CommLog

Our Approach To Presentation Design

A COLLEAGUE AND I have spent the past few days helping a number of client teams prep for a significant presentation to senior management. We do this from time to time, and when we do our focus is typically on message strategy and credibility. That said, presentation design is a heuristic for both, and we inevitably end up teaching the basics of good v. bad slide design at the same time.

At the firm we take an approach to slide design that is different from traditional corporate practice. Our basic philosophy:

• You are the message: A person can communicate with greater persuasive power than any slide presentation.
• Exception: Pictures that say a thousand words. But they REALLY have to say a thousand words. They should also be high-resolution images, or don't use them. Garr Reynolds has more to say about this, and he's right.
• Your slides should "do no harm": They should never compete with the speaker, and only augment the speaker's point. As a result they should be lean on text and lean on animation (there's only one slide animation that has any taste, and it's the slow fade). Otherwise the audience is paying attention to the slide and not to you.
• Ensure everything is essential: Keep the ink:data ratio as close to 1:1 as possible. This means killing chartjunk and following sound principles of chart and table design. It also means killing all that branding and those logos -- the audience knows who you are.

As we explain this philosophy we typically point people to the research of Edward Tufte, which I'll do now. There's also much more in the CommLog archives if you search for "PowerPoint."

Yesterday we spent a lot of time coaching around the physical design of slides so they best reflect our approach. As we did I referred to the "CRA presentation style" more than once, and thought it might be useful to describe the physical setup of our standard PowerPoint template here as an example.

Our PowerPoint template comes in two flavors: White background and dark background. Here's a shot of each. We use the dark background in dark rooms, and the white background in light rooms (you may click any of these images for a larger view).

We've honored the Golden Ratio by matching the proportions of the slide itself to that of the Golden Rectangle (1:1.618). In our case the slides are set to be 10" wide and 6.18" high. This "letterbox" look is more interesting, permits more interesting layouts, and looks great when you project.

We use Gill Sans font, our preferred font for headings in documents across the firm (we use Garamond for text). Gill Sans is easy on the eyes, has an interesting feel to it, and holds up well regardless of text size.

When we use images (which we prefer to do over text ... they help convey an emotional dimension) they're always high resolution, and often full screen.

When laying out images and text, we turn on PowerPoint's "guide" function and set our guides so they reflect the "rule of thirds" and make layout choices based on the guides and their four points of intersection (for more on this go here).

When we DO use bullets, they're a simple as possible ...

So that's our template setup. We think it helps our on-screen stuff be more effective, which is our goal. We've also been inspired by the good taste of Garr Reynolds; go see his stuff. Hope the above is of use.

Technorati Tags: powerpoint, presentations, garr reynolds, information design   

Tips for Intercultural Communication

While doing some client research on intercultural communication, I found this simple article from HBS's Working Knowledge. The author offers tips for communicating with a diverse workforce:

1. Learn how the source culture best receives communications.
2. Train international employees early and often.
3. Train the non-foreign-born, too.
4. Assign mentors and take care of the spouses.
5. Practice open-door communication--carefully.
6. In company-wide communications, avoid jargon and slang.
7. Play by the rules and stick to business.

Some of these tips remind me of what we take away in business from uncertainty reduction theory, a seminal theory in intercultural communication. The theory proposes that we seek to reduce uncertainty in our communication interactions. We do this automatically by making predictions at the cultural, sociocultural, and psychocultural level. In other words, we make assumptions about other people based on prior experience or accumulated knowledge. When we communicate with people we don't know or with individuals from an unfamiliar culture, it's critical that we check our assumptions and seek to learn about one another by making factual observations, asking questions, and disclosing personal information that prompts a reciprocal response.

Actionable Email

This post at 43 Folders, in which Merlin Mann asks "how many actionable emails do you get each day?" (he also has a poll up), prompted me to post this comment:

I get plenty; they're nearly all actionable. That said, I (and the folks in our firm) receive significantly less that our peers in other organizations, and certainly less than our clients.

Why?

1) We put "pull" information where it belongs: On the web. The core of our intranet is a blog, which we use to post any information that would otherwise find its way into an email distribution. If someone's hosting lunch at Chili's for Suzie from AR's birthday or there are Dunkin' minis in the break room, you need to check the blog to know. And if you miss something important because you don't read the blog, you're accountable for the miss.

