Professor Nye is back with Soft Power and the promise of communication in the hands of smooth talkers like Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), Gandhi, Woodrow Wilson, Lee Hsien Loong, Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt (Franklin, but not Teddy), Truman, Reagan, and, of course, Barack Obama.

Everything wrong with Strategic Communication can be found in Professor Nye’s commentary.  Anyone who would put that Gang of Suspects in the same room is selling a concept that is snake oil, academic snake oil.  It’s great for tenure and op-ed and the Cool Table, but is it communication he’s talking about?

Nye’s soft power communication is soft, flabby, fluffy, plastic, gooey, and only a Lewis Carroll term where words mean what we want them to mean.  It benefits Professor Nye, but anyone attempting to make practical application of his idea will find failure.

No wonder Admiral Mullen is mad as hell and not taking it anymore.

Zealots of this blog (hi, Mom!) know that persuasion variables can function as WATTage, Arguments, or Cues, cleverly captured with the acronym, WAC.  You understand persuasion, not with how it looks, but by what it does.  Today we look at another application and implication of the WAC.

Jostmann and colleagues conducted a series of experiments on the variable, physical weight, and used it in a variety of functions.

For example, they randomly assigned participants to evaluate the quality of unfamiliar currencies holding the currencies clipped to either a heavy or a light clipboard.  Participants rated the (same) currency as more valuable when holding the heavy clipboard.  And, the effect size here was a medium (see the Windowpane for a visual demonstration).

Physical weight here clearly functions as a . . . what do you think?  WATTage, Argument, Cue?  Here’s your smiley face sticker if you said, “Cue,” or something that you meant as “Cue” even if you really said, “WATTage” or “Argument.”

Our typical human experience tends to associate heavy things with great value compared to lighter things, so the weight functions as a Cue, a simple heuristic that is often correct.  Of course, “heavy is better than light,” is not true in all cases (look at the bathroom scale, right?), but in a wide variety of instances “heavy” has a more favorable association than “light.”

So, weight is a Cue.

Now, just to confound us, Jostmann and colleagues ran additional experiments.  They randomly supplied strong or weak Arguments to participants holding heavy or light clipboards.  If weight is always just a Cue, then Argument quality should make no difference, right?  People are Cue-ing off the weight and skimming over the Arguments.

Except that’s not true in this weight function.  People holding heavy clipboards actually read the Arguments and if they got strong Args, they had more positive attitudes and if they read weak Args, they had more negative attitudes compared to the folks holding the light clipboards.  This interaction between clipboard weight and Argument quality shows the familiar fan effect from ELM theory.  And, again the effect sizes here were moderate to large.

So, in this instance, weight is functioning as WATTage, a variable that turns the dimmer switch from low to high WATT.  We see that function because the paricipants discriminate the differences in Argument quality.

Jostmann et al., did not conduct a weight as Argument experiment, but after reading this, you should be able to generate some ideas.  How about a new fitness program aimed at strengthening and people who follow the program have more muscle mass compared to those who don’t use the new fitness program?

So, here’s today’s lesson class.  Persuasion variable have their effect as function not form, thus poetically echoing the famous dictum of the architect, Louis Sullivan, that form follows function.  A simple, physical, and obvious thing (form) like weight (good grief, can you be more real?) has persuasion functions that follow the WAC.

Furthermore, the intellectual concepts of the WAC can be embodied in physical reality.  Normally we think of persuasion as an abstract science dealing with all manner of unseen variables like attitudes, elaboration likelihood, intention, norm, and so on, but realize that we always bring our bodies along with us wherever we go.  Jostmann et al.’s work demonstrates how to make abstract persuasion ideas as real as that spare tire around your waist!

Now, all you have to do is figure out how to make weight work for you like Jostmann et al. did with a clipboard.

How about a resume on heavy print stock – but you better have strong Arguments, right?  That’s an interesting persuasion study I’ve not seen.  Print resumes on heavy or light paper and list either strong or weak Arguments on the resumes.  This research would suggest that if you’ve got great job qualifications, present them in a heavy way.  Official pronouncements should likewise appear on heavy paper and never on flimsy stock.

