Lori Walsh: Governor Kristi Noem says she is proud of South Dakotans efforts to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, that's the novel coronavirus. In yesterday's press conference, the governor said that South Dakota was getting better results than neighboring States who are having bigger problems with compliance. "South Dakotans," the governor said, "have proven me right." We're going to talk today about leadership, and messaging, and persuasion and Mike Wagner returns for that conversation. He's traveled the world working with organizations, teams, and executives on the challenges of leadership and culture. He earned a master's in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School on a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship. He's a former South Dakota state lawmaker and he's founder of the blog, uncommonwisdom.org. Mike, welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Mike Wagner: Thank you, Lori. It's good to be back. Again, socially distant here.
Lori Walsh: Yes. And you had quite a travel adventure before all this kicked off as well. So what's it like to be home in isolation when you're used to spending quite a bit of time around the world?
Mike Wagner: We've had a lovely time actually. Of all the people in the world, my wife and I certainly can't complain. We're sort of cleaning out closets and getting things done that we have put off for years. So for us this has been an inconvenience, for most people this is a tragedy, and a difficulty and a challenge. So if you ever hear me complain, you need to virtually slap me because it's been pretty easy for us. Even [inaudible 00:01:53] that you referred to, I think as you know, we were on the Coral Princess, the ship that just a couple of days ago finally reached to Miami. But again, we were the lucky ones. We got to get off in Buenos Aires, and we maneuvered our way home before the ship actually had any cases of disease. So we're pretty lucky. We have nothing to complain about.
Lori Walsh: As you chronicle that journey, one of the things I remember clearly about that was your advice to go as far as you can as long as you can or something like that. And I just thought, "That's good advice for a lot of things." Even now in a crisis, if you're saving money or you're working, work as long as you can for as much as you can before the road closes there because you don't know what's ahead. Good rule for travel as well.
Mike Wagner: That's exactly right. Go as far as you can and as soon as you can,
Lori Walsh: As far as you can, as soon as you can, which is one of the reasons why you made it home. Certainly some luck.
Mike Wagner: It was a lot of luck. But you're right, we sort of ... well, somebody said, "Well, what if you get stuck in Brazil?" Because we had to fly through Brazil and I said, "Well, we'll be one country closer." And that's what you have to do, is you have to take sort of one step at a time.
Lori Walsh: All right. So let's talk about leadership and specifically, I want to talk about Governor Noem's messaging because we're at that stage of this crisis where people ... and we even saw the president yesterday in a press conference, pull clips from things that people said on certain dates and kind of create a timeline, trying to tweak the messaging for what he wanted people to understand about how this unfolded. Governor Noem has been really consistent in her messaging about, what is the role of government in a crisis, what she was willing to do, what she wasn't willing to do. So broadly, where do you want to begin this conversation? Not about what she should do or should not do, or what she will do or won't do, but how that message is delivered. Where do you want to start?
Mike Wagner: Well, I think it's important to set a little bit of context first in that, is the messaging working? And I think there's three elements to good communication and I think we should talk about those this morning or this afternoon. One is the environment in which your communication is being made. One is the audience to whom you're trying to communicate. And then the third is the message itself. But I think for ... and again, you're right. I'm not even qualified to say that Governor Noem is correct or is not correct. Leaders have to make decisions and sometimes they make the right decisions, sometimes they make so called wrong decision. And those are up to ... some of those are up to opinion. But I think that nationally, and you talked about this a little bit last hour, I would argue that messaging isn't working and not just in South Dakota, but I would argue a lot of the messaging from our leaders is not working nationwide because we're just starting to see as contention.
You're starting to see people focusing now more on the strife between people rather than on, what do we need to get done or how do we work together? I would argue that the easiest time to lead ... and this isn't some counter intuitive, I think the easiest time to be a leader is when you've got a common enemy. When you've got a common crisis to focus upon ... you mentioned last hour, Lori, you mentioned sort of the rally around the flag phenomenon and that's really a wartime or a challenge time, floods, tornadoes, we tend to drop our partisanship, we tend to drop our philosophical argument, we pull together, we do what needs to be done. And I think nationwide and statewide, when I look at what people are talking about and what the conversation is, I think there's been a turn in the conversation the last couple of weeks that it's far more negative and it's far more critical than, "Let's do this together."