2) We do a good job of matching message to media based on the principles of "media richness." (Read more about media richness here). The result is that we spend more time in face-to-face or telephone conversation, which is more efficient than email for a whole range of topics.

Works for us, and thanks to the liberal use of David Allen's Getting Things Done Outlook add-in across our firm, we nearly all go to bed each night with our inbox an empty box.

One of the reasons our IC practice has pushed blogs so hard with clients isn't because we have a high level of latent geekiness (well, not all of us). It's because one of their benefits is a significant reduction in email traffic. Over the three years that blogs have been the foundation of the CRA Intranet, employees have become wonderfully conditioned to (1) post anything there that's of interest to the group, rather than emailing it, and (2) check there on a regular basis.

As a result, nearly any internal email we get is either one-to-one or one-to-few.

As to media richness, certainly go read the CommLog post I linked to in the comment above and download its primer (it's a PDF file). When I speak about communication, especially to leaders, I hammer the point of media richness: the more uncertain, strategic, persuasive, or relationally important a topic is, the more it requires media closer to face-to-face conversation.[1]

"Uncertain" involves a lot of daily business discourse, but it typically doesn't mean "earth-shaking uncertainty." Indeed, most of these conversations are routine. Trying to set a meeting time among three people is a routine task. It also involves a large amount of uncertainty, which is why it's so difficult to do via email--the feedback channel for the medium has significantly greater lag than that of a telephone conversation.

We overuse email because it's in front of us and it's cost-efficient. But getting off your keyboard and on the phone, or face-to-face, often produces faster and better results.

1. More on these issues here.

The Latest on Team Coaching

As a former academic, I find myself still perusing academic journals from time to time (yes, I’m a nerd!). More often than not, however, I find an interesting article consisting of great theory and impressive empirical results, but, let’s be honest here…… such articles can be painfully boring to read. Still, an article published in the most recent issue of one of the most prestigious management journals, The Academy of Management Review, is worth a closer look. Hence, I offer you my quick and dirty translation of this article…… In our coaching business, many of our clients are taking advantage of a program we call “Coaching4Teams” an innovative program which combines one-on-one coaching and team based learning. In their latest article, A Theory of Team Coaching, Richard Hackman of Harvard University and Ruth Wageman of Dartmouth College tackle the question: How much of a difference does team coaching make to team performance effectiveness? Great question, right? I thought so. According to the authors, coaching behaviors can and do help teams achieve and sustain team performance effectiveness, but only under certain conditions which may surprise you......

The More You Talk, The More You Learn

Many leaders are so tied to their BlackBerrys that they view face-to-face conversation as more of a nuisance than a learning tool. But in an email era, this IABC-sponsored article “In Praise Of Small Talk” re-affirms something we’ve been telling our clients for years: employees prefer face-to-face communication with their direct managers. The article echoes our advice to leaders: make time for talk, use smart questions, build partnerships, share experiences, and create a clear & common purpose—-all things difficult to do over email. A client recently called to tell me that, after struggling to convince his CIO to engage in these “informal conversations," his boss is now a big believer in them. And the organization is seeing huge benefits. The informal leadership conversations they’ve organized with small groups of employees have reduced uncertainty during a recent outsourcing, improved performance, uncovered new information, and helped discover ways of working better. We know you've heard it before ... but if you want to be a smarter leader, consider leaving your BlackBerry at home for the day and start talking.

Show Production Lexicon

Over the years I’ve compiled a list of key terms used by production crews for stage events. They use a language all their own, and if you’re not experienced in the theater, most of it sounds like nonsense. Still, it’s always good to talk to experts in their own language, and you might find the list useful before you participate in or coach someone for your / their next big speech, town hall, or convention. I’ve posted it in the extended entry.

