Women and Men

One of my clients told me about a previous coaching experience she had in her career. The (male) executive coach sat down in the conference room and said to her: "You've been assigned to me because I'm the coach who understands women".

Wow! My first reaction to that outrageous statement was: "how can any man be that arrogant or that stupid?" I've been married for 25 years and still don't understand women. I share that ignorance with 3.5 billion other men on the planet Earth.

What I do know is when it comes to communication, most people tend to focus on what is different about men and women. After coaching 3000 people in the business world (roughly 65% men and 35% women), I'd like to take another approach. Let's focus on a few things we have in common as communicators:

We talk too fast. Try to pause after big points; punch key words; breathe between sentences and vary your pace - brisk for matter-of-fact information and deliberate for critical information.

We listen too fast. Try to listen quietly with less head nodding; use fewer "right, right, rights or sure, sure, sures"; take a silent breath before you respond and occasionally build your point off what the other person said to build a bridge between their point and yours.

We slump in our seats. Try to sit up toward the front of your chair; take up more real estate at the table by freeing up your elbows and aim for an upright neutral posture while speaking.

We lean too much. Try to keep a level head and when making a key point get your hands and arms off the table or chair to gesture with purpose.

We smile at the wrong times. Try to keep an appropriate "mask for the moment". You don't have to look like a prison guard, but avoid smiling while talking about serious things. It diminshes your gravitas.

We breathe weakly. Try to breathe from the belly up, not the neck up. Lie down on the floor at home, put a big heavy book on your stomach and breathe in and out. You will discover your diapraghm - the "bellows in your belly" that powers your voice.

We don't cut to the chase. Try flipping your message on it's head and lead with your conclusion. Your audience will love you for it. It you meander your way to the point, your audience will want to strangle you.

There are many other things we share as female and male communicators, but I'll stop here. If we focus only on gender-specific weaknesses, we can fall into the trap of thinking of only gender-specific strengths. We all face the same hurdles and demons as communicators. As Indira Gandhi once said:

"My theory is that men are no more liberated than women."

When it comes to communicating, she was absolutely right!

P.S. If you want to learn from someone who really knows something about gender linguistics, read Deborah Tannen's work.

Reagan's Planned Effortlessness

We've had 44 presidents so far. Only one is known as the Great Communicator - Ronald Reagan. Some people think that speakers like Reagan were born with charisma.

Turns out he had a little help, from himself.

Douglas Brinkley, the historian and author of The Reagan Diaries, was on the evening news telling how Reagan would write down stories and even jokes he heard on index cards in long hand. He'd keep them in a shoe box or photo album and pull them out periodically to help him prepare for talks and speeches.

People would then hear him recount the stories or jokes at an occasion and they'd ask the pople around them; "where the heck does he get all this great material?".  Easy: he's been collecting it for the last 30 years!

You can use Reagan's way or you can use a little web camera to record a personal "greatest hits" video album of stories or jokes on your desktop or IPad for easy retrieval on the run.

Like Reagan did using pen to paper technology, you can build a mental library of great material - all ready for prime time.

If you think great communicators just wing it - think again!

Marking the Moment

Tonight President Obama marked a pivotal moment in American history - the killing of Osama Bin Laden - with a magnificently understated yet powerful speech. The speech hit every note perfectly and spoke to the gravity of the announcement without arrogance or celebration.

He connected the victory to the heart-wrenching deaths of 3000 Americans and the empty spaces left at their family dinner tables and inside their loved one's hearts. He honored the service of every brave American who had contributed to the war on terror, many of whose names will never be known. He wove a thread between this event and our national pride as Americans - that we will never bow to tyrants or give up the search for the murderers of our citizens.

This was Barack Obama's signature presidential speech.

Lincoln had the Gettyburg Address. FDR had his Pearl Harbor speech. Reagan had his Challenger speech. Kennedy had his Berlin speech. George W. Bush had his address to Congress after 9/11. To that pantheon we must add this speech, not in terms of soaring rhetoric, but in terms of the historic combination of message, moment and man.

Certain speeches make Presidents seem tall and others seem small. This speech highlighted President Obama's ability to switch gears from the levity of the White House Correspondent's Dinner to the seriousness of tonight. He was able to display great humor and trump his detractors deftly, all the while knowing full well what was afoot back in the Situation Room at the White House.

Congratulations Mr. President. You nailed this speech and delivered the message directly into the camera - to all of us.