Isn’t human nature interesting?

Matt Armstrong at MountainRunner focuses upon Eisenhower “citizen diplomacy” programs during the Cold War.  It’s a great pull from the past applied to the present as Mr. Armstrong considers the implications and applications of “citizen diplomacy” for today.  I’ve got two observations to chip in.

First, I view these kind of programs not simply as policy, but as persuasion plays.  They deliver persuasive messages through the strongest channel, face-to-face communication in relational contexts.  Just folks citizens from America and the “sister” country meet in cultural exchange settings, but the real persuasion work occurs in those casual conversations that naturally emerge.  Now, certainly not all of these exchanges are “on message” in the strongest sense of the term and certainly some of these exchanges produce problems.  But, on balance, “citizen diplomacy,” functions as high WATT processing of very strong Arguments.

Second, if you want to learn more about Eisenhower’s communication and persuasion efforts during the Cold War, I highly recommend a highly useful book by Kenneth Osgood’s, “Total Cold War.“  It’s a scholarly examination of that historical period with good access to the archives.

Abu Muqawama and Small Wars point to a NYT story quoting Admiral Mike Mullen:

“To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” Admiral Mullen wrote in the critique, an essay to be published Friday by Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal.

“I would argue that most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all,” he wrote. “They are policy and execution problems. Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”

As a persuasion and communication guy I am moved to quote Gretchen Wilson and give a big, “Hell, yeah!”

One enduring myth about communication is that communication can solve our problems.  It can’t and it often makes things worse, especially when it tries to “put lipstick on a pig.”

My own experience with this disconnect occurred and still occurs with some of my health and safety colleagues who tried and still try to put lipstick on various crazy, inept, or ineffective ideas they’d developed to save citizens from themselves.  My best persuasion effort won’t change the world if it pushes a stupid idea.  If we are falling all over ourselves in Afghanistan, strategic communication won’t fix it.

The Admiral’s point is both simple and complicated.  Simple – communication won’t win the war.  Complicated – communication could help, but it must follow good policy and execution.

Communication zealots can fall prey to the Law of the Hammer – give a child a hammer and everything’s a nail.  Mullen warns about zealots and hammers, but we don’t lose sight that when you’ve got a nail, a hammer might work.

But, first the nail, then the hammer.

Okay, it’s propaganda when the Bad Guys do it, right?  So my headline is all wrong.  Except if you are thinking like a stone cold persuasion guy, no, it isn’t.  Everybody uses the same concepts, but they play for different teams.  If you start believing that Bad Guy communication is not “Persuasion,” but is instead “Propaganda,” then you bias your thinking in a bad way.  The Bad Guys are subject to the same principles of human nature as we are.

Remember the Rule: All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.  As a corollary:  All Bad Persuasion Research Is Sincere.

Okay?

Now, imagine you have the mission and the resources to counter Taliban persuasion.  How do you think about this?

Consider the Standard Model and the Cascade as your structure for translating operational information back to strategy and vice versa.  (Check the blog Pages on Sixty Seconds if you’re in a hurry or if you’ve got more time,  ELM and SM1-3 located near the top of the blog.)

Given this structure, you can assign the Taliban persuasion to different Cascade categories and begin to understand it.  After you understand it, you can attack it.  But first, comprehend.

1.  What are the TACTs (behavior changes) the Taliban seek?

TACTs reveal both the persuasion plan and the grand strategy.  With TACTs you can work down through the rest of the Cascade to understand the persuasion strategy, but you can work up to clues about the Taliban grand strategy.  For example, TACTs will vary across regions of Afghanistan during the same time period.  That may reflect the grand strategy (or, of course, it might reflect operational weakness, confusion, or, gee, maybe we kicked their butts).  But variation in TACTs is a gold mine of information.

How are the TACTs structured – by tribe, by loyalty, by hierarchy of effect (pan Islamic, regional, national, tribal, village), by time, by violence, by regional or international events?

