O'Reilly and Milstein's book tell me that there are now 10 million avid users of Twitter (besides Stephen Fry), and colleagues and friends tell me that it is an important - vital - communications tool.
So, I guess it's time to jump in and start tweeting.
If you are in this game ahead of me, then you will find me with a username of johndedmonds. I'm off to read the book...
Today, 27th April, is the birthday of Samuel Morse. To celebrate, Google have this image as their logo on their home page today, so well done Google for being brave enough to trust in the power of the visual!
The UK's Local Government Association has compiled a banned list of the 200 worst uses of jargon, saying that such words and phrases must be avoided for staff to "communicate effectively".
The LGA's list includes suggested translations of some terms, such as "measuring" for the civil servant's favourite "benchmarking", "idea" for "seedbed", "delay" for "slippage" and "buy" for "procure".
Furthermore, town hall workers are urged not to use the words "mainstreaming", "holistic", "contestability" and "synergies".
All OK so far, but then they suggest banning 'Stakeholder Engagement', suggesting 'talking to people' as a better phrase. But as practitioners of project and programme management know only too well, stakeholder engagement is about much more than simply talking to people. Indeed, stakeholder engagement is one of the key themes that we should be addressing in all our projects and programmes.
Many of our clients identify that this is one of their weakest areas in their governance framework - why is that? Well, one reason could be that we all think that it is an 'easy' part of running projects and programmes that we take it for granted.
Moves such as banning the phrase are not going to help either.
No more stakeholder engagement?
Please, no - we actually need much more stakeholder engagement if we want success.in our initiatives.
For anyone who has a passing interest in communication skills, the new President's speech today was a 'must see'. If you did miss it then take a look at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/obama_inauguration/7840646.stm
This was a highly-anticipated speech, which, for me, delivered on many levels.
Commentators have already said that this speech will be judged by historians for how closely it comes to mirror Mr Obama's presidency.
That is true, but for now I think all communicators can learn from Mr Obama. Besides the content of what he said (which seemed to be right on the button) we saw his controlled passion (I cannot imagine a more highly charged emotional setting); his strong vocal delivery (emphasis, pauses, pace); and his thoughtful use of language (the power of creative linguistics).
My 'favourite' phrase, in that I thought it to be both well-written and a most important message was, "a nation cannot prosper long, when it favours only the prosperous".
A defining speech for a defining time perhaps?
This is an example of how to convey a powerful, provocative message using images and strong graphic type without using any voice. It demonstrates the power of the visual; and it makes us think...
In our Principles of Change Management course we look at the work of Howard Gardner, and how he demonstrated the need for successful leaders to embody a story. Those leaders that really make a difference all act on a central message or story that they are 'carrying'.
There have been two occasions this week when I have been reminded of the power of telling stories.
First, working with a client earlier this week, we were looking at how we might demonstrate Benefits Realisation as a result of programme delivery in situations where the real benefits may not be seen for many years, and then possibly in a totally different environment.
We eventually concluded that telling stories could well be a highly successful way of demonstrating to the sponsors that they were in fact moving towards the required outcomes and eventual anticipated benefits. These would be stories of changed lives, improved situations and increased prospect of further beneficial change.
Then today, I have been reminded of the importance of telling great stories. On Bert Decker's blog he describes a presentation from Nancy Duarte. Telling great stories was her first key point.
As Bert says, Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds have changed the process of creating and presenting in less than a year with their influence, blogs, and particularly their wonderful and complimentary books Slide:ology and Presentation Zen. She is worth listening to.
Telling stories is not the childish pastime that the 'once upon a time' image above might lead you to believe. It is a powerful leadership and presentation tool that speaks directly to us in so many ways.
So, what is your story?
Distance Learning has a great number of benefits - for example it enables learning to take place at the pace of the learner, whenever and wherever the learner wishes it to happen. But there is something that it can never do, something that good, old-fashioned 'classroom' training can do, and do well.
