“D\u00e4r H\u00c4TTI und d\u00e4r WETTI si beschti Fr\u00fcnde gsi.”
\nI came across this phrase a few times as a kid.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t speak Swiss German, here\u2019s the translation: “COULD and WOULD were best friends.”<\/p>\n
As a little boy, I had made it a habit to dress up my missteps in what I thought were clever excuses. It sounded something like “If my bike hadn\u2019t had a flat tire, I would\u2019ve been home in time for dinner.” Or “If the teacher explained things better, I could\u2019ve gotten a better grade.”<\/p>\n
You\u2019re probably thinking: Sure, Ralph\u2026 tell that to someone who\u2019ll buy it. And yes, COULD and WOULD really were close allies back then.<\/p>\n
What surprises me today is how many grown-ups still argue the same way. And I mean even people with seven-figure salaries. (For the record, I used to get about 50 cents a week in pocket money from my parents.)<\/p>\n
You hear it all the time in football interviews after the match. “If we hadn\u2019t conceded that early goal, the game would\u2019ve turned out differently.” And it\u2019s no different in the corporate world.m”In a more attractive market environment, we could hit our targets.”<\/p>\n
No winning team talks like that. And neither does any company that actually reaches its goals. The subjunctive, the \u201cwoulda-coulda\u201d tense, is often (not always, but often) the language of losers.<\/p>\n
Of course, there\u2019s a fine line. Politeness is not seldom expressed in the subjunctive. So are possibility and desire and in those cases, the form is not only appropriate, it\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n
But unlike intentional use, the inflationary use of the conditional brings mostly one thing. Vagueness, lack of ownership and verbal fog.<\/p>\n
I catch myself slipping into the what-if voice, too. When that happens, I ask myself two questions.<\/p>\n
Would a winner talk like this?
\nor
\nDoes a winner talk like this?<\/p>\n
Warm regards,
\nRalph Hubacher<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“D\u00e4r H\u00c4TTI und d\u00e4r WETTI si beschti Fr\u00fcnde gsi.” I came across this phrase a few times as a kid. If you don\u2019t speak Swiss German, here\u2019s the translation: “COULD and WOULD were best friends.” As a little boy, I had made it a habit to dress up my missteps in what I thought were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-unkategorisiert"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5561,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559\/revisions\/5561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandhub.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}