85 – When We can’t Agree on Anything (P2)

In today’s episode, Peter and Sonny continue our series on Communications by delving into when communications are no longer effective. They argue that this starts with the government. It seems like it’s starting in the 80s; we are unable to agree on a unified mission, and we can’t agree on basic issues like airport security or funding law enforcement.

They introduce our 2025 Year in Success Report, which was recently published. If you are interested in receiving a digital copy, you can email us at theobvious@abceastflorida.com, or visit our home page at www.abceastflorida.com. 

The full audiovisual version of this episode is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iJfPPdfPzPo 

“The Obvious Podcast” is a production of ABC Florida East Coast Chapter. Unless otherwise stated, all content reflects the opinions of the guests and hosts.

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Transcript

Sonny Maken 0:10

All right. Welcome to the Obvious Podcast. This is episode number 85. My name is Sonny Maken. I'm the COO at ABC Florida East Coast.

Peter Dyga 0:18

And I'm Peter Dyga, president and CEO at ABC Florida East Coast.

Sonny Maken 0:23

You're listening or watching the Obvious Podcast, where all opinions expressed are our own or our guests, or unless we say otherwise.

Peter Dyga 0:30

Love the show. Subscribe on any major podcast platform or watch us in action on YouTube. Follow the Obvious Podcast on Instagram, X, and TrueSocial, and now on TikTok. All the links you need are in the show notes. And you can reach out to us anytime at the Obvious at abc eastflorida.com. And if you're enjoying the ride, help others find us by leaving a review wherever you listen. Happy Friday, Sonny. Another Friday. Another Friday, another show in uh number two in our communication series, yeah. All right, which is pretty cool. Yeah. Our series now, you know, all on one topic. So related. Speaking of communication, so um you all should have already received, when I say you all, I mean our members, should have already received our uh 2025 year in success in the mail. We'll also be happy to email you a PDF or electronic version. Yep. But why is this related to communication? Well, this is just one of the many ways we can communicate. Um delivering value that's tied to the mission given us by our volunteer leaders and our board of directors. So and so yeah, so the hopefully that well, not hopefully, we this is a just spectacular summary of the many different ways uh in which um we are trying, we are fulfilling the mission given us and the value that we're delivering. So being to to tie in last week's being tied to a single mission is um part of the prerequisites, as you we kind of spelled out it last week, I think, to being successful and 100% and um also you know avoiding conflicts of interest, you know, where you might just be interested in one little aspect of what we do and ignore the others, or worse, think that the others aren't necessarily tied to delivering value. Yeah. You know. Right. Anyway.

Sonny Maken 2:22

Well, before we get into that, I do want to, you know, Mr. Producer quarterbacked this whole effort. And it's not easy because there's a lot this organization does. There's a lot of data we generate, there's a lot of people involved, there's a lot of departments involved.

Peter Dyga 2:36

And as big as it is in Thorough, it's I mean you have limited space, right? We do have limited space to make decisions about what to include and what not to include.

Sonny Maken 2:42

So And we were able to sell advertising this year, which makes me very, very happy. Yep, it's a first. So, you know, help raise the cost. So, yep. I know the demands to have you on camera.

Peter Dyga 2:53

Minus what, eight months before we start thinking about the next one or something like that.

Sonny Maken 2:57

So it's crazy. Actually, uh I think Mr. Producer and I had our first conversation in November of 24 for this uh right? November of twenty five. I'm sorry, November of twenty-five for this book. To start to talk about it. Yep. Yeah. So start putting our stuff together. So it's impressive. Um I'm just gonna hold up the cover again because I think it's so beautiful.

Peter Dyga 3:17

Please, you should have received it already, but we asked you to take a look at it, share it. Um, you know. So it's also on our homepage, which is www.abceflorida.com. ABCEastflorida.com.