Face to face contact. One human being in the same room as another human being and helping them with their learning experience. It's a benefit of classic 'classroom' training that is difficult, if not impossible, to replicate.
I was reminded of this recently while running a workshop. I had explained an important aspect of the workshop to the group and had covered all the necessary points. Job done - except that it wasn't.
It was clear from the looks on the faces of the group members that all was not well; the important point had not been assimilated, in fact they were more confused than they had been before. No one had spoken, but it was evident from the facial expressions and the body language that I needed to re-visit that training intervention and try again. Which I did, this time successfully.
But it was only by seeing the faces that I knew that it had happened. And it was only through them seeing my face that they knew that I knew it hadn't worked and that I was going to correct it.
Face-to-face contact - you can't beat it!
Great advice from Communications Guru Bert Decker:
A smile seems like a minor or superficial communication skill - but it is very important to creating a positive communication experience. Michael Phelps is a winner who does exactly that.
But CEO's and leaders of companies, and any one who speaks for that matter, are winners too. Or they should appear to be when they are taking the stage and advocating their winning ideas. Yet how many smile - and show their own personality. Most are way too serious, or look grim, which is exactly the opposite of the message they most often want to convey.
Smile and the world smiles with you, and will want to listen, and even keep you around.
This is the third post in which Patrick Mayfield and I have began to publish our interim findings on this research over our two blogs. For the last post see: The First Emergent Pattern: Self-Awareness
_________________________________________________________
So, where is the pro-activity that Patrick discussed in his blog being deployed?
The second major finding that is emerging from our Mental Crib Sheet research is that alpha-trait managers have a distinct bias towards developing and maintaining relationships. We are seeing a correlation between the pro-active time that is being built into the working week of our managers and the time spent in managing relationships.
The self-aware, pro-active manager seems to believe that relationships are central to success. They are thinking about their mental landscape, and on that landscape they see the vital importance of stakeholders.
This bias towards relationships is seen in the amount of time that is dedicated to communicating with stakeholders. Alpha-trait managers are committing between 60% - 85% of their time to communication. We know that's what the books tell us we should do - but they are doing it!
They are not just 'ticking boxes'. One respondent who, as a result of the study, recognised that they had not proactively developed relationships described their approach to managing in this way:
"I've just done it in a sort of auto-pilot mode...".
The pro-active managers are thinking about their relationships in a real and active way.
Another point is also emerging here. we are seeing managers who are not just using the formal line structures of their projects and programmes, but instead are looking to understand the political landscape, use the informal structures and develop their extended team. We are calling this the use of the tribal network.
Research from Harvard has indicated that personal performance is actually predicated on being part of a team. Individuals that were performing at a high level (stars) experienced a drop in that performance on joining a new team.
This leads to questions about whether we really understand the role of the manager in extended teams, and again whether we are focusing in the wrong areas.
We can measure the maturity of our organisation; we have the means to carry out health-checks on our projects, programme and portfolio; we give a lot of attention to the individual practitioner's performance. All these are valid areas of focus. But are we missing a vital ingredient, are we forgetting the role of the extended team, the tribal network? It seems our alpha-trait managers are not.
For the next part of our findings - the third emergent pattern - see Patrick's blog at http://pearcemayfield.typepad.com/patrick_mayfield/
In Bert Decker's latest blog he talks about Barack Obama's use of the teleprompter. He describes how stiff he is in the use of this technology.
Interestingly, he goes on to say that he has mentioned it to dozens of people and they don't even notice, But at the unconscious level people do notice, and it takes away from smooth, natural and confident impact of a speaker.
I agree. I think that we do notice these things, but that we do not know that we are noticing. It's not just the use of teleprompters - we are processing so many things on this unconscious level, all of them affecting the 'believability of the speaker.
Giving presentations with impact is one of the killer skills in today's world. That's why pearcemayfield have now launched a training course in just that subject!
Want to know more? See the course details
