Allgemein Archive - Page 60 of 159 - The Art of Communicating

So you want to shine?

Recently, I saw two concerts at a festival. One started with a 3 minute explanation of what we were about to hear: That this was her most political song, yet. Why it is structured the way it is. What it means to her.

The other started with the band playing a groove. Then, the singer entered the stage, stretched her arms wide … and began to sing.

We left the former performance after about 5 minutes and were mesmerised by the latter, glued to our seats for 90 minutes.

It’s the result of a profound shift in perspective. The first band’s major concern was to make sure that we see the brilliance of their music. The band leader worked hard to explain it to us so that we wouldn’t miss it. They wanted to make sure that we could appreciate it. They wanted to shine. They wanted something from the audience.

The second act’s major concern was to give their audience a great time by playing their best music. They did shine. They wanted to give something to the audience.

And so, the paradox outcome was that we appreciated the brilliance of the second performance while dismissing the first.

There’s an important lesson for any kind of communication here. When we ourselves don’t even trust in our own message but rather feel the need to have to explain it before we deliver it, how should our audience trust in it? Even worse: this bit of insecurity shows. Audiences are super good to sense when there’s a dissonance between what a speaker says and what she really feels – whether she really believes in what she says.

Our effort is much better spent with making our message actually brilliant than with explaining why our audiences should consider it brilliant.

2 minutes, twice a week

2 minutes, twice a week might be all it takes to level up your communication and tell your story in a way that it gets you the impact your story deserves.

2 minutes, twice a week is the format of my podcast. One tiny step at a time, it takes you on a journey to ask the right questions about how to tell your story. And find the answers that fit uniquely to you.

It’s not about recipes and formulae. It’s about the underlying principles of communication that allow you to find your own voice. Because we have enough of interchangeable communication. What’s missing is your unique take. My hope is that the “Leaders Light the Path” episodes can support you in expressing it in a way that’s uniquely yours.

When I started the format in January, I felt that we already had an abundance of longform podcasts that take you on a really deep dive on specific topics. What was missing was the short shots of inspirations. Of the kind that you hear in between two longforms. Or that you use to get that final kick just before you start your pitch. Or that you use as a start into the week.

If that resonates, I’d love for you to check it out. You can subscribe on all major platforms.

Empowerment

“Empowerment” is a fancy way of saying that you trust your team with making decisions.

Unfortunately, what some leaders mean when they use that word is that they really only trust their team to the extent that they make the same decisions as the leader themselves would – which, in turn, creates more insecurity than it creates empowerment: “Is that really the decision that the boss would have made?” So, the boss ends up remaining the bottleneck of decision making (a huge source of frustration for many teams.)

True empowerment goes beyond that. It grows from razor sharp clarity about a common goal and a feeling that this is the goal we all share. From the leader it requires the empathy to see how that goal aligns with the goals of the team and the individuals who form the team.

This makes communication one of the crucial skills of the leader. I call that “lighting the path”: This is who we are and this is where we go.

Having a path that the team aligns on, allows us to decide. It allows anyone to decide. When the team is focused towards that common goal, it simplifies decision making and empowers every team member to make decisions on behalf of the team. Not only does the leader care for the team but, in fact, any team member does. Because all care for the same thing.

The true core of your message

As the pandemic brought a lot of businesses to a screeching halt, many of them took this as an opportunity to rethink the path they were on.

Is this still who we are and where we want to go? What really matters to us going forward? How does that align with what matters to our customers? Of all the things we love to do, what’s the biggest positive impact that we can make?

In short, these businesses went looking for their true core.

Jonny Prest from Brand Master Flash and I had an interesting discussion about what that means for businesses, most importantly, what helps businesses to uncover the true core of their message.

I highly encourage you to check out Jonny’s podcast on brand stratgey. If you like our discussion on finding the true core of your message, I’ve assembled an exclusive offer for listeners of the podcast to dig deeper. Head over to Jonny’s page to learn more about it.

Kind of remarkable

The Blue Man Group is kind of remarkable. Actually, it’s two kinds of remarkable: “built in” and “on top”.

Built in remarkable is the way they play the drums. They are highly skilled to get fascinating sounds out of unusual musical items (mostly drums). It makes for a remarkable show that people speak about (read: “make remarks about”) long after.

I call it “built in” because there would be no show without these elements. You can’t make a drum music show without playing some kind of drums.

But there’s another remarkable component to the Blue Man Group, the kind that I call “on top” remarkable: the blue skin color. They could make the same show without the makeup. But they choose not to. It’s built on-top of the actual product to make it even more remarkable.

So remarkable, in fact, that you can’t speak about the Blue Man Group, without mentioning that they are, well, blue men.

And thus, just because it’s on top doesn’t mean that it’s not essential. In fact, the Blue Man Group came to be because the three founders drew the attention of MTV due to their blue masks. The blue faces helped spread the word much more easily. The group understood that there was no shortage of remarkable music shows but a shortage of blue men making remarkable music shows.

