Harvard - Day 22

Today's sessions were focused primarily on leadership - one interesting issue relates to trust. There are four elements, or questions typically associated with trust in the workplace. These are:

1. Motives or integrity
2. Competence
3. Dependability or reliability
4. Respectfulness or how one treats others

This is useful as a means of understanding how other employees (or supervisors) view their relationships with others as well as where issues may arise.

We discussed the concept of "focused inattention," that is looking so hard at one thing that you may miss something else extremely important. This occurs because humans have limited ability to process information. It is useful to understand this can happen and to take steps to help prevent it - for example looking at problems in multiple ways, or finding people to advise you who look at things differently.

We also discussed organizational vulnerabilities, which typically fall into one of several categories: predictable surprises (those where evidence was available but misread or ignored), organizational blind spots (places where organizations do not possess expertise or are not looking), and poor decision-making (this is self explanatory). Leaders focus much of their time on organizational political, structural, and cultural systems - but often lose focus on the larger issues of Purpose, Critical Tasks, and Public Good.

The case study we started the day with was another NASA example - the Columbia accident. This case read like almost a repeat of the Challenger disaster, people who understood things were problematic, systems that did not let those people raise the issue, and incredible pressure to accomplish the mission. Several of our classmates from NASA gave excellent depth to the discussion. One works Shuttle missions and explained that during each mission the Mission Management Team maintains a white board of "funnies" any one of which could cause the mission to abort or create other challenges. During a typical mission, there may be as many as 30 or 40 items on the board. NASA is staffed with extremely intelligent folks, over 30% are PhDs and many others are experts in their field. Each issue is worked hard, but our classmate explained that an issue like the foam strike that occurred on the Challenger mission was probably one of many issues that teams were working on during the course of the mission. It does not excuse the fact that communications did not occur, or that systems were still not in place to allow the issue to raise itself to a level of concern that warranted significant attention - but it does better place into context the "fog of war" that mission teams face as they execute these demanding space missions.

Our next session built upon three cases - the work of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved nearly 100,000 lives as he intervened in Hungary's deportation of Jews by the Nazis to death camps in Germany. The second case was a discussion of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the early days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and how they proceeded in the twilight of the Civil Rights movement. The final case was a discussion of Emma Mashinini a union worker in South Africa who battled apartheid in South Africa. The discussion centered on leadership and fear, courage, and acting with confidence. Each example drew upon unique aspects of the topic, exemplifying how they overcame or worked their way through fear.

Our final session of the day was a case study of Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in New York City. This session was primarily focused on leadership in crisis. This is an interesting case study because Giuliani was in the last days of his 8 year tenure as mayor and while he had some early success with reducing crime and cleaning up NY, the last years of his term were fraught with challenges and scandal. Nevertheless, he was up to the challenge of leading during a crisis - in fact he became for a short time, the nation's leader while the President was being moved to Omaha, NE. We did learn that many of the key soundbites he used in early press conferences were developed and rehearsed long before (maybe even years before) 9/11. So, he did rise to the occasion, but he also had prepared for other disaster like situations. And, as one classmate said, the plan isn't what matters, it's the process that leads to the plan. If you have internalized the process, then you can apply it to different situations, which is what occurred here, as many of the NY City staff said, they pulled together parts of the plans that they already had developed and rehearsed.

This afternoon, I did some shopping for Christmas presents - I won't spill the beans here, folks will just have to wait until Christmas day... I also joined a pick up game of soccer this evening, until it again became too dark to play any longer.

Lastly, I participated in a video interview about negotiations in the workplace as part of a graduate research project. The interviewer is gathering information from practicing government officials about how they use negotiating skills in the workplace both for themselves and for others. The session lasted about 30 minutes.

Harvard - Day 21

This morning the University is mostly closed, save for two executive education courses, including ours. The first session of the day addressed transactional and transformational leadership in the NAACP and by Gandhi.

