| I think I ran across this at Bloomberg.com: "Linguistic scholar George Lakoff was among the first to acknowledge the Sanders milestone, comparing it to a President Richard Nixon quip from 1973. Lakoff tweeted, 'When you negate the frame, you activate the frame. When Nixon said, ‘I’m not a crook,’ people saw a crook.' Lakoff didn’t go there, but President Bill Clinton likewise negated the frame to activate it in 1998 when he insisted that he had not had 'sexual relations with that woman.' Context and contextualization is an important point to honest, open communication. What might appear as factual differences or a stubborn opponent might really be stepping into the conversation with intersection free frames. Sometimes we tend to frame things in such as way as to remove our agency, or posit the other guy as the jerk etc..
So knowing your frame, and knowing a frame often enters into it (ex. DBT deals with this) is an important element to honesty to self and honesty with your your audience. Talking without a filter; that is without constantly editing oneself to make it PC or conform to the normative organizational human structure in the room is a kind of openness too. On the other hand merely free-form raw, honest feelings or bottom lining the situation to avoid social norms to let the "truth" out isn't per se really open. To are caveats here: there are a range of defensive behaviors (see below on Human Element and Dr. Schutz) so that while one may come across as honest and authentic (ex. not PC, not catering, not-careful) are in fact non-self-aware behaviors one exhibits to avoid conflicts with self-esteem. Consider a prototypical alpha-male: as long as I criticize and blame someone on their lack of competence and failure to succeed ... could seem like honest feedback. Or it's the fog I hide behind to avoid dealing with myself. As long as the other guy is on the hook, I don't have to look at myself. All the more so if this is my go-to in difficult situations. Other people don't do criticism. Their go-to is playing the victim, or playing it off (what problem? what are you so upset about?) etc ... these behaviors often arise in heated, hard to solve situations when one is unable to cope well. Openness in the good way, and the ultimately the most beneficial way wherever pairs of people interact has a strong focus on self, feelings & fears about self, and is less outward looking that might otherwise be thought at first. And it's worth pointing then genuine openness needs safety. An office that's doesn't promote safety will just get a bunch of people who say what they have to or what they can get away without without losing their job or so pissing off someone that there's payback. |