The Artful Dodger vs. Stonewall Jackson
October 7th, 2008 | 
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In the course of our work, nature protection and pollution control experts often get questions that you should not answer — off-base questions that will derail your communications train, and loaded questions crafted to make you say something that can be used against you later.
So what’s a conservationist like you to do on those occasions when a straight answer is unwise?
In Monday’s Washington Post, reporter Shankar Vendantam’s article “Artful Dodging Trumps Open Evasion” explores the different reaction you get when you offer a “no comment” vs. a more skillful redirection. He cites some psychological experiments, which found that:
…most people are extremely poor at spotting even dramatic discrepancies between questions and answers. They found the failure was especially acute when answers were semantically linked to questions…Audiences seemed to notice dodges only when answers were completely unrelated to the question…
Let’s put that another way — so long as your answer to a stupid or hostile question contains some of the key words and concepts from the original query, most people will think you answered it. The one trying to bring you down might know you dodged the question, but the bystanders will not.
Posted in RhetoricalTechnique
See, I’m just crazy and naive…I prefer the intellectually honest “slap-down” to a “stupid or hostile question” rather than an artful dodge. Probably won’t get me far, but I’ll sleep at night. Done right, the honest answer can be devastating and leave the “stupid or hostile” person sputtering, much to his argument’s detriment.
Eric, I think this is a worthy discussion. But can you give us more specifics on the types of “off-base” nature protection or pollution control questions that you think would deserve an artful dodge rather than a truly honest answer?
I second Lisa’s request! Specific examples would be great.
Kelly, a “slap down” may make you feel superior, but the objective is not to “win” a singular argument but to build public buy-in and support for the environmental protection project.
It’s important to keep track of the objective, and successfully implementing an environmental protection project trumps personal ego boosts. Would you really sleep better at night if your “intellectual slap-down” was at the cost of environmental protections?
In PR, you never want to make someone else look bad, even if they do not show the same restraint. Look at the current election campaigns and you see the reaction – Obama has stuck to discussion of the issues and is enjoying a healthy lead, whereas McCain’s negative campaigning is turning people off in droves, even costing him endorsements from his own party.
It is not necessary to slap someone down to accomplish your objective – in fact the opposite is true – if you can build consensus among all stakeholders, inclusing those who you wouldn’t normally consider as allies, you have a much better chance at successfully bringing your environmental protection project to fruition.
I think Lisa and Katie have a point – I honestly tried to think of such a question, and was unable to. Transparancy and honesty are important in any public agency. I think it would be not so much a question of dodging as answering in a way that satisfies all stakeholders.
This is the closest I could come up with – I took a media pr class which culminated in a practice scenario where the mock situation presented was one where a sewer pipeline sprang a leak right underneath the stage on high school graduation night. The graduation ceremony had to be rescheduled, the public was upset, and the aggressive reporter wanted to know why the wastewater management company didn’t know exactly where the sewer pipeline was.
In the mock scenario, the pipeline was very old and the original system maps were long lost. The spokesperson’s job was to redirect the focus away from the fact that the wastewater company didn’t know exactly where the pipe was to the fact that their primary focus was public health and safety and that they were doing everything possible to ensure it – by cordoning off the field and stage, sending construction and cleanup workers to the area immediately to clean up the sewage and fix the pipe, coordinating with city police and public health agencies, etc.
The pr person artfully dodged the questions about why the 50 year old maps were lost and successfully redirected the focus to the outstanding response the wastewater company was making to the unanticipated sewage leak, how it was aggressively moving to clean up the mess and protect public health, and how it successfully coordinated efforts between relevant public agencies.
I know where you all are coming from, and the long-run gains of not making anyone look foolish are important. My point is that, done right, the elegant truth wins support by depriving the “hostile and stupid” person of their argument without flaring tempers.
Why dodge the question? The maps were 50 years old, they got lost. So here is how we’re handling it…why avoid the question?