📘 Part 3: Encouraging People

This episode's vocabulary

Gravitas (noun) – Seriousness and importance of manner, causing feelings of respect and trust in others. → Lots of respected teachers have a great deal of gravitas.

Fall in line (idiom) – To start following the rules or behaving according to what you are told to do. → Teachers who are natural leaders make their students fall in line.

Talk someone into (doing something) (phrasal verb) – To persuade or convince someone to do something. → She talked me into joining a yoga class with her.

Agency (noun) – The ability to take action or to choose what action to take; a sense of control over a situation. → It's important not to undermine a child's agency.

Undermine (verb) – To make something weaker, often gradually. → Parents' actions shouldn't undermine a child's agency.

State of affairs (noun phrase) – The general situation and circumstances. → That's just reinforcing the normal state of affairs.

Hover over someone (phrasal verb) – To stay close to someone, watching them too carefully, often in an overprotective or controlling way. → It's not good if adults are constantly hovering over children.

Drop praise (verb phrase) – To give praise, often casually or frequently. → Adults are constantly hovering over them and dropping praise all the time.

Milestone (noun) – An important event or stage in the development of something. → They should recognize and reward various achievements and milestones.

Meet someone's needs (verb phrase) – To provide what someone requires. → Employers should make sure that they meet everyone's needs.

A great deal of (quantifier phrase) – A large amount of something. → Lots of respected teachers have a great deal of gravitas.

Questions and Answers

Maria: Do you think some people are better than others at persuading?

Rory: Oh, absolutely. Some people definitely have this great sense of gravitas and authority that makes them almost natural leaders who can make people fall in line. I suppose it helps if you're backed up by some organization or institutional power, which is given to you by something like a school, but it doesn't always seem to be necessary.

Maria: What kind of encouragement should parents give to their children?

Rory: Well, ideally, it should be helpful and doesn't undermine a child's agency. For example, they can make it clear why something is a great idea and support their child to make the right choices in the appropriate direction. But they shouldn't just tell or threaten them to do something without question, unless it's absolutely necessary. Otherwise, how are they going to find the motivation to do things by themselves?

Maria: When should parents encourage their children?

Rory: I don't really know, since I'm not a parent and I don't plan to be one. But in an ideal world, I suppose it should be most of the time, at least when they're around their kids, assuming the children are behaving and things are normal. That's just reinforcing the normal state of affairs. Although thinking about it now, maybe it shouldn't be constant. Otherwise, again, how are people meant to be independent if adults are constantly hovering over them and dropping praise all the time.

Maria: How can leaders encourage their employees?

Rory: Well, I guess the easy answer is by paying them appropriately. But while there might be some truth to that, I'm not sure that's the only thing. They have to set and reinforce standards of conduct and workflow and perhaps recognize and reward various achievements and milestones, even if it's just a mention or an aside, people tend to like it when that sort of thing happens, provided it's appropriate. So that could be another way since the more, well, if the more basic needs have been met.

Maria: Who do you think should encourage people more, relatives or their friends?

Rory: Oh, wow. Well, surely that depends on who you spend the most time with, because then you'll receive the most encouragement. So, if you live at home and you don't get out much, then I imagine your parents will play a key role in doing that. However, if you're out and about and you have lots of friendships and different kinds of relationships with lots of people, then they would probably play a greater part in it since you'll be seeing them more often. This is assuming that we want to maximize the amount of encouragement that's happening.