Well…. maybe not.  Videoconferencing is hard work; to be effective, it requires more attention and focus on the mechanics of conversation than face-to-face interaction. You’ve got to pay a bit more attention to the speaker’s speech rhythm and pauses so that you don’t interrupt. It’s not easy, which is why there are often those unnatural seconds of silence in videoconferencing, and why it’s not always clear when it’s your turn to speak. Speaker clarity is often a problem, which means you have to listen more closely to understand what is being said. And it is harder not to act a bit more formal during a videoconference – the medium often feels less natural, as does the flow of the conversation.

Because videoconferencing requires us to pay more attention to the mechanics of the conversation, we have less attention and brainpower to devote to the content. As a result, we tend to rely more on non-content cues to assess the effectiveness of the interaction – the speaker’s dress, looks, tone-of-voice, age, titles, etc.  To put it another way, when using videoconferencing, as compared to face-to-face interaction, participants are more likely to assess the effectiveness of the interaction on the likeability of the speakers than on the content of what they said.

Sound a bit far-fetched? But that is exactly what two researchers found when they compared the assessments of a medical seminar between those who attended the seminar in person, and those who participated by videoconferencing. As they put it:

In this study, participants in the videoconference seminars reported being more influenced by how much they liked the speaker than by their assessment of the quality of the arguments presented, whereas those attending the seminar face-to-face reported just the opposite.

Interesting results, suggesting, not that we abandon videoconferencing – which isn’t going to happen anyway – but that we become a bit more cognizant of how we use it.

You can find the an abstract of the research here:
http://mansci.journal.informs.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/9/1565

Similar to other organizational priorities, cost cutting should follow a typical communication protocol (i.e. communicate consistently and frequently through various vehicles and channels to ensure all employees receive the message). But there’s more. To garner employee support for major cost-cutting efforts, we recommend the following:

1)    Explain financial goals simply.

Enlist senior leaders and managers to translate cost-cutting messages for their teams. Managers know what works for their teams and understand how to make cost cutting a real priority in their department. Employees are more likely to take part in the process if they know how they can make a difference in their daily work.

2)    Walk the talk.
Lead by example – your cost-cutting message will lose credibility if you don’t practice what you preach. If you tell employees to be fiscally conservative and then openly purchase expensive decor for the office, employees will disregard all the hard work that’s gone into the cost-cutting effort. As a leader, everything you do communicates a message, so be sure that your actions illustrate the importance of cost cutting. A recent Wall Street Journal article states:

Before asking others to sacrifice, first volunteer yourself. If there are sacrifices to be made – and there will be – then the leaders should step up and make the greatest sacrifices themselves… Everyone is watching to see what the leaders do. Will they stay true to their values? Will they bow to external pressures, or confront the crisis in a straightforward manner?… (You can read the full article here.)

If you’re open and honest about your spending choices, employees will follow suit.
Achieving employee support for organizational cost cutting is no easy feat and requires dedication from everyone involved, especially leadership. Therefore, following the two points mentioned above will not only position your organization for a better financial situation, it will increase employee support so your workforce is aligned around your cost-cutting priority.

Simply put, the answer is yes. We know, now more than ever, that a strong strategic message not only reduces uncertainty among employees and provides the context necessary to make sense of initiative-level actions and messages, but it also aligns and guides the leadership team. On the other hand, a poorly designed strategy message can lead to a skeptical workforce and a severely misaligned leadership team.

As a result of the economic downturn and to survive the financial slump, companies are changing how they operate. In doing so, some organizations are going back to the drawing board to revise and refresh their strategic message to align with how they’re now doing business. Others acknowledge the need to update their strategic message, but are hesitant to do so for fear that employees will resist the change and leadership will lose credibility.

If you’re thinking about revisiting your organization’s strategic message, here are a few recommendations for doing so in a way that promotes employee buy-in and builds leadership credibility.

Review recent decisions and messages.
Hold up your current strategy message against the most recent actions and decisions of the leadership team. If one of your current strategic priorities is to ‘invest in innovation” and you’ve recently cut your research and development budget for 2009, then it’s probably time to re-think your business priorities and change your strategy message for the year.

