Communication Counts E-Book

Mary Civiello

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 344

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Communication Counts differentiates itself from other books on communication, presentation, and media relations because it directly confronts the biggest challenges facing anyone who needs to communicate anything today: listeners' time constraints and distractions. Written by renowned communications expert Mary Civiello, this detailed book offers a unique "modular" approach that will enable you to say what you need to say, in a way that it can best be heard and remembered, in a time frame that can be suited to any situation.

Leseprobe

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Be Bright, Be Brief, Be Gone

Part I: A Word in Edgewise

Chapter 1: Your Lips Are Moving . . . but Is Anyone Listening?

The Forgetting Curve

Did Someone Say Stress?

The Myth of the Captive Audience

The Forgetting Curve’s Silver Lining

Essential Elements of Speaking

Even the Best Can Blunder

The Message Tripod

Chapter 2: Message in a Module

Simply Seven: Message Module Categories

Connecting the Dots: A Case Study of Seven Simple Modules

Train Your Brain to Think in Modules

Chapter 3: The Fear Factor

Yikes! The Physical Aspect of Speaker’s Fear

What Will They Think of Me? The Cognitive Aspect of Speaker’s Fear

Fear of Fear Itself

The Eighth Module

Part II: Message Boot Camp

Chapter 4: Audience

Is Anyone Here but Me? Overlooking or Misunderstanding the Audience

WIIFM: What’s In It for Me?

Audience Always Matters: Show Your Respect

Do Your Due Diligence for WIIFM

An Audience of One: Matching Modules to Decision Styles

Chapter 5: Substance

Ignoring the Elephant: Three Reasons People Miss Their Headline

Writing Your Headline: Finding the “Aha”

Think Like an Ad Writer

What to Avoid in a Headline

Linking Your Headline to Other Modules

Headline Study: A Public Relations Director

Freshening Your Headline

The Solutions

Chapter 6: Style

“V” #1: Visual Elements

“V” #2: Vocal Elements

“V” #3: Verbal Elements

Variety: The Spice of Speaking

Chapter 7: Time Sense

Our Patience Is Thinning

Cut to the Chase

Jolt So They Don’t Bolt

Time Your Modules, Adjust as Needed

Overtime Is a Crime

Part III: Presentation Situations

Chapter 8: Hold That Elevator

Be Ready with a Boilerplate

“Got a Minute?” Keep It Conversational

Respecting Boundaries: Moments Not to Seize the Moment

First Minute, First Impression

Chapter 9: Meeting Modules

The Five-Minute Formula: Meeting Meat without the Fat

Meeting Jousts: Disarming Your Challengers

Back Pocket Modules

Know Who’s Across the Table

Meeting with Style

Chapter 10: Main Attraction Modules

Kitchen Sinks Not Required—Just the Garbage Disposal

Creating Your Modules in Order

Coming Up with a Context Module

Creating a Catchy Signpost

Proof Positive: Finding Facts, Analogies, and Anecdotes

Rehearsing for Long Presentations

Cutting It Short?

Chapter 11: The Power to Cure PowerPoint and Master Other Visual Aids

PowerPoint: Use It; Don’t Be Used by It

Slide Content: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Talk Back to Me: Visuals as a Road to Interactivity

Should You Go with Video?

The Art of the Flip Chart

The Power of Props

Another Visual Aid Is You!

Chapter 12: “That’s a Good Question”

Prepare to A the Qs!

Don’t Just Take Questions—Ask Them

Facing the Tough Questions

Handling Difficult Audience Members

The Sound of Silence

Chapter 13: Sharing the Stage

Team Talk: A Resonant Symphony

Team Style, Team Spirit

Panel Presentations: Mixing It Up

Chapter 14: A Moveable Feast

Know Before You Go: Ask Who, What, and How?

