Booher BanterBusiness Communication Consultant

As we enter the presidential election season again and watch candidates square off with each other in formal debates and then hear the media “translate” their remarks and intentions via  after-the-debate analysis, we see a common thread. Opening your mouth is serious business—at any time in your career.

So what can you as a boss, manager, project leader, or super star in any field  learn about communication from the debates?

1. Preparation Counts.
   The first excuse you hear from a candidate’s backers when their person didn’t do well is this: “He’s been out on the trail, speaking to voters. He didn’t have time to prepare. Or, he was back in his home state, handling a crisis.” That may be true, and the excuse may serve the candidate well. But the situation remains apparent to viewers. Responding to challenging questions takes preparation.

   In my executive coaching sessions, I frequently hear people comment that they have prepared thoroughly for the formal part of a presentation—but rarely do they put any thought into preparing for the Q&A. They’re surprised to discover techniques for this portion of the presentation as well as the structured remarks.

2. Style Matters as Much as Substance.
   Consider how you yourself react to a befuddled look from the candidate as he or she stumbles through an answer. A tightened, twitching jaw in response to a tough question. A haughty raised chin as the candidate looks down her nose at the person in the audience challenging her on an issue. Flailing arms. Pedantic, pointing fingers that lecture. Sarcasm.  Personal attacks.

   Or consider your own reaction to the opposite: Calm, confident gestures to challenging questions. Authoritative, but controlled voice that emphatically emphasizes key points to the contrary of the concerns raised. Genuine smiles. Affable facial expressions. Sense of humor. Quick wit. Clear, concise explanations of ideas and issues.

   How you say something matters a great deal.

3. Repetition Drives Retention.
   Notice how often candidates answer the moderator’s or the audience member’s question, and then bridge back to a key message they want to get across:  about jobs, the economy, healthcare, social security, education, energy, or foreign policy.  With years of experience in facing the media and getting their message out to the public, candidates know repetition becomes essential to retention.

   Successful leaders learn to do the same. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Use every communication channel possible to drive the message.

4. What You Do Must Match What You Say.
   Within this arena, most of the charges of hypocrisy fall:  “You say you’re against X. But you’ve actively supported Y with your own donations.”  “You say you will do Y if elected, but your record last year on that issue was dismal.” Fears of having skeletons in the closet that may pop out keep many people from even entering the election process.

   As a boss or super star anywhere, your people will expect accountability. Communicate no more than your record can support.

5. It Takes Skill to Explain A Change of Heart.
   Here’s where YouTube gives candidates nightmares and creates heated debates.  “Last Friday in Des Moines you said X, but 7 years ago in Dallas, you did Y. Watch this clip.” Circumstances change. People themselves change. Candidates do change their minds. But it takes both character and skill to explain those changes so that others believe they are genuine––not “flip-flops” for the purpose of getting elected. Trust, transparency, humility to admit past error in judgment––all of these are a must to communicate honesty and good intention.

   As a business owner, manager, or team leader, no doubt you will find yourself in situations where you will need to change your mind. Suppliers fail to come through on their commitments. Clients change their orders. The marketplace moves more or less rapidly that you anticipated. Cash flow puts you in a crunch.

   Sooner or later, you will find yourself eating crow. Learn how to do it with class.

As the presidential election process moves into high gear, you may want to tune in for what you can take action on—not necessarily regarding the candidates, but action on your own executive communications.

Dianna Booher, an expert in executive communications, is the author of 45 books, published in 25 countries and 19 languages.  Her latest books include Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader and Communicate with Confidence, Revised Edition. As CEO of Booher Consultants and as a high-caliber keynote speaker, Dianna and her staff travel worldwide to deliver focused speeches and training programs to address specific communication challenges and increase effectiveness in oral, written, interpersonal, and organizational communication.   www.booher.com

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Posted at 9:00am in General Communication | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Personal presence has much to do with perception. Those perceptions created with a few keystrokes online may last for a decade or a lifetime. Never take your online personae lightly.

Give Information, Plus Insight
Whether you’re blogging or tweeting, think tour guide. Consider past situations when you’ve been fortunate enough to have an experienced tour guide––possibly through the Smithsonian, the Louvre, or another center of interest. Guides don’t just function as signposts: “Here’s an eighteenth-century military uniform.” “Turn left and then walk straight ahead and you’ll see the Mona Lisa.”

Instead, the tour guide provides intriguing anecdotes about historical figures, illustrations of how equipment was used in past centuries, and statistics to put past feats into perspective so that you can compare them with a current frame of reference. The tour guide’s insight elevates the information from dry to dramatic. Serve your followers on the Internet in the same way. Aim not to be just a signpost to this or that article, book, or video, but a savvy person with opinions about what you’re sharing.