Measure employee understanding.
Research offers a credible, concrete, data-driven way to validate or support your argument, and having a sense of the pulse of the organization often yields access to the leadership team. For example, conducting a strategic alignment survey that assesses the credibility of the message set and the leadership team, as well as the level of employee understanding of and engagement with the current strategy message, may give you just the ammunition you need to gain senior leadership support for a revised strategy.

Get leadership on board.
Brief the leadership team, discuss the importance of a strong strategy message, and address the need to and consequences (positive and negative) of updating the message set. Be prepared to talk candidly about the fact that everything they do as leaders sends a message. Share the findings from your employee research to help shape your argument and support your proposal.

Don’t underestimate the importance of a clear, actionable strategy message—and don’t let your leadership underestimate it either. To read more about why the message really does matter click here.

Whether you’re a hedge fund manager or a wide receiver, take note. Perhaps the rising tide of public expectations for leaders’ behavior on Wall Street should also apply to our favorite good athletes/bad sports on the field.  In times like this, when the average American is working harder than ever before to make ends meet, perhaps people like Terrell Owens and Manny Ramirez should manage their ego and play harder too. And if they don’t, their leaders and the public should be less forgiving.

Here’s hoping that my hometown of Buffalo does a better job than my current city of Philadelphia at Managing T.O. We’ll see … either way, at least the Phillies got it right last year (see article for details).

The last six months have resulted in more employees in transition than ever before. As people find themselves working for a new employer or in a different role within their organization, managers must figure out how to on-board new team members as quickly as possible and effective superior-subordinate communication plays a large role.

You can increase how quickly new team members adjust to your management style by considering the following when setting expectations:

Inform employees of your expectations by sharing them in a way that is clear, concise, and easy to understand. Doing this puts your employees in a place where they can succeed and not in the position of becoming a mind reader. Communicating expectations takes time up front, but it saves everyone time in the end.

Evaluate the credibility of your expectations by inquiring about your employee’s bandwidth. Ask if they are working on any other projects right now and how much time those projects are consuming. If they do not have the availability you need you will have to reset your expectations for their involvement.

Clarify that the message sent is the message received. Have a conversation with your employee about the next steps they plan to take in the projects you have assigned. Their response will help you to gauge how well they understand your expectations and allows you to address misunderstandings, if any, before anyone heads in the wrong direction.

At CRA, we ask leaders: “What do you want your employees to know, believe, do, and feel?” We stress that the ultimate goal is the “do” part – getting employees to act how you want them to act. In the communication literature, there are two theoretical approaches – the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) – that predict voluntary behavior. In the first installment of this two-part series I will discuss Ajzen and Fishbein’s TRA and how it can predict employee behavior.

The best predictor of behavior is intention. The TRA suggests that an individual’s intention to perform or not perform is a result of two factors: attitudes toward the behavior and normative pressure. So how can you influence intention and get employees to live your strategy? You have to control:

Attitudes toward the behavior: An employee’s attitude toward a behavior is based on his / her beliefs concerning the outcomes that follow action. In order to motivate employees to action, they must believe that living the organization’s strategy will be beneficial to them. You must ensure that:

• Positive consequences follow performance and negative consequences follow nonperformance.
• Employees believe that positive consequences are valuable and negative consequences are undesirable.

Normative pressure: Intention and subsequent action are also influenced by employees’ perceptions of whether key stakeholders support the behavior. Leaders, peers, and mentors can influence whether an individual’s actions align with the organizational goals. You must ensure that:

• Leaders support the strategy, and their own decisions and actions reinforce the expectations they place on employees.
• Employees participate in groups with other employees.

Stay tuned for the follow-up post in which I describe the theory of planned behavior, which builds off of the TRA.

So, how do you get some instant credibility; how can you demonstrate that you really mean what you say? Whether you want to highlight the importance of a new initiative, a shift in direction, or compliance issues—as a researcher, I’ve found one of the strongest “convincing decisions” that leaders can make to demonstrate they really care about something on their leadership agenda is to measure…then act.

