The Website of Dr. Mark Goulston

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Eye contact, my kingdom for some eye contact

The first Presidential debate is in the can. What did we see? What did THEY see?

Much has already been said about, Barack Obama referring to John McCain by his first name, repeatedly saying: “John is right,” and John McCain referring to his opponent as Senator Obama.  People have thought Obama may have been disrespectful while McCain was being belittling bordering on contemptuous.

As a communications and emotional intelligence expert, I’ll throw a couple more observations into the mix.  Just consider them as additional data points.

As I watched the interchange between Obama and McCain, I was having some deja vus about my experiences in head-to-head confrontations from my professional life.

John McCain rarely made eye contact with Barack Obama during the first presidential debate.  Being an interventionist and former trainer of FBI and police hostage negotiators, I have been in many confrontations.  I never break eye contact and have come to conclude that those who will not make eye contact with me have something to hide or at least more to hide than me.

What frees me to make eye contact is that my total focus is on improving the situation for the people I am with (that comes mainly from my training as a medical doctor).  Don’t get me wrong.  I am passionate about my hopefully informed opinions, but being right has never been more important than making the situation better.

Over time I have observed that those who don’t make eye contact with me are more concerned with being right and winning than making the situation better.  I think they look away, because when I look at them from my vantage point there are three things present that cause them to be nervous:

1. They know they care much more about winning and being right than solving or improving a situation.
2. I know they care much more about winning and being right than solving or improving a situation.
3. They know that I know they care more about winning and being right than solving or improving a situation.

Two more observations about the debate.  Obama on several occasions stopped needing to make his point and deferred to Jim Lehrer to move the debate ahead.  Also when Obama was directed to speak directly to McCain, he did. McCain never did that.

After noticing that a couple more things occurred to me:

1. It demonstrated Obama’s commitment to the process and moving if forward more than being right or having the last word in any conversation.  It wasn’t a sign of weakness, but a more circumspect view of keeping a process moving ahead vs. having it be derailed by ego.
2. It demonstrated that Obama is coachable and seems to have an internal monitor to keep him on track with what is important, which is not to be confused with being wishy-washy or not steadfast. 

Like you, I look forward to the Vice Presidential debates.  And like you, I look forward to our electing a President who is focused on improving your lot and mine and improving the way America is viewed by the world.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Usable Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.