Sonny Maken 3:29

It's a great, it's a great little capture of everything this organization does. And I'm sure I'll read through this and I'll realize we forgot something. So always. You know. So our series on communication, yes, Sonny. Last week we talked about uh the pilot rescue out of Iran and how when you don't share a common mission, the communication always falls apart, and you have sort of the you know cascading series of of effects.

Peter Dyga 3:56

I thought that analogy was brilliant. Thank you. For a lot of people, they're gonna that's gonna make sense.

Sonny Maken 4:00

Right.

Peter Dyga 4:00

I hope so. Part of the reason the military is so successful is because they have a unified mission.

Sonny Maken 4:04

Yep.

Peter Dyga 4:05

Um they communicate and have clearly you know, all the way down to just making sure you understand the words precisely, you know, not just being behind the mission.

Sonny Maken 4:14

We look how to do the time, right? Like even the the 25 hours.

Peter Dyga 4:19

Uh phonetic uh alphabet or whatever, you know, alpha Zulu, all that. Yeah. So I mean everything about it is about trying to communicate in clarity and mission. Yeah.

Sonny Maken 4:28

So And so today I thought we would talk about the complete opposite of mission-driven organizations, which would be our government. Right?

Peter Dyga 4:37

And so that could be a, you know, I don't know. Some that could, you know, because I really don't know what the government is. Socialists might, you know, might think that's the best planning, central planning and communication.

Sonny Maken 4:47

So why do you say it's with the exception of Bernie Sanders? I um I find I find the that everything that the government does, it is so profoundly problematic. And I don't know, Milton Friedman said this or somebody said this. Government creates nothing. It just consumes and creates well, that's not true. They do create obstacles and and you know problems. But the reason I was thinking about the opposite of uh the effectiveness or the or the mission-driven nature of the military is I was thinking about the um TSA agents who weren't getting paid and just the effect that that had on air travel and the hours and the lines that were out the door. I mean, it happened here in like you know, Fort Lauderdale is not a large airport, and you have people literally standing outside, outside of the main terminal building.

Peter Dyga 5:46

And when we talked about this beforehand, I'm really excited about talking this in terms of uh our government. Yeah, but I want to start a little bit by just thinking. I don't I don't want pushing back is maybe not the right term, but you know, wouldn't some leftists you know, you might say the Chinese government is like the the equivalent of military. You know, they're unified in mission, they communicate well. I mean, could I would would not some leftists say no? I mean, a communist government or you know, the more controlled economy or the more controlled you get dictatorships, or maybe even but you know, we we talked about you could argue that point. You could argue that point. And this scares me a little bit. You know, the people that have often said our form of government is you know, it's it's it's awful, you know, because it doesn't allow. It doesn't allow. It doesn't allow. But but that's relatively new too, though, right? You and I were talking beforehand about you know, I don't know when this happened, but we don't really even seem to have a unified mission anymore. Right. So let's go back to the 80s. Let's go back to the 80s. Uh you know, we were very determined. You know, because without that unified mission, that's when the the government and its ability to deliver the kind of things that that people who believe in limited government it should deliver, they can't even do that well. You know, it can't even do airport security well. You know, we can't even agree on on funding law enforcement, right? You know, as a country. We don't even have that as a common mission anymore. I know.

Sonny Maken 7:13

I know. I mean I saw a headline recently on on new on the news that they were considering privatizing the TSA. And I'm old enough to remember 9-11. The whole reason the TSA came into being was because of 9-11. Because of 9-11, because uh airport security was privatized.

