Archive for the ‘Credibility’ Category
Speak up! Wait. Why are you talking?
If you hail from the corner office, you’re used to being heard.
If you are king of the OR, assistants jump at your command. If you hang out behind a pulpit or professorial podium—you know some at least pretend to tune in. But not everyone has a built-in audience. Not everyone is heard.
Those accustomed to being heard can have a hard time believing some cannot be heard. Why don’t just they just speak up if they have something to say? (Do they even have something to say?) In the same way Wall Street favors insiders over run-of-the-mill investors, every organization favors and rewards certain voices over others. These are the go-to voices in catastrophe or when a pep talk is needed. But these people sometimes assume everyone has a voice—because people listen to their voice—so, true for everyone.
Right?
But how many C-Suiters really want to hear? And how many behind the pulpit or podium really want to dialogue? Because—after all—casting vision is all about one-way messaging. Dialogue takes too long, is messy, confuses people with extraneous stuff and swerves off (my) topic.
What would leadership look like if listening were involved? Certainly there are times when monologue and one-way messaging are appropriate. But not all the time. What if the real strength of leadership was hidden in the will and unvoiced thoughts of the department/team/congregation/classroom? What if all sorts of unity was bubbling deep under the surface waiting to spring out much bigger and much better than anything the C-Suite player could ever imagine? It would be messy at first. But maybe something lasting would happen.
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Image Credit: thaeger
Getting Voice Right
Speaking for Someone Else is Always a Collaboration
Speaking in someone else’s voice is not really possible, though copywriters are often called on to do just this. The process—when done well—is more like hearing the client’s messages and collaborating to expand and deepen those messages. If the goal was just getting the words right and getting the message out clearly, strong editing would suffice. But the strategic copywriter often contributes substantive content. Helping the original ideas along by serving as a conversation partner to the client, to help them process through the message and its ramifications. The resulting content can prove stronger than the original content, though the danger is that it can sound like a committee wrote it. But a strong copywriter owns the process and follows through with a singular voice.
A singular, compelling voice.
These old Miller High Life commercials help make that point. These were filmed in the 90’s, directed by Errol Morris through Wieden+Kennedy. The retro male voice is just over the edge to make you laugh, but there is a bit of truth in the way the Americana is presented. The voice-over is perfect—and a perfect throw-back to 1950s and 1960s. That’s where Miller wanted the target audience to dwell for 30 seconds—with that slight whiff of what a man once was. Or at least what the Miller/Wieden+Kennedy collaboration thought might produce spending behaviors. And they succeeded: throughout the set there is the slightest hint of something you sorta remember—something your dad’s friends said. Or maybe your grandfather’s friends.
You’ll find a bunch of Errol Morris-directed Miller commercials here, but “Broken Window” (below) does a good job of capturing our grown up fear of the Other.
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Image Credit: doylepartners.com via 2headedsnake
Going to Church Today? Consider This.
expect a conversation that will help sort things
Probably someone will speak to the group—that’s typically what happens. And there will be singing. Prayers will be offered. You’ll shake a few hands. Maybe you’ll learn something new. Maybe you heart will be lightened. Your load lifted.
If heart-lightening or load-lifting happens, stop and think why. Was it because of magic words spoken from the pulpit? Not likely, as there are no magic words. But there are words that find a home in a person’s conscious thought and get absorbed there to do some work. One of the tests the old church fathers used to determine if a letter or text should be included in the Canon (our Bible today) was whether it had the power to change people—did the text speak with authority into a people’s lives? Did something happen because of hearing the text? When those old words get uttered from the pulpit today—they are not magic—but their truthiness has sticking power.
Just as likely: you meet someone who says something that affects you. Makes you think. Makes you reconsider an impending decision. And perhaps that same heart-lightening or load-lifting occurs. Sometimes we meet people who speak truth and it has the same effect.
And consider this: perhaps you go into that time expecting to hear something. What I mean is, sometimes we move into a situation actually expecting to hear something that could have the power to change how we think or act. You might call this listening. Or attentive listening. Or attenuated listening. Or listening on steroids. But whatever you call it, this is the most productive penultimate approach: listening with expectation. Then you pick up the tasty truthiness from any source.
