Booher BanterYour Resource for the best ideas to improve communications skills.

I just returned from speaking at the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) 60th Annual Conference and Exposition in Chicago. SHRM is the largest human resource management association in the world, and this year over 13,000 attended the conference! 

On the way to my mega-session, “10 Communication Strategies Every Leader Needs to Know,” I grabbed a copy of the SHRM Conference Daily. As fortune would have it, the newspaper reported the results of SHRM’s annual survey of employee satisfaction.  Guess what ranked number five on the list of reasons employees say they’re satisfied with their job?

You guessed it—open communication with their senior executives.

Communication makes the “top five” in many lists today:

• The most important ingredient in happy marriages.
• The most essential element in raising well-adjusted teens.
• The most vital skill in job-interviewing success.
• The greatest problem voiced by political parties in gaining support for their candidate.
• The most critical component of great customer service.
• The biggest challenge leaders experience in times of change and upheaval.
• The most frequent reason top talent joins a new team.
• The most frequent complaint employees cite as their reason for leaving an organization.

Communication may be the most important asset on your balance sheet. Nothing gets done until someone communicates an idea, a need, a problem, or a solution and then fosters open communication to develop a strategy and execute a plan.

Whether it’s writing or speaking, how well we communicate dictates how well we do business.

Posted at 11:19am in Communication—Interpersonal, General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

When asked to write a report, you might be tempted to simply present the facts, thinking, “But nobody asked me to make a recommendation; they just asked me to answer a question.”

Think again.  In most such cases, the reason someone has asked the question is that you’re the expert—the go-to person with the appropriate expertise.  They don’t want “just the facts, thank you, ma’am.”  They want your expert opinion.

When you go to see a medical doctor, do you expect an opinion along with your lab reports and X-rays?  When you talk to your financial advisor, do you want only a report on the effective yields of your portfolio or would you like the firm’s opinions about various investment options?

Whether you’re walking into the boardroom or writing a report, state a viewpoint or offer a recommendation.  Consider that a key value you contribute.

In his June 25 column in The Investor’s Business Daily, Cord Cooper helps the executive who “finds it hard putting thoughts on paper.”

Click here to read the story.

Posted at 11:32am in Communication—Interpersonal, Communication—Written | Permalink | Add Comment » |

It’s nice to hear the world’s richest man agrees with us.  In fact, he echoes what we at Booher have been saying for the past two decades:  “For the student, learning how to speak and write more effectively would yield benefits far in excess of those gained from the study of esoteric financial tools…. You show me the person who can communicate well… they can have an enormous impact and they will jump out of the pack in terms of hiring later on.”

Continuing his frequent criticism of business schools while at the International Institute for Management Development, the Swiss business school, Buffett went on to argue that just as these schools teach how to value companies and understand markets, they should include classes in basic written and spoken communication. 

Why are these topics not included in the curricula?  According to Buffett, to some extent they are “beneath the self-image of faculty.”

Many hiring executives think that a graduate degree guarantees basic writing and speaking skills.  Unfortunately, it does not. 

I still recall one of the first sales calls I made—two decades ago—to an executive at a potential client organization.  I introduced myself and the company with this brief overview, “We offer communication training, specifically business and technical writing and oral presentations.  We’ve been able to help people organize their ideas for greater impact and reduce their writing time—”

He cut me off in mid-sentence:  “We hire MBAs and they have all the skills they need when they come to work for us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t hire them.”   Click.

I’m sure that by now he’s had to eat those words.

In fact, most of the MBAs we talk to agree with Buffett about their graduate programs.  They regret that as students they’re forced to focus in their areas of specialty all too soon to the exclusion of these core skills.  The career-limiting truth:  People often don’t know what they don’t know—until a benevolent boss, colleague, or client takes them aside and points out the problem.

Buffett may have angered a few faculty members but heightened awareness for a few students who should send him a royalty check on their first million—as if he needs it.

Read more on Buffett’s comments at Financial Times, May 23, 2008.

Posted at 3:08pm in Communication—Interpersonal, Communication—Oral, Communication—Written, General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

I just returned this morning from the American Society for Training and Development’s International Conference and Exposition in San Diego, California, where I spoke on Creating Executive Presence.  After my session, talking with those at my book signings, and while chatting with visitors to our expo booth, the most frequently asked question was, “What do you think about the presidential candidates and their speaking styles?  How has their ability to respond to questions, think on their feet, inspire a crowd, and connect with people helped or hindered their chances of success?”

Then, of course, after the three final candidates spoke Wednesday evening at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in Washington, D.C., the pundits were once again analyzing the communication styles of Clinton, McCain, and Obama with almost as much commentary about their oratory abilities as their content.  The consensus:  Obama is the better speaker.