First though, a bit of research with regard to information sharing in teams. An experiment was set up with groups of six people and six pieces of information. All six people were given four pieces of information in common. Then, two people were given additional bits of information - one person was given one unique piece of information and the other a different, unique piece of information. Research showed the group spent the majority of their time discussing the information they had in common, not the pieces of "outlying" information that only one other member knew. This has a significant implication for information sharing in teams, essentially informing us that much more attention needs to be paid to extracting, sharing, and understanding unique information, and less on the information all members have in common.

First, we should define these terms - transactional leadership deals with rewarding satisfactory performance and/or conformity and focuses on the rational transaction of contingent rewards based on satisfactory performance or behavior. Transformational leadership deals with raising people to higher levels of performance by appealing to their sense of values, ideals, and morality. Transactional leadership embodies idealized influence as an attribute and as a behavior as well as inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration.

With respect to Gandhi, he was largely a transformational leader; however, it is important to understand these leadership styles are not mutually exclusive, and that Gandhi also had strong transactional leadership skills, which he also used.

One other interesting bit of research the instructor cited is that extrinsic rewards, like bonuses can have the effect of "crowding out" intrinsic motivation - that is doing work or performing a task for internal satisfaction. Extrinsic rewards also may have a tendency to direct people away from certain components of work (because they are not easily quantified and therefore rewarded).

Our second session today was a discussion of a case study involving a senior manager who accomplished actions that could be seen as creative and "out of the box." The instructor used this case study to paint a broad spectrum of issues related to building coalitions, informing the boss, asking permission, accomplishing innovation, etc. It was an interesting and instructive session - as every minute with this instructor have been for the last four weeks. I was strongly opposed to this manager's methods of operating - saying essentially that he was as close as possible to the line of being dishonest without actually placing a foot over it - and that he had selectively omitted key details of his intent from his leadership, giving them an opportunity to pass judgement on the potential risks. This set the tone - and of course the instructor's was able to make careful counterpoints to demonstrate that this manager had taken due diligence, etc. In the end, he tied this character to all the others that have been presented over the past three-plus weeks, saying that each leader made a wide array of choices about the role they chose to play in the government leadership role they were in, and that within the 'Madisonian' construct of our constitution, there exists the embodiment of sufficient flexibility to allow for each style. What a tremendous way to pull this all together!

Our third session today was a back briefing on our Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire - our 360 performance evaluation. The session was useful and my feedback from colleagues was useful; however, I need to spend a bit more time understanding what is being said, and how I may look for areas of required improvement. I see this tool as a useful means for calibrating and adjusting as I continue to develop as a leader and manager.

Our final session of the day took us to 1730 - it was largely a session devoted to discussing inequalities and specific biases in organizations. This was a useful, but somewhat less interesting dialogue with the class that didn't leave me feeling very satisfied.

This evening I went with another classmate to the local mall to purchase gift certificates for the administrative staff who have given so much of their time during this four week session to ensure each of us was able to focus on the education being provided and not have to worry about administrative or logistics issues.

Harvard - Day 20 Leadership

Today's sessions were largely about leadership in the public sector. We especially focused on failures and the warning signs, acts or events that precede it as well as the subsequent negative and positive behaviors. The class generated an interesting and instructive list of the warning signs, which we thought might include:

Intuition of risk; loss of a big picture view; failure to resolve differences between parties; buying in to a solution too quickly; a disconnect between perceptions and those of other parties; failing to listen to additional information; being too ambitious; lack of adequate resources; not recognizing the scope or complexity of a particular task; being distracted; locking on to a specific plan; linking the project or task to one's self; and trusting experts too much.

We all possess biases; and we come pre-disposed to act a certain way, which colors the way we see and may act in certain scenarios. If you know and understand these biases, you should know what questions to ask that you might not otherwise consider (because of your bias).

Our case studies followed the resignation of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance from the Carter administration in 1980 and the loyalty of Secretary of State Colin Powell during the Bush administration from 2000 to 2004. This was an interesting comparison; Vance resigned because he could not support the President's decision to conduct a military operation to rescue the Iranian hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where they'd been held for months - and eventually over a year. Vance said, regardless of whether the operation was a success or not, he could not offer public support for it and therefore needed to resign. Interestingly, he remained loyal for several days, until after the failure at Desert One.