As organizations increasingly rely on metrics and dashboards to guide employee efforts, a highly effective way to get people’s attention is to ask for their feedback about whether (and how well) your efforts are moving the organization in the right direction—and then to be very transparent about what you heard from them and how you plan to act on it. And, this approach offers some nice side benefits: (1) You make better decisions when you know the landscape in which you’re operating and (2) you’re more likely to get employee buy-in for your plans when you’ve listened to their input first.

Watching the Inauguration of our 44th President made me think about the transition Barack Obama has ahead of him, and the transition we, as a nation, have in front of us. When it comes to Presidential transitions, we are lucky—we know it is happening, we expect it, and the media inundates us with information.  But significant leadership changes in organizations are not so cut and dry.

Shifts in corporate leadership are far more unpredictable, and we can see additional implications when announcing leadership changes. That said, it’s essential to prepare internal audiences for the transition if you want leadership to maintain credibility. Here are three coaching points to keep in mind when announcing leadership changes at the management and director levels:

Communicate early and often. You need to communicate leadership changes to your employees before the media gets hold of the information. Though timing of these kinds of communications is critical and often difficult—particularly for publicly traded organizations— treat employees as a privileged audience. Be proactive and frame the conversation for your organization before an outside or informal network does, using a variety of channels (i.e. newsletters, department meetings, town halls). Cascade the initial leadership change throughout the organization so each employee hears it from his or her direct manager. Leaders should subsequently update employees to keep them in the loop, using both formal channels (intranets, memos) and informal channels (conversations at lunch, walking through your department).

Manage meaning around the transition. Situational context gives meaning to the message, so be strategic in creating it. Since employees are more likely to believe informal communication than formal, find out what people are saying and thinking before creating the message. Learn how people really view the change in leadership and the departure of the present leader by walking around and listening to the water-cooler talk. Ask employees and leaders who are well-connected—those who know the rumors but don’t spread them—to update you, and then address the crucial issues that arise. While you’ll never stop all the rumors, you can control some by reaching out to employees in informal conversations and offering the truth.

Keep the message future-focused. Acknowledge the previous leader’s positive contributions, but focus the message, both formal and informal, on the opportunities ahead. Don’t talk about the “big shoes” the new leader has to fill. If the previous leader is leaving on unfavorable terms, communicate it as an example of what will not be tolerated going forward.

Leadership transitions can be a tremendous opportunity for organizations to set the tone and expectations for future activities. The organizations who’ve handled these situations best are those that put forethought into what they want employees to know, feel, do, and believe—communicating strategically and in a way that’s tailored to each employee audience. Take a note from those who do it well, asking yourself what sets them apart, and you will see that these organizations thoughtfully use communication.

Why should executives be visible?

• Employees expect it. Fortunately for communicators, and unfortunately for shy executives, employees have come to expect visible communication from all levels of leadership. (You can thank all of the former CEOs who have published books in the last five years.)
• The most listened to message is the one from executives. When the CEO, SVP, or other leaders with a C, V, or P in their title speak, employees listen. They want to hear about the direction of the organization and they want to hear about it from those who are steering.
• It’s a sign of respect. Without the employees, there would be no organization. Acknowledge this and give them the courtesy of seeing or hearing from their leaders.
• It’s a sign of strength. In the absence of information, employees will create their own—and most often, this information is worse than reality. When there is little information flowing from the executive team, employees believe something is wrong—even if it’s just because the CIO is uncomfortable in front of people. On the other hand, when information is flowing from the executive team, employees believe the organization is thriving. Visible executives signal to employees that either (1) the organization is doing well or (2) executives are confident in the organization’s direction.
• More visible executives are more credible executives. When employees believe their leaders—executive or otherwise—are competent in their role and have character, then employees believe they’re credible. Because of executive leadership’s positional authority, they often receive a pass on competence—but not on character. Getting out in front of employees will help to establish perceptions of character; multiplying the visibility events will improve these perceptions.