So my questions to you, blog readers, are these:

1. Do you agree with the analysis of the TV pundits?
2. If so, how much do you think the speaking styles of the candidates have helped or hindered each of the candidates’ chances for success in this race?
3. Do you think the typical American separates substance from style as they listen to the candidates? 

Here’s your chance to spout off on this issue of the importance of communication as a leader.  Let’s hear from you!

Posted at 12:20pm in Communication—Oral, General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

While I was hostage at the airport yesterday, waiting on my cancelled 4:30 flight, then waiting for my rebooked 9:05 flight, which then finally left at 10:50 (argh), I couldn’t help notice how airline agents handled the disgruntled travelers.  Some do well.  Others have difficulty offering an outright apology—an expression of “We’re concerned because we made a mistake/did something wrong.”   Agents personally, of course, do not make such decisions to cancel flights.  But airlines send them to the “front lines” to represent the company without equipping them with the right message or the right attitude.

There was no weather problem.  Neither was there a mechanical problem.  Passengers were left to guess why the first flight was cancelled (flight not full; unprofitable, probably).   No explanation about delays on the second flight either—except “waiting on a plane.”  No reason they couldn’t announce to us 200, plus passengers standing around the gate when that plane was expected to arrive and take off again.

As the various agents grew more nonchalant and/or sullen about answering questions, the passengers grew angrier and angrier. 

Failure to admit mistakes and poor service leads to outrage. Failure to express concern leads to bitterness. Survivors, even dying victims, forgive mistakes; they don’t forgive unconcern. 

Here are a few guidelines we teach in our interpersonal skills and communication workshops:

Admit or report problems and mistakes immediately.
Delay only compounds the problem—for yourself and others involved to correct the problem or control the consequences.

Focus on resolution.
Rather than wringing your hands about a situation, direct all energy to solving the problem yourself or suggesting solutions to others who must implement them.

Offer explanation to restore confidence.
Because people are not mind-readers, you have to explain why you made the judgment call you did, why the error happened, or your reasoning behind your actions.  Such explanations restore confidence because people understand mistakes.  In the absence of information, it’s human nature to assume the worst about the details of a mistake (for example, that you are careless or a poor decision maker).

Express regret about the outcome/situation.
Even if things are not your fault, you can express sincere regret over the situation without accept liability.

Be specific.
Make clear statements with specific details that show you understand the severity (or potential severity) of the situation/problem.  Avoid global, blanket apologies such as “I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.” Such vague statements are interpreted to mean, “I have no idea what kind of problem I caused, but if you want an apology, here it is.”  This merely incites bosses, customers, and colleagues further.

Concern connects people. In whatever situation—from product recall to layoffs to employee illness to accident victims to stressed travelers—there’s tremendous power in communicating concern.   Somebody should tell the airlines—at least until Congress acts and gets this mess fixed.

Posted at 4:14pm in Communication—Interpersonal | Permalink | Add Comment » |

Last night I was working late at the office, when a call came in to my extension.  Thinking it might be one of our consultants stuck in an airport, victim of a cancelled flight somewhere, I answered. 

The stranger on the phone responded, “Uh, …oh, …it’s you.  I, well, I didn’t expect you to answer.  I’m not prepared.  I, uh, I was just going to leave a voice mail with a few questions.  I didn’t think you’d be answering your own phone.  I’m just totally surprised.  Well, let’s see.  My questions:  I’m just finishing my master’s degree and hoping to change jobs, and well, actually I’m in a bank lobby right now and can’t really talk about it. I don’t have a lot of time to go into it.  I just called, thinking you wouldn’t be there. But now that I have you, maybe you could tell me what I need to know about this industry.  We’re starting a business very similar to yours and wanted to know if you could help us get started—things like …”

It seems that similar silly calls have been needling L.M. Sixel, columnist for the Houston Chronicle, as well.  She interviewed me recently for a column on phone and email manners.  Her complaint?  People who call and open with, “Did you get my email?”

But the problem is NOT just proper phone usage.  Email isn’t all that dependable these days either.  On three different occasions last week, we emailed items to people who never received them.  They had to call and say, “it’s not coming through—where is it?”  Four days ago, an American Express agent promised to email confirmation of a vacation itinerary “immediately.”  It hasn’t arrived yet.  So should I wade through all their phone recordings, pressing this and that, to find out what happened—or should I assume the agent just hasn’t gotten around to finishing the job?

The pressing predicament for all of us in the workplace?  All communication channels have become clogged.  Automated menus make it difficult to reach a human by phone.  Email gets snagged by spam-filters or lost in cyberspace.  Physical mailboxes contain little more than junk mail.  Cell phones lose signals and drop calls.

But before we blame it all on technology snafus, we have to look in the mirror.  Many of us hide behind voice mail routinely so that even Regis Philbin couldn’t get through.  We send email and hope for only email responses so that we don’t have to actually talk to people.