So I would argue that the messaging isn't actually working very well. Again, two aspects to leadership. Leaders have to make decisions, but then they have to rally people around those decisions. And I'm not sure we're doing that very well, statewide or nationwide.
Lori Walsh: What are some of the ways ... because one of the reasons we're having this conversation is for people who are listening, who are in leadership positions in their businesses, in their communities, in their families. What are some of the lessons we can learn about messaging? Because I like what you said there about the message can be very clear. Governor Kristi Noem has said again and again ... I'm basing this information on facts and data. We've heard some of the same talking points from her consistently, but is the persuasion there? Is there a sense of rallying people around that with her? Is there just a sense of, this is the way I see it and that's all I'm going to say about that? I don't mean that as a criticism against the governor. I mean that as jumping off place to talk about how we handle our own messaging and how we hurt ourselves or help ourselves when we're trying to get people to rally toward a cause.
Mike Wagner: Sure. Well, I think the first issue for all leaders is to recognize that you are communicating in an environment in which you are actually not the preferred source of information. People get information from two different sources. One is from sort of the official channel of communication, what's the government saying, what have you, and the other is the informal network. What's my mom telling me? What's my neighbors saying? And in all reality we get a lot more information from the environment around us than we do from formal streams of communication. And so I think it's really important ... the governor has been very consistent. You've got the daily news conference and what have you that the majority of South Dakotans don't listen to. That is a weaker form of communication than the person next to you or the person that you're talking to on the phone.
And so I think it's really important to realize that most messaging from leaders is actually highly, highly deluded. And that means that your message is usually, actually not delivered in an intact form. Let me give a couple of examples. I got an email the other day from a friend of mine in New Zealand, which is of course, about as far on the planet as you can get from South Dakota. And this email was like, "Well, what's this about South Dakota's governor not locking down the state?" And again, not trying to either defend or critique that decision, but all of a sudden I as a person, as a human being, I'm starting to get a critique if you will, of the governor's action from as far away as New Zealand. It's the same problem that all middle managers face, is that a middle manager ... and that's really what Governor Noem is in this [inaudible 00:09:35].
A middle manager always has messages coming from people above federal government, people coming from below the public and your message is really not likely to get through. The message is likely to evaporate. And so again, I think that when you listen to the governor, she's had this sort of middle manager problem where, it's how other people are framing her message, how other people are communicating that is the real challenge. And so leaders need to understand in a business or any environment in which they operate, that the environment is likely to dramatically evaporate and diminish your message moving forward. And so you have to make sure that somehow your message is bolstered in a way that it can survive or outdistance all of the noise that the environment actually sets for us.
Lori Walsh: Wow. How would you even begin doing that in something as broad as this current ... how quickly you can get information from all over the place. The Washington Post printed a story about criticizing South Dakota and pointing out the Smithfield. So you've got The Washington Post telling people, you've got people ... Fox News popped up on the press conference yesterday and asked a question about her decision. So the world is paying attention. How in the world would you bolster your messaging? Yeah.
Mike Wagner: Yeah. I think you're right. And again, the Smithfield example is pretty interesting. And I think it's one of the ... it has a powerful lesson for all of us leaders. South Dakota Smithfield is an employer. If they've ... it's a business that adds value to the agricultural production line. To the rest of the country, it's their food supply. And so all of a sudden, we're talking a little bit two different languages. So for us it's [inaudible 00:11:36] jobs, now it's a hotspot of the coronavirus, but for the public, for the larger public nation, all of a sudden this becomes, "Can we trust South Dakota to deliver our food supply?" In good times we want the world to be thinking of us as a reliable source of agricultural production. And we want to be treated well.
We want people to be worried about agricultural concern during good times. Well, we have good times cum bad times, and that means that now the public nationwide is going to have a much heightened concern over, "Is my food supply in New York at risk because of what the governor of South Dakota has done?" So you're right. The messaging is now bigger. And again, I'm not out to criticize the governor either, but I think in many ways when you listen to the press conferences, how strenuously she has to continue to go back to statements like, "As I've always said, here's what I'm saying," I think she's sort of trying to defend the message. I would commend her as a leader, that repeating your messages is in fact a good thing to do. You have to constantly repeat your message in order to get it through.
