How to Rebut & Disarm Your Critics and Detractors: Exemplary Disarming & Neutralizing by Gen. Michael Hayden in Wake of the “Torture Report”

Over the past few years, few top executives, be they in the private sector or in the government, have impressed me as much as has former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden. In fact, I recently “awarded” him my personal “medal of honor” by including him in the select few Americans named in the welcome paragraph on my website’s homepage as being among the most effective communicators in the land. 

As you can see in the two video clips below, Michael Hayden skillfully uses several communication tactics to disarm or at least reduce the vehemence of those who began denouncing the CIA soon after the release of the “torture report” last week--on Tuesday, December 9.  Specifically, by providing a rich and compelling perspective (within just half a minute in each video clip), Michael Hayden very adroitly reframes the issue and employs cognitive dissonance to put his critics on the defensive.

 

You can bet that these clips will be excellent source material for case study and exercises during (i) future renditions of my popular seminar on “How to Disarm and Neutralize your Critics and Detractors without being Offensive or Disrespectful” and (ii) my executive coaching sessions. [For a sampling of participant comments when this topic was presented to a standing-room-only audience of about 100 project managers at a recent PMI conference, click here and scroll toward the bottom of the Web page.]

© Copyright 2014  V. J. Singal
 

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Timeless High-Impact Verbal Techniques: In the 3rd Obama-Romney Debate, Each Candidate’s Most Talked-about Rebuttal or Parry Employed One Such Skill

Immediately after the last presidential debate between Obama and Romney--the one on Monday, Oct. 22, in Florida--one rebuttal from each candidate instantly became airborne. And that was no surprise to me because each of those two parries employed one of the simple but powerful verbal techniques that are standard fare among highly effective communicators. Nor should the cogency of those two rebuttals have been a surprise to anyone who has attended my flagship seminar “Power of the Spoken Word & Techniques to Communicate with Impact and Sway.”

• Obama’s highly effective line: Responding to Romney’s contention that our navy is weak because the number of ships is fewer than what it was a hundred years ago, the president said: “We also have fewer horses and bayonets!” In other words, he used an analogy--one of the half dozen or so most effective verbal techniques to emphasize a point--to assert that the strike power of a single modern-day weapon can easily overwhelm a sea of 100-year-old weaponry.

• Romney’s highly effective line: More than once, when responding to Obama’s criticism of the Republican nominee’s stand (or flip-flops) on an issue, the latter began: “There is no point attacking me…” Why was this choice of words so effective in parrying Obama’s criticism, why did it resonate so wildly with Romney supporters? Because “attack” is a negative word, and telling someone to their face that they are “attacking” you immediately disarms that person, puts them on the defensive. Users of my book “The Articulate Professional” (3^rd Edition) know that I have a whole chapter (Category V) featuring words employed by smart communicators to disarm and neutralize their critics and detractors (words such as denigrate, aspersion, reflexive, foist, puffery, apologist, nostrum, meretricious….).

© Copyright 2012  V. J. Singal

A One-Sentence Articulation of the Central Issue Raised by the BP Oil Well Disaster

Over the past 4 weeks, we’ve been witness to the offshore oil industry’s “Three Mile Island” (what with the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez-sized spill every 4 or 5 days) and BP’s series of desperate, amateurish, and unsuccessful attempts to get a grip on the situation. Because of the unprecedented nature of the disaster and the catastrophic consequences for both the environment and businesses, I am sure this will be Topic No. 1 during some of your casual conversations with friends and colleagues. Here is one approach to articulating the central issue raised by the calamitous event in just one sentence:

“The state of affairs following the April 20 oil well accident demonstrates unambiguously that while the technology for drilling in very deep water is sophisticated, the technology for remedying some of the possible accidents deep in the ocean is relatively primitive and pathetic!”

Communicating For Results: Citing the Mona Lisa, or David, When Justifying the Preservation of an Endangered Bird or Animal Species

“The monarch has the most fantastic migration of any insect in the world,” says Lincoln Brower, the world’s leading expert on that butterfly. So, last month, in a CBS “Sunday Morning” segment about the rapid decline in the monarch’s population (being caused by massive illegal logging within “protected zones” in Mexico), when he was asked how the world would be different without this phenomenal migration, Brower responded: “My answer to that is: What good is the Mona Lisa? What good is Mozart’s music? We could live without it, but we would be diminished as a culture and as a people. There’s nothing like it. It’s unique.”

The moment I heard Brower’s reply, I realized that his is an unusually compelling and effective response to anyone challenging wildlife preservation. In the past, whenever someone has asked me why I care so passionately about conserving wildlife, I have tended to wax eloquent on the morality issue, saying that other animals have the same basic right to exist as does homo sapiens. Of course, this argument does not appeal to many, especially those who take a more egocentric view of man. Well, in future, when talking about the need to save, say, the ocelot and the red wolf--two North American animals that are fast becoming extinct--I will simply resort to the analogy used by Brower, citing things like the Mona Lisa, the Sphinx, and Michelangelo’s David, to make my point.