, where a message can be focused and private.  On the solid premise that we need to carefully pick our moments, it can make sense to hold back in a group setting when we have the awkward task of telling someone that they have made a mistake.

Backchannels have many advantages, and at least one disadvantage. The disadvantage is that they deprive the truth-teller of their moment in the spotlight.  It can be hard to not parade our wisdom before a gathered group. Though this may seem like a selfish and frivolous concern, it’s good to remember that most of us are fulfilled and affirmed by the display of what we regard is a superior understanding of what’s really going on.  This kind of “showboating” is probably why the concept of “forbearance” had to be invented for the rest of us.

Aside from our expressive needs, the advantages of backchannels are even more consequential.  Communication out of the public eye is useful as a way to save the “face” of another. A person can be corrected or warned without carrying the additional burden of what can seem like an unnecessary humiliation.  Small potatoes, perhaps.  But in the actual situation described above, the enthusiastic employer was quite embarrassed by the less than positive response that came from his friends. He clearly felt a need to honor a commitment he had already made, obviously wishing he’d said nothing.  And it’s easy to see why. Unravel this small moment a little more and it’s apparent that a public conversation about a potential mistake could be construed as an implicit judgment about the host’s competence. With backchannels, most of this baggage doesn’t accumulate. There is a better chance to preserve the friendship that exists between the host and the doubters.

Diplomats, mediators and leaders of all sorts make extensive use of backchannels.  They know that the expressive needs of individuals in groups are sometimes at odds with the task of finding face-saving solutions. The challenge for all of us is to resist our first impulse to take ownership of a conversation on the quick hunch that we have superior insights.

Comments: Woodward@tcnj.edu

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Getting to the Target First

Models, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , ,
Wikipedia.org
Wikipedia.org

Early warnings about messages others will soon hear often increase resistance to those messages. In short, forewarning sabotages persuasion.

We’ve all done it.  We find out that someone is about to make a pitch of dubious value to a friend or family member.  And so we warn them.  We tell them what they will probably hear in the next hours or days, and we urge them to be wary of accepting those claims.

This process of issuing what amounts to a pre-message warning about a subsequent message is called inoculation.  It’s linguistic origin is in the medical idea that the body’s defenses can be tricked into responding as if it is infected. Those antibodies created when a benign form of a disease is introduced can have the effect of immunizing us against the real thing. Similar immunizing of a potential victim against harmful persuasion can have the same effect.

To see this at work in a structured setting recall courtroom dramas that have included scenes where the prosecution and defense take turns making opening statements.  Following real life, those statements typically warn the jury about the questionable claims the other side will offer.  “You will hear the Defense claim that the defendant was not at the scene of the robbery,” the Prosecution begins.  “But don’t believe them.  Listen carefully. They have no real evidence that the defendant was elsewhere.” And so it goes. It’s not that different from my actions as a grade-schooler when I broke a window in my house. The glass was in the way of an errant throw of a baseball to one of my friends. Thanks to his slippery hands and inability to jump ten feet I needed to be first at the car door when my parents came home. I was anxious to tell my side of the story before they heard a version that would put all the blame on me. Even children are natural persuasion strategists.

Most of the available research suggests inoculation is effective. Early warnings about future messages that will come from others substantially weaken those messages. So it generally makes sense to plan ahead when you know you will be in a struggle to win over the views of others.

Although this may sound like a strategy predicated on negative messages–to not accept what will be coming someone’s way–inoculation can actually be quite positive.  It’s mostly how we discourage kids from taking up the cigarette habit.  The Truth Campaign’s warnings about how tobacco products are “nicotine delivery systems” made to taste like candy reliably trigger a potential smoker’s natural desire to not be someone else’s pawn.  It’s one of the winning strategies in a “drug war” that can claim few persuasion successes.

This summer as candidates prepare to enter the presidential sweepstakes, expect to hear some inoculation messages.  Any candidate with unwanted personal baggage (legal, health, or family problems are the most common) will announce them in advance of the fall debate season.  All candidates want to inoculate the American public against a steady drip of leaks or embarrassing revelations.  By mentioning their problem early, the hope is that it becomes old news by the time citizens are ready to pay attention in the Fall.

Comments: Woodward@tcnj.edu