Right Attitudes

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Effective Communication

Establish Credibility for Persuasion

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‘Facts bridge the credibility gap.’

In “The McKinsey Way,” author Ethan M. Rasiel presents numerous insights to problem solving, analytical reasoning and effective communication practiced by consultants from McKinsey & Company, one of the foremost management-consulting firms.

When a typical associate joins McKinsey & Company, she “will have graduated near the top of her college class, spent two or three years working for a large company, then received her MBA from a top business school. She will be in her mid- to late-twenties. On her first engagement, she may have to present her analysis to the CEO of a Fortune 50 company, who will not give much credence to what some newly minted, 27-year-old MBA has to say—unless she has an overwhelming weight of facts to back her up. This is just as true for a junior executive presenting a proposal to his boss.

Call for Action

One of the primary facets of our work is to sell ideas—to lead and persuade an audience to appreciate our arguments or our perceptions on a certain topic or problem.

Credibility is the cornerstone of persuasive communication. Many of us mistakenly presume that credibility is an entitlement—a function of our positions or affiliations. We fail to realise that credibility is a virtue we earn and preserve over time.

Establishing Credibility with Research

The single most effective approach to establishing credibility is to demonstrate concrete foundations to our proposed thoughts—to draw on meaningful information and deduce concrete inferences in support of our positions.

  • Collect facts and data from reliable sources. Interpret data and demonstrate its relevance. Deduce and structure your arguments in a logical manner to lead people to draw conclusions you would like them to.
  • Include particulars (data, analyses, information) of your background work in an appendix to your presentation or report.
  • Consider your position from every angle and prepare to answer questions. Address counter-arguments in your communication: “Some of you may argue that… Let me assess the risk and suggest a contingency plan.”

Bear in mind that people trust a person’s thoughts so long as they trust the underlying research.

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An Essential Secret of Great Speakers: Pauses in Talking

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Seven Steps to Better Presentations

Jeffrey Veen of Adaptive Path, and now, Google, lists seven steps for better presentations here. Here is a summary.

  1. Tell stories
  2. Show picture and use good metaphors
  3. Don’t apologize for something out of order or for a mistake.
  4. Start strong
  5. End strong too
  6. Stand away from the podium and out from behind the presenter table
  7. Pause while speaking

Pausing While Speaking

Often, speakers and presenters talk quickly—sometimes to an extent that the audience cannot clearly understand the speakers’ words. Perhaps these speakers are nervous. Or, they may be excited about their speeches and hence, are in a rush to express their ideas.

An effective speaker uses lots of pauses in speeches. By pausing after important segments along a speech, a speaker can gather his/her thoughts. And, the audience gets a chance to absorb the contents of the speech.

On the other hand, some speakers tend to be slow, especially if they are contemplative. These speakers quickly lose the attention of the audience.

How to Improve Pausing in Speaking

  1. While listening to radio or watching television, observe the speeches of newsreaders, stand-up comedians, broadcasters or background-narrators. Observe how they pause along their talking.
  2. Choose a few newspaper- or magazine-articles and read them out aloud as you would in a speech. At each punctuation mark—a comma, period, semicolon, etc., —pause before you proceed to the next phrase or sentence. Record your speech on a tape-recorder or on your computer (use Audacity software, a freeware) and review.
  3. As you prepare for an important presentation or speech, write down the entire text of your speech with plenty of punctuations. Practice your speech, record and review.

Concluding Thoughts

Audiences typically remember a very small portion of what they hear in speeches and presentations. By using plenty of pauses and pacing yourself, you can improve your ability to articulate and help your audience appreciate your thoughts.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. Avoid the Lectern in Presentations
  4. Why They Don’t Understand You and What to Do About It
  5. A Little-Known Public-Speaking Tip

You Have a Pile of Reading Material at Your Desk?

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In this ‘information overload’ era, you confront a sizeable quantity of reading material everyday: books, magazines, newspapers, memos, reports, and so forth. You are incessantly pressed for time. Consequently, you probably have a stack of reading material accumulating at a corner of your desk.

Here are four habits to help manage your reading material.

Preview

  • Preview memos, magazine- and newsletter-articles. Scrutinize the table of contents, and for each article that may seem interesting, scan through section-headings, introductory and concluding paragraphs, illustrations and keywords in boldface or italics. If you ought to read an article, tear-away or photocopy the relevant pages and add them to a ‘To Read’ folder.
  • Preview books before buying or borrowing a book. Check reviews on Amazon.com or other websites. Scan the jacket cover, table of contents and chapter headings. After obtaining the book, focus on reading only chapters and sections that are relevant to your interests.

