Don’t think of an elephant

The Lizard’s had his nose in a book recently called “Don’t think of an elephant” by George Lakoff. George is an academic and political writer and the title of the book is an exercise he gives his students.

The exercise is: ‘whatever you do don’t think of an elephant!’ Not surprisingly he says it’s impossible to do. When someone says elephant it immediately evoke a frame, a picture. Elephants are large, have floppy ears, big trunks and tusks. Even if you try to negate a frame you still evoke it.

So for example during the Watergate scandal when President Nixon addressed America and said, “I’m not a crook” everybody immediately thought about him in terms of being a crook.

So during a crisis when you are talking to customers, suppliers, the media or any other stakeholders don’t use their frames.

If a supplier calls up and says Acme Industries are clearly run by a bunch of incompetents don’t use the word incompetent and evoke the critical frame. Simply say, “That’s not true – we understand very clearly what we have to do.”