Author Archive
Communication Elegance: A Teachable Moment
Teachable moments in communication arrive in many forms.
Take 2 minutes and 8 seconds to witness an act of elegance and meaning.
Start Asking from Ryan Fitzgibbon on Vimeo.
Ryan Fitzgibbon designed the video you just watched to comment on the United States’ progress on civil rights. I found it during some random Twitter-surfing, and when I first saw it, I said, “Wow! This really speaks to me.” Here’s what resonated: Fitzgibbon took the opportunity to be a provocateur, but in the best way possible. His language and images are spare, but he moves through the difficult issue of prejudice with great sensitivity and impact.
The video succeeds for me because its creator employs most of what I will call the 10 Rules of Communication Elegance:
Rule 1. Aim for elegance. Before you even begin to share your ideas, unpack half of that suitcase of information you’ve brought for the occasion. Make better use of your nucleus of ideas by stripping them down to basics. Yes, simplicity is a baseline requirement for communication. But elegance is even more focused and strategic: it informs simplicity. It not only transmits, it inspires. Keep reading, and I’ll tell you how.
Application: Fitzgibbon packs so much punch in a very short period of time – about the length of a television commercial break. There is no excess information. He pushes us to begin being more tolerant today just by questioning ourselves. He doesn’t download all his knowledge about prejudice and discrimination. He just gives us the stripped-down essentials for immediate action. I found myself asking the questions the video presented.
Rule 2. Punctuate your communications with meaning. Inspiration doesn’t automatically follow the expression of ideas. Inspire others with an act of meaning. That’s how I’m defining elegance: it is simplicity plus meaning. Minds differ on what meaning is, but, for me, it’s working toward a shared good. It’s sharing what I have and what I know to help empower others.
Application: Eliminating prejudice and discrimination is an undeniable collective good. In his video, Fitzgibbon draws us in with an urgent problem and then gives us an immediate tool to deal with it. That call to action is meaningful and gives his communication resonance.
Rule 3. Lead with the dynamic duo–your energy and emotion. The duo also goes by the name passion, and the literature on leadership and public speaking overflows with discussions about it. But the truth remains: With passion, you will connect to others. It is perfectly fine to communicate with structure, strategy and intentionality, but let your energy and emotion seek some entropy, and others will want to follow right along with you.
Application: This video bristles with emotion. All the usual visual clutter of life has been removed, and we are only able to zoom in on the closed eyes and facial expressions of the people we see. The unsteady camera seems to twitch along with the muscles of the narrators. We may not see into their souls, but we hear the emotion in their voices, we feel the clinched discomfort in their body language, and we sense the urgency of what they are asking. That urgency is contagious.
Rule 4. Develop an authentic point of view and express it in your own way and on your own terms. Your authenticity will influence others to be led by you. Don’t try to be a cover version of someone else. Discussions of authenticity also abound in the literature. Never mind that. Being authentic means being natural, having integrity and always striving to express your best self. It is a fundamental building block of credibility.
Application: Fitzgibbons allows the authenticity of the people in his video to speak directly to us. Through their words and body language, we begin to understand the pain of exclusion and misunderstanding. We believe them.
Rule 5. Mix in some surprise. Surprise scrambles the brain’s thought sequencers temporarily and then facilitates a higher level of learning. It forces people to think of something in a different way. Use some surprise at the beginning of your narrative, and the results may surprise you.
Application: Fitzgibbon’s video does the unexpected. It does not pontificate on a subject that has inspired much pontification. There is no lecture on prejudice before the call to action. There is merely a stream of thought-provoking questions. While they may not be entirely surprising, they are certainly disarming. Fitzgibbon also orchestrates a sense of mystery. Throughout the video, we wonder what our questioners will do next. We wonder when they will open their eyes. What will the great reveal be? Will our eyes open along with theirs?
Rule 6. Add visuals. They provide a concrete picture to which people can relate. They point to a specific example. And images drive learning.
Application: Do we really need to discuss this one? The video has impact because of its spare and stunning visuals.
