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Internal comms person/plumber and lover of life's quirks

Monday 11 April 2011

Public speaking v death

It was US comedian Jerry Seinfeld who claimed people are more afraid of speaking in public than they are of death! While public speaking in not for the timid, speeches and everything that goes into creating memorable and persuasive ones are what keeps plenty of people awake at night and are what many of us will have to do during our career.
I would rather stick pins in my eyes than stand on a giant conference stage and spout forth but apparently as long you have something worth saying (have a long, hard, honest think about that) and structure the whole thing in the right way, you need never suffer from 'glossophobia' again.
There are three vital ingredients for a great speech - 'head, heart and guts' in the right proportion.
For speakers it's all about empathy with your audience, making a personal connection with what you are talking about and sharing stories which reinforce the point you are making.
There are also a number of tools of rhetoric to include - from using imagery to asking questions and making contrasts. For the latter, Neil Armstrong said it all with : 'one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' And it's important to use wit wisely. Making a speech isn't an audition for a stand-up comedy routine - even if your audience end up rolling in the aisles and not for the right reasons. One-liners are better than set piece jokes, and self-effacing humour wins hands down. Here endeth the lesson.

Saturday 2 April 2011

Playground politics shape companies

A colleague told me a truly horrific story of an introverted CEO being forced on to the management conference stage with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder to the va va voom of 'Eye of the Tiger' at 90 decibels.
A salutary reminder that matching the appropriate comms style to a leader's personality is critical or can misfire horribly. Who cares what the guy has to say when he's being held up to ridicule? There is a richness in our individual personalities but you need to work with and not against it when comms planning, I once invited a child-psychologist-turned-executive-coach to share his views with a group of internal comms folk. The subject taxing us at the time was the issue of 'visible leadership'. I don't like the phrase but we had a giant employee survey to thank for quipping it and opening it up to misinterpretation. In essence, it was the age old challenge of how we could work with all types of leader to ensure people could see, hear and talk with them more. This is where our behavioural expert stepped in to explain how our personalities are largely formed in early childhood. Imagine, he said, you are looking at a school playground. You can probably see at a glance all the different characters at play - there's the boy who won't share his toys, the girl who is singing and dancing her way to the centre of  attention, someone tussling over the Wendy House, a child trying to get others to join in and, somewhere, there is bound to be a tiny tot in an angry huff!  Sure, you can be coached and trained to a certain extent, but your personality traits largely remain intact as you turn into a 'grown up' business person. Now be honest - who doesn't see themselves or their colleagues in this story?  Over to the wonderful Joyce Grenfell:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/oom2EPuNPv8