What do employees think about their employer?  What do Americans really want today?  What do people say they value about things like the environment?  What are they ready and willing to do about it?  What words and phrases resonate positively with the public?

These are the kinds of questions Frank Luntz deals with daily.  Luntz, who I met through several of his recent books, is a communication researcher and consultant.  Of Luntz President Barack Obama once said "When Frank Luntz invites you to talk to his focus group, you talk to his focus group." 

His most recent book, which I've been reading, is entitled provocatively "What Americans Really Want---Really."  The subtitle is "The truth about our hopes, dreams and fears."  The flavor of Luntz insights in response to the title is embedded in the following quotation from the introduction:

"We have become a prickly, schizophrenic society with contradictions and hypocrisies that would make even Eliot Spitzer blush.  We claim we want Social Security saved and strengthened, but then we vote against those who try to reform it.  We say we want less expensive health care, but then we rebel when it doesn't give us access to all the treatment we want.  We claim we want quality, but then we buy the cheapest item on the shelf.  So how do we prioritize in this tough economic, political and cultural environment?  The more you know about how people think and feel, the more comfortable you'll be in making either ten-dollar choices or ten-million dollar decisions."

Based on extensive public polling and focus groups, Luntz and his colleagues have delineated the dimensions of the ever changing American psyche.  Luntz notes that Americans are enthusiastic supporters of "bold action" for the greater good, but not very effective in personal participation and self-sacrifice in achieving it.  He continues that nowhere is this truer than in issues involving the environment, in part due to other more pressing issues elsewhere as well as the perception that environmental initiatives could affect other priorities in a negative way (e.g. by raising costs.)

Luntz contends that two recent events changed the way people regard the importance of environmental concerns.  One was Hurricane Katrina, the second Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."  These events raised consciousness about environmental issues and the expectation that both government and corporations address them more effectively.  But ironically, though not unexpectedly, the majority of Americans don't want to pay more in support of the efforts!

There is considerable relevance in Luntz' work to the mission of watershed organizations to improve and sustain the quality of our rivers, lakes and streams.  The ultimate challenge is to make people aware of the threats to water resources, to help them understand what they can do to sustain water quality, and to take active steps to do these things.  We know there is general public agreement that protecting lakes and streams from pollution is an important priority.  Promoting the next steps to act on this belief is the essence of the challenge.

In meeting this challenge, a reading of Frank Luntz' book will offer insight to all who labor in the realm of water quality and I recommend it to you.