Powell in contrast, took a much different approach and remained loyal to the President throughout his full first term. It is still maybe a bit too early to judge or even try to draw comparisons; however, Powell did support the President in his decision to go to war in Iraq and continued to support him throughout the full first term. Unfortunately, the case may still be too early historically to draw much from - and we may yet learn more about Powell's state of mind after the famous United Nations presentation, making the case for war.

Our final session of the day was a discussion about the Space Shuttle Challenger accident and some of the decision making and organizational issues surrounding that tragedy. It was an interesting discussion, largely led by the NASA staff members among our class. They left no question I think that a inclination towards action (that is to launch) is a part of the DNA in many NASA members, especially those from the Apollo-era who trained many of the current NASA leadership. The case itself, which was centered around the report from President's Commission on the subject, was rather dry and even the instructor said oversimplified a complex contextual situation.

Several of our classmates and I played soccer in an open field in the graduate housing area. We played from about 4PM until about 5PM when it was so dark we could hardly see the ball - or each other. It was great fun and nobody was injured - so all is well!

Harvard - Day 18 Thoughts on Leadership

Today's first session was a follow on from yesterday, we used two case studies - a discussion of Richard Holbrooke working the Dayton Accords for peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and a case about Dr. Barbara Levin and maternity care in Tennessee as springboards for discussion about leadership. The term being used at Harvard is "Effective Implementation - Relentlessness." This is really trying to bridge a gap that exists between ideas and action; it is used as a launching point for discussion about leadership.

One set of interesting tips to answer the question, 'How do I stay relentless, but also listen and learn? The following points were made:
Find someone to help keep you accountable
Develop and write a life mission statement
Set priorities - in writing
Focus on commitment
Set limits on what you ask of others
Set limits (defined beforehand) on when I quit - this yields the ability to lessen risk

Our final sessions of the day dealt more directly with leadership. The instructor presented some extremely provocative concepts associated with leadership, in an effort to get us to think about it differently. He first asked us who we thought were great leaders. Names like Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were thrown out.

The instructor asked us next, where does "authority" come from?
Position, subordinates, and peers - each of these provide a degree of authorization. The key functions of authority are - direction, protection, and order) and these are the same, regardless of the authority role (scope differs).

But, he went on to say, people each have uniquely individual expectations of you as a leader; and when you map these expectations, they constitute a "scope of authority." He went on to say that when and if you meet the expectations of the "authorizers" you are rewarded. Being called a leader is one of those rewards. He asked, rhetorically, "how many of you here don't want to be considered as possessing some leadership traits?" He added that the world knows this, that people want to be thought of or called, "leaders;" therefore this alone represents an intrinsic reward AND it keeps you where the environment (those authorizers) want you. When you exceed your scope of authority, you risk losing it. But, in order to exercise true leadership, he postulates we need to spend more time "dancing on the edge" of our authority, working on those things that you care most deeply about. Your "purpose" is what should drive you to move to the "edge" and seek more authority.

Leadership is an activity, not a person - leadership doesn't have to do with a position, in fact he believes as you move up, you exercise less leadership.

Leaders tell people what they NEED to hear, not what they WANT to hear; and leaders put themselves and others at risk.

Election campaigns do not represent leadership in any way, they are the purest form of pandering, pollsters take polls one day asking what people want to hear, then politicians tell them exactly that the next - pure pandering.

Leadership is about disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.

The instructor added that you can't exercise leadership without encountering resistance. He suggested that we should decouple the idea of leadership with people who do what we want them to do. Leadership requires you to be optimistic, while "coolly realistic." Realism helps you from becoming naive and optimism prevents you from becoming cynical.

Leadership is about three primary activities:

1. Observations
2. Interpretations
3. Interventions

The most difficult and challenging of these is developing skill in "interpretation;" because it is hard to be open to interpretation of information/data that you may be uncomfortable with - and lead you to a place where you might not reach by default. Interpretation is a hypothesis based on how one views the reality they've observed.