Peter Dyga 7:29

And by the way, I even remember I'm old enough to remember that that political or legislative argument, you know, and uh Bush was president and he pushed back about nationalizing, if you will, or federalizing uh TSA. TSA. And he eventually acquiesced. I mean, it was a battle royale. Yeah, yeah. Because prior to that it was privatized. There were some arguments made, yes, we need to step up the security of um airports, but can it be done through the system we had before, or does it need to do we need to turn it over to the government? For a long time, um, Republicans are right of center push back and they end up acquiescing and giving up. So and today we have an argument. Now I was corrected by the way, on so uh and I actually did some research and found out that actually airports are allowed to privatize. They can, if they meet certain criteria, each airport itself. Each airport can independently uh ask to be released, if you will, from the federal uh aspect of this and privatize it. They still have to, much like an example that kind of rung for me was uh even though we're a state apprenticeship advisory council state or a SAC state, it doesn't mean that the Bureau of Apprenticeship Training and the Department of Labor doesn't approve the standards. We still have to meet federal standards. It's yeah, it's like a lot of things, right? You still have to meet the standards even if they're not the ones with the direct oversight. You know, and so it's very similar. You know, you can privatize, and I I I I looked, I think the Orlando Airport might be one of them.

Sonny Maken 9:01

Kansas City is one, because my one of my best friends is in Kansas City.

Peter Dyga 9:03

They're not TSA agents. They're private, you know, and they have to So apparently it's there. And I'm I'm quite frankly, I'm hoping this um makes more of them look at privatizing because you know we you can't we can't you can't go on living like this, right? Right? Anyway, back to the communication part in our series and the communication point.

Sonny Maken 9:23

Being unified around a mission and so we clearly uh are not unified in what the mission of the federal government is, right? Now your point about China is, I think, is a is a spectacular point because China, every Chinese person, certainly in China, understands that the goal of the government is to create uh Chinese supremacy worldwide, right? Whether it's military, navy, economic, manufacturing, uh AI, they want the Chinese to be and you could argue if you if you don't do enough research that it's that I'm I don't know really I mean, is that that's true.

Peter Dyga 9:58

Yeah, yeah. Every Chinese citizen understands it. They understand that. But the whole goal of the Trevor Burrus, and is the motive behind that um national pride, or is it more of a race thing?

Sonny Maken 10:08

Well, it's it's I don't want to get in trouble, but it's a race thing. Because the Han, who are the ethnic Chinese, um I don't know if you know this, but the mainland China and like the the people of Hong Kong. So the Han's native tongue is Mandarin. Uh and then there's uh and I can't even think of the name of the people group, but Hong Kong used to be they spoke Cantonese. And they banned Cantonese. They really only want you to speak uh Mandarin. And so the idea is that the Han Dynasty, the Han people are really convinced that they are this the global supremacists and everything they do.

Peter Dyga 10:44

That's pretty important to understand because you know hence they're uh they are unified around a mission. Around a mission, as you said, absolutely dominating in every aspect.

Sonny Maken 10:52

And of course they have outliers and things like that. So they have created this whole system that they call their uh social credit uh score. They give you a social credit score. So if you kind of wander away from the strict party line, you're punished. And then, you know, it can be as as obviously it can be as significant as jail time, but they could also be like you can't use public transportation or your your children don't go to the best schools. I mean, there's all sorts of things they have found to punish you if you kind of wander off the path.

Peter Dyga 11:21

So speaking of unified missions, yeah. And and minimizing conflicts of interest. Yep. Right? Because if anybody gets one, they're like brought back on, right? They're brought back on. So so you know, you could argue that that's like so so really what this boils down to, and I'm not sure this is where we intended to go with this, but it's a fascinating conversation. You know, it's a struggle between perhaps that that that good goal of being unified around a mission and being able to deliver on it, provided that mission is an admirable one, you know, uh, versus freedom.

Sonny Maken 11:54

Yeah. Is that fair?

Peter Dyga 11:56

That's a very fair that's a very fair comment.

Sonny Maken 11:58

Yep. Versus freedom.

Peter Dyga 12:00

You know, because that's what we're trying to do in this great experiment in the United States is balance and and freedom, but also and again, I think it worked when um and and again, I don't know that it was a intent of this segment of our communication series. But when did that change? When did that start to deteriorate? When did we go from being a democracy or a representative democratic republic, you know, that had a more unified mission as a people, and so it worked with that great balance of freedom. And now it seems to be very problematic. We were joking, you know, beforehand.