I'm not sure however, that the message of, "We can all take our own decisions. Government doesn't have a role here." I'm not sure that message is nearly as strong as, "People are getting sick. Our food supply is at risk. The governor has chosen not to do something." All of those messages are stronger emotionally than, "This is the government's [inaudible 00:13:28]." And so I think again, what a leader in business or a leader in government needs to be able to do is you need to be able to sharpen your message so that it is more powerful than the competing messages coming at you in order to overcome that environmental problem. And so the message itself has to be a lot stronger.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. And it's worth noting that when you mention the audience, she's not just talking to South Dakotans whose daily lives are impacted and who are watching very carefully those Smithfield employees and the rest of people who are getting sick in our hospital, the same things that people in other States are watching. She's also talking to every potential visitor to South Dakota in the future. She's also talking to other governors and other States, the president, there's a big audience right now. And you mentioned something about emotion, and she has also repeatedly said that decisions the decisions she is making are not made in an emotional state. We also have seen other governors in other States get very emotional. President Trump was very emotional during his press conference yesterday. Mayor Paul TenHaken has had flashes of what I would call emotion, at least frustration. What's the role of a leader communicating, not from a place of emotion but using emotion to maximize the message? Does that question make sense?
Mike Wagner: Yeah, it does. And again, I think leaders have these two primary responsibilities. And again, it doesn't matter whether you're a manager at Walmart, whether you're a leader in school, a teacher, or whether you're even a governor of a state. On one hand as a leader, the [inaudible 00:15:20] stops on your desk and at some point, you have to make a decision. And there's a lot of ways you can make that decision. You can make that decision authoritatively. I make it with no input. You can make it collaboratively. For the governor to say that decision should be based on facts, and science and information, is certainly a noble and appropriate definition of how a decision needs to be made. But in addition to the decision being made, it has to be put into place. And for decisions to be put in place, it's about followership.
It's about whether or not people feel good about the decision. And I use those words purposefully. To feel good about a decision does not mean you necessarily agree with it. It means that you feel like the decision was appropriately made. It means that you feel that the decision maker was concerned about you. People want two things from their leaders. They want an answer, what should we do? And they want empathy, does the leader actually care? And so one can be a very factual process. What should we do? But does the leader care about me? Does my boss care about me? Does my elected leader care about me? That is 100% an emotional argument. You can support it with facts. You can stir emotion through factual interaction.
But I have to sense ... the person has to sense from a leader that they care about me in order to follow what I'm going to do. And so emotion has a very critical part of ... you have to balance it. And you have to be able to infuse emotion along with logic into the decisions and into the communication that you ultimately make about those decisions. It's interesting, I've listened to the Governor's press conferences and I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure I know who the audience is actually in those press conferences. I don't know whether it's [inaudible 00:17:40]. I don't know whether it's healthcare workers, this is what you need to do. I actually think there's some confusion to be honest with you as to who the audience potentially might be.
Lori Walsh: Let's talk about missteps, or risks or things that happen. And one of the things I'm curious in asking you about is, when is it time to say, I was right? And we saw the president in his press conference really diving into this idea that I was right all along, and I did this wonderful thing on this date and making an argument for himself in the face of criticism, specific criticism from The New York Times. Now on a local level, Governor Noem said, "The people of South Dakota have proven me right, that we have already reduced the pacing of where we thought we'd be by now by half. The social distancing is working. They have proved me right." Is it useful for a leader to say at any point, "I was right about that."
Mike Wagner: I'm going to sort of speak out of both sides of my mouth for a moment on this one. I think when it comes to true leadership issues, it is never the responsibility or even the role of a leader to say they were right. I would argue that it's the leader's responsibility to admit where they were wrong. And that means how do I ... not just wrong, but what did I learn from my efforts? I think it's the stakeholders, the public, the employees role to say you were right. So I would argue that in a true leadership situation, a leader should actually never find themselves in a position of broadcasting that they were right. I'm not sure who they're trying to convince. And again, a leader's role is to be able to say, "What can I learn from this?" Which means, "Sure, maybe I was [inaudible 00:19:43] something, but also more valuable, where have I been wrong?"