Organize

  • Manage Reading Material - Organize Discard old reading material. If your reading material expands into a disorganized—and perhaps intimidating—pile, consider discarding the older articles, likely at the bottom of your pile. The content of these articles may no longer be relevant. In addition, you will probably never get to reading them.
  • Classify for priority. Assess the importance of every article and organize your reading material into two or three groups. This way, if your reading stack gets unmanageable, you may discard the least-important group.

Expand Comprehension

  • Read with purpose. Throughout your reading, ask yourself questions such as “What are the key details discussed here? How are these details relevant? What are the take-away ideas? What can I learn? How can I change?”
  • Read the first and last lines of each paragraph to help grasp the premise of the entire paragraph. Check the summary or highlights first.
  • Study tables, illustrations, graphics and charts carefully. Characteristically, these visual elements contain comprehensive information that may summarize entire sections of text.

Stay On Top

  • Carry your ‘To Read’ folder in your briefcase or bag so you can read while waiting for an appointment with your dentist or at an airport waiting to board your flight.
  • Set aside time for reading. Dedicate convenient times for reading activities and add these times to your calendar. Even brief periods of focused reading can be very productive.

Concluding Thoughts

In this fast-paced world, reading can be overwhelming. By prioritizing and adopting the above habits, you can make significant improvements to your ability to read more quickly and efficiently.

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Stephen King’s Tips for Writing Better

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Here are tips on writing from the celebrated science-fiction author Stephen King’s popular book “On Writing–A Memoir of the Craft.” The first third of this book is a short memoir of the prolific author and the second section, the namesake “On Writing,” is unadulterated inspiration for serious authors and anybody with an inclination to improve their written communication skills.

  • Get to the point. Do not waste your reader’s time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. Reduce the noise.
  • 'On Writing--A Memoir of the Craft' by Stephen King (ISBN 1413818720) Write a draft. Then let it rest. King recommends that you crank out a first draft and then put it in your drawer to let it rest. This enables you to get out of the mindset you had when you wrote the draft and get a more detached and clear perspective on the text.
  • Cut down your text. When you revisit your text, it is time to kill your darlings and remove all the superfluous words and sentences. Removing will de-clutter your text and often get your message through with more clarity and a bigger emotional punch.
  • Be relatable and honest. One of the keys to doing that is to have an honest voice and honest characters with both bad and good sides to them. People we can relate to with all of their faults, passions, fears, weaknesses and good moments. Another key to being honest and relatable is keeping a conversational style.
  • Write a lot. To become a better writer you probably—and not so surprisingly – need to write more.

Communication is all about the audience: it is about directing the audience to identify with your point of view and comprehend the precise message you want to convey. The writing tips in Stephen King’s “On Writing” will help you focus on your message—be it in a speech, a blog post, an essay, or an email.

To echo the ideas summarized above, read my earlier blog article about beginning with the end: the most effective start to the communication process is to begin at the end and enumerate the outcome. List the conclusions the audience should draw from your effort. Setting a goal for your communication helps you collect and present ideas logically.

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Mentoring: The Best Advice You Can Offer

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A newer employee recently approached you for advice on a particularly thorny personal problem she was facing at work. She had an idea for tackling her problem. You had discouraged her idea citing a couple of reasons and offered your own idea as the best solution to her problem. “Advice from years of experience,” you had added. She had nodded her head in agreement.

A couple of weeks later, you discover that she had disregarded your advice and pursued her original idea. You are now annoyed at her and grumble: “Such a waste of my time! Why do people come to me for advice when they don’t intend to pay attention to my ideas? Nobody seems to respect words of wisdom anymore.”

Does the above experience sound familiar? Aren’t we often all-too-eager to offer others advice?

In the above narrative, the newer employee may not have wanted to take the suggested approach—she followed her own idea to manage her problem. Herein is one fundamental reality about offering advice: people rarely listen to others’ advice if they see a contradiction in their advice. In other words, the best advice you can offer others is the advice that they come up with themselves.

Mary Kay Ash on the Art of Listening

Mary Kay Ash, American entrepreneur and founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics discusses the art of listening in her book ‘People Management.’

Some of the most successful people-managers are also the best listeners.

[One manager] had been hired by a large corporation to assume the role of sales manager. But he knew absolutely nothing about the specifics of the business. When salespeople would go to him for answers, there wasn’t anything he could tell them–because he didn’t know anything! Nonetheless, this man really knew how to listen. So no matter what they would ask him, he’d answer, “What do you think you ought to do?” They’d come up with a solution; he’d agree; and they’d leave satisfied. They thought he was fantastic. He taught me this valuable listening technique, and I have been applying it ever since.

Many of the problems I hear don’t require me to offer solutions. I solve most of them by just listening and letting the grieving party do the talking. If I listen long enough, the person will generally come up with an adequate solution.