Tips for the Traveling Presenter

Part IV: Managing Your Media Moment

Chapter 15: Reporters and Those They Report To

Remember Who’s Watching, Remember Who’s Reading

Reporters Are Different

Research Your Reporter

No Press Bashing, Please

Chapter 16: Making Your Message the Story

The Wrong and Winding Road to Media Prep

The Right Prep, the ROI Prep

Modules for Media

Media Question Control: Softballs

Media Question Control: Hardballs

Handling the Ambush

Chapter 17: Serve It with Spice

Loosen Up, Lighten Up

Controlling the Picture

Chapter 18: Making the Most of Your Moment

Tick Tock . . . Top Time Mistakes

The Print Article: Size Matters

The TV Interview: “And Now for a Break . . .”

New Media: Is YouTube for You?

Part V: A Last Word

Chapter 19: Oh No! Dealing with Worst-case Scenarios

Equipment: Tackling Technology Terrors

The Room: If Your Space Is a Disgrace

People Problems: You’re Only Human . . . and So Is Your Audience

Final Thoughts . . .

About the Author

Index

Copyright © 2008 by Mary Civiello. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Civiello, Mary, 1952–

Communication counts : business presentations for busy people/Mary Civiello.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-470-17894-2 (pbk.)

1. Business presentations. I. Title.

HF5718.22.C58 2008

658.4'52—dc22

2007050505

Here’s to my wonderful husband Bill.

He never liked public speaking but by seizing every opportunity he now delivers the best toasts in town!

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank many people for supporting me in getting this book written. First and foremost, my co-writer Arlene Matthews whose organization skills are surpassed only by her great sense of humor that I think comes through loud and clear in this text. I want to thank Marguerite Guglielmo, my manager, whose contributions are too many to count, as well as the team at eSlides in New York that created most of the illustrations in this book. They really know how to make PowerPoint slides tell a story and they can do it faster than anyone I know. I want to thank David Pugh and Kelly O’Connor at John Wiley & Sons for believing in me, and Judy Hansen for putting us all together. I also want to thank my friends and clients for providing me with great material that I believe everyone can profit from.

Finally, I want to thank you the reader for investing in what is increasingly prized: the ability to communicate well amidst all the clutter. Communication really does count, and taking it up a notch isn’t tough if you make it a priority.

Introduction

BE BRIGHT, BE BRIEF, BE GONE

May I have your attention for a moment? No, really. May I have all of your attention, without your sneaking a peek at your BlackBerry or anticipating a cell phone vibration in your pocket? Can I have your undivided consideration—free from wandering thoughts about how to get the kids to their after-school activities or how much time you should really allow for getting to the airport—so that I can pitch an idea, ask for your support, or tell you a story that I hope will inspire you to change the way your do things?

Your attention is the one thing that anyone communicating with you must have if they want to achieve their goal. But let’s face it. In most cases, you’re not going to give it to them. Not unless they do a very, very good job of choosing the right message and presenting it: In just the right way in the right amount of time.

Now imagine the shoe is on the other foot. It’s time for you to get a message across. Deep down you know everyone else is as busy and preoccupied as you are. Yet, if you are like most people, you have not adjusted your communication strategies to fit today’s fast-paced, information-overloaded, attention-deficient world.

Recently I was working with a project manager at a startup company. She—let’s call her Jennifer—had a lot riding on the success of an upcoming presentation, and just about everything working against her. Jennifer had arranged a meeting with several large companies to try to sell them new software. She had a great product that could save businesses a lot of money, but she faced several obstacles . . .

1. The audience: Any group she faced was likely to be skeptical, since her company’s product involved a new application of technology.

2. The message: Jennifer was the kind of techie who didn’t just want to tell you what something did, but also everything about how it did what it did. As a result, her content was cluttered.

3. The timing: Her meeting was taking place at the end of a three-day trade show. No one would want to do any heavy lifting. They’d want to go home—or out for a farewell cocktail.