Ask Provocative Questions
Value comes in the form of a thought-provoking question as well as a declarative sentence. Think how many people have pondered the age-old question: “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Granted, you won’t get very far with stale questions such as this one. But try tossing out a thoughtful question about a current trend, asking for opinions on a controversial issue or policy, or asking for suggestions for solving prevalent problems. The BP oil spill generated thousands of suggested solutions—some of which brought significant recognition and financial reward to those who offered answers or piggybacked on others’ thinking. The current election process will, no doubt, produce other provocative questions in an effort to influence voters.

Make Your Writing on the Wall Clear and Crisp—and Go for Clever
Not everyone is a born novelist, poet, or rapper. So that “clever” criterion may be a stretch. But you can learn to write clear, crisp, correct comments and questions. Your writing represents your face on the screen and your attention to detail on the job. I’m not talking about a typo. If you have clumsy thumbs and you’re tweeting from your cell phone on a jerky elevator, you may miss a key. Rather, I’m talking about misused words, nonsensical phrasing, ungrammatical sentences, and other grammar goofs that raise eyebrows and cause confusion. Such things create an image in the minds of thousands of “friends” and “followers.”

Avoid Sounding Hysterical
If you want to avoid sounding like a 16-year-old, drop the emoticons and avoid the overuse of exclamation points. ☺ Forget it! Got it? No emoticons! No TWEETs that YELL! And TEXTS? What about texts? Those, too!!! No, I’m not hyper, angry, or on speed. Really!!! I’m just over 19!

Feel Free to Mix Business With Pleasure
Even if you’re interacting on behalf of your organization, make it personal. Otherwise, your firm could hire a computer to send out automated responses. If your firm sells widgets, your comments don’t have to be limited to widgets. Think wider. A comment about the excellent service you received from the local supermarket—along with insight to make it relevant—certainly has its place in social conversation. Your opinions, recommendations, and commentaries that provide insight into people’s personal or work lives add value. Just don’t bore us with drivel about your dining room chairs.

Dianna Booher, an expert in executive communications, is the author of 45 books, published in 25 countries and 19 languages.  Her latest books include Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader and Communicate with Confidence, Revised Edition. As CEO of Booher Consultants and as a high-caliber keynote speaker, Dianna and her staff travel worldwide to deliver focused speeches and training programs to address specific communication challenges and increase effectiveness in oral, written, interpersonal, and organizational communication.   www.booher.com

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Social media has been called the world’s biggest cocktail party. So let’s stay with that metaphor for a moment. Unless you’re attending solely for the purpose of pushing products and services on unsuspecting peers (not recommended), you walk in with the intention of fitting in. You expect to see people you already know and strengthen your relationship with them. You hope to meet new people who will enrich your life in the future. Where these people are concerned, you can offer help in the form of introductions to others, answers to questions, and ideas and information in your area of expertise.

When you walk into the typical cocktail party, you don’t expect a formally planned evening, with everyone being given 10 minutes on stage to introduce himself and present a question for the group to give input on, or with a panel of experts to present information, with Q&A to follow. Instead, the conversation flows freely among ever-changing mix-and-match groups.

That’s where the cocktail party metaphor breaks down. Typically, it’s taboo to bring up heavy business topics during a cocktail party. The party represents a time to get to know others socially—personality, family, hobbies, and interests apart from work. So LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs resemble a cocktail party—but also a formal networking event and an advisory group rolled into one platform. That is, “attendees” to the party formally introduce themselves beforehand by way of written profiles and tell you their interests in connecting.

That difference makes all the difference in how you present yourself and think about connecting online.

Think Value
The Twitter stream has trash, LinkedIn has spammers, and Facebook can become frivolous. So if you want to stand out from the crowd, communicate something of value. “It’s a bad hair day” lacks inspiration. “Waiting in line at the airport” doesn’t contribute to people’s lives. “Life is what you make it” doesn’t provoke deep thought. Consider contributing to the stream of communication with value statements and provocative questions, not polluting it.

Identify What Expertise You Can Contribute to the Conversation
Don’t be shy about sharing. What would you give an opinion about at a networking event with your colleagues and clients? They’re listening online. For starters, provide helpful tips in your areas of expertise. For example, I tweet communication tips—and that’s a fairly broad umbrella: business or technical writing, presentation skills, interpersonal skills, personal presence, running effective meetings, listening, organizational communication, resolving conflict, persuasion. You get the idea. Your expertise might be anything from kayaking, to coyotes, to cooking.

Other ideas for valuable comments: Your recommendations for travel, books, movies, speakers, learning products or events; your opinions or provocative questions on current events or trends and how they affect our lives; insights from some self-development program you’ve participated in; new research (polls, surveys, test data); predictions about your industry, social changes, or moods in the country or your workplace.

Don’t Confuse Value With Profundity
That’s not to say that every time you want to tweet or add a comment on someone’s blog post, you have to be so profound as to cause people to grab a pen and capture the thought for posterity. Reminding people to be grateful for good health when you’ve just lost a loved one certainly isn’t a new thought. But it serves to remind people to cherish what’s important. Telling someone why you enjoyed a movie may not be profound, but may increase his understanding and enjoyment of the movie. A patriotic post about why you love this country reminds others to be grateful.

