The Articulate CEO

Authenticity - The Key To Communication And Everything Else

Authenticity lies at the heart of success in communication and, arguably, at the heart of success in anything. We all achieved whatever success we have by being us.  Sure you may have honed your skills, gathered experience, even stolen some ideas along the way but you have remained the person you were from the start.  No one becomes successful by being someone other than who we are because we can’t maintain the charade long enough.

You are who you are.

And success doesn’t change you either.  It simply highlights whatever traits existed in the first place and allows them to flourish.  For example we often hear people say that money has changed someone and turned them into an asshole.  Not true - they were an asshole in the first place!  Money just allowed you to notice.

The most successful people in the world are those who have the strongest grip on who they are.  They are acutely aware of their values and they are not afraid to articulate them to anyone who will listen.  Consequently they gather like-minded people around them and that collective power breeds success for as long as those values have currency.  Those values are not always popular to begin with or they may not be popular towards the end but the person who believes in them, sticks with them, and we remember them for that reason.  If you want an individual example of this then look no further than Nelson Mandela.

Mandela's words, "The struggle is my life," are not to be taken lightly.

Nelson Mandela personifies struggle.  He continued to lead the fight against apartheid with extraordinary vigor and resilience after spending nearly three decades of his life behind bars.  In prison Mandela never compromised his political principles and was always a source of strength for the other prisoners.  

He sacrificed his private life and his youth for his people, and remains South Africa's best known and loved hero.  He stands for something.  It is the stand that people rally to not the man.

It is the same in business.  To be truly successful you and your business have to stand for something.  There have to be guiding principles and values that people can identify with and rally to.  There has to be a way for people to determine if you are like them and if they can trust you to fulfill your promises.  The way is simple.

Tell people what you are like. 

Tell people what they can expect from you in their business dealings.

Tell people what they can rely upon to be a part of every transaction.

Live up to it.

Why Missions, Values and Visions Fail

The common mission statement or vision, supposedly the bedrock of an organisation is often nothing more than a foundation of sand. Most corporate visions are too broad to be useful and too vague to be implemented. It isn't that the vision doesn't mean anything so much as it could mean anything. Too much is left open to interpretation and the result is our people, unsure of performance expectations, start working at cross-purposes. Where organisations have tried to go a dstep further by developing values statements there are often similar issues. The values are either poorly defined and open to interpretation or they merely reflect what an organisation thinks people would like to see rather than the reality. Look at this example:

Our Values

Communication
We have an obligation to communicate. Here, we take the time to talk with one another… and to listen. We believe that information is meant to move and that information moves people.

Respect
We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment.

Integrity
We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly and sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we cannot or will not do something, then we won’t do it.

Excellence
We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do. We will continue to raise the bar for everyone. The great fun here will be for all of us to discover just how good we can really be.

They sound good don't they? Until, that is, you realise they are the stated values of a company you may have heard of - Enron. Do they in any way reflect the reality of that particular company? Of course not. But they are the perfect example of how values and mission statements have become nothing more than rhetoric. Now, here is a test for you.

Make a copy of your corporate values, a copy of Enron’s corporate values, and a copy of corporate value statements from a couple of other companies. Remove the company names from all documents. Take these lists to a random cross section of your employees and ask, “ Which of these corporate value statements best describes our company’s actions?” “Which least describes our company?” While you are at it also ask several suppliers and several customers.

Each time, as an afterthought, ask each group “By the way, do you happen to recognize which – if any – of these is actually ours?” Chances are that none of your suppliers, none of your customers, and very, very few of your employees will be able to tell the difference between Enron’s corporate values, your corporate values, and the values of any other random company.

What does this mean to you?

1. Most corporate value statements are virtually indistinguishable from each other.

2. Actions are what count – not what’s on paper.

3. If there’s a disconnect between what you say is important and what people do, you need to fix that right away. Rather than building a series of rules, build a series of examples. People learn from examples and role models – not from a list of words.

It’s all about alignment. What you say you want, what you really want, and what you reward all have to be in alignment. If not, then you are doing nothing more than trading in rhetoric and you will be undone by your actions... much like Enron.

 

Qantas Finish 2011 A Winner - For All The Wrong Reasons!