4. Her style: Jennifer’s response to short attention spans was to speed read—a sure way to meet a dead end.

Jennifer’s problems were all common ones. Her presentation was simply too long and too boring—a potential yawn-fest at any time, and especially so when time was running out. But we were able to boil her pitch down to the basics and add a bit of entertainment, which put her project in the fast lane.

As you read this book you will learn what worked for Jennifer and what can work for you. Your approach to communicating will change for the better, and you will be better the next time you are up at bat.

Communication Counts was crafted as a quick and simple go-to manual for everyone who wants to communicate in a cacophonous, too-much-information world where it’s nearly impossible to get a word in edgewise, let alone to have people remember it for more than a nanosecond!

As a former TV news reporter and morning anchor in New York City, the nation’s largest market, I have applied television news know-how to help everyone from top CEOs to college applicants communicate better. Why do TV techniques translate to the real world? One reason is because reporters have always had a finite time to tell complex stories, and because they’ve always had to try to keep people from changing channels. They don’t have to wonder if people have tuned out, they can get daily minute-to-minute reports showing when and how many viewers switched channels. In addition, TV techniques are perfect for business today because reporters know how to freshen a story for new and different audiences. At 11 p.m. no one wants to hear news they heard that morning. That doesn’t work any more than a pitch to analysts works as a speech to your employees.

Communication Counts offers time-sensitive, flexible strategies for one-on-one communication, group presentations, and—because Andy Warhol’s “15 minutes of fame” prophecy has come fully true—media interviews. It also offers a unique organizational approach that will enable you to say what you need to say, in a way that can best be heard and remembered, in a time frame that can be flexed to suit any situation.

The Modular Message

Today, each of us is required to be more verbal than ever before. Television, the ubiquitous medium, has raised the bar to where even the average person is expected to speak like a pro (even as TV has, somewhat ironically, helped shorten our attention span for listening to that speech).

We must communicate our news effectively and efficiently if we are to have a chance of being understood and well received. At-the-ready communication skills are an essential part of success in virtually any business endeavor. Unless you’re a lighthouse keeper or a desert island landscaper, you’ll get no free pass. (And won’t these loners be surprised when hordes of media descend for the next Survivor series?)

If you want to deliver your news and capture people’s stretched-thin attention, you won’t routinely find much useful training in school or in the workplace. Yet, we are all expected to know what to do and how to do it when we are asked to convey our ideas convincingly. Like it or not, we will be judged harshly if we come up short.

Enter what I call “modular” communications—the keys to your communication success. Think of a modular sofa you rearrange to fit an allotted space or to serve a certain practical function. Modular communication strategies are like that: interchangeable, rearrangeable, and expandable. They save you preparation time and add power and resonance to your words. They are easy to learn and easy to use. As Figure I.1 illustrates, you can arrange modular elements in a linear format (see Figure I.a), store some modules away (see Figure I.b), or even move and rearrange them around (see Figure I.c) as needed to suit the varying needs of your audiences.

Figure I Message Modules Sofa: (a) Linear and All-Inclusive Arrangements or (b) Store ’em to Save Time or (c) Move ’em to Appeal to Your Audience

Got one minute to make an elevator pitch for a new account? Two minutes to outline your business plan? Five minutes to convince a headhunter why she should submit your resume for that dream job? Twenty minutes to motivate new employees? As the various modular sofas illustrate, your message can be tailored for any occasion, any audience. What’s more, as situations change unexpectedly, you can instantly adapt your modular message. If that proverbial elevator gets stuck between floors you will know just how to embellish your pitch. If you notice audience attention drifting three minutes into your 30-minute speech, you can shuffle your modules to lure listeners back in. That’s because Communication Counts will help you develop your innate (but, until now, under-utilized) time sense along with who, what, and how communication essentials.