Don’t let the “value proposition” cause you to hesitate in joining online conversations. As in face-to-face discussions, just try not to bore people with inane comments.

Make sure your online comments carry as much weight as those witty words you work so hard to deliver face to face.

Dianna Booher, an expert in effective communications, founded Booher Consultants in 1980. Dianna has written more than 40 books in the fields of business communication and productivity. Her latest books include Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader and Communicate with Confidence, Revised Edition. As a high-caliber keynote speaker who inspires audiences worldwide, Dianna delivers focused speeches and training programs to address specific communication challenges.

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Today’s a big day for us—and we think for you as well:  Creating Personal Presence:  Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader (Berrett-Koehler) launches on Amazon. If you buy a copy today on Amazon for $9.61, you will receive more than $2,100 worth of gifts and bonuses from 12 celebrity authors and experts.

These gifts—CDs, videos, ebooks, assessments, teleseminars—can improve your skills, make you more promotable, and improve your relationships. Literally, they can change your life.

Let me get more specific about personal presence:

Personal presence may be difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. People with presence look confident and comfortable, speak clearly and persuasively, think clearly—even under pressure. They act with intention and integrity. What they say and do matches who they are. Wherever you are and wherever you want to go, presence can help you get there.

In this new book, you’ll learn 20 principles and more than a hundred practical tips to improve your communication, increase your credibility, and expand your influence.

But remember:  You must order the book TODAY, Tuesday, OCTOBER 4, on Amazon, to receive these gifts and bonuses at http://www.booher.com/buybook/

Here’s what others have had to say about the book:

“Booher makes ‘presence’ actionable. This is my kind of book!” ~ Marshall Goldsmith, Author of New York Times bestsellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

“I’m a big fan of Dianna Booher. Her new book, Creating Personal Presence, will help you communicate the very best version of yourself as a leader.  Read it!” ~ Ken Blanchard, Coauthor of The One Minute Manager^® and Full Steam Ahead!

“This extraordinary book is full of invaluable ideas and insights that can help you to get paid more and promoted faster than you ever thought possible.” ~ Brian Tracy, Author of How the Best Leaders Lead, Goals!, and Eat That Frog

“For the star performer just starting out or the seasoned pro, this book provides hundreds of practical tips to build credibility and expand influence.” ~ Mira Marr

Vice President, Corporate University, Army & Air Force Exchange Services

“What an extraordinary work in a most substantive area.  We recommend this book unreservedly.” ~ Dr. Nido R. Qubein, President, High Point University and Chairman, Great Harvest Bread Company

“This is a gem of a book.  Not only has Booher made the intangible concept of presence accessible, she has done so in an entertaining, compelling manner.  This book should be mandatory reading for all current and future leaders.” ~ Robba Benjamin, former Vice President, Cisco Systems, Inc and General Manager, Consumer Line of Business

“Highly recommended for anyone who wants to increase their impact as a leader.” ~ Daniel Burrus, Author of the New York Times Best Seller, Flash Foresight

“Practical tips. Well researched. Entertaining anecdotes. Helpful checklists. A BIG winner.” ~ Dr. Tony Alessandra, Author ,The NEW Art of Managing People & Communicating at Work

“I once had the opportunity to spend 30 minutes, one-on-one with General Colin Powell… Talk about command presence and personal presence… Personal presence, to a very large extent, is directly responsible for General Powell’s incredibly successful life and career.   Dianna Booher has just published a superb new book titled Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader.  This excellent book is a critically important resource for anyone who desires greater personal and professional success.  Serious study and application of the priceless suggestions, recommendations and step-by-step examples within this book will improve every aspect of your personal and professional life.  I guarantee it!” ~ Dan Nielsen, Founder, National Institute for Healthcare Leadership

When it comes to personal presence, no one arrives at the peak of perfection.  But we can all strive to move further along on that continuum from weak impact to strong impact in credibility and influence.

So click here to get your copy today, October 4

Thanks for reading!

Dianna Booher, an expert in effective communications, founded Booher Consultants in 1980. Dianna has written more than 40 books in the fields of business communication and productivity. Her latest books include Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader and Communicate with Confidence, Revised Edition. As a high-caliber keynote speaker who inspires audiences worldwide, Dianna delivers focused speeches and training programs to address specific communication challenges.

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Posted at 9:00am in Communication—Interpersonal | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Check out Kevin Eikenberry’s article on the importance of presence as a leader.  He should know a thing or two about the subject. As the author of the popular Bud to Boss book and program, he’s been providing leadership development for two decades, with assessments, coaching, mentoring, and customized training tools. Thanks, Kevin, for a mention of my Creating Personal Presence book that officially releases tomorrow (Oct 4). Glad you liked it.

Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader

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