The list that stops a nation - Australia's Biggest PR Disasters of the Year - is out and in an unprecedented achievement, Qantas won three of the top 10 gaffes of 2011 when the list was released by social networking tracking site Cyber Chatter. It's never been done before and it is hard to see how anyone could ever do it again but, then again, Qantas is still with us and 2012 is a brand new year. Who would bet against them? So, here it is, Australia's Biggest PR Disasters of the Year together with links to news.com.au for anyone who missed the stories first time around.

1. The Qantas grounding inconvenienced and angered a nation. People are still waiting for refunds yet CEO Alan Joyce still has a job.

2. "Qantas Luxury" Twitter scandal. The plan was to get people tweeting good things about Qantas. They got thousands of complaints.

3. Troubled footballer Brendan Fevola's contract termination with the Brisbane Lions ends up in court.

4. Tony Abbott freezes during a TV interview with Channel 7's Mark Riley in the "shit happens" tape.

5. Qantas "golliwog" social media promo causes a race brouhaha.

6. Ricky Nixon and the fallout from his unseemly association with a teenager.

7. Indigenous writer Larissa Behrendt describes bestiality program as "less offensive than Bess Price", an Aboriginal woman in favour of the Northern Territory intervention.

8. Kyle Sandilands goes on a personal vendetta against a journo. Austereo loses more than 20 advertisers and the shock jock is forced into a humiliating apology.

9. Australian Defence Force cadet is violated when she is filmed having sex.

10. Gasp Jeans become a mockery after their startling email response to a customer complaint goes viral.

Something For Everyone - The Barnum Effect

Ever wondered why people seem so easily conned by slick talkers? The answer may lie in a phenomenon known as the Barnum Effect. The Barnum effect is the name given to a type of subjective validation in which a person finds personal meaning in statements that could apply to many people.

For example:

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. At times you have serious doubts whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.

If these statements sound like they came from a news stand astrology book, that may be because they did. Such statements are sometimes called Barnum statements and they are an effective element in the repertoire of anyone doing readings: astrologers, palm readers, psychics, H.R. Managers and so on.

When statements like this appear on things like personality inventories that people believe have been especially prepared for them alone, they often validate the accuracy of such statements and thereby give validity to the instrument used to arrive at them. If Barnum statements are validated when they have originated during a psychic reading for example, the validation is taken as also validating the psychic powers of the medium.You see the same kinds of statements and conclusions for that matter in things as diverse as economic analyses, school reports and performance evaluations.

Incidentally, "Barnum effect" is an expression that seems to have originated with psychologist Paul Meehl, in deference to circus man P. T. Barnum's reputation as a master psychological manipulator who is said to have claimed "we have something for everybody."

And that about sums it up - they are statements in which there is something for everyone.

The Truth About Graphology - Another Communication Con

Graphology is the study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing character and personality traits. The people who practise it will often claim to be handwriting experts. They are not. Real handwriting experts are actually known as forensic document examiners, not as graphologists. Forensic document examiners consider loops, dotted "i's" and crossed "t's," letter spacing, slants, heights, ending strokes and so on. They examine handwriting to detect authenticity or forgery i.e. is that a real signature on a document?

Graphologists examine the same things but for a different reason. They believe the loops, dotted "i's" and crossed "t's," letter spacing, slants, heights, ending strokes and so on are physical manifestations of unconscious mental functions. In other words, they believe handwriting can tell us about personality, aptitude and attitude. It doesn't. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the unconscious mind is a reservoir of truth about a person, much less that graphology provides a gateway to that reservoir.

Graphology is claimed to be useful for everything from understanding health issues, morality and past experiences to hidden talents and mental problems. However, in properly controlled, blind studies, where the handwriting samples contain no content that could provide non-graphological information upon which to base a prediction, graphologists do no better than chance at predicting personality traits.

The techniques of these "experts" are really nothing more than guesses or deductions based not so much on such things as the pressure exerted on the page, spacing of words and letters, etc but rather the content of the writing itself and background information about the writer. Though graphologists deny it, the content of the writing is one of the more important factors in graphological character assessment. Likewise, it is easy to offer up an analysis of the handwriting of a famous person about whom much information is already in the public domain. If handwriting can really tell us so much then the blind studies mentioned earlier should have no trouble backing it up. The fact that they don't and worse, that any one of us can have the same kind of hit rate in these studies that the so-called handwriting experts have tells us all we need to know.