Call for Action

When a person approaches you for advice, he/she may have some faint idea to tackle the problem at hand.

Or, the person has already developed an idea. He/she would like you to serve as a ‘sounding-board’ for the idea–to reinforce the idea and confirm that this approach is appropriate.

After listening attentively to the person’s thoughts, ask “What do you think you ought to do?” Skilfully, lead the thought-process and encourage him/her to develop the solution. With this buy-in, the person will more likely follow your—really, his/her own—advice.

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Written Communication Tips #2: British English or American English?

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The popularity of the English language spread with the British Empire. Over four centuries, the English vocabulary expanded by absorbing words and phrases from diverse languages and cultures. Various geographies developed dialects–specific styles and patterns in spelling, grammar and sentence construction.

Two of the predominant dialects of English are the British style (through the expansion of the British Empire) and American style (courtesy of American capitalism.)

Differences in spelling and vocabulary are easily noticeable: colour (in British English) v/s color (in American English), cutlery v/s silverware, petrol v/s gasoline, aeroplane v/s airplane, etc. Purists can also recognise differences in grammar and usage: ‘Indianapolis are the champions‘ (in British English) v/s ‘Indianapolis is the champion’ (in American English.)

Guidelines to Choose between British and American English

When working on a résumé, report or any other form of written communication, here are three general guidelines to choose between the British style and American style.

  • When writing for a predominantly American audience, use the American style. When writing for a predominantly British audience, including audience in the former British-colonies (India, Singapore, etc.,) use the British style. For example, use American spellings and grammar to compose a résumé for an ‘on-site’ job opening in the United States.
  • Use the style that is apt for the subject of your document. For example, if you are writing an article on the Fall-colours you witnessed during your trip to the United States, use the term ‘Fall‘ instead ‘Autumn‘ to refer to the season, even if you are writing for a predominantly British audience. (‘Fall’ in American English is equivalent to ‘Autumn’ in British English.)
  • If you are writing for a broader audience, be consistent–pick a style and stick to it throughout the document.

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  5. Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing

Avoid E-mail Embarrassments [Effective Emails #1]

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We have all committed e-mail mistakes. We have seen a personal message sent to one recipient appear on mailing lists, we have sent impulsive e-mails while hot-headed, we have accidentally sent e-mails to the wrong recipients, we have misspelled names of important people, and so forth.

An opinion poll conducted by America Online and Opinion Research Corporation in the year 2005 listed features that e-mail users desire.

  • 43% of the respondents asked for the ability to un-send a message that has not been read
  • 43% of the respondents asked for the ability to track where an e-mail has been forwarded
  • 27% of the respondents asked for a lock on e-mail so it cannot be forwarded
  • 27% of the respondents asked for a pop-up that asks the user to double-check who they are sending the e-mail to
  • 14% of the respondents asked for the ability to un-send a message that has already been read

Guidelines to Avoid E-mail Embarrassments

The technology of e-mails is such that you lose control over the content and distribution of an e-mail message as soon as you send it. Here are a few guidelines to avoid potential embarrassments from e-mails.

  • Guidelines to Avoid E-mail EmbarrassmentsBe judicious to whom you send e-mail to, and who you copy on e-mails. Use the ‘To’ field to list e-mail addresses of people who need to take action. Use the ‘CC’ (carbon copy) field to list e-mail addresses of people who need to be informed. Do not copy e-mails just to keep other people ‘in-the-loop.’
  • ‘Reply to All’ only if you really need your message to be read by everyone who received the original message.
  • Always examine the ‘To’ field before you compose a personal reply to an e-mail you received through a mailing list.
  • Do not forward to any message you received via ‘BCC’ (blind carbon copy.) Reply to the sender only, if necessary.
  • Ask the sender for appropriateness before forwarding any sensitive information you received from him/her.
  • Assume that any message that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood. Proof-read the content before you send out e-mails. Read the message from the recipients’ perspective and examine if you can edit your composition to avoid possible misinterpretations.
  • Never send an e-mail when angry. After composing the e-mail, wait for an hour or two before sending your e-mail. Examine alternate means for relaying your information and closing the communication loop.

Michael Dell’s Email Practice

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Michael Dell is the founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Dell, Inc. [NASDAQ: DELL], a leading computer-hardware business. Michael started his company at age 19 out of a dormitory room at the University of Texas at Austin. Last year, the Forbes magazine estimated Michael Dell’s net worth at $15.5 billion and ranked him ninth in a list of the 400 richest Americans. Michael Dell, currently 41, is the primary benefactor of the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, a charitable foundation that focuses on children’s education and health programs in the United States, India, and other geographies.

