Out Loud Archives - understand-culture

The Elephant in the Room

American English has ready words for naming a problem.

the elephant in the room — “an obvious major problem or issue that people avoid discussing or acknowledging.” The phrase is recorded from 1985. A common way to open a hard topic in a meeting is: “Let’s address the elephant in the room.”

to red-flag — “to identify or draw attention to (a problem or issue to be dealt with).”

to flag — to point out a problem so that someone deals with it.

to call it out — to name a problem or a mistake openly.

to raise a concern — to bring up a problem formally, in a meeting or in writing.

The Whistleblowers

Time magazine named three women its Persons of the Year for 2002: Sherron Watkins of Enron, Coleen Rowley of the FBI and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom. Each first raised the problem inside her own organization.

Watkins, an Enron vice president, wrote to chairman Kenneth Lay that the company’s accounting methods were improper. Rowley, an FBI staff attorney, wrote to Director Robert Mueller that the bureau had “brushed off pleas” from its Minneapolis office to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui. Cooper told WorldCom’s board that the company had hidden “$3.8 billion in losses.”

Time called them “women of ordinary demeanor but exceptional guts and sense.” Cooper said: “I’m not a hero. I’m just doing my job.”

The Couric Effect

In March 2000 the NBC morning show Today broadcast Katie Couric’s own colonoscopy as part of a colon cancer awareness campaign. Her husband, the TV legal analyst Jay Monahan, had died of colon cancer in 1998.

A study published in 2003 in the Archives of Internal Medicine measured the result. Colonoscopies per doctor per month rose from 15.0 to 18.1, and the higher rate held through the nine months the study covered. It became known as the “Couric effect.”

Hello, My Name’s Betty Ford

In September 1974 First Lady Betty Ford was diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery. She “broke with social conventions by fostering public discussion of her diagnosis and treatment.” Her openness “helped bring the disease into the open and inspired countless women to seek breast examinations.”

On April 11, 1978, after a family intervention, she entered a Navy hospital “for treatment of addiction to alcohol and prescription medication.” In 1982 the Betty Ford Center, which she co-founded, opened in Rancho Mirage, California. She greeted new patients: “Hello, my name’s Betty Ford, and I’m an alcoholic and drug addict.”

Open Disclosures

On November 5, 1994, Ronald Reagan wrote a letter to the American people: “I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease.”

He explained why he made it public: “Nancy and I had to decide whether as private citizens we would keep this a private matter or whether we would make this news known in a public way.” He recalled earlier illnesses: “In the past Nancy suffered from breast cancer and I had my cancer surgeries. We found through our open disclosures we were able to raise public awareness.”

Sunlight Is the Best of Disinfectants

In Harper’s Weekly on December 20, 1913, Louis D. Brandeis wrote in an essay called “What Publicity Can Do”: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” The essay was reprinted in his 1914 book Other People’s Money.

Americans usually quote Brandeis as “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” His words “is said to be” show that he was citing a saying. The short form had already appeared in print in 1879.

Houston, We’ve Had a Problem

On the evening of April 13, 1970, about 56 hours into the flight of Apollo 13, command module pilot Jack Swigert reported: “Okay, Houston … we’ve had a problem here.” When asked to repeat, commander Jim Lovell said: “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Then he named it: “We’ve had a Main B Bus Undervolt.”

The phrase Americans know is “Houston, we have a problem.” The Houston Chronicle traced it to Ron Howard’s 1995 film Apollo 13, though a 1974 TV movie had already used a changed version. In 2005 the American Film Institute ranked the film line No. 50 among the 100 greatest movie quotes.

The GM Nod and the GM Salute

In 2014 General Motors recalled cars with a faulty ignition switch. Its engineers had first noted the problem in 2001. The Valukas report, released on June 5, 2014, described two habits inside the company. The “GM nod”: “everyone nods in agreement to a proposed plan of action but then leaves the room and does nothing.” The “GM salute”: “a crossing of the arms and pointing outward towards others, indicating responsibility belongs to someone else.”

CEO Mary Barra said: “No one raised the issues to the highest level of the company.” GM forced out 15 employees. At the time GM counted at least 13 deaths. Barra said: “We are better than this. But we own this problem.”

Ruinous Empathy

Kim Scott’s Radical Candor was a bestseller in 2017. It gives a common failing of bosses a name: “ruinous empathy.” The manager cares about a person but does not challenge the person directly. The criticism comes sugar-coated and unclear.

Scott had run the AdSense program at Google and later built a management course at Apple. She tells of an employee whose poor work she never named clearly. In the end she fired him. He asked her: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Deadline Talk

Is Friday realistic? What’s a realistic timeline? — The deadline is open to discussion before it is set.

Heads-up: this is going to slip. — A warning that the date will be missed, given before it is missed.

Can I get an extension? — A request for more time.

By end of day. By close of business Friday. — The deadline, stated to the hour.

Down to the wire. At the eleventh hour. Pull an all-nighter. — The work is finished at the last moment.