Keeping Up With Employees During Outsourcing

Most organizations have outsourced, are in the process of outsourcing, or are considering outsourcing and conducting a "sourcing evaluation." Fact. As we've worked with our clients during each of these stages, we've learned many lessons about the process and how employees (both in and out of scope) respond to the news. One of the most important lessons relates to how employees educate themselves about the outsourcing industry. In-scope employees are often just as savvy as the executive team about the pros and cons of outsourcing and how it will affect their business. They read offshore newspapers, download whitepapers, and participate in online message boards to stay informed, among other things. So this morning when I finally checked out my FierceCIO email update from Friday and saw this, I immediately thought of the employees who may be "in-scope" and also read it...I know the article has made its way around most organizations by now. (The article is about a recent study of organizations who have outsourced. It seems many of these organizations are unhappy with the result. I question the validity of the research, but now that it has made its way to popular press, most will not scrutinize that aspect of the study. You may download the full article from Information Week here: Download file.) I also know that those employees who have read it are in the process of crafting a question to post on the intranet Q&A page or getting ready to ask it at the next brown bag or town hall (or have even emailed it to your CIO). So what do you do? # Don't be surprised. Communication professionals need to be as informed as the employees during an outsourcing evaulation or process. There are plenty of email updates you can subscribe to via Google, FierceCIO, Yahoo!, and others to stay up-to-date. When you see articles like this, make sure your leadership team isn't surprised either. # Don't deviate from your original messaging. Articles like this do not change why your organization has decided to think about outsourcing or the process you're using to make sure it's the right decision for you. # Email the article to employees and proactively address it. "We know you saw this. We saw it, too. It doesn't change the reasons why we've chosen to look at this." This will make some leadership teams squirm...pre-test the idea with a pulse group or other informally networked employees and provide that feedback to your leaders if they're unsure about the idea.

The Paul Newman Principle (Again)

Last December I had a client come to me with this request: “I want to give the speech of my life.” He’s a CEO, the leader of an international company, and this March he was to give the keynote address at the convention celebrating the company’s 40th year in business. Last weekend he succeeded, delivering one of the most powerful and moving speeches I’ve had opportunity to see. What’s more, his #2 and #3 executives also gave powerful speeches, each in the unique style of the man doing the talking. Since then I’ve reflected on why this suite of speeches was so good, and why my client’s speech was so wonderful in particular. The answer is: “Practice.” I met with my client three months prior to the show date to discuss strategy for his address, to unpack his emotional and rational themes, to identify his headline and main message, and to discuss structure and length (20 minutes is my general counsel, by the way). He then wrote his own speech, taking time over the year-end holidays to do so. We then met twice before the show to run through the comments, hear the flow, and try on stories and metaphors; to hear the words come out of his mouth; to test where he could truly connect with this content and where the connection was forced. On the weekend of the show, he reserved not two run-throughs, not two hours, but two days of green room and stage time to practice. While he only went through the speech twice on stage, he practiced informally perhaps a dozen times, with me (at that point) simply coaching for confidence and connection. And then he knocked it out of the park. A standing ovation before he was finished; tears in his eyes and the eyes of the audience. There are only two reasons he was so good, and neither is me (as much as I’d like to take the credit). The first is that his speech was honest: he, not a speechwriter, wrote the first draft, and his content was totally honest as to what he thinks and how he feels. The second is that he practiced. And practiced. And practiced. I’ve posted before about the importance of practice for presentations and speeches, describing my time in a green room with Paul Newman before another client’s address (another client who also practiced—running through his speech perhaps 50 times over two months—and who also knocked it out of the park). Since then I’ve taken to telling that story and invoking what I now call “The Paul Newman Principle”:

He wasn’t practicing because he’s Paul Newman, he’s Paul Newman because he was practicing.

These are very busy executives. They both run international organizations of enormous scale. But they make the time to practice for their public appearances, and the more important the appearance, the more time they devote to practice. So, you, too, can give the speech of your life and enjoy a reputation for compelling communication that drives an organization forward. But it means practice, and if you want those kinds of results, you need to be honest with yourself about the time and practice you’re willing to commit. If you don’t invest the time, you won’t reap the value, plain and simple. Besides: if it’s good enough for Paul Newman, it’s good enough for you.

Turn Off Auto-Check And Get Back To Work

Merlin Mann over at 43 Folders is yet another advocate for turning off the auto-check on your email application. I've done this, and I've advised most of those whom I coach to do so as well. As Merlin writes:

If you’re doing anything with new email more than every few minutes, you might want to rethink your approach. I’m sure that some of you working in North Korean missile silos need real-time email updates, but I encourage the rest of you to consider ganging your email activity into focused (maybe even timed) activity every hour or three. Process, tag, respond to the urgent ones, then get the hell back to work.