The list above pertains to any point in time–good or bad. During bad times, though, it’s even more important that employees see their leaders. If you haven’t already, consider increasing the frequency of leadership visibility in your organization–you won’t regret it.

• The Management Myth: A nice article on the pop-culture (and intellectually questionable) nature of much management theory.

  “Why does every new management theorist seem to want to outdo Chairman Mao in calling for perpetual havoc on the old order? Very simply, because all economic organizations involve at least some degree of power, and power always pisses people off. That is the human condition. At the end of the day, it isn’t a new world order that the management theorists are after; it’s the sensation of the revolutionary moment. They long for that exhilarating instant when they’re fighting the good fight and imagining a future utopia. What happens after the revolution—civil war and Stalinism being good bets—could not be of less concern.”

• Change or Die: An interesting Fast Company article that describes the challenges to bringing about personal behavioral change, many of which have neuro-cognitive roots.

  “”If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle,” Miller said. “And that’s been studied over and over and over again. And so we’re missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can’t.”"

• The Brain That Changes Itself: A book on neuroplasticity which expands greatly on the ideas in Change or Die. It turns out you CAN teach an old dog new tricks — the trick just has to be relevant, the dog needs multiple attempts, and there must be treat after each successful try.

  “Neuro is for “neuron,” the nerve cells in our brains and nervous systems. Plastic is for “changeable, malleable, modifiable.” At first many of the scientists didn’t dare use the word “neuroplasticity” in their publications, and their peers belittled them for promoting a fanciful notion. Yet they persisted, slowly overturning the doctrine of the unchanging brain. They showed that children are not always stuck with the mental abilities they are born with; that the damaged brain can often reorganize itself so that when one part fails, another can often substitute; that if brain cells die, they can at times be replaced; that many “circuits” and even basic reflexes that we think are hardwired are not. One of these scientists even showed that thinking, learning, and acting can turn our genes on or off, thus shaping our brain anatomy and our behavior—surely one of the most extraordinary discoveries of the twentieth century.”

• Words that Work, framing and the use of language from the conservative point of view, and Don’t Think of an Elephant, framing and the use of language from the liberal point of view.
• Love is the Killer App: One of the best books on relationship management I’ve read. The chapter on how to read books is worth its weight in gold alone.
• The Tipping Point: A modern science-journalism classic about how ideas spread, this book is an excellent summation of a large amount of communication theory–about persuasion, relationship development, communication networks, the role of context in interpretation–I consider essential for leaders to know.

  “Consider, for example, the following puzzle. I give you a large piece of paper, 1/100th of a inch thick. (That’s a typical thickness). I want you to fold it over once, and then take that folded paper and fold it over again, and then again, and again, until you have refolded the original paper 50 times. How tall do you think the final stack is going to be? … [T]he real answer is that the height of the stack would approximate the distance to the sun. And if you folded it over one more time, the stack would be as high as the distance to the sun and back. This is an example of what in mathematics is called a geometric progression … As human beings we have a hard time with this kind of progression, because the end result–the effect–seems far out of proportion to the cause. To appreciate the power of epidemics, we have to abandon this expectation about proportionality. We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen very quickly.”