This user-oriented book is designed to help you cut through the clutter and bring your messages to the forefront when the stakes are high. It is based on the best presentation practices from my broad global client base and draws on the latest research from top business schools. It is written in a series of short, easily digestible chapters, which you may choose to read in linear fashion or dip into at any point for a quick tutorial or for a road map while writing your speech on a plane. And each chapter concludes with a brief “Top Tips” section to refresh your memory or to use as a cheat sheet.

Part I: A Word in Edgewise serves as an introduction and overview. It defines the key challenges facing anyone who needs to get his message across in a frenetic world. It introduces the concept of modular solutions and addresses right up front the anxieties that undermine so many potentially strong communicators.

Part II: Message Boot Camp delves more deeply into the concepts of audience, substance, style, and time sense, laying the groundwork for merging all these elements in a seamless delivery.

Part III: Presentation Situations walks you through preparation and delivery for a wide array of different speaking situations, from on-the-fly pitches to brief messaging in meetings, to lengthy presentations with or without PowerPoint, to team presentations, panel discussions, and more. For each situation, it shows how to think modularly about the four critical elements (audience, substance, style, and time constraints) and their connectors. It also shows how to think on your feet when situations change suddenly, when you’re faced with a difficult question or a challenge from a listener, or when you’re trying to get your message across in an international setting.

Part IV: Managing Your Media Moment is aimed at those of you who will be interacting with the media. Do not count yourself out no matter what your job, because these days this comprises a larger group than ever before. With a plethora of news networks and a host of niche print and online publications in need of 24/7 content, nearly everyone can—and probably should—avail themselves of the opportunity to get their message out via the media. Of course, media coverage is not always wanted, or indeed warranted, but that doesn’t mean it won’t occur. So this section also deals with making sure that challenging media moments are well managed.

Part V: A Last Word offers some final tips for worst-case scenarios, because sometimes life throws even the best of us a few curveballs.

When all’s said and done, Communication Counts will have walked you through basic and advanced techniques for every verbal communication situation likely to arise. You will know how to cut through the clutter in a broad range of situations when saying it right, and in the right amount of time, will tip the scales in your favor.

PART I

A WORD IN EDGEWISE

CHAPTER 1

Your Lips Are Moving . . . but Is Anyone Listening?

How many times have you overheard a conversation in the hallway at work that sounds something like this:

Employee A: Hey, you look happy. What’s up? Weren’t you just in a meeting?

Employee B: Yes, I was in the COO’s quarterly meeting on productivity.

Employee A: Well, did he have good news?

Employee B: No, not really.

Employee A: So productivity’s not up?

Employee B: No, but I think he said he’s got some plan.

Employee A: What kind of plan?

Employee B: Uh, can’t remember. But I’m feeling good because while he was talking I finally went through my file folder and decided where we should go for Presidents’ weekend.

We’ve all, no matter what our age, have the experience of picking up the phone to dial and forgetting whom we were about to call, of walking into a room and forgetting why we went there in the first place. Who am I calling? we ask ourselves. And: Why am I in the kitchen? In the brief moments it’s taken us to begin an action, our short-term memory has been disrupted by countless, unrelated, fleeting thoughts. Let’s face it: When it comes to remembering, we’re not so hot. So why does it surprise most of us to learn that few people remember what we say almost as soon as we say it?

More important, what can we do to become more memorable? That’s what this chapter will explore.

The Forgetting Curve

The fact that most of us are not so good at retaining information is more than popular wisdom. It has long been backed by sound social science research. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, pioneering German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus—perhaps best known for his research on the learning curve—developed what he (somewhat depressingly, I think) termed the “forgetting curve.”

The forgetting curve illustrates the decline of memory across the passage of time. And it’s not a pretty picture.

Ebbinghaus’ classic memory math tells us that people forget:

40 percent of what they hear by the end of a presentation.60 percent by the end of the day.90 percent by the end of the week.

This basic forgetting rate varies little among individuals, yet one fact remains constant: Everyone forgets.

This statement is as true today as it ever was, if not more so. A recent, often-quoted study found that the attention span of a contemporary audience starts to slip ever so slightly after—wait for it, wait for it—nine seconds.