Indeed. Executives today need fewer interruptions, not more, and certainly not one every 60 seconds. Besides, if anyone TRULY needs you that urgently your phone will ring. So turn off the auto-check, pull down your email every hour or two, and get back to the work at hand. Update: More on managing the e-tide over here. Tip-o-the-hat again to Merlin.

Albright On Communication

In CIO Magazine's Albright On Communication, Information And Negotiation, "former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright shares her secrets for persuading people even tougher than Larry Ellison to do what you want." For instance:

CIOs sometimes have to deliver bad news to their bosses or boards of directors that could threaten their careers. What's the best way to deliver bad news effectively?
If you have a tough message to deliver, you have to deliver it straight. You have to make sure that the message, whatever it is, is clearly received. Otherwise, invariably, somebody will come back and say, "Well, that isn't what I got out of what you said." You need to make sure that there is no question about what it is you actually said.

How would you do that?
For the most part, you try to get the person in subsequent conversations to repeat what you said. Not by saying, "Repeat to me what I just told you," but you go back to the subject to see if they fully understood. If they start acting like the relationship still goes on as it was before, then you know they didn't understand.

The Apprentice: A Casual Study In Leadership (& What Not To Do)

As a person interested (obsessed) with business, leadership, and human behavior, I admit to watching The Apprentice. It’s like having a free human behavior lab on call, and with the wonders of TiVo, I can go so far as to watch non-verbal micro-behaviors in slow motion (to test my ability to, say, detect deception). Great fun ... if you’re a bit odd, like me. Regardless, last night it struck me that, especially in the early stages, the show is a gold mine of “what not to do” coaching points for emerging leaders. So without any promise of consistency or quality, here are my observations from last night. If you’re a new manager or director, take note. The first set fall under a category I’ll call “Don’t Be A Todd”: * Take Responsibility: Todd, the striking and perfectly-dressed (with one exception that I’ll highlight in a moment) sales manager was dismissed last night, with cause. His leadership was terrible in general, but in particular he refused to take immediate responsibility for the failures of his team. He violated the “buck stops here” rule, a cardinal rule of earning credibility and trust. (What’s worse, he actually went so far as to shift blame elsewhere, a death move if you ever need to work in teams or influence without authority.) * Never Place Yourself Above Any Task Performed By Others: Todd refused to be trained on the core restaurant tasks as were his team. This not only made him appear elitist, when his team needed him on the line he couldn’t pitch in. Great managers earn respect by being better at line tasks than their crew. Great leaders never place themselves above any task the people beneath them have to perform. Todd blew both. * If You’re Male, Know What Shoes To Wear: I was impressed by Todd’s dress until the last minute of the show, when I saw he was wearing brown shoes with his dark grey suit. Men: Grey, navy, or black suit ... black shoes. Brown or earthy suit ... brown shoes, and sometimes a blue suit if they’re dark and of high quality. Slate ... can go both ways. With what can you wear cordovan? A navy suit if the shoes are well polished; otherwise earth tones, and never black or grey. The other observations fall under a general category: * Don’t Be Afraid To Reflect Your Principles: When everyone else was piling on Danny as the problem (and scapegoat), Kendra , when asked, laid responsibility at the feet of Todd. Her point: No matter how bad Danny might have been, Todd's job is to lead someone like Danny, and he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t the popular thing to do at the moment, nor the most expedient in terms of her own survival, but it reflected her personal view on leadership. It was a principle-based comment, and because it wasn't the popular view, it was noticed by Trump. * Only Dress Like A Danny If You Want The Role Of A Danny: If you’ve not seen the show, Danny is the iconoclast of the group, with creative, artsy dress among the sea of his very corporate-looking competitors. Last night Trump asked the others if his dress was appropriate. They all said “no.” But it was a trick question: The answer is, “It is if you’re a Danny.” What do I mean? Danny is an exec for a marketing firm that uses the web to market client’s wares. And I guarantee you that not only are his clients un-phased by his dress, they expect it. They expect a guy who looks creative/geeky to walk through the door. If he didn’t his initial credibility would suffer. So: if you ARE a Danny, you should dress like a Danny. My answer to Trump’s question: “He is if you want him to lead your web/creative function, but not if you want him to lead anything else.” The flipside: If Danny aspires to something different, his dress is a limiting factor. That’s not fair, and it’s not noble, but it’s the way it works.

