Your language decides the future performance capability of your entire team!

The defining moment in the recent legal and peaceful student protest at Jantar Mantar that overflowed onto the streets and transformed into an unlawful and awful anarchy was marked by verbal diarrhea by some of the protestors.

Young ladies and girls as young as 15 were heard hurling choicest abuses at the prime minister who is old enough to be their grandfather, including at his deceased mother. 

Prime Minister Modi noted the cultural shock that the nation was experiencing due to these depraved girls and young ladies, but still forgave them and urged the youth to reform themselves and take the higher path. 

If there was an award for name-calling, it would have to be shared by everyone on the opposition benches.

Sure, Madam Sonia Gandhi was called "Italy-ki-beti" or Italy's daughter (and therefore unfit to understand the civilizational moorings of Bharat) by the ruling NDA when it was in opposition. Mr. Rahul Gandhi has been called "Pappu" by the public.  

But all that pales compared to what Modi ji has been called and this was led by none other than the senior-most leaders of the opposition.

Yes, Modi has been vilified beyond comparison and comprehension.

In fact, the industry of name-calling was started by Sonia Gandhi herself. 

About decades ago, she was rarely seen in New Delhi or in her own constituency. 

She was busy campaigning in the Gujarat Assembly polls, desperately trying to stop the rise of Modi, then the CM of the state.  

Her clarion call was: Modi is a "merchant of death."  

What followed were "mass murderer," "intolerant," and "dictator."  

Soon the comparisons became Hitler, Mussolini, and Milosevic.

Despite all the venom, Modi won that election and kept rising. 

He has never lost an election.  

That name-calling of Modi by his detractors couldn't stop the beginning of history making for Modi - not just in Gujarat, but in New Delhi, and eventually in world politics.

Even after receiving 9 international awards, the Pakistani PM Imran Khan repeated some of those same phrases at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, in front of world leaders. 

He started by saying he would not have come to the UN if he did not feel that some "urgent issues" needed to be addressed and then went on to say that Modi is a life member of the RSS, "an organisation inspired by Hitler and Mussolini."

None of that stopped Modi ji's ascent or the withering of those opposed to him. 

It begs the question: Why?

The answer is in the utility of language. 

Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, in 'The Three Laws of Performance,' put it simply:

1. How people perform depends on how situations occur to them.

2. How situations occur to them arises in language.

3. Future-based language transforms how situations occur to people.

Politicians and people regularly use language in the present to sell fear or hope in the future. 

Communication is the most powerful asset for any person - especially for a politician who must mass communicate. It is also the only quickest way for the listener to judge the speaker. 

A politician’s language can show you a dream or a nightmare. 

It cannot show you reality, because reality is a matter of perception and differs for everyone.

It is all about the emotional context in which the words are spoken and heard. But one thing is common - everyone wants a brighter future!

Language gives us a clue about a leader’s intent and the goal he has in mind.  

Tone decides the tribe.  

A constant negative goal with a depressing tone makes people gather to fight what’s coming. A consistent positive goal with an aspirational tone makes people gather to claim what’s coming.

If the message is value-based and sharply future focused, it is less about eloquence and more about the consistency of engagement by the speaker that leads the followers to not just remain mute appreciators, but in fact turn volunteers and contributors to the speaker's cause, as it's as much their own. Individuals then coalesce to become an interest group, often a motivated, fused block.  

It explains why Modi enjoys an army of ardent followers - whom his detractors mock as "bhakts" or blind followers.

Even when patience is in short supply, implementation issues or slight delays matter less if the future is communicated with honest conviction and some results are already visible. 

The public does empathize with Modi as it understands: the future is a work in progress.

The public also knows this: if a person has no bright ideas about the future and shows no agenda based action, a dark outcome is almost assured.

That explains why Modi's opposition continue to fail - they are discordant and portray nothing beyond Modi's occasional temporary shortcomings or inadvertent errors. 

In politics, future-driven language is everything, including when leaning on evidence or experience from the past.

For the most part, the opposition is silent on the work done by it in the few states it is still in power or about their future development plans. Instead, it indulges in personal attacks.

And when it does talk about present problems at the center, it still faces flak, because "Today" is nothing but "Yesterday’s Tomorrow," when Today’s opposition was in power Yesterday. It was they that had promised this bright Today.

That long night of Yesterday is over. People now realize they were taken for a ride.

So, what exactly is Modi’s secret sauce?

What most people don’t understand about Modi ji is that it is not just his oratory skills but it is his rich value-based language and future-driven tone that wins him votes and fans alike. Who dosen't want a Viksit Bharat? 

Modi just dosen't talk, he communicates. Period. 

That’s why, instead of anti-incumbency, his pro-incumbency victories are worthy of great communication lessons. 

His slogans, "Achhe din aane waale hain" or Good days will surely arrive, and "Sabka sath, sabka vikas" or Together with all, development for all, are not just words - they are a complete and whole aspirational narrative of hope in themselves!