Economics – Fruit, apples and pears
Most people state we live in the most enlightened time of mankind’s history. Never ever have we had access to so much information, knowledge and contacts. The paradox with this is to grasp what really is happening. One example of this is the Euro-crisis. Depending on whom you listen to you get different explanations of why, and what to do to solve the crisis and irrespective of whom you listen to it’s really hard to get an overview of the real problem. Another thing that emanates out of the enlightened time we’re in is how we communicate. In our striving to understand – we see experts being interviewed, explaining, telling us theories and models – regardless of area and subject. Most often we have one journalist interviewing another one or two journalists followed by; not just one expert, by at least two experts/pundits or more…The result? As one professor once said: Still confused but on a higher level.
The funny thing with the professor is that we assumably are more confused – depending on how you view it – on a lower level. How come? Since pundits are specialised within a narrow field they very soon take the subject into details, parts, into a language (nomenclature) that’s only understandable for the initiated etc. We assume you have seen and heard discussions where you are really keen to learn more about something/someone but lost interest after a few minutes when the pundit has taken the subject and chunked it down to a very low level – haven’t you? On the other hand when you’ve met a person who is really good in describing something (instead of explaining) and is really good to make it clear for you on which logical level, which chunking level he/she is with the story – we most often say: what a storyteller! Those people knows the logical difference between Fruit, Apples and Granny Smiths and they can tell the difference between apples and pears even though they’re at the same logical level. From a communicative point of view – tragically – most people don’t compare apples and pears, they compare Granny Smith & Red Delicious with Fruit!
A person who can describe complicated things on a high logical level, which alleviates the comprehension is the Irish economist and journalist David McWilliams. With his Punk Economics: Lesson 1 & Lesson 2 he really makes something almost impossible to grasp – the Euro Crisis – graspable. You might not agree with his conclusions, however both Lessons are well worth watching. As we see it there are two main reasons to watch them: 1 . for your economic insights, apprehension and to understand what really is going on at the moment, i.e. to get a dissociated position where you can experience what is happening by looking at it from a position besides, beyond or above. The second reason to watch the videos is that David McWilliams succeeds with going up and down in logical levels – to chunk up and down without losing the overall frame. So even if you’re not interested in Economics, watch his Lesson 2 from a communicative and illustrative point of view.
To summarise; how do you work with the logical levels when you communicate? Do you as most experts go down within your area and lose the overall frame and subsequently your audience? Are you comparing Fruit with Granny Smith or do you make a difference between Fruit, Apples and Granny Smiths? Do you know why you communicate and do you describe your intention by making it clear to the audience when you go up and down (chunk up and down) in logical levels?