Use of the Active Voice

As internal communications professionals we know that good writing is a prerequisite for success. All the same, many of us slip into informal language when writing for business. In e-mails, letters, or memos make your style powerful by using the active voice consistently. Always use strong verbs, and get to the point with clear, easily understood language. Use of the passive voice sends a message of uncertainty and in the business world is a way to avoid responsibility for action. Note the difference: Passive: By the end of the month, a decision will be made. Active: Senior leaders will decide by the end of the month. Passive: The research will be presented by the CEO. Active: The CEO will present the research. Passive: Mistakes were made. Active: We made mistakes. Items we write for senior leaders reflect on them as well as the company. The impression sent by these pieces in particular can have a huge impact on employees. While there are occasions where it is appropriate to use the passive voice—such as when it is more important to bring attention to the receiver of the action, or when communicating in an authoritative tone—in the battle of the passive versus active, your active inner voice should usually prevail. For a refresher on avoiding the passive voice click here

The Heart of Change

The Heart of Change reminds us to speak to the heart — and not just the mind — when leading a change initiative. The article's suggestions:

• Relate the WIFM (What’s in It For Me)
• Sell the benefits
• Praise individuals

Kill The Cliches

If you're tired of touching base with your empowered work force through enabled environments, MarketingProfs reminds us of eight reasons to avoid cliches:

# They don't register. When faced with a cliche, we zone out. They just take up space and ensure that our audience will stop reading or listening, even sooner than they might otherwise. # They're a "cop out." It doesn't take skill to use them. They basically indicate that the user was too lazy to be creative or pull the thesaurus off the shelf. # They're confusing. Because they're ambiguous, cliches can mean a million things to a million people. Use uniquely appropriate words. # They're flat. Cliches aren't vivid. They do not stimulate the senses. (Worth noting ... vividness is a marker of confidence.) # They have no emotional impact. Since we've heard them before, they don't cause our hearts to skip a beat. # They do not result in changed behavior or a new understanding. If you're trying to get someone to buy your product or prepare for layoffs, the worst thing you can do is use a cliché. The best thing is to say it straight and clear. # They don't differentiate you. If you're a car manufacturer, why use the same stale advertising concept that the competition uses? Don't show us another winding road. # They're habit-forming. Once we use them, it's easier to use them again. If you don't believe me, try writing an entire business letter without using one cliche.

Communicating During The First 100 Days

Since the Reagan administration, corporate leaders have been attuned to a presumed need to communicate during the mystical "first 100 days" in a new leadership role. I was recently asked by a client to compile our thoughts on the topic, and I thought the general thesis would be of interest here. The first several months of a leader's tenure are important because that leader's constituents hold a set of expectations for the leader and the role that are, for the most part, malleable. People take a "wait and see" approach to new leaders--and this is equally true of a familiar leader in a new position. Employees and stakeholders--while familiar with the leader--are unfamiliar with how that leader might execute his or her new role, and with the expectations the leader will have of others as he or she does so. The bottom line is that for the first few months people are on the fence. The naturally optimistic temper their hopes with a bit of caution, and the naturally cynical suspend a bit of their judgment. Constituents, whatever expectations they may hold, are looking for the leader to either confirm their expectations (doing what they expect) or disconfirm their expectations (doing what they did not expect, be it better or worse than their expectations). It's an important time because the research demonstrates that it's a much easier persuasive effort to convince an "undecided" than it is to change the mind of someone who's mind is already set. So this suspension of expectations represents an opportunity for a new leader--but it's a necessarily short-term opportunity. With time, constituents will interpret the leader's behavior and decide if the leader is or is not who they thought, making up their minds as they do. The key issue is that constituents will do this whether a leader actively communicates during that time frame or not, so the point of a cogent and aggressive communication approach during the first several months of a leader's tenure isn't just to get the word out; it's to frame constituents' understanding of the leadership conversation--the expectations, the corporate direction, the leader's character--during a time in which constituents are necessarily more likely to be amenable and persuaded. As such, we think leaders should view communication in the first three months as a persuasive activity--the leader is trying to get key audiences to believe, know, do or feel what he or she needs them to believe, know, do or feel, and is trying to do so during a window in which they're more likely to be receptive to those objectives. So what should the communication agenda be for the first three months? We suggest the following:

