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.
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