“Nothing is more damaging to the arrogance with which an idea is held than partial agreement.”

There is no natural limit to traffic – which is increasing everywhere. There is no natural limit to communication which is also increasing rapidly.

The excellence of the communications channels does not ensure that what goes through the channels is of high value. Perhaps we need some simple code for communication. This might distinguish five areas: reply; vital; important; useful; fun.

Edward de Bono wishes the telephone had never been invented and would love to have been born in the 15th century.

In this article from The Telegraph Edward de Bono talks about his fantasy job, sporting heroes and he would like to be remembered.

Click here for the full story.

We were asked to support Edward de Bono as he was invited to speak at the Leaders in London main conference. He also held a Masterclass for over 200 eager delegates. 

The line-up was a mixture of household names (Al Gore, Kofi Annan, David Cameron etc) and business keynote speakers (Allan Leighton, Banjamin Zander, Marcus Buckingham). What surprised me the most was the quality of each and every speaker. 

At most conferences you get a range of quality but this really was special. I should point out that I’m not being paid to say this! If you want some free snippets of last years speakers go here.

I am attending again this year and thoroughly recommend the conference.

If ever the importance of good communication skills has been demonstrated it is in Barack Obama.  People have raised major questions over his background, experience, the impact of racial discrimination etc.  However, his ability as a communicator, has transcended all of these. 

Peter Drucker has said that as soon as you become a manager the most important thing for you is your ability to communicate.  Most of us, however, have learned through experience and osmosis not through specific skills training.  Isn’t it incredible that one of the most important things for us to function effectively in life isn’t actually taught formally in our education system?  Why would that be?  Well, there probably isn’t a university faculty of communication promoting and preserving its patch of turf. 

There is help out there.  I have personally found the Think on Your Feet® and Writing Dynamics™ training courses are the most practical and powerful I have ever participated in.  They can transform the clarity, impact and effectiveness of your communication – you may have the most powerful message in the world but if you can’t get it across it is lost – think Barack Obama!

I went to an interesting session run by the London Business Forum recently on presentation skills.  The usual statistic was produced in terms of making a public presentation being the number one fear of people – even more than dying.  42% said this was the number one fear versus only 28% for dying.

It crossed my mind that whilst making the presentation is hugely stressful for most people, there may be another factor at work here.  In making the presentation you can actually prepare and practice.  What you can’t anticipate are the questions you will get and will you be able to respond effectively to those.  As usual the fear of the “unknown” is a huge factor. 

Being able to deal with unknown challenges clearly and concisely is an essential skill.  If your response also has impact this is an additional bonus.  The training course Think on Your Feet™ deals with precisely this situation.  It gives you practical models to clarify questions people ask and then respond to them with clear concise answers.  Because these models are based on patterns the brain likes, the listener finds them easy to absorb and remember. 

A bonus is that these models can also help to structure your presentation much more effectively in the first place!

Please call us on 0800 043 3950 or visit our web site for more information www.holstgroup.co.uk

Was the US bailout package the right thing to do? Probably. Should the bill have been passed by the House of Representatives? Probably. So why didn’t it? Everyone agreed it was critical to the future of the American economy.  

Poor presentation of key messages resulted in 100-1 American citizens against the bill. From the name of the package to the average Joe’s understanding of what was actually on the table, it was flawed before it even got to ‘the House’. 

A bailout in financial terms is pretty simple if you are on Wall Street. A bailout to the average Joe means the fatcats from the biggest banks in the world are being helped by the US Government even though their last paycheck was in the $m’s.

Of course it hasn’t passed – it was so poorly positioned that the state representatives couldn’t ’sell’ the real facts of the package to their constituents. The government doesn’t understand the core concerns of ‘Main Street’ and therefore can’t reassure any fears they may have. 

In such a fast moving market and when pressure is at its highest levels for decades, selling a message quickly is of paramount importance.  The pressure is on businesses to keep morale high over the coming months of uncertainty. 

Communication is key and manager’s ability to think on their feet  will mean the difference between positive and negative strategic messages being cascaded.  

Here are three tips to communicate with confidence:

1. Identify core concerns
2. Address those concerns
3. Cascade strategic messages clearly.

Skype’s whole business model is dependant on clear, trouble free communication using computers.

Skype is impressive. Not only is clear communication a business fundamental, but it seems to be an organisational value as well. Watch this video about using Skype for business.

They have used a classic communication model of:

1. Tell them what you are about to say
2. Say it
3. Tell them what you’ve said.

Or as we teach in Think on Your Feet(R):

1. Peg up front
2. Flesh it out
3. Re-cap

There are a whole host of techniques in Think on Your Feet(R) to help individuals, teams and organisations communicate with clarity, brevity and impact.

See our training dates for the next open workshop.

We’ve just had the annual media fight over exam results and qualifications: is the educational system delivering the right mix of skills for industry; what is the status of new diplomas in engineering and construction; are qualifications getting easier?

There are also more consistent, long-term questions about the ‘personal/soft’ skills of new entrants to the job market: do they have enough social understanding?; can they work in teams?; do they understand work behaviours?  Organisations like the Association of Graduate Recruiters and the CBI have flagged these issues as crucial.

Communication is, perhaps, the most serious and long-term worry.  It’s not an add-on or additional talent; it’s a requirement to be able to work anywhere. It’s also, according to just about any leadership theorist a key component of effective leadership and gets more important the more senior a role is.

This emphasis is no doubt right but I’d claim it misses two important points.

• While a lot of the basic rules of good communication are the same, the ways they are used vary if you’re writing a report; addressing a meeting; taking part in a Q and A session; talking on the phone or writing an e-mail. It’s a complex set of skills which everyone thinks they can do – because they’re taught to read and write at school.

Yet, many people “don’t know what they don’t know”. A lot of my work comes from crafting communications for people and I think The Holst Group’s training and techniques are about the best on the market; not least because they don’t treat communication as a solitary act but as – what should be obvious – a way of interacting with people. I’d like to start talking about communications in the plural.

• A lot of communication problems are NOT with work entrants but with seasoned, experienced workers. In fact the worst examples of written reports, internal communications and major presentations I’ve seen have been by very senior managers. No doubt many of these learnt the ropes: many of them came from sales backgrounds and I’d seen then give superb presentations. But, the more senior they got, the less they felt they needed to refresh their skills.

Often they communicated too much and an over-used skill gets blunt. Some felt they simply didn’t need to follow basic rules. Of course, one of the keys to good communication is to take rules and then personalise them. This can result in charismatic, unusual and exciting ways of expression. But the decision to break these rules must be a conscious, thought-out one. If that’s not the case, communication can look amateur and I’ve seen CEOs give presentations or written reports which, frankly, shocked me. I suspect they also shocked shareholders.
So, in my view, EVERYONE, no matter what their position or seniority should look to refresh their communication skills regularly, just as the greatest sportspeople continue to train even if they’ve got a gold medal. And consciously skilled senior communicators will help provide models of good practice to new recruits, helping to solve the entry skills problem.

Click here to find out more about The Communicator’s Toolkit.