LeadingLDS: In your BYU devotional you have a consistent theme of four statements. The four statements of: I see you, I understand you, I like
you, and I can work with you. What is your philosophy behind that? Or what is
the background on those statements?
Curtis LeBaron: Well a little
bit of philosophy or theory might be a better word. In the
social sciences in the field of linguistics there was a guy named John
Austin
at Berkeley in the 1960’s and 70’s who developed something called Speech
Act Theory. And that has been picked up and further developed by a lot
of people.
And the idea is this–when we communicate our words just don’t mean
something
they do something. They do many things. So communication isn’t just
about
meaning it’s about action. The technical meaning or the dictionary
meaning of the words that leaders say maybe much less important than the
actions that those words accomplish. And it is often the actions that we
remember and that impact our lives much more than those words do. So for
example, if you go to a party and you go to that party or that social
event and
somebody snubs you or says something rude to you; you may not be able to
recall
exactly what their words were but you may remember for the rest of your
life
the action of being rejected or being put down. Or the converse,
somebody may
reach out and validate you or include you or something like that and the
words
take a back seat to the actions that are being performed. So in the talk
what I
was doing was identifying some of the actions that were being
accomplished by
the words being used. Those words may have had a particular meaning but
it
wasn’t the meaning of the word that was most important it was the
actions they
were accomplishing.
The
beautiful thing about the gospel and about the Savior's teachings is that at the
same time He was communicating or teaching about things like love, like peace,
and so forth His words didn’t just mean those messages they were also doing
those messages and that is one of the things that made them so powerful. When
leaders are able to give us instruction about something and the content and
meaning of their instruction is coupled with or is joined with displays that in
the moment illustrate that instruction. So for example the Savior’s message of
love and peace was always coupled with His behaviors that communicated or that
accomplished love and peace. So when the meaning and the actions coincide it’s
especially powerful.