If you're right, those around you will see that you're right. It might not come right away. You being right might not be discovered until after you're even out of your leadership position. People may come to you later and say, "You know, you made a right decision. Even if you suffered for it, you made a right decision." So I would argue in a leadership role, when a leader starts trying to defend that they are right, that in fact they've slipped out of a leadership role, and what they're really doing is marketing. And I think this is a particular challenge for elected leaders. It's very difficult for elected leaders to separate their role as a leader from their role as a product to be sold.
Campaigns are about selling the candidate. And at that point, the job is to get 1/50% of the people to think you're a better product than the alternative. But when you're a leader, you have 100% of the people to lead. And again, at that point it's a very, very different role and a different response. And I have found that for elected leaders, it's really difficult for them to leave that, "I am a product" behind and to truly become a leader. It's very difficult. They are not the same thing. And leaders have to become aware of that.
Lori Walsh: Talk a little bit Mike, if you will, about this collaboration that we see our political leaders with scientists and researchers right now. We saw Governor Noem standing with Dr. Alison Suttle and other people from the healthcare community really hammering home. This were all on the same page, were all using the same dad data. And then of course, there's Dr. Anthony Fauci who both the president and Governor Noem will cite and say, "Dr Fauci said this, Dr. Fauci agrees with me. I spoke to Dr. Fauci on the phone." There is a sense of importance it seems to me, and I'm curious to what you think that these political leaders are making sure that they tell us that the scientists agree with me on this.
That seems almost like a new phenomenon. If you go back a little bit and talk to what some of these people will say about science on a general, there is an awareness of how important it is for people to accept the message based on what we hear from public health officials. Are there risks in making those connections and saying things like, Dr. Fauci agrees with me, or I talked to him on the phone he said this."
Mike Wagner: Well, again, let me divide my answer a little bit, Lori. I think for a leader to say and to defer that, "I have counselors who are smarter than me. I have counselors who know more about this than I do." That's the mark of a good leader. A leader stepping back and saying, "I'm not an expert in coronavirus. I'm not an expert in economic recovery after a plague." And I think bringing in lots of different advisors, mental health advisors, social advisors, that will strengthen decision making. Again, the leader ultimately needs to be able to make the final call, but to be ... it's the age old reality that you want smarter people than you to be around you. And so again, I think the degree that leaders ... and Governor Noem having experts from across the country or across the state working with her to make decisions, that's admirable, correct and necessary.
But again, I think that there is then this tendency to say, "Oh, this really smart person has endorsed what I'm doing." At that point, you're back into marketing. You're back into a campaign mode where you're trying to prove to people that, "Again, it's about me and I'm smarter than ... this really smart person has proven that I'm a really good decision maker." That's not much different than ... Joe Biden right now is out trying to get endorsement from former opponents and what have you and what he's really doing. [inaudible 00:24:16] this morning by President Obama. And so what he's really doing is, he's marketing himself and he's saying, "Look, these people think I'm a great product. These people think I'm a great leader. You should listen to these individuals."
So I think to stand up and say, "I talked to Dr. Fauci, he agrees with me." I think that's really a marketing statement. If Fauci were on the phone during one of those press conferences and said, "Hey, this is what South Dakotans need to do in my opinion, and this is how I've counseled the governor or what have you," I think that would be a very different communication. So again, it goes back to whether or not the leader is making good decisions with good counsel or is the leader trying to use experts to prove their own worth.
Lori Walsh: Mike Wagner, we're going to have to leave it there for today. But I really appreciate your time. Lots to think about as we think about not only what is the right decision to make or what you would do in the governor's position, but to how do you get people to listen to the message, to hear it, and to bolster it by through persuasion. And thank you so much, especially when it's such a critical message, it really can save lives or cost lives in many ways.
Mike Wagner: Absolutely. Thanks for the time, Lori. It's good to be here.