Leadership is experimental/improvisational because we don't know how it will turn out, therefore leadership is inherently risky and dangerous. But, leadership must be linked to a Purpose, which is not, by definition a value neutral entity; but the tools used to implement leadership (like manipulation) are value neutral. The key is to have available the largest set of tools possible.

The difference between exercising authority and exercising leadership is that authority is exercised within the scope of authority granted you, while leadership is exercised "at the edge" or maybe even a bit over the edge of that scope.

Interpretations fall into one of two categories:

Technical, individual and benign; or

Adaptive, systemic, and conflictual - it is this latter category where leadership is exercised, and where situations may be uncomfortable.

In government, we're expected to exercise judgement, not just technical expertise; in academia or many other businesses, technical expertise is all that's needed.

People don't want you to challenge their "stories," because when we do it becomes uncomfortable, but when we accept their stories at face value, then we're pandering to them.

People do not resist change per se, people resist change because they don't think it will be better for them.

Technical problems and adaptive challenges are usually both contained in an issue - this is what makes leadership difficult.

Survival skills for leaders - pay attention to:

1. Your partners/allies
2. Your opposition - spend time with these folks to, 1) be able to calibrate/read the pressure you're applying, and 2) to hear their stories and understand how to intervene
3. Troublemakers - people who love to resist, just for the sake of doing so; you need to protect their operating space to enable then to stir things up just a bit when needed.
4. Senior Authorities - because they see things you can't and can reflect "the system" that you can't see
5. Casualties - folks who don't make it through a change period, because 1) they're more likely to support you if you take on their challenge (to keep up with the group); and 2) each have friends in the system.
6. Yourself - important because any system you're trying to fix, you're a part of the problem, if you can identify what/where the issues are, you can work on them; and "self-enroll" - don't take things personally; see what you're doing as a roll at a place and time - not who you are.

As I said, this was some pretty provocative stuff - but it did get us to thinking about a different view of leadership.

This evening I went out with one of my classmates to see about a class gift; we went to a local mall and did a bit of research, but they didn't have anything that was really worthwhile as a gift. We went to dinner afterwords, and enjoyed a wonderful meal and conversation.

Harvard - Day 17 Kennedy Library

Tonight's post will be a short one, I'm starting at 10:45PM after just returning from an evening at the Kennedy Presidential Library in south Boston. It is a beautiful facility and one of our instructors was the first custodian/curator for the facility. He also served in the Kennedy White House and shared a number of stories about Kennedy, the staff and the family. All were quite interesting.

This morning we had our final session on Persuasion. I gave you 10 keys to effective persuasion last night - this evening, I'd like to share with you the 10 Principles of effective persuasion.

1. Simplicity/clarity
2. Know the audience and its predispositions
3. Salience
4. Analogies/metaphors
5. Storytelling/examples/metaphors
6. Counter-intuitive sources and arguments
7. Authority/credibility
8. Conformity/social proof
9. Reciprocation
10. Liking (emotional intelligence)

We viewed the famous Nixon "Checkers Speech" which was aired in 1952. This speech was the first use of television for political purposes - the Republican National Committee paid for this time. Nixon made the speech in response to calls for his resignation from the Republican ticket with Eisenhower when the press learned that a fund of $18,000 was used to pay personal expenses. Nixon used almost every one of the principles above as he played this speech out -

He used stories - first about his own life, about the letter from the fleet marine, and about the dog, Checkers, that was given to him by a constituent in Texas.

He timed revelation of certain details perfectly - revealing an independent audit and a legal opinion. He made concessions - saying he accepted a gift, the dog Checkers, and that he was "baring his soul" to the American people.

The speech was simple - he first recited the accusations, then methodically gave an autobiography of his life, all his earnings, all his assets and all his debts, then he transitioned into a typical political speech, addressing the War in Korea, the purge of Communists, and the goodness of Eisenhower and his ticket for the 1952 election.