Connecting with Emotion

We can learn many lessons from the Tragedy in Tucson. I won't try to enumerate them here. I will leave that to others more eloquent than I and simply join in mourning the loss of so many cherished lives and hopes and dreams.

President Obama's talk at the Arizona memorial service for the shooting victims of this horrific rampage has been widely hailed as "pitch perfect" by pundits and politicians across the spectrum of popular opinion. It worked for a lot of reasons. Above all, I think it worked because the President connected emotionally with the audience at the University of Arizona and with all of us watching on television.

Watch the speech on You Tube. Throughout he personalizes the victims as real people. Then, at 25:30 into the speech, he speaks of Christina, the lovely 9-year old girl who lost her life. For one of the rare times in his presidency, he spoke directly from his heart to our hearts, as a father first, then as a President. You could see the President catch himself, almost as if the enormity of the loss of that extraordinary young life hit him for the first time, as the father of his own 9-year old girl. It was a moment of genuine emotion we've rarely seen him share in public.

He did an excellent job in his speech and properly honored the dead with his measured and magnificent message. His tone was reverent, respectful and restrained.

There was another example of extraordinary communication yesterday on the evening news with Brian Williams of NBC.

It was a brief interview with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. She described visiting her friend, Congresswoman Giffords, in the hospital. She paints a picture for us of the miraculous moment Gabby Giffords opened her eyes for the first time since the shooting.

Go watch and listen to Senator Gillibrand in the link below.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#41065211

This is what I call "all-in speaking". When someone is mentally, physically and emotionally connected with their message to the point where you feel it's coming from their soul. Obviously she was amped up from relating a personal and tremendously emotional experience with a friend she loves who has been enduring a trip to hell and back.

The moment is instructive from a communication perspective. This was Kirsten Gillibrand at her absolute best as a communicator. She owned her stage, her message and herself.

Could she be this good in other communication situations? Absolutely! If she chooses to do so. The same as the rest of us.

It's not about skill - it's about choices. Yesterday Senator Gillibrand did it without trying. Her thoughts just poured out of her. Yet she could also achieve the same emotional connection with the audience by design.

Commit to your message. Own it. If you speak as President Obama and Senator Gillibrand did (from your head, heart and gut), you will connect with any audience, anytime, anywhere, on anything. Take a look and see what you think.

God didn't make the President and the Senator good communicators. They had to earn it. You can too.

Lessons of 2010

Here are a few things I learned from working with my clients this past year. Maybe they can be of some use to you as you reflect on your own communication style in 2011.

1. CEOs get nervous. Even more than us since they perceive the fall if they fail as longer and harder than ours. They stop taking risks as speakers - the exact opposite of what they need. Many settle for boring and safe vs. daring and dangerous. I encourage them to take choreographed risks on stage, relax and live a little.
2. Screw the slides - before they screw you. I see executives agonize over how to speak to slides created by someone else. Create arresting visual formats for (10 or less) slides, then make the information fit the design - not vice versa. If all you do is plow through a 30-slide data dump in front of an auditorium, you've failed yourself and your audience.
3. Practice with peers. There's no better way to hone your client skills than to practice in front of colleagues and get support, feedback and suggestions. Don't just talk about clients. Role play with colleagues as the clients. You're among really smart people who do what you do. Share client stories, tips, techniques and make each other better.
4. Master your core stories. There are probably half a dozen core stories that explain your business. First, identify them (philosophy, process, structure, products, brands are all candidates as core stories). Then write them out in 500 words. Then practice out loud till they become second nature. Then have a long and short version - an electric and acoustic version. Then take them on the road and try them out on clients. It builds a masterful mental IPod.
5. Videotape the "other" you. If you are quiet and reserved, videotape your "inner evangelist" talking about a passion of yours. If loud and expressive, videotape your "inner librarian" whispering in a more understated style about something important. You get to see the other side of your communication self and expand both your verbal and nonverbal versatility.
6. Connect with your people. Grab a few free minutes and bring someone who works for you into the office and try to draw them out. Focus on finding out as much as you can about how their job is going and how they're doing. You become a better questioner and listener. They will leave feeling you heard and understood them. We all spend too much time talking, when we shoud be listening.

Much more to come in 2011. As you take whatever stage you will communicate from this year, remember my motivational mantra: If You Believe It, You Will Be It.

