Thinking out loud
The corporate equivalent of the thought balloon is the rumor.
One’s views do not always find verbal expressions. Sometimes, thoughts remain private and unsaid. Comics, now sometimes called graphic novels, follow a convention of indicating what a character is thinking by using a “thought balloon.” This expressive device indicates that the other characters in the frame are not privy to the sometimes nasty thoughts being entertained.
While the speech balloon uses a solid line to enclose words with a directional tail to ascribe it to the person talking, the thought balloon employs a cloudy (cumulus) bubble to express unspoken ideas. The thought balloon allows the writer to show the reader what the character is thinking. Thus, a speech balloon may be expressing endearing thoughts at the same time as a thought balloon is plotting something opposite. Or, the character may be giving some silent reaction to what is being said to him with an undisclosed thought in the balloon.
This device that allows the audience (or reader) to know what a character is thinking, while hiding it from another character on stage, is also used in drama. Greek plays employ the chorus, a group chanting what the gods are thinking about the scene or advice a particular character will do well to heed. In Shakespeare, characters use an “aside” (or a stage whisper) to step forward and inform the audience of their fleeting plots, usually of murder and mayhem.
Thinking aloud can be extended as in the soliloquy, where a character wrestles internally with a dilemma, and usually the well-known parts of the play required for memorization as elocution pieces on suicidal tendencies — “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
In real life, one has few clues to what other people are thinking, even when they seem to be talking to you and expressing their innermost thoughts.
Your boss may be telling you he values your contribution to the company when, in fact, you are already in his short list of those slated for redundancy, a term previously applied to parts of a machine which do not perform any immediate function, like a spare tire or an appendix.
Corporate speech can perhaps be much clearer with thought balloons and Greek choruses (sometimes called “yes men”), if not soliloquies or asides. Often, intention is only gleaned from the resulting action, often too late for any meaningful reaction. The corporate equivalent of the thought balloon is the rumor. This staple of the closed organization like a palace clique or corporate committee provides clues as to the meanings behind certain words and actions. This is different from the newsletter which is part of internal communications.
The corporate politician is adroit in ferreting out the real significance of memos by looking for the walking thought balloon. This person is privy to the expressed thoughts of the esteemed leader. He is any or all of the following: a close associate who holds his phone for him, ubiquitous companion (even mistress), close-in security, or the one serving coffee. Note that this personified bearer of thoughts is specific to a particular person. He or she cannot be relied on for insights into other people’s thoughts.
The Walking Thought Balloon ( WTB) can be observed for his behavior. Thus, someone who has been declared anathema by the boss will also be shunned by WTB, even while others still think he continues to be powerful. There is also the likelihood that WTB talks to others, bragging about his intimacy with the boss by disclosing overheard conversations (another variant of the thought balloon) of who’s up or down — that guy in the corner office doesn’t know it yet but his days are numbered, and I’m not talking months here.
One has to ask himself if the pleasantries others bestow on him are sincerely felt. Isn’t there a thought balloon somewhere in the frame that tells the subject of praise what a person so lavishly praising him really thinks of him?
Most thoughts anyway should remain unexpressed, encased in their own unspoken balloons. Opinions need not be divulged. Like crushes on unsuspecting objects of affection, changing a thought balloon into actual speech can have dire consequences: Sorry, I’m not free for coffee.
Reacting solely on what a person says out loud and keeping one’s own thoughts to oneself in a silent balloon promotes social harmony. Discretion and civility struggle to keep inappropriate opinions from escaping their silent prison… except for those who hold the keys.