The Power of Color

MarketingProfs has posted an interesting article on the use of color in branding. While the article is primarily focused on external communications, we believe internal communication professionals can learn much from branding experts about effectively creating internal symbols and internal branding, and the piece is worth the read. From the article: "To make the most of your color, ensure that it… # Supports your brand attributes # Is relevant to your target audience # Is always the same shade and hue # Is visible to all members of your brand community, inside and outside the company # Is understood and appropriately used by all employees # Is featured on all your communications materials and sales tools # Is different from your competitors’ colors # Works in all parts of the world where you plan to do business # Is applied to more than just your logo # Comes with guidelines on its use for partners and affiliates"

Shackle The New Media

Just five years ago, you could actually conduct communication network research ... find out who talks to whom, and with what frequency, so you could identify the connectors and opinion leaders in an organization. Not anymore ... between email, instant messaging, cell phones, blogs, and all the other communication channels at our disposal, asking people keep logs of their communication (which are central to the research methodology) is now simply too difficult. But the demise of organization-wide network analysis isn't the only consequence of channel proliferation ... another, more important consequence is the rise of what we call audience inattention: the challenge of getting a recipient to attend to a message given the vast increase in the volume of communication in which most people now engage. But it's not just about awareness ... making the message stand out ... it's about retention ... having an audience attend to a message well enough that they process its meaning. The problem is described by Linda Stone, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Corporate and Industry Initiatives and founder of Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group as "Continuous Partial Attention." Regarding CPA, Inc.com noted:

[It's] just the way it is nowadays, said Microsoft's Linda Stone, vice-president of corporate and industry initiatives. Despite her bureaucratic title, Stone is a creative thinker who has coined the term continuous partial attention to describe the way we cope with the barrage of communication coming at us. It's not the same as multitasking, Stone says; that's about trying to accomplish several things at once. With continuous partial attention, we're scanning incoming alerts for the one best thing to seize upon: "How can I tune in in a way that helps me sync up with the most interesting, or important, opportunity?"

The coaching point: On the sender side, CPA is a significant problem. The only practical advice: keep messages concise, keep them consistent over time, and if you’re a leader, commit to communicating a few strategic messages with extraordinary depth, rather than communicating many things only marginally well. On the receiver side, you need to create space in your day and your work to process information. In coaching leaders we ask them to "shackle" the new media: to know when to turn off the cell phone, close Outlook or Notes, and process what they have. Stone notes this as well:

She says: "It's crucial for CEOs to be intentional about breaking free from continuous partial attention in order to get their bearings. Some of today's business books suggest that speed is the answer to today's business challenges. Pausing to reflect, focus, think a problem through; and then taking steady steps forward in an intentional direction is really the key."

Indeed. If you're attending to everything at once, you're attending to nothing. Disconnect from the media for a portion of each day and process ... you'll do better work, and the world will adapt around you.

Good Correspondence Hygiene (G.C.H.)

Did you shower this morning? How about write a note to an old friend? If not, Al Franken would say that's poor correspondence hygiene (P.C.H.) and it's bad for your network. In his book, Oh, The Things I Know, he takes an unsurprising, sarcastic slant on life's lessons, including the importance of writing personal notes. All politics and kidding aside, he makes a good point: "Personal notes are the glue that binds your network of valuable contacts together. Never miss an opportunity to make a new friend or touch base with an old one by writing a personal note." Leaders are known for writing short personal notes to the people that can help them accomplish their goals: "Former President George H. W. Bush is famous for spending the last part of every day writing personal notes to friends, supporters, and ofttimes, to people he just met ... In fact, many political analysts believe that the relationships forged by his simple act of common courtesy were the key to his ascent to the presidency."

What They Still Don't Teach You In B-School

In the current issue of Fortune, Stanley Bing offers sound advice to newly minted MBAs:

--Don't say everything that's on your tiny mind. In the beginning, reserve your thoughts for those who seek them. --Be nice to people. But don't be sucking on their ears every chance you get. Nobody likes an obviously insincere person, so keep it subtle.