• Worst to First: Most CEO “how I did it” books are ego gratification in print. This one is not, and is rich in examples of the symbolic nature of leadership communication, and the effective communication of strategic direction, in particular.
• Influence: An academic classic that’s entirely accessible in the main stream. Read this book and you’ll never look at a car salesman or cult the same. On my “Top Books All Leaders Should Read” list.
• Three resources on design: Universal Principles of Design, which is a fantastic book on design generally (and a great coffee table book to boot), Slide:ology, which covers everything you should know about how to, and how not to, design an effective presentation, and finally, everything by Ed Tufte, who’s a modern guru of information design (and who also writes books suitable for any well-appointed coffee table). (And while your at it, read this Bruce Nussbaum speech on how CEOs must be designers, not just hire them.)
• On Speaking Well: Peggy Noonan’s slim tome on writing, preparing for, and delivering speeches. A great little book, although expect Ms. Noonan’s conservative affections to shine through (pleasing some of you and slightly annoying others).
• Beowulf (the Seamus Heaney translation): I think there’s much to learn about leadership from reading the classics. After all, the nuances of the human condition and the challenge of leading others were part of the human conversation long before Peter Druker put pen to paper. Beowulf is one of my favorite non-leadership-book leadership books, and has one of my favorite lines about leadership in print: “He went about things like the leader he was.” (Which also means that if you want to change the leader you are, you must change how you go about things.) If you want a real treat, download and listen to the audio book read by Heaney in his native brogue.
• Once an Eagle: I’m still reading this book from the Marine Commandant’s reading list, but it’s already among my favorite novels. Truly wonderful prose, Myrer’s talent for simile is remarkable, and great imagery and lines shine from nearly every page. What would Sam Damon do?
• Management of the Absurd: Another great management book most leaders have never seen, Richard Farson’s view into organizational paradoxes (e.g., “Technology creates the opposite of its intended purpose”) is worth reading and reviewing every few years.

•    The CEOs of the Big Three automakers traveled from Detroit to Washington D.C. to negotiate governmental funding to help “bail out” their failing businesses. Instead of driving to Capitol Hill, each CEO elected to fly in his corporate jet. Congress responded to the automakers’ financial requests with frustration, in part because the use of a corporate jet doesn’t symbolize a financial crisis. Senators were also surprised by the CEOs’ decision to fly and not to drive in support of their own business – the automobile industry. After feeling the pressure of public scrutiny, each CEO drove a hybrid manufactured by his company to the next bailout hearing.

This example illustrates the symbolic nature of communication. It’s easy to forget that every action sends a message, regardless of whether you intend to send one or not. While an oversight of this principle can quickly diminish the quality of your reputation, the opposite is also true; deliberate, well-thought-out actions can quickly build your credibility and character. Successful leaders know the importance of good, strategic choices that are in line with their personal brand.

Ultimately, the above example exhibits that while you might not have control of the economy, you do have the ability to control how you communicate during difficult economic conditions. During these uncertain times, your actions speak even louder than before. In this economy, what do your actions symbolize?

This is the fourth installment of a four-part series.

Logos (Reason)

If a message establishes credibility while it emotionally connects with an audience, then the argument itself should be able to stand on its own merit. The point here is that if you have attended to the other two issues properly, make sure you also have a well-thought-out, intelligently-crafted message.

Coaching Points:

1. This arena deals with the logical strength of the case you are presenting. If you are making a presentation to a group, one way to strengthen your argument is to include voices of dissent, as well as how you overcome these objections.
2. Another method for establishing certainty in an argument is to lean on the cutting-edge scholarship in a given field. Our field is change management and communication, so we need to stay up on the latest scholarly journal articles and books in these fields. Citing the world authority on ERP implementation, for example, will help solidify your argument.
3. Get your facts straight and take your time to think them through. The last thing you want to do is be in a position where you have to make a case for something or an important decision with partial or wrong information. As they say in carpentry: “Measure twice, cut once.”

Aristotle may be notoriously complex, but remember that he simplified things for us. If you want to be more persuasive in speeches, messages, or any sort of communication, there are not an infinite number of things to think about. There are really only three aspects of being persuasive. The question you constantly need to be asking yourself is how to embody Ethos, Pathos, and Logos more fully.

In doing so, researchers are finding that well-connected employees, those who have extensive social networks that bridge gaps between departments (or silos), are more likely to do better at work. As a result, social networking tools are becoming an integral component to enhancing employee engagement and elevating employee performance.

Consequently, maintaining consistent leadership communication paired with opportunities for employees to build social relationships with others at work will not only build employees’ level of trust, but will also give them a sense of community within the organization.

Prior to getting started, keep in mind that some social networking tools might fit better in your company than others. To that point, before implementing a social networking tool in your organization, consider the following critical next steps:

• Create a social networking advisory council of well-connected employees who can audit the organization and evaluate employee needs and wants.
• Identify social networking tools that work best inside your organization and fit into your company culture.
• Recognize potential obstacles in the implementation of these tools in your organization.
• Set realistic expectations around tasks and timelines for implementation.