Both voice mail and email CAN be productivity tools.  But when used poorly, they can thwart communication of even the most competent and committed—and send customers fleeing to your competitors.

Posted at 3:00pm in Communication—Interpersonal, Communication—Sales, Email Hints, General Communication, Personal Productivity | Permalink | Add Comment » |

Attitude.  You see it a lot lately with politicians, pastors, or parents—especially when their kids get disciplined at school against their wishes.  Toss mixed messages and strong personalities into the pot, and you’ve got boiling conversation ready to blow and overflow.

Take yesterday, for example.   The caller says to me, “We’ve got a group here that needs some training in copywriting.  They’re all very experienced, seasoned pros.  They don’t think they have anything to learn so the instructor’s going to get a lot of attitude and have to handle some strong personalities.”

I’m a little puzzled at this point.  So I ask, “Oh, experienced people?  Your email this morning said you wanted training on the fundamentals?”

“Right.  They’re experienced and knowledgeable, but we need to train them in the fundamentals.”

“Hmmm.”  She didn’t seem to be aware of any contradiction, so I probed a little deeper to see what I’d missed in the transaction so far.  “Has there been a specific change that’s created the need for this training?  A new service offering?  Or a new product roll-out?”

“No change really.  It’s just that we’re going through a lot of restructuring.  People have been assigned to new departments, reporting to new bosses with new expectations and new standards.  New products and services to generate copy for—that sort of thing.”

No change?  I was beginning to look around for the hidden camera, wondering how my jacket color would work on TV.

The caller continued about her needs:  “We want the group to learn to be more creative. To think outside the box.  To write copy that’s more engaging.  To draw people into what they write.”

Okay, I thought, so now we’re getting clarity.  “Is there some specific event that prompted your request or this need?  Maybe some brochure or flyer that didn’t work well for you?”

“Not specifically, it’s just that everybody’s doing their own thing.  And we’re trying to get them to standardize what they do so that everything they write and design has the same look and feel.”

“Hmmm.”   I was trying to hone in here since I had something that was not directly contradictory. “So you want them to be more creative with copy—but within your standard practices about branding such as issues of color, paper, font, and so forth.”

“Exactly!”

What can you do when you subscribe to the standard “The customer is always right” even when the customer is contradictory?   Lead by asking questions.  And create awareness of the ambiguities in what they’re saying by asking questions—without making them defensive. 

That’s the tough part.  How do you know if you’re successful?  You get either attitude or gratitude.

Posted at 5:59pm in Communication—Interpersonal, General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

Last week’s investor meeting in New York is still keeping me awake at night.  (See my April 18 post: “The Power of Summary.”)   Imagine what kind of flashbacks I would be having had I been a CEO-hopeful on stage, spilling my guts and glory before the roomful of investors who’d flown in from around the world to find that dazzling gem-of-a-company to fund through its next stage of growth.

In case you didn’t read my last post, my role there was corporate advisor to a client team looking for venture capital funding.  Each of the 22 companies (out of the more than 100 companies that applied) invited to present their organization to the group had 10 minutes to make themselves glitter and win the gold.

But one by one, the CEOs climbed on the platform, clicked through their presentation slides, and for the most part, committed these same egregious mistakes as we see weekly in our presentation skills training:

1. No clear-cut theme or key message
2. Too much data for the allocated time, leading to information overload
3. Absence of techniques to help listeners retain the information
4. Slides competing with (rather than supporting) the speaker
5. Too many slides for the allotted time
6. No attention-getting opener
7. Absence of a prepared, high-impact close that focuses on action
8. Low energy
9. Difficult-to-understand voice—either rapid-fire delivery or mumbling
10. Boring visuals (bulleted list after bulleted list)

Sound familiar?  If so, consider using the above as your own “thou shalt not” checklist for the next time you take stage or coach a colleague.

Posted at 3:26pm in Communication—Oral | Permalink | Add Comment » |

Summarize Seriously. Doesn’t quite have the ring of the romantic movie Love Actually, does it? But that shouldn’t tempt you to trivialize the issue that surfaced yesterday in a roomful of investors willing to plunk down anywhere from $5-$100 million on some entrepreneurial business that interested them.

“Remember the 10-minute time limit for each presenting company,” the moderator of the event explained to the group of 22 hopeful CEOs prepared to win his or her share of the available funds. “We’ve hosted this event for several years. And the feedback from these investors seated around you is that they make up their minds in the first 3-4 minutes whether they’re interested or not. So the ten minutes we’ve allotted to tell your story is quite adequate.”

He paused to let the point sink in. There as a corporate advisor to my client, I nodded my “I told you so” to the team. Roger that. They were locked and loaded, ready for launch.