The Open and Close Effect

There is news you can use in that study: Audience interest is always high at the beginning of a talk, steadily slips, and then bounces back when the presenter lets on that they are about to close. Use that information to improve your presentations. Summarize periodically, and use other equally effective techniques that recapture attention throughout the presentation. I say jolt so they don’t bolt, so their minds don’t wander and they’ll wonder what’s coming next (see Figure 1.1). That is where my message modules will come in. You will learn how to jolt in Chapter 8, so stay tuned!

Figure 1.1 Listening Curve and Cure: Jolt So They Don’t Bolt

Did Someone Say Stress?

Another dynamic that Ebbinghaus noted was that people are apt to forget what they hear even more quickly when they are under stress. Now far be it from me to underplay the life stressors that existed back in the late nineteenth century. People back then worked hard and had families to care for, just as we do. They had far shorter life expectancies and, hey, they didn’t even have the option of chilling out at night by channel surfing and snacking on microwave popcorn.

On the other hand, our contemporary environment is chock-full of memory-sapping stressors that no one back then could have imagined. The plethora of modern technologies apparently designed to enhance and simplify life has added a complexity component that is growing exponentially. Technology—everything from cell phones to laptop computers to PDAs—have compounded our conviction that we must maximize every moment, and meet, without exception, all others’ expectations of us. Now, if you aren’t available 24/7, you’ll be asked why not.

So what’s the result? If we are trying to send a message and present information we are faced with countless obstacles that prevent our words from being memorable. That is if—and this is a big if—those words even register in the first place.

The Myth of the Captive Audience

Perhaps you are thinking that, at least in certain settings, you, as a speaker, will be exempt from the onerous memory math phenomenon. Can the forgetting curve apply to your listeners, you might wonder, when what you have to say is so critical? What if you’re the boss or the keynote speaker or the highly paid consultant? Won’t people automatically pay attention then? After all, there is something in it for them.

In a word: No.

Given the nature of the human brain and the many modern forces working against you, you should assume that there is no setting whatsoever where a speaker has a captive audience. Even if a group of employees, customers, board members, or industry analysts are obliged to be physically present for your talk, their minds can be—and usually are—elsewhere. How easy is it for people to pay attention when their cell phones are shimmying, their Blackberries are buzzing, and their laptops are merely snoozing—ready to reawaken with the gentle press of a finger?

If you want people to buy your product, buy into your plan, sign on your dotted line, or ask to learn more about your topic of interest, you’ll need to learn to take memory math into account.

No, you can’t change the human brain and you can’t change the world, but you can change the way that you make business presentations so that your audience understands your message.

The Crawl

Starting in the late 90s, many TV news shows instituted a permanent fixture known as “The Crawl,” which is an endless text scroll of news bits that runs across the bottom of the screen.

Figure 1.2 is a montage illustrating the crawl on various news programs. Notice that news appears on the bottom of each television screen and can be distracting to viewers.

Figure 1.2 The Mind Crawl

As an exercise in reality checking, imagine your listeners’ minds as “crawl-enhanced” television screens—with a constant stream of tempting distractions continually flowing by. Now remember: It’s your mission—not theirs—to keep their focus on you. How are you going to do this?

The Forgetting Curve’s Silver Lining

So, now for the upside of the forgetting curve. (Yes, there is an upside.)

Retention rates can be increased in a number of ways. One is for listeners to actively work on honing their memory skills. But because you have no control over whether your listeners will choose to devote time to mnemonic training (Nintendo DS Brain Age, anyone?) I won’t dwell on that option here.

What I will dwell on is this: Research from Ebbinghaus’ day onward shows that retention can be improved by packaging messages so that they are:

SimplerCatchierMore concreteMore distinctiveMore emotionally salientMore immediately relevant

Ebbinghaus showed that the forgetting curve is steepest for nonsensical material; conversely, people better remember vivid or traumatic material. Naturally I’m not going to suggest that you traumatize your audience (at least not if you can help it). But I am certainly going to suggest that you steer away from nonsense (an all-too-common currency in business-related speech) and instead say something different, say something differently, and make it say something to your audience.