We discussed a portion of "The Killer Angels" and viewed the portion of "Gettysburg" that was related to the book. Our efforts were really to pick out and describe the key persuasion principles used in this feature - it was another effective class and helped drive home the point that effective communication and persuasion are challenging tasks that you must work at in order to improve.

Finally, we reviewed and analyzed the Obama victory speech - looking for these principals. Obama used an absolutely fantastic story at the end about a 106 year old African American woman who voted, making the point about all the change she'd witnessed, the fact she could not vote, first because she was a woman, and then because she was black. It was exceptionally poignant.

At lunch today, we had an interesting discussion about the election result from last night. Three of our instructors offered views about the outcome. One of the most interesting insights was with regard to Senator McCain and how he may have given up the opportunity to at least make the campaign a close fight.

1. His VP choice - may will agree with this; Gov Palin was more of the same, she simply solidified his base of conservative Republicans, did not mobilize those who were in the middle. It was suggested that a choice like Tom Ridge from Pennsylvania would have really made this race a challenge because it would have put PA, OH, and possibly other states in play.

2. McCain did not distance himself from President Bush on several issues. Despite preaching change, and McCain's reputation as a "maverick" clearly made him the best candidate for the Republican party, when he had a chance to distance himself on issues like Iraq, he did not.

3. The Bail Out - this is really a repeat of the above, but McCain has made a reputation for not supporting this type of pork barrel legislation, but he did not reject it or offer a counter proposal. Any position that differentiated him from Obama or President Bush would have helped.

Anyway, as one might imagine, many folks here at Harvard are quite giddy today - obviously there are many more job prospects in Washington for them today than there were yesterday.

I'll try to update this tomorrow, but for now, I'm going to sign off.

Harvard - Day 16 Election Day

This morning started out with a short discussion about the potential outcomes and significance of today's historic election.

Our first session today included a viewing of two episodes of a BBC show entitled, "Yes Minister." Its general plot line follows a secretary of the British Government establishment and his civil service staff. The episodes, one on Equal Opportunity, and the other addressing "The Moral Dimension" of actions showed how a permanent member of the civil service, with his connections and legitimacy can run roughshod over a senior member of any administration. The instructor drew the points out of the videos quite well.

The second session was a follow up in the series on Persuasion. The instructor addressed he final principle that he had not covered yesterday, the "Liking Principle," which is essentially that you are more likely to be able to exert influence over people who "like" you. We tend to like people that we view as positive, respectful, appreciative and empathetic. Conversely, we tend to dislike people that we view as negative, disrespectful, unappreciative and who lack empathy (the ability to show they understand and care about our circumstances). He also went on to talk about "effective" but "unlikeable" managers. We all know these types, folks who use their position of power or authority more than their ability to persuade people to do things. They may get things accomplished in the short term, but over time they do not build sufficient "capital" to enjoy enduring legacies of accomplishment.

The instructor also touched on the topic of assertiveness, saying that likability and assertiveness were not measures at opposite ends of the same scale, that we don't need to give up our ability to be critical or have strong principals or opinions and still be likable. People can be both assertive and likable. That is they can exhibit traits that show strong tendency towards conviction, high standards, decisiveness, AND be caring, show concern for others, be complimentary, positive, listen well, etc. Our goal should be to exhibit all of these traits - to be both likable and assertive.

We also did a short after action review of the movie "12 Angry Men." The instructor offered that movies, and other media are a good means of practicing persuasion and suggested that we get into the habit of using any / all of these as tools. He also indicated that research shows non-verbal communication trumps verbal behavior in most instances.

When making key points, you create the conditions for success (prepare the soil) before delivering the key point (planting the seeds) to ensure the point "sticks" and has impact with others (the plant grows). The lesson here, and it is a tough one, is to think about timing the deliver of your key points - many of us want to bring the key point in and drop it on the table immediately - this may or may not work, depending on how "prepared" your audience is to hear and make use of the point you've delivered.

The instructor also talked about "active" versus "passive" audiences - saying that active audiences are more easily persuaded.