Project Your Personality

There's an American football coach by the name of Eric Mangini. He used to coach the New York Jets a few years ago and was fired after a disappointing season. Some of his players called him the Penguin - perhaps referring to his round belly and frosty demeanor. The New York sports press lambasted him regularly for his terse answers and lack of any discernible personality as the team's performance inexorably deteriorated. Many folks thought he was mimicking the equally frosty demeanor of his mentor, a Super Bowl winning coach named Bill Belichick.

This year Mangini came back to New York as coach of the Cleveland Browns to play his old team, the Jets. He made the rounds of all the radio and TV media outlets and did the requisite number of interviews in the week leading up to the game. Low and behold, a different Eric Mangini emerged. He was expansive, expressive, open and approachable.

Many observers attributed the change to his maturation and added experience as a head coach and losing 70 pounds, plus being off the hot seat in the New York . All true. Cleveland has tough winters. New York has tough sports writers.

A funny thing happened though. I listened to three separate interviews and heard him use the same words in each one. I realized a big part of the change was his decision to be different by design. It wasn't that he didn't have a personality in his previous New York incarnation. He simply chose not to show it - perhaps in some vain attempt to project professional power by withholding any clue to the warm engaging person behind the icy and inscrutable facade.

What can we learn from this?

Life's way too short to waste time showing the world a facade. When you are speaking to any kind of audience, you may succeed or fail - just do it as yourself. Not some phoney baloney projection of what you think people want to see or the standard version of what your role requires. Be the real you. A) the world will like you; and B) if they like you, they will listen better.

There's this crazy notion that there are certain "born speaker" people in the world who possess charisma and the rest of us are destined for dullness. I say nonsense!

To me, charisma is all about connecting with your audience and being totally authentic in front of strangers. If you can do that in front of any audience large or small, you got charisma, baby!

So I respectfully submit to you the advice I gave in the very first post in this blog almost two years ago - Unleash the Real You! I've coached over 2000 people now on videotape. When the people I coach decide to switch from their "presentation" selves to their "real" selves; it's pure magic. Try it. We'll love you for it and you won't waste precious energy putting on a false face.

P.S. If Coach Mangini gets fired in Cleveland after the season (very likely) please note two things: 1) He should be more comfortable communicating as his real self for the rest of his life. 2) His old mentor, Bill Belichick, got started on his Super Bowl-winning run in New England after getting unceremoniously fired as the head coach in Cleveland.

Vault Your Vernacular

Do you have a vault?

Before you answer - what do I mean by a vault?

I mean a shared electronic repository for memorable words, phrases, examples, stories, analogies or anecdotes that your salespeople use when talking to clients about your business and your firm. You have people who go into client meetings and tell killer stories, use sticky examples and analogies, give colorful anecdotes and speak with memorable words and phrases.

The sad part - most of it gets lost in the ozone. They only get shared and re-used within small circles of people inside the firm who have access to that person. All these spoken words are part of the fabric of your culture and corporate vernacular. They need to be preserved. Not simply as oral history, but as shared tools to help people connect with clients and burnish the brand.

I know there are corporate intranets with terabytes of shared information about your company and your business to educate employees. Most of it is about as exciting as an Excel tutorial.

First Step - Create a vault. It should be electronic and able to capture audio, video and text for future reuse.

Second Step - Appoint a vault keeper. Someone with passion for capturing and sharing information and the judgment to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Third Step - Create a secure user interface. It should be a cool webpage where your people can easily upload text, video or audio to the vault.

Fourth Step - Market it. Encourage everyone in your firm who touches clients to upload their best stuff into the vault. They can record it on audio or video or simply send it in as text.

Fifth Step - Share it. Make it securely available to client-facing people any way possible - Webcast, Podcast, I-Phone, I-Pad, NetBook, Blackberry or SmartPhone.

You will give people weapons to re-stock their verbal arsenal and you will make each other better. Your clients will hear consistent messages and your firm's vernacular will become richer, deeper and way more vivid and memorable than it is now.

Get past all the 45 minute data dumps and boring product teach-ins and '"stiff-in-the-studio" informational webcasts. This is better. It's cheap, fast and global.

A couple of caveats about the vault before you start. Make it quick and digestible. Make deposits and withdrawls easy and in this age of techno razzle dazzle - don't make it boring.

Save a few bucks and tap the brains on board. In case you forgot, you tend to hire really smart people.