Graphology is another pipe dream for those who want a quick and dirty decision making process to tell them who to marry, who did the crime, who they should hire, what career they should seek, where the good hunting is, where the water, oil, or buried treasure is, etc. It is appealing to those who are impatient with such troublesome matters as research, evidence analysis, reasoning, logic, and hypothesis testing. If you want results and you want them now and you want them stated in strong, certain terms, graphology is for you. If, however, you can live with reasonable probabilities and uncertainty, you might try another method to pick a spouse or hire an employee... like flipping a coin.

Subliminal Messaging - You Can't Hear What Ain't There!

Let's tackle an oldie but a goodie - subliminal messaging. Now to quickly put everyone in the picture the subliminal is below the liminal (the smallest detectable sensation). Obviously anything truly below the level of detectable sensation could not, by definition, be perceived. However, when people talk about subliminal messaging they generally mean messages that are below the threshold of conscious perception. There is a widespread belief, not strongly supported by empirical research, that without being aware of its presence or content, a person's behavior can be significantly affected by subliminal messages. Thus, it is believed that one can influence behavior by surreptitiously appealing to the subconscious mind with words and images. If this were true, then advertisers could manipulate consumer behavior by hiding subliminal messages in their ads. The implications are enormous. The government, me or even a small weasel by the name of Jimmy, could control our minds and bodies by secretly communicating to us subliminally. Learners could learn while listening to music embedded with subliminal messages.

Unfortunately, the research done in this area has shown us that the effects are somewhere between slim and zero.

The fact that there is almost no empirical support for the usefulness of subliminal messaging has not, of course, prevented numerous industries from producing and marketing tapes which allegedly communicate directly with the unconscious mind. There are tapes out there that do everything from stopping smoking to coaching the "listener" to have courage or believe in his or her power to accomplish great things. Consumers in the USA actually spend more than $50 million each year on subliminal self-help products!

It is true that we can perceive things even though we are not conscious of perceiving them. However, for those who put messages in tapes and then record music over the messages so that the messages are drowned out by the music or other sounds, it might be useful to remember that if the messages are drowned out by other sounds, the only perceptions one can have are of the sounds drowning out the messages. Get the message? There is no evidence of anyone hearing a message which is buried beneath layers of other sounds to the point where the message does not distinctly stand out. Of course, if the message distinctly stood out, it would not be subliminal.That's why advertisers rely on 'liminal' advertising - it has a much better hit rate.

The belief in the power of subliminal messaging to manipulate behavior seems to have originated in 1957 with James Vicary, an advertising promoter who claimed to increase popcorn sales by some 58% and Coke sales by some 18% in a New Jersey movie theater simply by flashing very briefly the messages "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Hungry - Eat Popcorn." Even though the claim has been shown to be a hoax, and even though no one has been able to duplicate the event, belief in the legend lingers.

So, for everyone who was worried that subliminal messaging might be impacting their behavior somehow you can relax - it's all the obvious messaging that is doing that. And for those of you who are hoping to change your behavior or become Superman by listening to something in your sleep you might as well save your money because you are probably already braindead.

Poor Communication - Symptom or Disease?

Poor communication seems to come up an awful lot these days when people are discussing workplace issues or analysing the reasons behind various disasters. But is it really the culprit, or has some underlying problem caused the communication breakdown? Is 'poor communication' becoming an easy catch-all that allows us to ignore the real problems plaguing the workplace? How often do organisations mistake 'poor communication' for a disease when in actual fact it is merely a symptom?

Let's say someone on your team has something to contribute to a discussion, but sits silently because you are known to talk over the top of people and shout down their ideas when someone appears to offer an alternative point of view. Poor communication is the result—but the cause is lack of trust based on previous experience.

What if professionals don't take the trouble to pass necessary information along to support staff? Poor communication is the inevitable result but the cause might well be lack of respect or consideration.

Today, as we have discussed in the Cultural Differences blogs, many workplaces contain employees of varying ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.

