Next week I have a really fun event prepared for my staff. We love team building. We work hard. We enjoy play. We have multiple, extremely talented individuals on our team. We also encourage emotional, physical and spiritual healthiness. In that health, we value, too, the importance of relational connection amidst professional execution.
Thing is, this event is a surprise. So at this stage of the planning, I can’t give them all the details. In fact, I don’t really want to give them any of the details. I want them to save the date, save the time, and then trust me with the process.
I also, though, want to ratchet up the excitement. I want them to be greatly looking forward to this thing they don’t know that they’re actually going to do.
And so as I was writing the email designed to hype what’s happening — without really giving them any information other than time, date and “trust me” — I found myself using a surfeit of superlatives…
Excellent… deeply valuable… epic…
My desire is to utilize words that make my team believe this is going to be good… even though they can’t see what I see or know what I know.
The embedded question of integrity, no less, rests on whether I believe it. And for our event next week, I’m pleased to share that indeed I do.
But herein lies the problem in our words.
Too often the integrity isn’t there. Too often the person who speaks the words doesn’t believe the words. The words are still intentionally chosen, but instead of them being an attempt to help another see what the sharer sees, the words are an attempt to make the hearer believe something that contradicts what they actually see. The words are an attempt to manipulate the perception of the person on the other side of them.
No doubt, unfortunately, that’s one of the reasons we’ve lost significant trust in so many of our leaders. On all sides. They often employ words we know are not true; they say what they want us to hear — not what is true. In my head, I’m trying to be respectful, but usually I want to retort with something along the lines of, “Do they think we’re stupid?”
We see it blatantly in Presidents 45 and 46. With all due respect, 45 seems to speak in an entire language of superlatives, routinely invoking the words “greatest” or “best.” Kurt Andersen wrote a playful piece in The Atlantic a few years ago, cleverly educating us all in “How to Talk Like Trump.” Utilizing superlatives, just to discuss Trump’s play on the word “positive,” for example, Andersen points to his use of “amazing / beautiful / best / big league / brilliant / elegant / fabulous / fantastic / fine / good / great / happy / honest / incredible / nice / outstanding / phenomenal / powerful / sophisticated / special / strong / successful / top / tremendous / unbelievable.” The chosen words often seem an attempt to make something better than it is.
We saw it again this week with the Wall Street Journal’s research. The WSJ published a report on Pres. 46’s performance in private meetings headlined “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.” Understandably, some did not appreciate the acknowledgement of decline, especially feeling it was an unbalanced, partisan piece. But some in defense prompted that question of integrity, suggesting no mental slippage exists. They want us not to believe what we actually see, as centrist Joe Klein detailed: “I feel a sharp stab of concern every time I see Biden in public—his eyes slits (too much plastic surgery), his words mumbled and slurred, his gait unsteady. I’ve known this man for nearly forty years and he does seem different now.” The chosen words here, too, seem an attempt to make something better than it is.
My point this day is not to offer any advocacy or opposition to any of the above. The point is that we often use words to create an impression that doesn’t actually exist.
Next week, by the way, I have something really fun planned for my staff.
Did I mention it was epic?
Respectfully…
AR