Success in life depends on how we use words

Humans are word animals. Words to us are what grunts, roars, barks, chirps, twitters, tweets and squeals are to the beasts. We have silence too, but prefer words. We use them to inform, persuade, sell, flatter, flummox, fool, seduce, deceive, cajole, lead, mislead, stir love, stir hate – or none of the above, simply to pass the time of day, using words to say nothing; the closer they approach nothingness the deeper the innocent pleasure they bring, the warmer the closeness they foster.

What we can’t do by main strength we do with words, and the farther civilization advances, the more territory strength yields to words. Success in life depends on using them wisely, says the business magazine President (July 14). Can it teach us how? It gets A for effort, mustering the knowledge and skills of word coaches, communication strategists, media mavens, public relations specialists and so on.

Such arcane expertise for so simple a function. Maybe it’s not simple after all. Uncoached, unpolished, raw, untutored, can we really be trusted with the great gift of words that nature has conferred upon us?

Two world leaders now locked in deadly combat are a study in communication contrast. Ukraine President Volodymir Zelenskyy: earnest, informal, engaging, sincere, inspiring; Russian President Vladimir Putin: stiff, cold, formal, obdurate, dogged, overbearing. Which of the two would you want for a boss? The significance of the question lies in this, suggests communication researcher Junko Okamoto: the age of “top-down” governance, national or corporate, is over. Putin is pure top-down. He rules, his underlings say “Yes, sir!” Zelenskyy wants ideas, not obedience; and he gets them because he stimulates where Putin oppresses; his staff respond by thinking, not by submitting.

 Corporate managers, take note – of Zelenskyy prevailing against crushing odds, Putin floundering in a deepening morass.

As with nations, so in business – the bullying boss is obeyed but there’s no soul in obedience. No soul, no inspiration; no inspiration, no payoff.

Wielders of power, national or corporate, are commanding figures with strong personalities. They wouldn’t be where they are otherwise. They don’t suffer fools gladly. Patience is a virtue no doubt but an unaffordable luxury in tense situations – so they would say, partly in self-justification, being no strangers to flashes of anger.

Dampen it, counsels publisher and editor Yutaka Fujiyoshi. Be not angry. At least, show no anger. Other matters aside, you risk crossing that fine line between firm management and power harassment, an ancient vice but a modern issue, disconcerting to old-style managers who take power for granted and the exercise of it as their due. Respect for human dignity? Humanity doesn’t confer dignity, only the potential for it; nor does it confer power – again, only the potential for it, potential that must be honed in the fires of submission. Thus  speaks  old-style management; Putin-style management. Ethics aside, says Fujiyoshi, it no longer works.

What does? Patience, understanding, more listening and less ranting, more “How do you young junior employees think we should proceed?” and less “This is how we’ll proceed, underlings; do what I tell you or risk my displeasure!”

An interesting implication arising from all this is that an evolution well underway elsewhere in the world – from top-down to partnership – has yet to take root in hierarchical Japan. Relevant, perhaps, in that connection is a recent survey by Japan’s Persol Research Institute. The question posed, to roughly 1000 individuals in each of 18 countries and regions, is, “Do you derive satisfaction from work?” First place went to India, 92.6 percent answering yes. Second place: Indonesia – 90.6. Third: the Philippines – 90.1. Fourth: China – 89.2. England, France, the U.S. – all in the 70s. Japan? In 18th and last place – 49.1 percent.

Speaking, listening, communicating – the fact is, we all have much to learn. Investigative journalist Fumiaki Tada, in his contribution to President’s package, shows himself willing to learn from some rather unsavory characters. They’ve made much news lately – the slick perpetrators of the famous ore-ore scam and its various, increasingly (sometimes astonishingly) sophisticated offshoots. “Ore-ore” is a very informal way of saying, “It’s me, it’s me.” In its most basic guise, fraudster phones target, usually an elderly person, and launches a spiel: “It’s me, it’s me” – implying someone the caller knows well, a son, a grandson. “Eh? Takeshi?” “Yeah. Listen, I’m in trouble, this happened to me, that happened to me, I need money, help me, grandma, my life is in your hands, here’s how to transfer money to my account, please, grandma, don’t fail me!” – and so on.

That’s how it started, primitive embryo of the far more elaborate plots being spun these days – individuals merging into groups, crude story lines growing into productions worthy of genuine theater, the dazed targets bamboozled by fake police officers, municipal officials, bank officials, what have you. Repeated warnings by real police, municipal and bank officers have failed to stem a steady rise in the number of victims – who wake up at last, too late, from the spell cast on them to find they’ve turned over vast sums of money to people who are unlikely ever to be heard of again.

Tada can’t help marveling at their skill. Their research is thorough, their talk clear and focused, their listening intense, their manner bright, positive, engaging. Business people can channel these same virtues towards worthier ends.

Tada learns, too, from the ancients. He recalls a scammer scamming him – not knowing he was a journalist – with the line, “There are three points I would like you to appreciate.” Click! “Three – the magic number three!” Craft your business proposals and presentations accordingly, he advises. What’s magic about three? Hard to say. It goes way back. The ancient Greeks thought three was the perfect number, the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. Other examples are familiar to everyone: “Friends, Romans, countrymen”; “of the people, by the people, for the people”; “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Yes, there are tricks to using words…

Michael Hoffman is the author of “Arimasen.” 

© Japan Today