For more information about social networking at the office, click here. Or, to read more about communication advice for leaders during the financial crisis, click here.

If your company is one of them, and it’s your job to provide support in this area, you probably know it’s not an easy task. There are literally hundreds of surveys out there—designed to measure satisfaction, engagement, alignment, culture, leadership—you name it! Many come with fancy labels and elaborate models to attract your attention. For many firms, survey research has become a commodity business of sorts, and the competition is fierce. Those who have been at it long enough can claim an additional advantage—they have done thousands of surveys and can provide benchmarks* to boot. So, how do you pick?

My answer usually is—you don’t—It’s not a fruit basket!

Unfortunately, many companies approach organizational assessment as if it were a menu of choices. And when they do, they often end up with… apples and oranges. It’s all fruit, but somehow it doesn’t go well together. Companies that approach assessment with this mindset frequently end up with an odd combination of research tools often from different vendors—tools that produce data, and often a lot of it, but paradoxically, generate little consistent or actionable understanding.

What’s worse, some of these tools, when used indiscriminately, can do serious damage—they may send wrong or conflicting messages about what the company values and considers important or what actions the company intends to undertake in the future; the questions or the survey format altogether may be poorly suited for the company culture, its employee population, or the current company situation. Finally, lack of a well-integrated assessment strategy and consistent follow-up, combined with survey fatigue, often erode employee morale and confidence in leadership. So, resist the temptation—don’t go fruit shopping!

Instead, the question you should be asking each time is—What do we need?

Invariably, the answers to this question reside in your current company situation, its immediate challenges, and future aspirations. You won’t get at these answers with standardized tools which by their very nature are designed to provide more generalized insights across different companies and industries, and tend to overlook your company’s specific challenges, potential strengths, and unique opportunities. What you should be looking for instead is a more customized approach which starts with an honest assessment of your short-term and long-term needs, and leads to a well-integrated research portfolio specifically designed to identify and target your company’s weaknesses and leverage its strengths for long-term organizational success. So, next time you wonder “which one do I pick,” think about the “fruit basket” and make sure you ask the right questions.

*Also, see CAUTION: Benchmarking Ahead written by Kellie Hamrick for an interesting take on benchmarking.

This is the third installment of a four-part series.

Pathos (Personal Connection)

Aristotle was highly-attuned to the fact that the persuasiveness of a message is thoroughly connected to the state of mind of the audience. He reminds us to take the emotional temperature of a given audience prior to communicating with them. He also encourages us to deconstruct the contents of whatever emotion we find. If an audience is angry, is it because they desire something, or are they experiencing pain in one way or another? Is there a way to address this pain or desire without inflaming it further? Attending to these emotional states is fundamental to communicating a message, not an ancillary afterthought. If the tone of our message can make headway toward soothing an angry audience—or at least not make things worse—then the odds of the message getting through are exponentially increased.

Coaching Points:

1. You can take the emotional temperature of a given audience through a more or less formal interview process, depending on your time, resources, and interest. Sometimes, a handful of conversations might be enough to make a situation clear. If you discover a group is angry, don’t stop there. The more precisely that you pinpoint the exact reason for why an audience is hostile, the better you will be able to address it and ultimately communicate successfully with them. For example, I spoke with a number of people in an organization who were angry, because they felt that they were left out of the loop with regard to a major change taking place. In this case, the anger was misplaced. The higher-ups had no problem sharing information in real-time; they just didn’t think to do it. So we came in and said to everyone that a new communication process will be put in place to describe the changes, which put everyone in a great mood. Then we were able to communicate the message that we set out to communicate in the first place. Having changed the mood from hostile to pleasant, they were naturally much more receptive.
2. Another lesson to learn from Aristotle’s idea of Pathos is the importance of emotionally connecting with your audience. One tip for giving criticism, and I need to give John Cook credit here, is to acknowledge that you have made a similar error in the past, or  that you empathize with a person’s behavior in a given situation, but nonetheless need to give them negative feedback.
3. If you are speaking with a group that you don’t know, it is important to find touchpoints where your concerns and goals match theirs. Establish early on and often that you are not so different from your audience. For example, take a minute in the hall to hear about someone’s family issues, or talk about the football game. Or, take a minute to illustrate that everyone—yourself included—is in the same boat if a major initiative fails, and that you all stand to gain if the initiative succeeds.

