Association Advocacy | Golden's Rules for Associations

Have we lost the ability to argue?

18 July 2011 2 Comments

“It is extraordinary to notice how few people in the modern world can argue. That is why there are so many quarrels breaking out again and again, and never coming to any natural end.” How true. Just switch on any cable TV “news” show or go to any online forum. Or visit an association board meeting.

Unfortunately, the quoted obsertvation is not new. It was made almost a century ago (1929 to be exact), by British author G. K. Chesterton.

“Today, we tend to think of arguing as synonymous with quarreling, with anger as the chief ingredient,” a January-February 2008 editorial in the Gilbert Magazine noted. But true argument has nothing to do with anger. Unless you are in a debating contest, the purpose of argument isn’t to beat your opponent; it is to get to the truth.

There is the tricky part! If argument is in service of the truth, not personal victory, that demands being open to the possibility that the opposition might be right. Which requires also being open to the possibility that one’s own sincere and intensely held beliefs might be wrong. Or at least incomplete.

“Participants in a discussion who are unwilling to listen are not having an argument. They are having a fruitless exchange of assertions.”

As Chesterton himself liked to point out, true argument is only possible when the participants share more in common than they differ over. That is, as he often observed, we have to agree about something before we can argue about anything. Otherwise, we are just disagreeing for the purpose of being disagreeable. Or merely to appear clever.

We’ve all seen (or perhaps been in) arguments where the protagonists seem to be talking past each other. Think of the current political debates on the debt ceiling. The opposing sides agree it is important, even vital that something be done. But somehow, they end up arguing about whether taxes are too high or government spending too wasteful. It becomes more important to be viewed as right about taxes or right about spending. They forget that the energy behind the argument had it roots in something important that they both agree about: the need to avoid default.

So maybe the real reason we tend to argue is because we care so deeply and the subject matters are of such importance. That’s a good reason to argue, Chesterton would assert. But it doesn’t excuse you of the obligation to argue fairly and argue well, argue with respect for your opponent, and argue in service of the truth.

Filed under Association Advocacy, The Way We Are Tagged with The Way We Are

Paradigms

10 May 2011 Leave a comment

I recently suffered a very sudden and very significant loss of vision. Happily, the condition was fully correctible. Nonetheless, during the period of impairment I learned some very interesting things about how the brain works and we perceive the world.

I discovered that when I was in familiar surroundings, my brain could reach back to stored memories of how things were supposed to look. In the familiar confines of my office or home, I hardly noticed the lack of clarity in my vision. My brain was able to easily recognize the settings and the people I encountered and adjusted things to make it feel like I could see better than I actually did.

When I went on a period of extended travel, however, and found myself in unfamiliar surroundings, the visual impairment felt like it became more severe. Everything was a total blur. I felt disoriented and at a loss.

Scientists talk about the concept of paradigms: the frame of reference that causes the human brain to routinely “fill in the blanks” and add information to what we are actually, sensually perceiving. When that additional information is accurate, it actually improves our grasp of reality, as was the case when I was navigating my office and home with my fading eyesight.

But sometimes the information that our governing paradigms add to our perceptive abilities can be misleading. We can essentially see what we are expecting to see, not what is actually before us.

And paradigms don’t just have the power to change — and distort — visual perceptions. I have seen paradigms at work within human interactions as well.

When that happens, at a board meeting, or a staff meeting, or a legislative meeting, it can start an argument where there is no disagreement. The conversation never gets to the available, mutually beneficial solution because the parties are too distracted arguing over perceived differences that exist only in their conflicting paradigms.

Or, put another way, if we remain at loggerheads, locked inflexibly into opposing positions even where there is no real impediment to a satisfactory solution, we will never get to a position of strength, from which we can successfully negotiate an acceptable outcome on the issues that truly do matter to us.

Sometimes, you just have to let go of your paradigm.

Filed under Association Advocacy Tagged with Association Advocacy, The Way We Are

Inquiry or advocacy?

29 April 2011 Leave a comment

There are two kinds of public policy research: there is inquiry and there is advocacy. In the case of advocacy, you start with an answer and go in search of the facts that will bolster and support your position. In the case of inquiry, you start with a question and let the facts lead you where they may.

It is important to understand the difference. I have seen too many cases where association lobbying efforts have gone horribly wrong because someone got so excited about the case it was possible to make for their desired outcome by carefully selecting their facts that they ignored even the most obvious data that could be used against it. And their beautiful, fact-based strategy collapsed the first time it was challenged.

Effective association advocacy requires both forms of research. Before the association begins to craft its legislative or regulatory strategy, it needs a good, clear headed and pragmatic understanding of what the facts of the situation actually are. It is like the intelligence gathering that gets done before you plan a military campaign. Just because naval warfare is your particular strength, you can’t start planning a water-based assault on your enemy without first checking into whether key targets are accessible by water.

If the inquiry is open and honest, you sometimes learn something unpleasant that you won’t like hearing. But that can be even more important than getting the answer you wanted. If naval warfare is your particular strength, but the rivers are too shallow for your ships, that is a setback. But you’re better off knowing it before you’ve committed your navy.

Sometimes the research merely confirms what you already knew. Understandably, that kind of research often gets criticized by members as a waste of time and resources. But if the stakes are high enough, if the issue is of life and death importance, it doesn’t hurt to verify and confirm the reliability of the assumptions you are betting the industry’s future on. To further torture the naval warfare metaphor, it might be “obvious” that the city you need to capture is accessible by the river. “We don’t need some high price mapmaker to point that out.” But before putting your military personnel’s lives on the line, it would be nice to know for sure and to have maps with the river depths precisely charted for your ships to follow.

Both forms of research require intellectual honesty. Spinning the facts to serve your purpose to such an extent that you distort reality is not an example of either inquiry or advocacy research. In fact, it isn’t even research at all. It is
dishonest salesmanship masquerading as research. And the only mark you are duping with the deceptive sales pitch is yourself.

Filed under Association Advocacy Tagged with Association Advocacy