Issue No. 109 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a timely book that you must read if you ever speak in front of more than five people. And this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
"People Buy on Emotion and Justify With Facts"
“Communicating is a contact sport,” says Bert Decker. “Your ability to communicate is the single most important skill determining your success in every aspect of your life. You dare not make the mistake of thinking that communication is nothing but dumping information on another person.”
So what is communication? It’s selling. “People buy on emotion and justify with facts,” says Bert Decker. If he’s right—you may need to tune-up your public communication style and skills. An emotional decision isn’t necessarily the wrong decision, says the author, and then he reminds us what counts in public speaking: the 3 V’s. Verbal is seven percent, vocal is 38 percent and visual (what the listener sees) is a whopping 55 percent. Yikes—the sub-conscious impression wins every time. So does likeability.
Decker trains politicians, Fortune 500 company CEOs and thousands of other people in effective public speaking. I dog-eared the pages in his book at least 30 times. Truth Number 1: “The spoken word is almost the polar opposite of the written word.” He’s right. “If you want the boss to give you a raise, don’t send him a memo. Go to his office, look him in the eye, and persuade him that you’re worth it.”
To order from Amazon, click on this title: You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard: The Complete Book of Speaking…in Business and in Life, by Bert Decker. It is an amazingly complete book. Not only will you devour the take-‘em-to-the-bank principles and ideas, you’ll improve your own speaking ability immediately. Example: place paper faces on chairs in an empty room—and practice your talk.
“Old Communicators” get bogged down with too many boring facts. Apple’s Steve Jobs (a “New Communicator”) is “effective as a speaker because he’s focused on the audience experience, not on dispensing data.” He adds, “Use the action channel, not the information channel.” (Last week, I listened to six speakers at a one-day conference. Five of them MUST read this book ASAP!)
The book is a page-turning joy to read—it grabbed my emotions and my brain. You’ll appreciate Decker’s insights on what makes a politician an effective communicator (Bush at Ground Zero versus Bush today). You’ll never listen to your pastor or public speakers the same way again and you’ll recognize bad habits instantly like the fig leaf flasher, the finger-pointer, and the sin of hiding behind lecterns (and pulpits). Another no-no: reading your speech. You’ll also understand why communicators must first build trust—and why university students encountered a bubble gum machine outside their president’s “open door policy” office.
Decker nails it: “The most important dimension of communication takes place not at the conscious level, but the unconscious level. We’re talking about trust, believability and likeability—the emotional connection.” For more info, check out his website and blog.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The author quotes Oprah Winfrey: “Every listener instinctively wants to know one thing. What’s in it for me? The greatest public speakers are those who work at making their addresses both interesting and relatable.” Do you agree?
2) When’s the last time you invited a frank friend to critique your public speaking style or reviewed a video of your presentation or talk? Life-long learners welcome feedback.
The Delegation Bucket - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
Effective delegation is all about managing our time. That’s one of the big ideas in the Delegation Bucket, chapter 16, in Mastering the Management Buckets.
Delegation is all about stewarding your strengths and your time. Coach John Wooden was a master at mentoring his teams during his 40-year coaching career. From 1948 to 1975, his UCLA basketball teams won 10 NCAA national championships, including seven in a row! ESPN named him the Greatest Coach of the 20th Century. Here’s Coach Wooden on time:
“Time lost is time lost. It’s gone forever. Some people tell themselves that they will work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for what they did not do today. People should always do their best. If they can work twice as hard tomorrow, then they should have also worked twice as hard today. That would have been their best. Catching up leaves no room for them to do their best tomorrow. People with the philosophy of putting off and then working twice as hard cheat themselves.” (From: Coach Wooden One-on-One: Inspiring Conversations on Purpose, Passion and the Pursuit of Success, by John Wooden and Jay Carty)
Check out chapter 16 for the six strategic delegation best practices (including “Delegate Your Delegation”) and visit the Delegation Bucket on our website for resources, downloadable worksheets, recommended books and the team worksheet, "Dysfunctional Delegation Diseases."
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