2.  What claims regarding Attitude, Norm, and Efficacy do they offer for each TACT?

All volitional behaviors are driven by Attitude (what’s good and bad about doing the behavior), Norm (who supports and opposes the behavior), and Efficacy (what’s easy and difficult about doing the behavior).  If you want to drive the behavior you have make claims that the behavior is “good” (positive, beneficial, enjoyable, fun, rewarding), “popular” (all the right people support it), and “easy” (cheap, fast,).  Thus, for each TACT, the Taliban should be making persuasion plays that address good, popular, and easy.

Furthermore, different TACTs require different sets of Attitude, Norm, and Efficacy.  Those variations tell you how the Taliban thinks about the different TACTs and also reveals their “formative research” (determining how to campaign with a particular group of receivers).  If the Taliban are dumb, they will violate the Rule, All Bad Persuasion is Sincere, and devise Attitude, Norm, and Efficacy issues that are important to them.  If they are smart, they will devise Attitude, Norm, and Efficacy issues that are important to their targets.  That distinction is tough to make, but you need to do it.  If you think they are dumb, the Taliban have just told you what they think is important.  If you think they are smart, they have told you what Taliban targets think is important.  You learn both who to move on and how to move.

3.  How do they manipulate WATTage, Arguments, and Cues?

To change selected Attitudes, Norms, and Efficacy, the Taliban must deliver either Arguments or Cues to the target receivers.  These Arguments and Cues must match up with the Attitude, Norm, and Efficacy elements they want to change.

In specific, here-and-now, persuasion, the Taliban must also move the dimmer switch from low to high WATT depending upon whether they are using Arguments or Cues.  If you can figure this out, you’ve got another valuable piece of knowledge.  Manipulating WATTage even among people of your own cultural group is a difficult task.  If the Taliban are doing it, you’ve learned something.

Look at what functions as Argument.  You might see regional variations in Arguments aimed at the same Attitude or Norm or Efficacy element.  Why are the Arguments different?

You’ll probably see differences in impact following this Argument or that Cue.  Why did the variation occur?

You are looking for the Strong Arguments and the Positive Cues that see to create the greatest change in the target receivers.  (Of course, you’d also like to find Weak Arguments and Negative Cues, too, because a Taliban Weak Argument is probably an ISAF Strong Argument, right?)

4.  How do they distribute persuasive messages?

Sure, look for channel differences – radio or night message or speech at a jirga.  But again focus on variations.  Resources may dictate some distribution patterns; the Taliban may not be able to use radio in one area for technical or safety reasons.  Figure that out, but again look at how different TACTs; Attitude, Norm, and Efficacy; and WATTage, Argument, and Cues combination appear in different channels.  Maybe they always run a particular persuasion message exclusively through radio.  Why?

The most important function of channel is reach.  Some channels reach different receivers better than others.  What reach lessons do you learn by the pattern of distribution?

Channels can also support Arguments or Cues.  Jirga speeches support highly relational, cultural, and personal persuasion plays.  That face-to-face setting amplifies the human connection.  Look for such patterns.

5.  Big Picture

At the end of this Cascade analysis, you will have an Impressionist painting in your mind.  You will have a good picture of how the Taliban operate, but the details will be blurry and may obscure crucial elements.  You will see larger patterns of how some persuasion variables combine in recurring patterns – this TACT with Norm changed through Cues at face-to-face interactions in Taliban-leaning villages.  If you have data over time, you can construct, if you will, a movie of Impressionist paintings and you can see the variation flow, pulse, enlarge, and shrink.

While you may never have Ultra intercepts of top secret coded Taliban communication, you do have a stronger and clearer sense of their persuasion plan and operation.  You know the TACTs; Attitude, Norm, and Efficacy elements; manipulations of WATTage, Argument, and Cue; and the channels of distributions.  You also see variations and patterns that mark the mind and hand of planning.  You can analyze these variations and patterns to understand Taliban persuasion goals and methods, strengths and weaknesses, arrogance and fear.

All this flows from a structured analysis of communication.