Sonny Maken 12:37

We can't even agree on the Yeah, whether we exist to serve American citizens or illegal aliens. Right. We can't even agree on that. We can't even agree on that. And this is uh this is our government that can't agree on this. Forget the people. I mean, I think the people agree mostly.

Peter Dyga 12:50

You know, I think the the demarcation we can't agree uh to to take a more um a more um current issue, although it's a few weeks back now, on whether it's a good thing or not that uh 250 or something companies in China are in the business of uh uh taking pregnant women right at the end of their pregnancy to the United States to have their have their kid and then fly them and their kid back. Back, yeah. You know, and we can't even agree because we're people are arguing that that's the that's nothing wrong with that. The the lead attorney for the ACLU, you know, and there are people in our culture that think that's perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with that. That is nuts. I mean, we we can't agree on some very basic things anymore. And it's and it's problematic to our point of when you don't have a you can't coalesce around a mission anymore. Is it any wonder that then conflicts of interests, you know, go berserk um and that you're not able to deliver, you know, anymore. How many weeks now or months have we been without TSA being funded? Yeah.

Sonny Maken 13:54

So and you know, in the best of best of circumstances, politicians are drowning in conflicts of interest. In the best of circumstances in a situation like this, when you literally can't agree on anything, and uh and I feel like that's the this is the direction where a president comes, bunch of executive orders get issued, you have one policy for four years or eight years, the next president comes, all that stuff gets rescinded, and the policy completely changes. And it's like you can't you cannot progress as a country if that's how you behave. And you certainly can't communicate, right? But I feel like that I don't know how you ever get it back. I think it's broken, like beyond. So you could I've heard a lot of people argue that during the Cold War, um, and you would have a better understanding of this than I would, but during the Cold War, the world was very clear, like, okay, this is who we need to defeat. You know, our freedom, our way of life, it all depends on this. And if it doesn't happen, it's gone. And I feel like that sort of purpose, mission has been just it's been not even chipped away, it's been destroyed. And now we can't we can't even agree on what an American is. We can't even agree on on um the fact that uh I remember years ago there was a movie called uh Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith. Right? The whole premise of that movie was you can come to this country or you can be in this country, you can work your tail off and be successful, and nobody can stop you, right? And because it's literally in our uh is it in the preamble or on the on the constitution, you know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And the pursuit. The pursuit part, right? Like now it's like people want universal basic income.

Peter Dyga 15:35

Right.

Sonny Maken 15:36

Forget the pursuit. Yeah, no, no, no, just give it to me. And it's like I I can't, I mean, it's been what 30 years since the Cold War ended? 30 years? Yeah, 40 years? I can't believe how fast this country has just dramatically changed and and fragmented. And and half the country sees the world in a way that is completely the opposite of the uh how the other half sees it. And and that's what and I think and I think the politicians are really a remnant of that. I think they're a reflection of that. I think the politicians are just like, okay, what what's best for me and my career, and I'll just sort of do that. And so I don't understand how you ever uh overcome this. And I think that is a significant communication problem and understanding problem.

Peter Dyga 16:18

Well, our system is not a view problem. Yep, absolutely. Our system, you know, the only way to overcome it is the voters have got to send a very strong message and a consistent one. And they're not there yet. Oh no, they're very inconsistent. Very inconsistent and back and forth and whatnot. And um it's interesting because I think uh there's still some uh speaking of communication, uh that might communicate well, but they're not necessarily communicating honestly, I think some people in our system. Any events, fascinating conversation that we could have another whole episode on.

Sonny Maken 16:47

They called Reagan the great communicator, right? Obama is a phenomenal communicator. Uh Biden is a terrible communicator. I could argue that you know Trump's not a very good communicator. And they all pay a price for it. If so, if you can't communicate well, but this country is so schizo. You could be a great communicator and be a terrible president, then they'll love you for it.