Finally, and this point was illustrated very clearly in the movie - don't go after the folks who will be toughest to convert to your point of view first. Find those who are "on the fence," they will give you political capital as you move forward. They provide "a team" and allow you to take on larger/tougher tasks or opponents. Lastly, the instructor provided 10 keys to effective persuasion, which I'll share here:

1. What is my take-away/message? Who is the messenger? Who is the audience? What is the context? Are these elements in alignment (logic, messenger, audience, context)?

2. What are the strategic implications of the context (time and space)? Can I shape the context? Do I understand the explicit and implicit rules of the game?

3. What are the audience's predispositions? Since the battle is won or lost before it is fought, have I invested sufficient resources to try to know my audience? Have I been an active listener?

4. What can I afford to give away (concessions)? Can I make substantive concessions? Am I making stylistic concessions in my manner of speech? What are the (calculated) risks of making these concessions?

5. How can I express my argument simply and clearly? What is the one thing my audience will remember from my message?

6. How can I be strategic in the timing and sequencing of my message? Am I looking for the auspicious moment for introducing my arguments? Can I lead by facilitating and mobilizing others? Can I build a coalition of support?

7. Is there a powerful metaphor, analogy, or story I can use to bolster my argument?

8. How can I vary the rhythm and dynamics of my presentation over time?

9. Have I recognized and adjusted to the negative and positive effects of peer pressure?

10. Am I able to be both "steel and velvet," both assertive and likable, strong and empathetic, principled and respectful in my presentation?

This evening after class I came back to the graduate student housing and went for about a three mile run - weather was warm and pleasant, making the Charles River route another splendid sight. I spent the remainder of the evening doing laundry, preparing my reading for tomorrow and watching election returns. It appears Senator Obama is on his way to being elected our nation's next President. It also appears the nation has certainly begun to take its individual liberty to cast a vote quite seriously this year, something that should stand again as a shining beacon to other nations on earth, particularly those who wish us ill, as a clear statement of the resilience and steadfastness of democracy and freedom of people to chose, by election, those whom they wish to govern. I may or may not agree with the choices they've made, but I will certainly defend the freedom and liberty that provides the freedom to make those choices.

Harvard - Day 15 Persuasion and Iraq

Today were a marathon three sessions presented on the subject of Persuasion by one of the professors here, who is an expert pollster and has done extensive research, worldwide, into all manner of things that affect persuasion and leadership. He asserts that persuasion is the key to leadership - and more importantly that leading those who oppose us is the key challenge.

He offered a guarantee of sorts - that if students conscientiously learned and applied the 10 principles he was about to share, that we would be come more effective leaders.

There are three primary methods of influencing people:

1. Power - the ability to direct or order something done; sometime this can be important
2. Negotiation - a dialogue with either an explicit or implicit "if... then..." contained in it.
3. Persuasion - the ability to induce/seduce someone to voluntarily change their attitude or behavior.

Each of these methods have strengths and weaknesses, and the astute leader needs to ask when he/she should use each tool.

As a technical group, which most government bureaucrats are, we are good at logic-based dialogue/arguments; we think syllogistically, "if... then..." This is simply not enough to be an effective and persuasive leader. What we must do is know our audience.

In learning about the audience, we must ask in every persuasive situation "what one thing do I want the audience to take away?" Research shows that we're lucky if there will be even one thing! In fact, as the number of points in your persuasive argument grow, the ability to recall either the points, or the basic point drops... If you support your argument with a single point, recall is highest, it drops a bit if you use two, and a bit more when you use three; but when you use 4 or more points, the ability for the receiver to recall either your total argument/premise or any of the points approaches zero - and stays that way, no matter how many additional points you make. This is true, regardless of whether the presentation is verbal, written, or mediated (visual presentation of some type). This principle has been found to hold regardless of culture, globally.

There is also something universal about the power of 3's. People across the globe say things like, 'do you know your A, B, C's?' Or, 'on your mark, get set, go!' There is something special about grouping things in threes. In fact research shows that the most effective lecturers in college classrooms make 2-3 main points; in religion, great sermonizers also make three main points, and in comedy, great comedians follow this "rule of threes."