In such situations miscommunication is almost inevitable, but if it happens a lot you might want to examine whether the underlying cause is a lack of understanding or even intolerance. Poor communication may be the effect rather than the cause, and deep-set prejudice may be the real issue.

The point is when you hear poor communication cited as the cause of a problem, you would do well to probe a little deeper before deciding how to respond - communication issues are seldom ever just skin-deep.

'Freedom' of Speech - The Devil is in the Detail

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by almost every country, guarantees freedom of expression. That basically means Freedom of Speech is a principle that pretty much everyone agrees with and yet debate rages over whether or not such freedom of expression should be allowed. Like so many debates in the modern world though the debate is centred on the application rather than the principle because when everyone agrees with a proposition chances are it is either enormously profound or totally meaningless. Freedom of speech is a case in point.

 

Where should freedom of speech begin and end? The debate is not in the concept but in the detail because even the covenant limits the scope of this right. Restrictions are possible for the respect of the rights or reputations of others as well as for the protection of national security, public order, public health or morals.

 

So it is easy to be for free speech in principle. It is far less obvious what this will mean in practice.

Even the straightforward exceptions are not so straightforward anymore. Take the oft-quoted example that nobody should have the right to cause a mass panic by crying ''fire'' in a packed theatre. Makes sense in a packed theatre but the Internet creates problems with even that rule. What is a virtual packed theatre? Would Wikileaks yelling ‘radiation leak’ online constitute the same thing for example?

 

What about the less obvious cases?

 

There are numerous cases where it is not so clear to determine where the balance should lie between the protection of free speech and the protection of other rights. Take advertising, for example. Free speech does not only apply to political opinions but to commercial ones as well. Nevertheless, we would probably agree that advertising aimed at young children needs limits.

 

That's fair enough. But what about advertising to adults? In opinion polls, most people say they are personally never conned by advertising. However, the very same people also believe that others regularly fall for misleading ads and therefore strict regulations were necessary. Many countries have banned advertising of products that have health consequences such as tobacco and alcohol. Where do we start and where do we stop?

 

It's the same story with political speech. In some countries there are limitations on political opinions. In parts of Europe Holocaust denial is illegal. In Turkey a ''denigration of the Turkish nation'' can land you in jail. Burning the flag is a valid protest in some countries and a hanging offence in others.

 

You would think that we could only support such restrictions on free speech if we believed that society could not handle it. However, in a society in which we all regularly have to make myriad decisions, why should we not also be able to decide how to respond to unpleasant or objectionable statements? Instead of banning them, why not choose to ignore or ridicule them? When it comes to freedom of speech the law often goes out of its way to prove itself an ass.

 

Realistically, freedom of speech cannot be limitless. Yet instead of relying on laws, perhaps we should trust common sense and civil society. Perhaps we should rely on weight of opinion rather than fear one opinion. Perhaps it’s too late.

Fast Thinking: Referral Selling is Just Sophisticated Begging!

Read my latest post from the Fast Thinking Think Tank:

Referral Selling is Just Sophisticated Begging!

Just about every course or book that deals with getting referrals teaches you one single referral method - "asking" for referrals. They'll tell you how you have to give good service and then they give you a formula for asking for referrals. As far as it goes that may be all well and good but there's a HUGE problem with this approach. People HATE to ask for referrals. You hate it, I hate it, and the people that get asked hate it.  

For the approach to work you have to not only get over your discomfort over asking someone for the referral but they then have to get over their discomfort in asking someone else on your behalf.

...

So have a referral system if you want but make sure that you are providing an experience that is interesting. Be different, be quirky, be fun, be weird, be whatever you want but be something more than the norm. Share your stories and tell the world what you are up to in every transaction.

 Read the full post here.

Show 19: Podcast - Why It's Important to Get Your Story Straight!

Word of mouth – the most cost effective and powerful form of marketing but is it achieving its potential?

In this episode we discuss the value of storytelling to get your message out via word of mouth. But don't rely on others' interpretations of what they think your business' story is.

To get the best results from storytelling it is vital to firstly figure out what your story is and what you want people to be saying about your business. And then you need to tell it in a way that people can easily remember and share.

If you have any feedback, questions or topics you would like me to cover please email me at info@brettrutledge.com.

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