Number 39 of 52 Compelling Communicators: Ozma of Oz
September 30, 2013
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| Ozma of Oz |
This
year marks the 75th anniversary of the movie, the Wizard of Oz. I
expect most of you have seen the movie or read the book. What you might not know is the author, L.
Frank Baum, wrote a series of “Oz” books including one called “Ozma of
Oz”. These were my favourite bedtime
stories as a child.
Quick
snapshot - Princess Ozma helps Dorothy return to Oz after she is gets caught up
in another bizarre series of adventures. Similar to the Wizard story, Dorothy
gets swept overboard while she is traveling to Australia with her Uncle Henry.
This time she does not have her lovable mutt Toto, but Bellina, her talking
hen. Lots of trials and tribulations occur en route back to a safe place but
one sticks out in my mind.
Dorothy
comes across Princess Langwidere, a woman who has a cabinet full of heads that
she changes depending upon her mood. At the age of five, I was enthralled with
the idea you could simply pop on a new head to reflect how you felt. Langwidere
had 30 of them.
As
described by Baum, “There were heads with
golden hair, brown hair, rich auburn hair and black hair; but none with gray
hair. The heads had eyes of blue, of gray, or hazel, or brown and of black; but
there were no red eyes among them, and all were bright and handsome. The noses
were Grecian, Roman, retrousse’ and Oriental, representing all types of beauty;
and the mouths were of assorted sizes and shapes, displaying pearly teeth when
the heads smiled. As for dimples, they appeared in cheeks and chins, where they
might be most charming, and one of two heads had freckles upon the faces to
contrast better with the brilliancy of their complexions.”
This
princess never cared about fashion and only wore a simple white dress, the new
face and hair was enough. I liked that idea as well.
Anyway,
this Princess was obviously quite vain spending all her time admiring her
reflection. While she found Dorothy quite boring, she wanted to add her head to
the collection. Dorothy freaked out, as would most of us, when offered a less
attractive head (No. 26) in exchange. Langwidere has her imprisoned until she
agrees to give up her noggin.
Princess
Ozma of Oz to the rescue. Ozma along with some of her old pals like the Tinman
and Scarecrow and just happens to be in the neighbourhood on a mission that
would restore the Royal Family (that of Langwidere’s clan) to its rightful
place in the kingdom. Lanqwidere has to dedicate 10 minutes a day to the
affairs of the state taking away from her precious self-adoration time.
Here
comes the compelling communicator part.
Ozma
convinces the especially vain Langwidere that releasing Dorothy to join her
little army would help in their efforts… ultimately giving the shallow woman
more face time with her mirrors. It works and Dorothy is freed.
L.
Frank Baum had such wonderful, underlying lessons in his books. The Tinman
really did have a heart, the Scarecrow was already smart and the Cowardly Lion
was full of courage.
And,
Ozma was strategic in her communication.
Ozma
understood the ego of Princess Langwidere and appealed to the conceit to
achieve her objective. Sometimes we need to appeal to people’s negative attributes
to connect. Self-centeredness and narcissism are fairly prevalent in today’s society.
Without betraying your values or totally bs-ing, you can, sometimes, use
people’s less than admirable traits to your advantage.
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