Speech Class

Speech Class

Please read the case study: “American International Group Bailout Bonus Controversy” on page 61 and 62 in your textbook. In your own words, as you read the chapter, see if you can (1) narrow down the main problem – was it the fact that bonuses were given, the size of the bonuses, or did something else cause the public outrage? Determine which of the four communication styles best fits DeSantis based on his letter.Go to www.wsj.com or www.nytimes.com and search “AIG” or the names of the individuals mentioned in this case study for additional information.Discuss your comments in2 paragraphs.
Page 2
Please read the case study: “An Engineer’s Experience With Listening” on page 97 and 98 in your textbook. In your own words, as you read this chapter, see if you can (a) evaluate LeMessuirer’s listening skills on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent), (b) determine whether he was guilty of poor listening and why. Discuss your comments in 2 paragraphs
Page 3
Please read the case study: “Hook’em Horns Gesture Causes Problems at 2005 Inauguration” on page 121 and 122 in your textbook. In your own words, as you read this chapter, see if you can determine (a) who was the most responsible for the misunderstanding – Bush, his advisors, or the people from other countries and why. Which of the four (4)types of gestures would best describe the hook’em horns sign. Discuss your comments in 2 paragraphs.

Page 61 and 62
American International Group Bailout Bonus Controversy
In the spring of 2008, a global economic crisis resulted in the U.S. government
providing bailout monies to multiple companies in order to protect the stability of the
economy. American International Group (AIG) received $200 billion of these funds.
When the chief executive of AIG, Edward Liddy, used bailout funds to pay bonuses
to 41 8 employees totaling $1 65 million, cries of outrage were heard from the White
House, Congress, and the American people (Calmes& Story, 2009). When people
realized that 73 of the employees received bonuses of $1 million each and that $33.6
million was paid to people no longer employed by AIG, the cries became even louder.
The reality is that the bonuses were contractual agreements signed in 2007 before the
bailout. According to Liddy the bonuses were paid to keep his best employees so they
could help the company get back on its feet.
The AIG bonuses were the talk of the media and the American people for weeks as
Congress held hearings and debated how to handle the situation. The New York Times
received and published an interesting resignation letter from Jake DeSantis, an execu-
tive vice president of the AIG’s ? nancial products unit. Here is a portion of his letter:
Dear Mr. Liddy,
It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to
offer some context . .
After 1 2 months of hard work dismantling the company—during
which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in
March 2009—we in the ? nancial products unit have been betrayed
by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected of?cials.
In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate
my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from
the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the
money myself.
I take this action after 1 1 years of dedicated, honorable service to
A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dys-
functional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you,
I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1 , and I agreed out
of a sense of duty to the company and to the public of?cials who
have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no
longer justify spending 1 0, 1 2, 1 4 hours a day away from my family
for the bene? t of those who have let me down.
You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I’d like to
tell you about myself. . . . I started at this company in 1 998 as an
equity trader, became the head of equity and commodity trading
and, a couple of years before A.I.G.’s meltdown last September,
was named the head of business development for commodities.
Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently
pro? table—in most years generating net pro?ts of well over $1 00
million. . . .
But you also are aware that most of the employees of your ? nan-
cial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. . . . I
and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand
up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain
members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over
our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the
baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of
New York and Connecticut. . . .
As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation
to surrender our earnings. We have worked 1 2 long months under
these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of
us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber
should be cheated after he has ? xed the pipes but a careless elec-
trician causes a ? re that burns down the house. . .