In an essay entitled “Secrets from Successful CEOs,” author and investor Mark Breier identifies Michael Dell’s email communication style. This essay is part of the book “Leading Authorities in Business,” edited by Marshall Goldsmith and James Belasco.

Michael Dell’s Email Practice

Michael Dell understands that the key to email is keeping the exchanges fast and short. He replies to nearly every message in several hours. He raises brevity to an art, never sending a three-word answer when a single word (‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘thanks,’ or ‘sorry’) will do. He reduces clutter by copying only those who really need to see a copy, and he delegates ruthlessly via email: “I’m copying Jane Smith on this. She’ll follow up with you by two this afternoon.” Keeping emails fast and short facilitates action—and results.

Call for Action

Email is one of the most efficient—albeit often misused—forms of communication. For higher productivity with your email, focus on these essential steps.

  • Be as succinct as possible. State the objective of your email in a meaningful subject line. Explain the context and describe what you expect from the recipient at the earliest point in the body of the message.
  • When replying to emails, include just enough of the thread or any preceding communication to help the recipient understand the context. When attaching supporting material—a report or a project proposal, for example—include an excerpt or a relevant summary in the body of the message.
  • Copy only those “who really need to see a copy.”
  • Re-read your composition before sending the message. Anticipate any supplementary information the recipient could use to take action on your expectations. Include additional references if necessary.

Attention to such details during composing emails can help your recipients grasp the intent of your communication and facilitate prompt action and quick results.

Credits: Michael Dell’s photo courtesy of Dell, Inc.

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Personal Spaces for Social Interaction

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Personal Spaces for Social Interaction

We regard the physical space around our bodies as personal territories. Subconsciously, we consider ourselves the center of a series of invisible bubbles—each bubble representing a comfort zone. American anthropologist Edward Hall defined four personal spaces in his classic book ‘The Hidden Dimension‘ (1966.)

  1. Intimate space for interacting with significant people and for hand-shaking, whispering, etc. with friends and acquaintances—touch to 1.5 feet away
  2. Casual space for interacting with close friends—1.5 feet to 4 feet away
  3. Social space for interacting with acquaintances—4 feet to 12 feet away
  4. Public space for interacting with relatively anonymous people—further than 12 feet away

Personal Spaces Represent Comfort Zones

Personal Spaces Represent Comfort Zones The distances associated with the comfort zones above depend on one’s cultural upbringing. During an interaction, the nature of the interpersonal relationships and/or the context of interaction may affect comfort zones too. Consequently,

  • Personal spaces are larger for two strangers in a conversation.
  • Women tend to have smaller personal spaces when interacting with other women.
  • Westerners tend to require larger personal spaces. People from India, China and other Asian cultures are used to crowded cities, packed public busses, and such—hence, they are more comfortable standing close to other people.
  • Two individuals in an argument expect each other to be as far as possible. If one of them moves closer, the other person may interpret this move as a sign of aggression.

Significance of Personal Spaces

The significance of this concept of personal space is obvious: we feel uncomfortable if a person enters a space that we do not desire him/her to be in.

  • During hand-shaking, do not get too close to the other person. Being within the other person’s arm-length ensures you are within his/her personal zone, and out of the intimate zone.
  • Stay within the friendly zone if you want a casual conversation with a celebrity.
  • When talking to or walking with somebody else, if the other person backs away a little, it is likely that you are encroaching his/her comfort zone. Be mindful of the other person’s requirements—do not try to close the gap.

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Presentation Skills #4: On Handouts

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Handouts or takeaways can enhance the core content of a presentation or speech and serve as sources of information for reference and recall. Here are a few guidelines to consider for distributing handouts.

  • As a general guideline, do not distribute handouts prior to a presentation if the audience is likely to become absorbed in the handouts and ignore your verbal presentation. For instance, if you are training college students on interviewing skills, consider distributing your handouts after the seminar.
  • When the audience is likely to be more serious or needs to study charts or illustrations to participate meaningfully, do distribute your handouts before commencing your presentation. Your audience can follow along your verbal presentation and make notes on the handouts.

Handouts for Pre-reading

Quite often, handouts may also serve as pre-reading material to help the audience study the content beforehand and prepare for your presentation. Suppose that you will lead a presentation for approval of a new steering wheel design. If you distribute a PowerPoint file with illustrations and key features of your new design, the electronics, dashboard, manufacturing and assembly teams can review your design ahead of time. This facilitates brainstorming and informed decision-making during the design approval presentation.

Survey your Audience

Survey the audience prior to your presentation. Depending on the nature of your audience and the purpose of your interaction, distribute handouts when appropriate.

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. An Essential Secret of Great Speakers: Pauses in Talking
  3. Never Give a Boring Presentation Again
  4. Avoid the Lectern in Presentations
  5. Jargon Has Its Place in Business Communication