Your first step on the journey toward memorability is to take an honest look at what may be some very poor communication habits so that you can uncover the essential elements of communicating in a memorable way.

Essential Elements of Speaking

Memory math is daunting, but it’s not the only thing working against us. The other memory-erasing element working against most of us is, well, us. We simply don’t know how to say things in a memorable way because:

We haven’t taken the time to understand what motivates our audience.We are unclear about exactly what message we want to send.We fail to convey our message in a manner that makes an emotional connection.

Don’t believe me? Consider the following real-life scenarios:

Scenario 1: Facing an auditorium of adolescents and their parents, the director of a prestigious summer academic program offers what he thinks are compelling reasons why teens would want to attend. For 45 minutes he elaborates on the inability of public schools to stimulate gifted kids and the frustrations of inventive students who are systematically bored. He lingers on his word-by-word recitation of PowerPoint bullet points, yet rushes through photos of what actually appear to be last year’s program participants having fun. The parents look mildly interested. The kids, however—yes, the ones who are so easily bored—sport glazed facial expressions that imply recent mental departures to, say, the Andromeda Galaxy.

Scenario 2: A best-selling mystery writer gives a talk before her reading and book signing at an independent bookseller. The audience consists of devoted fans, all presumed book buyers. The half-hour prereading talk is about book tour experiences. The author’s anecdotes are entertaining, but ultimately she communicates nothing except that she hates to do book tours but has to sell books. The potential book buyers can’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable. Are they to infer they are putting the writer out? It’s getting late. Should they stick around to buy a book or two as planned, or just call it a night?

Scenario 3: An executive at a big banking firm dislikes public speaking. He has his speeches written for him, then uses his prep time to nitpick the content, looking to add bigger, better numbers and changing words like “strong” to “robust.” His staff dutifully takes notes but shares looks of dismay. They know he is purposely doing anything but what he should be doing . . . practicing his delivery. On an occasion where he will be addressing deep-pocketed potential clients, there is a bright spot in the script before him: an engaging story about how his firm helped grow one small business. But that story is the first thing the speaker cuts. In its place, he plugs in another graph he will describe in a monotone. Halfway through his talk, audience members begin to look longingly at their iPhones, their fingers twitching.

Each of these speakers has committed a cardinal sin of neglecting a communication basic. When communication counts, which is all of the time, speakers need to focus on four key elements:

1. Audience: Whom are you talking to? Whom are you trying to convince? What keeps them up at night? What do they already know, and what do they still need to learn?

The director of the summer program failed to realize that if he wanted to persuade adolescents to do something, he needed to talk straight to those kids, citing things they cared about.

2. Substance: What, exactly, are you saying? Does your content support your message—or does it ignore or even undermine it?

The touring author should have known that if she wanted people to buy her books, it wasn’t smart to send a message that alienated fans.

3. Style: How are you saying what you say? Does your delivery reinforce and enhance your words? Are you colorful as well as clear? Are you perceived as enthusiastic, charismatic, and sincere? Is anyone getting excited?

The corporate executive seemingly did everything in his power to take the vibrancy out of his speech. No matter how impressive the big numbers might be, they won’t have the desired impact if they’re camouflaged by flat recitation, rather than coupled with a story people can picture and thus remember.

Finally, all of these speakers have ignored the fourth strategic element needed to get their messages across. It is the most important element in a crazy-busy world, where people are pulled in all directions by competing messages and where the nonstop background noise of technology and media drone endlessly.

4. Time sense: How long do you have to make your point? How long can you reasonably expect to hold people’s attention given what you’re up against?