True Professionalism

True Professionalism is a wonderful book by David Maister that lucidly and compellingly describes the art of professional counsel. It's a must read for advisors to leadership, be they consultants or staff. It’s also an apt description of Paul Newman, with whom I shared a green room prior to a client speech several weeks ago. Newman was part of the intro to the show, and he had roughly 30 seconds of text, all of which was on TelePrompTer. So there we are, 15 minutes before show time, and Paul Newman … who has won an Academy Award, been nominated for another eight, and been part of nearly 60 film productions … is practicing. I was quite struck by this. He’d had the text for weeks, was familiar with all 30 seconds of prose, and there he was, 15 minutes before the show, rehearsing. Of course, that’s part of why he’s Paul Newman, and a true professional in his own right. The lesson: No matter how great your talent, delivering a home-run performance in any public appearance, regardless of venue, requires practice. It’s what separates the pros from the amateurs, and unless you’re more talented at public speech than Paul Newman, it’s something to which you must commit time, energy, and attention if you want to succeed.

Remembering What It's All About

For our clients in leadership positions, those aspiring to those positions, or those looking to reinvigorate their leaders...a refreshing (and short) column from CIO on The Joy Of Leadership. One snippet... bq. Understanding the company objectives and how your actions affect the results is key to making a strong contribution...How you manage your budget, achieve diversity goals, add to the bench strength of the company through recruitment and development of employees, set and meet productivity goals, and act as a visible, professional representative of the company in external activities—these are all ways to positively impact the company.

With Email Requests, Less Is More

Attention email distribution list users: The more people to whom you send email requests for help or information, the longer it will take to get an adequate response. Why? The “diffusion of responsibility effect”:

the belief, conveyed by verbal or nonverbal communication, that others are capable of helping. Accordingly, if an e-mail sent through a discussion group is evaluated by its recipient as being sent to many individuals that are capable of responding, the diffusion of responsibility effect would imply a decreased tendency to respond.

Read more at Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, who advise managers to “keep their e-mails personalized whenever possible. It's that simple.”

Overcoming The Fear Of Feedback

It’s annual review time in many organizations and people are struggling with one of the most valuable forms of communication: feedback. People avoid feedback because they don’t like being criticized – plain and simple. But rather than waiting for the annual performance review to come along, effective leaders seek and provide feedback on a regular basis. As more leaders learn to ask for feedback they improve their own performance and create a more candid environment. Read Fear of Feedback to learn more about addressing the challenges associated with feedback. And here are some tips we offer clients to help make feedback part of their daily routine: * Use an effective structure—One way to frame your feedback in a more neutral way is by telling people what you appreciate most, what you would like to see more of, and what you would like to see less of * Be specific rather than general—Always use observable behaviors to illustrate your feedback and offer specific steps to change future behavior rather than focusing on the past * Recognize the smallest changes—Get in the habit of recognizing small changes in people and congratulate them

Managing Anger

We recently conducted a leadership development series on conflict management, and dealing with an angry counterparty was a prominent theme during participant discussions. The fact is that anger can often become an element of conflict, and when it does, it requires management just as surely as does the conflict as a whole. How to best manage anger? First recognize that anger is an emotional reaction: Whether you believe the other person is justified in becoming angry or not frankly isn’t relevant … you still have an angry person whose reactions you need to manage.

Communicating During Layoffs

An increasingly connected workforce creates new challenges for employers during already difficult workforce reductions. Websites (such as Internal Memos), email, message boards, and online news sources make all information public information very quickly and senior leadership teams more hesitant to communicate anything until the last possible minute.

The consequences? Former employees who believe they were treated unfairly and without respect because of untimely information and retained employees with less respect for their employer because of how their former colleagues were treated. What’s more, the untimely delivery of information creates an unproductive workforce as employees try to reduce their own uncertainty by discussing the situation with their co-workers.

The Coaching Point: Although convincing the senior leadership team to communicate everything they know as they know it is unrealistic, it is still imperative to manage to the employees who will remain after the reductions. Some general advice:

Communicate early. While it is unrealistic to communicate all information as you learn of it, there are pieces you can disseminate quickly. Doing so will create quick wins for leadership and the communication group and making a habit of it will increase the trust in information from those sources.

Communicate with candor. When questions come up that you cannot answer--either because you don't know or you can't tell your employees (possibly for legal reasons)--be candid and say "we don't know" or "we can't tell you." Your employees will understand, and will see this as a visible sign of respect.

Communicating Values

As we've posted in the past, employees discern corporate priorities and strategies first by watching management's policy decisions, and then by reading management messages. A recent Minneapolis Star Tribune story further illustrates the point, but in this case related to value statements. In the article writer Dale Dauten claims:

As practiced in most companies, a "values statement" is the gas that fills the leadership vacuum, a forgotten set of words on a poster that, when they are noticed at all, remind those who see them of the company's shortcomings.