This is something that works counter to our instincts - we, a logic based people, want to tell someone everything we know about a topic. This is typical because logic based folks want to get on with arraying their logic, making their charts, or notes. The implication here is that we need to spend more time finding out about the audience and make one or two judgements about what is critical to make our argument. Also, modesty and humility are keys to persuasion.

The instructor gave us a couple of good quotes, "If I had 9 hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend 6 hours sharpening my axe." Abraham Lincoln - about the importance of investing in preparation. The instructor emphasized that we should ensure we've invested all available resources in knowing our audience.

Another, "We train our children to be independent, and then they punish us for our success."

"The greatest stupidity of mankind is forgetting what you're trying to do." -Nitchke

Knowing your audience gives rise to what can best be called the "Salience Principle." This principle says we're more likely to communicate persuasively if we work on topics that are important or relevant to our audience. BUT, research reveals this principle is mostly violated in practice because we want to communicate about what WE deem important or relevant. He suggested drawing two circles - a Venn diagram where they overlap. Next, write in each circle the points relevant to each party; and then look to find points of common interest; in some cases there may not be any, in which case we should ask how much time do we have to find that common ground. If there are no points in common, it is worth considering:

1. Education - this will bring things together slowly
2. Change subjects - provide potential for an area where overlap DOES exist
3. Messenger change - it may be that another person is a better messenger for the topic
4. Power / Negotiation - these should be considered if Persuasion can't be used
5. Desist - may never be able to move the other party to a place where common ground exists

A strong indicator of what is Salient to someone is what they spend a preponderance of their time doing. For example, if a young man is interested in cars, and spends all of his free time associating with car studies, working on cars, etc., this is a strong indicator of what is salient to him. Remember though, the audience has all the power in persuasion, because they exercise sovereignty / independence from your arguments.

Knowing your audience also gives rise to another principle of effective persuasion, the use of metaphors / analogies. Students recall well those classes where analogies are used because they are "sticky" in the memory; because they are related to something people already know. Persuasion involves both the use of "Prose," that is the charts, graphs and written material used to make a point; and "Poetry," the hook that links back to your main point - which can be a metaphor. Persuasive arguments should always be "worked backward" from the main point, then crafting the "Prose" and the "Poetry" become easier.

Marginal improvements in one's persuasive abilities can yield a decisive change in your "W-L" record. This is because for the most part our shared, homogeneous value system means that we're already probably 40-60 or 45-55, so marginal improvements can reverse that and result in an overall "winning record."

Story's are the MOST PERSUASIVE means of presenting information and data. One should always look for a link between stories and data as well as a story to link any data that's being presented.

Finally, we discussed at some length the work that Aristotle did 2,500 years ago - writing that persuasion consisted of three components - "logos" or the logic of a coherent, cogent argument; "ethos" or the character of the messenger; and "pathos" or the motives, feelings, attitudes and beliefs of the audience. Aristotle actually wrote this in rebuttal to his teacher, Plato, who had taught in lessons that "logos" or a logical argument were all that was necessary to be an effective persuader.

The instructor added a fourth term, "agora" which in Greek means the meeting place, especially a marketplace - but this term was introduced to raise the issue of "context" that is where and when the issue at hand is discussed. There is evidence this too is an important factor to consider.

This segment continues tomorrow - it has been interesting and as the instructor said, "this is common sense, but it's not common practice.

The fourth session of the day was a discussion of the actions of GEN Patraeus and Amb. Bremer in Iraq during the initial days following the termination of major hostilities. This was an interesting comparison, but I'm afraid it may be too early to compare, with full understanding the impacts of the decisions that were made by either leader. There were some great discussion points - and the construct we used, the decisions made, the context or assumptions underlying those decisions, and the result / impact of the decisions is a useful framework to consider for any leadership analysis.

This evening we watched "12 Angry Men" the version with Henry Fonda as a preparatory effort for tomorrow's next classes on persuasion.