Both the summer program director and the novelist exceeded their audience’s reasonable attention span. Kids weaned on Sesame Street jump cuts, video games, and text messages are a notoriously tough crowd. Then again, so are mystery fans that stole time from their already overscheduled lives for what they thought would be a relaxing break. These days, it turns out, everyone’s a tough crowd.

As for the banking executive, he erred in the other direction. He could have held his initially eager audience longer if he’d served up his message with spice, and if he’d included the anecdote that explained what his company did for a small business along with an analogy that conveyed the idea, “If we can do this for them, think what we can do for you.” He cut his presentation to shorten it, but he cut out the wrong material.

Even the Best Can Blunder

You might think each of the people in my examples would have known better. After all, each of these speakers is bright and accomplished. What’s more their various occupations depend on communication. But where, exactly, would they—or any of us—have learned the most effective presentation strategies for getting our messages heard? Even those who endured the obligatory public speaking class in high school or college could hardly have been prepped for today’s information-saturated environment. We’re not speaking in a classroom environment where certain standards of academic decorum (combined with a fear of angering the teacher) keep fellow students at least respectfully feigning attention. We are speaking in the equivalent of a three-ring circus—surrounded by competing attractions.

Making the Grade

If the public speaking course you took in school wasn’t the high point of your academic career, there is still hope for you. A transcript of Martin Luther King Jr.’s grades from Crozier Theological Seminary show his lowest grade was given in public speaking. He received a C.

In these last 7 years as a communications consultant and 20 years as a journalist, I have seen many brilliant speakers, but I’ve also seen virtually every communications misstep in the book made by people from all walks of life. I’ve noticed that our verbal communications landscape is populated with a lot of people who:

Want to be quoted but are unwilling to say anything.Want to be controversial but are unprepared for a contentious reception.Fail to anticipate the obvious tough questions they will be asked.Fail to customize their presentation for this audience.Divulge too much, or too little, personal information.Ramble when time is short.Anxiously rush their messages when time is ample.Wander off message and never find their way home.Kill a momentous message with monotonous, redundant visuals.Choose jargon over genuine and memorable content.Fail to pinpoint the one key idea they want to leave with their listeners.Don’t tell listeners what to do with the information they’ve given them.Appear completely unenthusiastic about their own message.

We’ve all witnessed how a communication snafu can derail a politician’s campaign (think John Kerry’s botched joke about working hard in school or “ending up in Iraq”) or cast doubt on even an iconic megastar’s judgment (think Tom Cruise’s take on mental health as shared with Today’s Matt Lauer). But let’s not cast the first stone. Sure, we’ve all been victims and innocent bystanders when it comes to communications debacles—but we’ve all been perpetrators, too.

The Message Tripod

To remedy communications calamities, start visualizing any communication you plan to make as a tripod, atop of which a camera is perched. As you can see in Figure 1.3, the three legs of the tripod are Audience, Substance, and Style.

Figure 1.3 Tripod of Communication

In photography, balancing the tripod is critical. If one leg is too short, your shot will be off or missed completely. Similarly, if you don’t think about what your audience or listeners care about, what substance or message you most want to send them, and how to style or package that message, your communication will miss the mark.

But let’s not forget about the “head” of your tripod. What’s holding it all together is time sense. Every speaker should have a firm idea of what his audience’s attention span would be under the best of circumstances. And they must know, as well, what to do when circumstances are less than optimal or when things take a sudden turn and they have to expand or, more likely, shorten their presentations.

In Part II of this book, Message Boot Camp, I’ll look at the legs and seat of the communication tripod in detail. But before I do I want to introduce you to a very important concept that underlies Communication Counts: the idea of modules. Because modules provide the flexibility you will need to tailor a relevant, exciting message to any situation.

For now, remember this: You have to do more than move your lips to make an imprint upon someone’s already overcommitted brain. Regardless of what you’ve learned, or failed to learn about communication in the past, you can avoid missteps from this day forward if you keep sight of who, what, and how communications basics while working hard to ensure you never, ever wear out your welcome.