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Image credit: Douglas Smith via 2headedsnake
Dummy’s Guide to Conversation #7: Flog Your Gnostic
Let Your Newbies Speak Prior to Corporate Brainwashing
Step into a marketing meeting in any medical device firm in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and be assaulted by a barrage of acronyms. Those uttering the abbreviations assume everyone present knows what they mean—or not. Some climbing their ladder speak precisely to show they know way more than others sitting around the room. For those, language is less about communication and more about one-upsmanship. Certain words signal a superior knowledge, a sort of Gnostic approach to the workplace that demands allegiance and, frankly, a bit of awe for all listening. When the exceptional words are spoken, a hush falls. And not just because most people don’t have a clue what was just said. But also because the words hint at some brave new insight (often just as obscure). Much of which is counter-productive to getting work done as others scramble to decode the awesome insider lingo.
Then again, what is “work”? Is work the climb up through the corporate-playground jungle bars to reach the top where the cool kids hang? Or is work about serving some need or group not immediately at hand? For most of us, work is a mix of the two. Usually we hire on because of the mission only to get embroiled in the politics. Part and parcel.
Good work begins by flogging the Gnostic. Flogging the Gnostic means slowing the flow of incomprehension with questions that penetrate to the sinew of a larger idea (or at least a benefit). Exposing the Gnostic is all about cutting to the bone of language that your true, final audience will understand. All the better if you can dissect to a simple, sticky, credible, believable idea anyone could understand.
For better or worse, flogging the Gnostic usually begins with your own inner Gnostic. Certainly you’ve felt the magnetic pull to parrot the word your boss/client just said, that magic word-of-the-moment that instantly captured attention. Better to aim right at the final audience, right through the BS, right through the acronym salad, straight to the folks you are trying to serve.
As a consultant my role is often to shun the insider language and play dumb (an easy task for me). This is the only way to build toward an actionable, sticky idea that communicates, no matter what it looks like to those playing the insider game.
Resolved: this week I will flog the Gnostic.
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Photo Credit: August Sander via thisisnthappiness
Best Buy and Brian Dunn’s Blog: Kudos for Leaving Comments Open
Minnesota Public Radio’s Martin Moylan reported Wednesday on Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn’s use of his blog to respond to media coverage of Best Buy’s business model. Moylan cited a recent critical commentary in Forbes magazine which received 2.3 million page views. In his blog Dunn responded to the critics but also tempted fate by leaving his blog open for comments.
Well done.
A quick glance through the comments shows all manner of agreement, disagreement, and vehement disagreement. Just like real people talking. It’s a messy mess of messages that point every direction all at the same time. And everyone can read it.
This, friends, is the future of conversation at an institutional level. Once people are given their voices back, they speak what they feel and sometimes what they know. But the act of listening is a huge hurdle and Mr. Dunn and his team did the commendable, credible thing by leaving it out in public for all to see.
We have a long, venerable history of jumping on market leaders, big notable institutions and authorities. There is something exhilarating about finding fault with those who seem to run the world, whether it’s Best Buy, Comcast, AT&T, Microsoft. Or the city council or the board of elders at church. Or elderly mom and dad. Or God. Sometimes they deserve it. Sometimes not. But the conversation is useful for lots of different purposes, including hinting at what is going on inside us.
Brian Dunn: thank you for your courage in letting people talk back. My estimation of Best Buy rose as I read the comments.
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Image Credit: Artists’ Book Not Artists’ Book via this isn’t happiness
Abilify Commercial: Now with Extra True-ishness
The genre of pharmaceutical commercials tend to show happy-faced users with their lives coming together after having taken the chemical compound. Happy faces also take center-stage while the disclaimers and side-effects roll on the screen and in the background voice-over. What I like about this commercial is that the dark shadow never goes away—which is more true to what I understand about clinical depression.
That the shadow remains in the animation is a powerful credibility-booster in my mind. I’m guessing the product manager and agency had strenuous talks about whether to keep the shadow in and what that shadow does to the brand promise.
This is something we’ve been talking about over at Details Have a Public Face.
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conversation is an engine 