Here’s the best part: once established, on-top remarkable becomes something that others can’t copy. While there are a lot of great music shows, there is no second Blue Man Group (other than their own worldwide shows, of course).

What kind of remarkable is your product?

Status boosters

When you pass a new information along and when that information is in line with your reputation then the mere act of passing along can boost your status, e.g. …

You can be the first to know something, boosting your status as the person who always has the lastest info.

You can be the one who knows the research behind some finding, boosting your status as the person who others can trust.

You can be the one who knows the latest innovation, boosting your status as the one who knows all the cool stuff.

You can be the one who knows the latest gossip, boosting your status as the person who is well connected.

You can be the one who knows where to find the best deal, boosting your status as the clever trader.

You can be the one who knows a life hack, a path forward, a new idea, or many other different things … boosting your status in all sorts of different ways.

Aligning with this status boost is one of the most reliable ways to get others to pass our message along. What would it be for your message?

Opinionated leadership

Someone once told me that “there’s no prospering team that’s not led by a strong leader with strong opinions.” And, indeed, reality seems to prove this. Look around and you’ll see examples of strongly opinionated successful leaders everywhere: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, John Chambers, and many, many more …

Yet, strong opinion gets often confused with micro-managing – leaders who interfere with the tiniest decisions, leaving their teams with severe uncertainty about what’s the right thing to do.

What gets easily overlooked is that the opinions of great leaders are much rather related to the direction of their teams, not the decisions, to their vision, not the execution.

You hire great people precisely because they are the ones who know what to do. They don’t need you to tell them what to do – and even more important: they actually don‘t want you to.

It’s a major source of frustration for them when you do so constantly. It slows everything down when you become the bottleneck of decision making. (And on top of that it can quickly lead to a feeling of overwhelm for yourself). The worst part: Quite likely the best talent will sooner or later leave if they don’t get the freedom to make decisions.

This is why lighting the path is such a powerful approach. When everyone on the team aligns with a common goal, one that you as a leader made them see and agree on, it allows anyone to decide. If your team is focused towards a common goal, that goal simplifies decision making and empowers every team member to make decisions on behalf of the team. No need to micro-manage.

When you light the path for your team, you can trust them with making the decisions! Your opinions are better spent on the path rather than on how people walk the path.

The two kinds of suspense

There are two types of suspense: artificial and intrinsic.

Artificial suspense is what TV casting shows do to you right before an ad brake. They could tell you but don’t – because they know that as soon as they’ve told you, tension falls apart and you walk away (possibly disappointed because the reveal fell short of the promise).

Intrinsic suspense is the opposite. It’s what great stories do. They do tell you! Because that’s precisely why you want to know more.

Revealing the information opens up your curiosity as opposed to shutting it down. It’s much more the start of a new thread rather than the end of the previous one. Rather than walk away because you got what you wanted, it makes you stay because you want to know what happens next.

The same can be achieved with a great marketing story – when your story is so relevant that your audience absolutely needs to hear more about it.

It could e.g. be an eye opener … exactly what they wanted to hear … just what they’ve been looking for all along without even realising it themselves.

And so they beg you to tell them more: How does that work? What would it cost? What would we need to change? What are the requirements? Is there more to it? Can this be applied to other problems? When can we start?

If your product is that good, if it’s exactly the product your customers have been waiting for, then you can skip artificial suspense. You don’t need to hold the best part back. You can reveal it because it’s precisely the thing that makes them want to know more.

In essence, the relevant question to ask is not “How do you make your topic exciting?” but “Why is that crucially relevant for your audience?”

And if it isn’t … then, sure, you can reach for artificial suspense. But the better approach would be to work on relevance.

What’s hard about slogans?

It’s not really hard to come up with a great slogan that grabs someone’s attention.

What’s hard is to come up with a slogan that’s true to who you are and grabs the attention of those people you seek to serve.

The former problem requires some creativity. The latter requires empathy. The crucial difference? You can buy creativity. But you can’t buy empathy.

How cool is that?

“How cool is that? I can speak about my idea for 30 minutes and everyone’s going to listen? Wow! This is great. Let’s get to work. I want to make sure that this is going to be the best presentation we ever did.”

Well, sadly, this was a rather unusual way of looking at things. More realistically, reactions are often more like this:

“What? Thursday? Impossible! I still have to write that report plus a bunch of meetings. How long did you say? 30 minutes? Phew. Martin, you did a similar presentation the other day. Can you send it to me? Let’s see whether I can just wing it from there. Yes, Wednesday is fine. I won’t have time to prepare, anyway.”

Crazy, isn’t it? And yet, it’s the typical reaction.

But honestly: Where else do you get 30 minutes of exclusive attention from an entire audience other than with a presentation?

So, what are you going to do with it the next time this opportunity opens up for you?

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