Peter Dyga 17:05

Right, right. Well, again, I think that the problem today is you have uh you know, you you might think, if you just looked on the surface, that there are some things we did have a unified mission about, because both sides talk about, for example, the threat to democracy. Right. You know. Um but the the interesting thing is if you actually look at actions, you know, behind your words, it's like, well, which side is uh actually um being being critical, if you will, of let's just take some international uh episodes where um democracy is on the march as opposed to retreat, uh Venezuela, you know, for one. Yeah. We're removing a drug lord and a dictator uh who most of the world acknowledged the last election was not democratically elected. Okay. So if you're really for democracy, you would think we would be unified behind that. So but if you look at U.S. politics, everybody says they're for democracy. Because it's one side will say you're destroying it, and the other side will say no, you're destroying it. But the real question is not that we're unified in our words. The question is, will the American public at some point recognize you gotta look beyond words? Yeah, you know, and and again, here is where I think the media, you know, plays a particular uh nasty role, I think, in all lack of community, communication. But then the other thing that's confusing or troubling to me is it's like you know, we live in a an age where fewer people get their news from those traditional sources. You know, they're getting it from internet sources and other things, and it yet it doesn't seem to have helped in the clarity, not at all, in terms of not at all. Yeah, is this at all getting at the the round two of the communication?

Sonny Maken 18:47

No, no, exactly. So again, connection is the mission, right? And and the methodology, and you will never ever agree on the methodology if there's no clarity on the mission and there's agreement on the mission. So I think it's I mean, it so I'm sorry we're not ending this on a hopeful note because I I mean I'm certainly not hopeful for where we're headed as a nation in terms of how we coalesce around.

Peter Dyga 19:12

But I don't know if we rang the bell, but the over you know the over the overall lesson, you know, we were talking about is the fact that uh to to be successful uh and to be uh good communicators is uh be able to coalesce around a unified mission. Yep. And the point we're trying to make is it seems uh less and less that we as a nation, as a people, yeah are coalesced around a mission.

Sonny Maken 19:34

Yep.

Peter Dyga 19:35

And that and the problem that's going to be for delivering on any kind of a mission.

Sonny Maken 19:39

And what's scary to me, I'm gonna take what your what you just said to the next level, what's scary to me is that political disagreements are now finding their way into uh much more uh micro uh disagreements. Sure. Right? Right. Like um like I know when it comes to personal dating and stuff, liberal women are like and and and conservative men, I mean, they're completely on different platforms. Like women are like, nope, if you vote over Trump, not interested, right? If you're MAGA, not interested. If you're right wing, not interested. If you're a Republican, not interested. And now you're seeing the men start to reflect that. Because men didn't used to care what women's politics were, but now it's like, oh, if you got a blue hair, I'm not interested, right? Like you're starting to see sort of those disagreements reflected in everyday life. And then eventually you'll see that in in boardrooms. You'll see that amongst board of directors. Like if you're somebody on the left of the political aisle or you're on the right, those that conflict's gonna be reflected.

Peter Dyga 20:37

And that's just that that's the point of all this, is that as an organization or any any organization or association, some of them do better than others, have a very clear mission. They review it regularly and they recommit to it, which I think we're very good at, which I think is part of the reason for our success. But if you get away from that, or you get away from being unified behind it, you know, or or you let your conflict of interest where you see only one aspect of that is really delivering on it, and you don't see the full picture, um, what we're seeing in the country could very much come to the boardroom. Exactly.

Sonny Maken 21:09

So and so if you want to see the full picture, ask for this. All right. Thank you very much for doing that.

Peter Dyga 21:17

So we'd love to hear from you. So all right.

Sonny Maken 21:20

All right. So thank you for listening and honoring us with your time. We look forward to sharing uh another episode next Friday.

Peter Dyga 21:25

And uh as always for comments, send us an email at the obvious at abceflorida.com. Until next time.