page 97 and 98
Problems are often discovered and solved through listening. A fascinating problem with
the 59-story Citigroup Center tower in New York City (formerly the Citicorp Center)
came to light when a nationally known structural engineer, William J. LeMessurier,
listened to a student’s concerns about the strength of the columns that support the
building. Although the student’s concerns proved to be unfounded, as a result of the
call, LeMessurier discovered a much more serious problem with the structural integrity
of the building. The following story was adapted from “The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis” by
Joe Morgenstern (1 995).
The beautiful Citigroup tower was designed by architect Hugh Stubbins Jr., but it was
engineered by LeMessurier and his ? rm. There were several design “? rsts” in this project.
One innovation was the wind braces hidden inside the structural skin—instead of one
piece, two pieces coming from opposing sides if soldered together in the center would
be as strong as a single brace. The second was the “tuned mass damper” (TMD)—a 400-
pound block of concrete located near the top of the building that was designed to greatly
reduce the natural sway of such a tall building. The third innovation of LeMessurier’s was
the placement of the four columns on which the building rested. These massive, nine-
story stilt-like columns were located at the center of each side of the building instead of
at the corners. This made the building appear to “? oat” over the church, shops, and plaza
underneath it. The student’s questions were about these columns.
LeMessurier was very proud of this building, which had won much engineering
praise. He patiently explained to the student, who was writing a paper on the building,
that the placement of the columns was exactly correct to “resist what sailors call quar-
tering winds—those which come from a diagonal and, by ? owing across two sides of a
building at once, increase the forces on both” (p. 6). Because LeMessurier was teach-
ing a structural engineering class at Harvard, the student’s call reminded him that his
own students would bene? t from this information on quartering winds, as well as, the
new wind braces he had had installed in the columns to resist strong winds. Although
New York building code required that such braces pass only perpendicular wind tests,
as background for his lecture, he calculated the strength of the braces when hit by
quartering winds. To his surprise, he found that these winds would increase the strain
on several of the braces by 40% and would increase the strain on the joints of the
columns by 1 60%. Even this increase would be no problem for soldered joints (but
a few weeks before, LeMessurier had discovered that the steel company who built
Citicorp tower had decided to use bolted joints—which in most cases would cost less
yet be just as safe).
LeMessurier still was not overly worried because “a margin of safety is built into
the standard formulas for calculating how strong a joint must be” in structural col-
umns. However, when he discovered that the building team had de?ned the braces as
“trusses” and not as “columns,” he became very worried! Because trusses are exempt
from the extra safety margin, LeMessurier knew that there would be too few bolts in
these joints for safety under the force of quartering winds even with the TMD designed
to reduce building sway.
LeMessurier decided to ask the labs of Canada’s Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel
Laboratory to run some wind tunnel tests. The results were not encouraging. After
working through each ? oor and each joint, LeMessurier determined that the thirtieth
? oor had the weakest joint: “If that one gave way, catastrophic failure of the whole
structure would follow” (p. 22). The likelihood of a storm serious enough to create
this disaster was calculated to be once every 1 6 years; with the TMD calculated in,
it dropped to once in every 55 years. However, the TMD required electricity, which
would likely fail in this type of storm! By now it was the end of July, and hurricane
season was rapidly approaching. His worry now escalated to panic.
There was a way to correct the problem: A heavy steel plate could be welded
around each of the 200 bolted joints like a “giant Band-Aid.” The joints were read-
ily accessible by simply removing the carpet and sheetrock that covered them. This
? x would raise the safety of the building to a once-in-every-700-years storm. How-
ever, as Morgenstern noted, “To avert disaster, LeMessurier would have to blow the
whistle quickly on himself. That meant facing the pain of possible protracted litigation,
probable bankruptcy, and professional disgrace” (p. 24). This would be in addition to
the cost of repairs (which would be at least $1 million), the problem of evacuating
thousands of people, and the panic all of this would create. Although the student had
been wrong about the exact problem, his concern had uncovered a serious structural
weakness.

Page 121 and 122
Hook ’em Horns Gesture Causes Problems at 2005 Inauguration
Communication misunderstandings caused by nonverbal messages and gestures can
be especially serious when multiple countries and cultures are involved. In January
2005 at his second inauguration, George W. Bush along with his wife and daughters
? ashed several hook ’em horns hand gestures as the University of Texas Longhorn
Band marched by them during the inaugural parade. This certainly wasn’t the ? rst time
President Bush had used this gesture, nor was it the ? rst time that a student from the
University of Texas had received negative press overseas for using the hook ’em horns
gesture (Douglas, 2005). However, the heavy media coverage of the inauguration,
which was shown around the world, led to more people and countries taking notice
and many of them expressing shock and anger.
The hook ’em horns hand gesture began at the University of Texas in 1 955 to
represent their mascot, the Texas longhorn, which is a breed of cattle known for its
unusually long horns (Douglas, 2005). The hand sign representing the longhorn is
made with the two middle ? ngers pressed against the palm of the hand and the other
two ? ngers pointing upward like cattle horns. The hook ’em horns sign looks similar
to the American Sign Language sign for “I love you,” which you may have seen on an
American postage stamp except that the thumb is extended in the “I love you” sign
but crosses the middle ? ngers in the hook ’em gesture. The palm and ? ngers generally
face away from the body in both signs.
The hook ’em horns gesture is used by the University of Texas alumni, stu-
dents, faculty, and cheerleaders as a greeting and as a sign of respect during sport-
ing events. For example, during football games use of the sign begins when the
Longhorn Band runs onto the ? eld at home games “in its burnt orange uniforms,
hands raised with ‘hook ’em’ signs. Fans leap to their feet, and soon ‘hook ’em’
signs ? ll the stadium to its farthest reaches” (“Showband of the Southwest,” 2002).
Because Bush had been governor of Texas and his wife and daughters have degrees
from the University of Texas, the entire family feels a close connection to the univer-
sity and its mascot.
The problem with the hook ’em horns hand gesture, as well as other gestures
used around the world is that they don’t mean the same thing to all people in all
countries. According to David Thomas (2008) in his book Cross-Cultural Manage-
ment, “trying to learn all the hand gestures that exist across cultures would be virtually
impossible” (p. 1 35). However, in President Bush’s case, the gesture he and his family
used has different meanings in other countries that are serious enough that he prob-
ably should have saved the gesture for a more private time. For example, in Nordic
countries, the sign is viewed as a salute to Satan or devil worship. Italians use the sign
to mean that a wife is cheating on her spouse. Some Africans interpret the sign to
mean that a curse is being placed on the one to whom the gesture is made, and some
Mediterranean countries consider the sign to be an insult similar to the single middle
? nger sign used in the United States (Axtell, 2007). Although there are many other
meanings for the hook ’em horn sign that do not have a negative meaning—such as in
baseball where the sign is used to mean “you have two outs,” you can see why some
international viewers felt both shock and confusion seeing the president of the United
States portraying such a sign, smiling all the while.

 
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