Evidently, many others were not.

Executive after executive of these small businesses stepped to the microphone and stumbled and stuttered their way through 4-6 minutes of their allotted ten before being able to clearly state what it is their company does. Many tried to start with how they got into the business. Some started by introducing their management team (important, of course, for a group of investors—but not for 3 minutes!). Some rambled on about how they came up with their logo, packaging design, recipe, or facilities. Several talked about differentiation. A few talked about how they’d tested their product—clinical data and analysis.

Only a handful—make that a newborn’s fist—summarized upfront ALL the key elements about their business that a group of investors would want to know.

Yet, I bet if you asked any one of these busy executives back on the job how important the ability to summarize is, they’d launch into a sermon about some pet peeve such as these:

long disorganized voice mails their employees or prospects leave for them

meetings where someone can’t articulate a clear idea succinctly

emails that include far too much detail

reports that read like a novel rather than a status/project update

So to develop the ability to summarize massive amounts of information well, seek out some good models. For starters, I suggest The Wall Street Journal’s “What’s News?” column.(Readers, if you have other suggestions for great summarizers out there, please feel free to share them here.)

Posted at 5:15pm in Communication—Interpersonal, Communication—Oral, Communication—Sales, General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

If you’re on the hearing end of a presentation, you may think it all looks effortless—the speaker flows with polished pearls of wisdom, parades across the platform with boundless energy, interacts spontaneously with the audience with great wit, responds to challenging questions with authority, and sways skeptics with genuine personal warmth.

But to put it in the common vernacular:  “Ain’t necessarily so.”

Yesterday, I delivered a keynote for 600 CEOs of small businesses and senior executives of large corporations on one of my typical communication topics.   Since it was one of those rare local events (as opposed to having to jump on an airplane), I’d dashed into the office to link up with four of our staff members, who were accompanying me to the convention center to staff the book table where I’d be autographing books after my session.  

Running about ten minutes later than I’d planned, I suppose I looked a little tense.  On the way out the door, Candy, our production manager, asked a question I’d not thought about in awhile:  “Do you still get nervous?”   

“Sure.  Always.”  I nodded.  Even after more than 20 years on the platform, I still get nervous.  

How nervous?  It just depends on the stakes.   What do I have to gain—or lose—by the keynote or business presentation?  What’s the potential contract worth?   How many potential new clients are sitting in the audience?   Is there another business opportunity hanging in the balance?  What’s the dollar value on that opportunity?  What’s new and different about this keynote—or is just the same ole’ same ole’?

Some of these same issues may flood your mind when you stand up to make business or technical presentation to a boss or prospect or deliver a keynote for your industry meeting.  What do you stand to gain or lose?  What are the differences between those sit-down-around-the-conference-table-conversations and those larger presentations?  How can you become more comfortable in the latter?

During the two-hour program and the two-hour networking event that followed yesterday, here are some of the comments that attendees shared with me:

—“You know, I don’t mind talking in a small group. I’m fine there. But put me up on stage like you were today, and I’m very uncomfortable. I always tell my pastor-father, ‘it’s just not my gift.’”

—“I’m the sportscaster on a local Fox affiliate. I’ve never thought about some of those things. I made notes as I watched. I’m doing a speech tomorrow myself, and I need to be aware of the differences. It’ll make a huge difference.”

—“I always have to have a script and stand behind a podium. Always. As VP, I emcee events and introduce speakers. And we sponsor events like this all the time, where we ‘say a few words.’ But I’m just uncomfortable.”

To these people and all of you out there, here are three pointers that may help you get a kick out of keynotes—delivering, not just listening:

Understand your audience. Nothing gives you more confidence and helps you prepare better than talking to audience members beforehand. Ask them a few questions: What do you want to know about X? What are your biggest challenges in the area of X? What were you hoping I could help you with (or provide more information about)? Tell me a little more about your work—give me a “week-in-the-life-of” overview of your work. And, of course, you’ll want to ask these questions before you arrive on the scene so you have time to prepare to address these issues in your presentation or keynote.

Make your keynote both a conversation and a performance: That is, select a few people randomly in different parts of the audience and direct your comments to them. Make eye contact with them. Gesture toward them. Walk in their direction. (Everyone around them will think you’re looking at them as well.) The “conversation” mindset will relax you. But remember that you’re also delivering a performance; for that, you need energy and polished prose.

Be prepared. “Winging it” is for the birds. Nothing adds to your confidence like knowing exactly what you’re going to say—concisely, clearly, cleverly.

Keynotes can be a real kick if you feel confident. If not prepared, you’re going to want to kick yourself in the seat of the pants the day of the event.

Do we have some success stories out there? Let us hear about them.

Posted at 4:57pm in Communication—Oral | Permalink | 2 Comments |