Rule 7. Tell a story. By all means, make it personal. Real-life vignettes or detailed case studies take statements out of the abstract and ground them with concreteness. Never underestimate the power of storytelling.
Application: Fitzgibbons shows us that meaningful stories don’t have to be long. They just have to be personally compelling.
Rule 8. Signal your critical points of information with numbers. Think “three key takeaways,” “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” and “5 Ways Social Media Can Drive More People to Your Website.” These countable items provide your listeners and viewers with a road map for what comes next. They’ll want to go with you if you let them know where they are going.
Application: So, we see our filmmaker didn’t use this one. Well, I did say he used most of the rules.
Rule 9. Repeat your critical points with nuance. Repetition drives learning, but rote iteration isn’t what I mean. Don’t just repeat. Build on the points you’ve already made. When revisiting key ideas, be sure to add texture, shading and nuance.
Application: Fitzgibbon builds his entire video by repeating his theme. With each new person we see we get a new frame of reference. We are able to see how prejudice is personal in different ways for different people.
Rule 10. The rules provide valuable fundamentals but they do not guarantee success. Applying the rules will make you a good technician. Using them will make you more persuasive. But, you can only become an artisan by repeatedly putting them into practice. Never leave homebase without Rules 1 through 4. And, then, learning how to use Rules 5 through 9 judiciously will take you farther along the path of becoming an elegant communicator.
Application: Obviously, Fitzgibbons has practiced his craft. We thank him for being so elegant in this teachable moment.
Click here for more info about Ryan Fitzgibbon and the making of the video.
Tweetdom, That’s What I Need, Um*: Confessions of a Twitter Newbie
Consider this post Part 2 of Emotions are Stubborn Things. Part 1 happened such a long, long time ago that I won’t even say anything more about it. But, I’m back now and feeling stubbornly emotional about communication.
Twitter! I can’t capture in a small number of words – much less 140 characters – how my life has changed since my tweets debuted, just 6 short days ago. I’m now 49 tweets and 49 followers into the Twitter Matrix.
Let’s just say that up until last week, I suffered from a generational bent away from Twitter. Before my conversion, tweeting represented rapid technological transmission (a significant plus) aggravated by an accelerated loss of privacy (a catastrophic minus). But, I buckled up anyway and got on this Social Media ride, precisely because I am determined to stay contemporary. I want to avoid being that person who shuns technological breakthroughs. I’m not calling out any names here (like my mom’s), but you know that person I’m talking about, the one who, in decades gone by, didn’t want to hear about call waiting, wouldn’t leave messages on answering machines, and poo-poo’d email, saying, “ahoo, yahoo, what’s the difference?!” So, yup, I joined the Twitter corps and got the esprit. I started tweeting about emotion, a subject near and dear to my heart, and, apparently, I can’t stop.
As a consultant, coach and lecturer, I’m always emphasizing how emotion lubricates communication… or makes true dialogue skid to a stop. After an initial tweet or two along those same lines, I felt wildly invigorated. And, then, I got some followers. Wow! And, then, I noticed that those followers followed intriguing tweeters. Cool! So, then, I started to follow them. And, then, I heard so many voices out there, talking about everything and nothing all at once. Some of their messages resonated deeply. Others gave me belly laughs. Some left me feeling disturbed. Hmm…
True: What every tweeter chats up in cyberspace is not always engaging or even interesting – just as my own tweets are not to everyone’s tastes – but when the periodic updates fuse together with clever vignettes about the tweeters’ ideas, their passions, their friends, their blogs, and, of course, the 9 quick ways to monetize Twitter, the result is a lively, delectable, followable mix.
Clearly, tweeters inhabit a parallel universe that so many people don’t even know about. Yes, I think I’ll stay here.
The trouble with staying in the Twitterverse is that it’s hard to tear myself away. Calls still have to be returned, dishes still need to be washed, and books still need to be read. More importantly, bills still need to be paid, so I’m taking my colleague Laurel Hart’s advice and being very strategic in how I engage with Twitter, and how I permit it to engage me.
