How Will You Win?
By Peter LloydAfter seeing a magic trick or hearing a hot guitar lick, you might ask the performer, “How did you do that?” When you do, you’re using the instructional how. You want to know the procedure. What steps must one take to accomplish such a feat? If you don’t get a straight answer, you visit a “how to” website or buy a “how to” book.
The executional how addresses expression. It’s where creativity comes in. What is it about the way something is done that makes it what it is? In the case of creative work, what enables it to transcend the ordinary and rise above other attempts to do something similar?
You encounter the executional how every day in ordinary conversation. I know you have answered a question with what you thought was a perfectly clear answer only to receive an unexpected angry rebuff.
“What did I say?” you ask, feeling confused and abused.
“It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.”
And just in case you did not understand what it was about how you said it, you get a dose of your own medicine. When you ask, “What’s wrong?” you get the familiar, frosty “Nothing.”
A consultant in the field of communication tells me that 93 percent of communication comes not in the words but in the non-verbal accompaniment—body language, volume, speed, and tone of voice. And that’s saying a lot for the non-verbal, because words are packed with meaning!
Take the Italian word vincerò, which I think I can safely translate as, “I will win.”
How economical, Italian! One word contains at least three ideas: victory, to whom it goes, and when it will happen. It takes three words (although only one more letter) to express the equivalent in English. With these three words, however, you can express at least three dimensions of the “I will win” idea, depending on how you inflect them.
“I will win,” expresses the conviction that you, rather than someone else, are about to win. You might use this inflection to intimidate or disparage a competitor. “That weak, ineffectual opponent of mine doesn’t stand a chance, because I will win!”
You would say, “I will win,” when there is doubt about your prospects. “Don’t worry. Place your bet. There’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that I will win!”
“I will win,” conveys your determination, rather than the reassurance, that you will win. You might use this inflection when your audience doubts the depth of your commitment. “I won’t settle for anything other than victory. I will win!”
Now let’s leave the pedestrian and rise to the sublime. I can’t claim to have heard but a tiny sampling of music created in the world, but I have never known a more beautiful melody than Puccini’s “Nessun dorma.” One of the most popular and easily accessible operatic arias available today.
At the end of the video, below, the great Luciano Pavarotti sings, “I will win,” with one word, vincerò, in the role of a man who has wagered his life for the love of a woman and has stayed awake all night to learn his fate. As dawn breaks, it becomes clear that, yes, he will win. I am struck with the full supremacy of the executional how as I listen, but also as I watch Pavoratti’s face before, during, and after he sings, “Vincerò!”
I don’t know how he does it, and at the same time, I know it’s how he does it that matters.
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.
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