We agree ... value statements (and their close cousin, vision statements) are often the most empty, and as a result least credible, of all internal leadership messages.

The Coaching Point: The answer is not to banish value statements altogether, but to communicate them via policy decisions (as did the company in the article) rather than via posters or wallet cards For example, if one of the corporate values is diversity, leadership can communicate the legitimacy of that value by implementing diversity training or similar initiatives ... doing so will communicate the importance of diversity with more impact and clarity than can any media product.

Communicate values through decisions, and then when you do produce a values wallet card or poster, it serves as a reminder of the credibility of those values, and not of a leadership team that talks values, but never acts.

Language Intensity

Description: Among several possible words that could describe a single idea, language can vary in its degree of intensity. As an example, “hate” is more intense than “dislike.” Communication scholars describe this variation as “Language Intensity,” and it refers to the extent to which language deviates from neutrality. The variation from neutrality can be positive or negative: just as “hate” is more intense than “dislike,” “love” is more intense than “like.”

Why It Matters: Early research suggested that more intense language was more persuasive. Recent research, however, indicates that when a speaker’s language intensity matches the expectations of the audience, the audience will see that speaker as more persuasive and message acceptance is likely to increase.

The Coaching Point: You will be more persuasive if you successfully match the intensity of your language to the expectations of your audience. As a result, the key to leveraging language intensity is making accurate assumptions about these expectations. To aid in doing so, when drafting your comments consider issues such as precedent, the overall intent of the speech or presentation, and the audience’s predisposition (a favorably predisposed audience will respond better more intense language).

A Caveat: Audiences consistently view some forms of intense language, notably obscene and profane language, as inappropriate. Indeed, studies demonstrate that audiences perceive speakers who use profanity in their persuasive appeals less favorably, and as less influential, than those who do not.

Click here to download the CRA primer on Language Intensity with our compliments ...
Click here to download the CRA Research Notes on Language Intensity with our compliments ...
(These are PDF files. Click to download, or right-click over the link and select "save target as" to save to a folder. If you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the PDF file, click here)

Nonverbal Immediacy

Description: Nonverbal Immediacy is a term used among communication researchers to describe nonverbal behaviors that communicate liking, a positive evaluation of others, or positive affect to others. These behaviors typically include looking toward someone, leaning toward someone, touching someone in a non-threatening manner, sitting near someone, smiling, and speaking in an animated way.

Why It Matters: Research demonstrates that the more a communicator employs immediate behavior, the more others will like, evaluate highly, and prefer that communicator. Nonverbal immediacy is also positively correlated with perceptions of communicator competence, goodwill, and trustworthiness (all components of credibility).

The Coaching Point: In organizational settings, there are two coaching points related to nonverbal immediacy. The most obvious is for presenters: those who display immediate behaviors will be viewed by their audience with greater affinity and credibility. The less obvious coaching point is for supervisors: recent research demonstrates that supervisors who communicate with nonverbal immediacy are not only seen with greater affinity and credibility--they produce in their subordinates greater motivation and job satisfaction as well.

Click here to read the research (Communication Monographs, Richmond & McCroskey, Vol. 67, No. 1, March 2000) ...

Lexical Diversity

Description: Lexical diversity is a term used among interpersonal communication scholars to describe the range of a speaker's vocabulary. As an example, a speaker who only uses the term "approach" throughout a speech is not considered as lexically diverse as one who uses "approach," "strategy," "plan," and "program." She who uses "approve" four times is not as diverse as she who uses "approve," "permit," "sanction," and "authorize" once apiece.

Why It Matters: Research demonstrates that audiences consistently judge lexically diverse speakers as more competent, of higher social status, and more persuasive than a low-diversity counterpart. The effect is stronger still the more formal the situation, and it doesn't lie only among spoken communication: lexically diverse written messages demonstrate the same positive effects as well, and often to a greater extent.

The Coaching Point: Break out the thesaurus. While it's possible (and often easy) to take the range of vocabulary too far and appear pretentious, as a general rule important communications--especially those in formal social situations or those that are written--will benefit from favoring a solid range of well-understood synonyms over otherwise common-place language.