As time goes on, what I’ll have to develop more of is what Howard Gardner has called the synthesizing mind, something I learned about due to my organic, free range grazing on Twitter: “The synthesizing mind is about knowing how to deal with an avalanche of information; knowing what to learn and what to reject as irrelevant.”
All that being said, here are some other interesting tidbits for the Sticky Wicket:
–A video clip of Clay Shirky, discussing the “transmission of emotionally engaging messages rippling around the world at nearly the speed of light.” (Social Media Enhances the Emotional Dimension of News)
–Brian Solis blogging about “connectivity through inspiration.” (Social Media is Rife with Experts but Starved of Authorities). Communicating on Twitter in the age of viral sound bites requires observing and listening, he says, and I agree.
–A completely fascinating but somewhat scary search tool called spezify.com. Start by typing in your own name.
*For those of you wondering why I’ve used Jimi Hendrix’s image here, well, I’ll just leave you guessing (Hint: “Freedom”). In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Twitter:@emoticomma
Emotions are Stubborn Things, Part 1
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
– John Adams, ‘Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,’ December 1770
By now, as we face the final run-up to the November election, most of us have heard more than enough about the presidential horserace. Lately, though, I can’t get a certain politically embedded mantra out of my head. So, with that as my mental soundtrack, I’ll share a few thoughts on politics and communication.
“Facts are stubborn things.” Have you heard this one?
It’s one “sticky” phrase. At least three presidents, including John Adams (see above), and one former presidential candidate (who will remain nameless) have warned us about the redeeming intransigence of facts, and legions of pundits and citizen bloggers have chimed in for the chorus during the current election cycle. Google “facts are stubborn things,” and you’ll get 71,800+ results, most of which landed in cyberspace in the last two years.
So, here’s my question: Are facts the only stubborn things?
The Sticky Wicket – It’s getting sticky in here
Any cricket fans out there? I just got a crash course in the game this week and all because I read the book, Made to Stick, and found its contents virally adhesive …but I’ll get to that in a minute.
First, I’ll take this opportunity to inaugurate a regular segment of our blog called the “Sticky Wicket,” where we’ll offer little tidbits of crisis management counsel.
Tidbit No. 1. Always see the opportunity in crisis. It’s a batter’s game. Those of you who follow cricket will appreciate that companies (and individuals) facing down a crisis are forced to bat on a sticky wicket, much like cricketeers after a thunderstorm. What is a sticky wicket? In general parlance, it means a difficult and unpredictable situation. But it’s also cricket-speak for a wet, challenging playing field — ground that is mushy in places and hard and crusty in others. To quote the Wikipedia, batting under those conditions “… is awkward and sometimes hazardous, as the ball will spin and seam and there will be variable bounce.” Indeed, when a crisis looms, the real-life reputational match could prove not only difficult and embarrassing but season-ending. Or it could provide an unmatched opportunity for a strategic, steely-nerved batter to shine under adverse conditions and redirect his team’s fortunes.
We always counsel our clients to keep this second possibility in clear focus. For a real-life application of the theory, consider Jet Blue (for the record, not one of our clients) and its video apology. Although the apology is not without flaws or critics, the airline’s use of social media was a groundbreaking response to crisis generally appreciated by its customers and the public at large. It helped to put Team JetBlue back into the game.
Here’s another reason I like the cricket framework: the sports pundits say that the biggest difference between cricket and baseball is that baseball is a pitcher’s game (i.e., the pitcher takes center stage and is challenged by a series of batters), and cricket is a batter’s game (i.e., the batter becomes the focal point of the challenge as he deftly takes on a series of pitchers). Like cricket, crisis management is a batter’s game.
Little Droplets of Humility
“Crisis management is the new black!” A good friend recently shared that revelation with me via email. I had to laugh, not only because I enjoy a witty fashion metaphor, but because I’ve also enjoyed watching crisis management come of age in the public consciousness. Even in this era of distrust and information saturation, people are warming up to the power of the sincere apology – a step toward redemption requiring that dollop of humility my partner Fred Garcia writes about. More and more, people are welcoming the forward arc of emotionally-intelligent, collaborative leadership on a global scale. Absolutely fabulous, I say!