Top Tips

1. People forget over half of what they hear in a presentation by the end of the day, so make it memorable.

2. Summaries recapture attention so summarize periodically rather than just at the end.

3. To boost your message potency, think about the communications tripod: audience, substance, and style—as well as how much time you have to talk.

CHAPTER 2

Message in a Module

These days everyone needs to have a stump speech, a boilerplate that says what you do, why you do it, and why you do it better. It must be flexible, allowing you to shorten, lengthen, or shuffle it around depending on where you are, to whom you are talking, and how much time you have. Don’t leave home without it. It is as essential to have on the tip of your tongue as any of the high-tech gadgets you want to have at your fingertips. But be prepared to do a bit of thinking before you “pack.” You’ll have to answer a series of questions, and once you do you’ll be able to quickly prioritize and organize your message into movable, customizable blocks—those elements I call message modules. Remember, message modules are like modular pieces of furniture: the sofa with sections that can be quickly expanded when the in-laws arrive; the modular home entertainment unit with parts that can accommodate changing configurations of everything from giant plasma television screens to itty-bitty iPods. Wherever the modular units land, however, and whatever they hold, they appear exactly right—as if they were meant to be arranged exactly the way they are. As this chapter will show, modular messages serve the same function. They are portable units of essential information that can be tailored for a specific audience at a specific time, and every time tell a captivating story: your story.

Simply Seven: Message Module Categories

There are seven types of message modules that appear on the modular message sofa. As you may notice in Figure 2.1, each of the types appears on a seat within the modular sofa. As discussed in the introduction, these modules are flexible, bendable, and moveable so that your message can be tailored to a specific audience while conveying a specific message. Moreover, you do not need to use all of the seven parts of the modular message sofa.

Figure 2.1 Message Module Parts

To begin, I’m going to give you a brief description of each of the seven modules:

1. The Headline Module: The headline module is the summary of your message. It is tellin ’em what you’re gonna tell ’em. It encapsulates your most important point—the one thing you want them to remember if they remember nothing else. Your headline should be so portable that not only you, but also your listeners should be able to take it along everywhere. In other words, if one of your listeners is asked back at the water cooler what you spoke about during your presentation that morning, he should be able to repeat your headline more or less verbatim.

2. The Context Module: The context module provides background information needed to understand or appreciate your headline. Usually the context module is brief and has something to do with the past. It might be how the competitive landscape has changed; it might be an overview of what alternatives were available to you; or it could be a summary of what you’ve learned from past experience. The context module might also contain some of your personal or professional biography as it relates to your credibility. Note that context can be inserted at any point in your presentation as needed. It does not need to come at the beginning, although it might. You can also break up your context module and use it in different spots as needed to strengthen your points.

3. The Points Module: Points support and explain your headline. They are sub-headlines that offer depth and detail. You should try to develop three message points. More than that and people will be hard-pressed to remember them all. Fewer than three and they will sound skimpy. Think about it; good things so often come in threes:

Earth, wind, and fire.Truth, justice, and the American way.Liberty, equality, and fraternity.

4. The Proofs Module: Proofs back up your message points. They come in three main types: facts, analogies, and anecdotes.

Facts can be financial or other metrics, accolades from a third party, an outside source, survey results, polling data, or outcomes of a study. Especially handy are facts that lend themselves to visual imagery, new and surprising data, or quotes from unexpected sources. Facts are absolutely necessary for credibility, but don’t make the mistake of piling fact upon fact. Be sure to shuffle your facts with analogies and anecdotes.

Analogies might make your blood run cold if you’re mature enough to remember the old SATs (kumquat is to fruit as lentil is to legume). But what I mean is that you should create comparisons that relate your key points to similar scenarios outside of work. For example, you may want to compare your content to a sport, to well-known historical events or to familiar cultural concepts that everyone understands and accepts.

Analogies Help Listeners “Get It”