Hi folks,
It’s the tail end of fall, which for me means a mad dash to rake all the leaves in my yard to the curb so the city can vacuum them up.
And since I gratefully have a bunch of trees, I spend a lot of time getting those leaves out of my yard. To make the most of it, I usually listen to audio books while I rake. Recently, I’ve been listening to David McCullough’s 1776. It’s a riveting review of the year of our nation’s birth. The author draws upon a variety of sources to tell the story, including journals of British generals.
Henry Clinton was a Major General in the British army who was sent to America in 1775 to help quell the rebellion. While he was apparently a gifted intellectual and military leader, he also had an abrasive personality and hadn’t developed a good working relationship with his superior, General Howe. Following a series of setbacks and failures in the Carolinas, Clinton rejoined Howe’s main forces to assault New York City in August of 1776.
Clinton had lots of ideas about how to attack the rebels entrenched at New York, but he began to annoy Howe with his suggestions and wasn’t making traction. Instead, Clinton took his plans and gave them to a peer – General Burgoyne – to deliver to Howe for consideration. Howe, receiving the message from a more trusted and respected source, adopted the plans and used them to defeat the Americans in the battle of Long Island.
By changing the messenger of his plans, Clinton followed one of the lessons laid out in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In Rhetoric, Aristotle lays out the basis for rhetorical theory. He identifies three modes of persuasion; ethos (the personal character of the speaker), pathos (the emotional influence of the speaker on the audience), and logos (the rational logic of the argument). Clinton realized that he wasn’t respected by Howe and, thus, wasn’t the best person to deliver his message. So he put aside his pride and gave his ideas to a more respected peer, letting him secure support for the argument. Clinton had prioritized the acceptance of the message over his personal image or reputation.
All too often we feel the need to be the sole messenger of our ideas. We do this for numerous reasons – maybe we don’t trust others to deliver the message effectively or maybe we want credit for the idea. But if the idea is what’s truly important, it’s critical that we assess our effectiveness as the messenger. Are we considered a credible source? Are we seen as an authority on the topic? Does the audience like us? And if the answer to any of these is no, who can better deliver the message? Because for as likeable as we all are, we’re not the right spokesman for every situation.
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