This is the second installment of a four-part series.

Ethos (Credibility)

What did Aristotle think about how to establish credibility? To him, credibility was the product of embodying three characteristics: 1) practical knowledge; 2) virtuous character; and 3) good will. It’s interesting to note that if you lack any one of these, either your know-how or your honesty can be challenged. What struck me about these three characteristics is that establishing credibility is not limited to expertise or knowledge of a particular subject. You can present yourself as incredibly knowledgeable, but if you don’t convey a virtuous character or good will, people might think that you know what you’re talking about, but for whatever reason aren’t telling them. Thus, being a good, honest, and dependable person—and conveying this fact—is as important to your credibility as knowing what you’re talking about.

Coaching Points:

1. The overall  practical point is not to forget that establishing your credibility is essential to communicating persuasively. You don’t want to be a braggart, but you can’t appear so deferential and humble that it takes a couple years for people to realize that you are smarter than you first appear. (A) One way to communicate credibility is never to talk down to an audience. Without inundating them with jargon or acronyms, speak to them as you would a colleague, except make sure to define terms, elaborate on concepts, etc. If you dumb it down too much, you risk your audience thinking that the whole thing is obvious, and that you haven’t clarified anything. (B) If you are giving a speech in front of an audience that doesn’t know who you are, make it a point to convey your experience and practical knowledge subtly through a story or aside at the beginning of the speech. For example, tell a personal story that both references your role in a high-profile engagement and makes headway in the overall presentation.
2. One way to establish yourself as virtuous is to tactfully reference a charitable activity that you do: volunteer work, non-profit work, etc. In addition to the fact that these sorts of activities build your character as a virtuous one, your public participation in them sends the message that you are not simply a Gordon Gekko from Wall St. lacking scruples and a moral compass.
3. One way to establish yourself as having a sense of good will is to offer free advice. Since so few people do it, it makes CRA stand out when one of our consultants explains to a client exactly what we would do in a given situation. It helps establish our brand as friendly, open, and willing to provide expertise even when we might not gain financially from it.

This is the first installment of a four-part series.

At CRA, we use Aristotle’s three methods of persuasion—Ethos, Pathos, and Logos (found in his Rhetoric)—as the foundation for creating quality messages. We gloss these terms as Believe, Do, and Know. In other words, a good message makes the audience believe we are credible. It establishes a personal connection, which helps to encourage that the message is acted upon. Finally, a good message helps the audience to know something new and important by presenting reasonable and intelligent arguments.

I thought it would be useful to return to the source to help fill out these concepts a bit more. One interesting point to begin with is that there are only three ways for a person to be persuasive according to Aristotle. These can be characterized broadly in terms of: 1) the character of the speaker; 2) the emotional state of the hearer; and 3) the argument itself.

Three posts, corresponding to Ethos, Pathos, and Logos respectively, will follow this introductory post over the next three weeks. Each will include practical coaching points designed to help translate Aristotle’s observations into the practical world of business.

While an engaging speaking style and strong narratives help make leaders more credible, nothing is more compelling to most people than authenticity. That’s why my typical advice to leaders seeking role models would not be to emulate either one of these presidential candidates, but to look in the mirror for inspiration and ideas.

But if pressed for an example outside of yourself of someone who has that unique combination of authenticity, competence and caring, I would encourage you to take a closer look at the life of Tim Russert. Someone who should be–but sadly isn’t–covering this election.

Anyone who knew Tim Russert (and the millions who felt as if they did), knew him as an objective journalist whose passion for politics was obvious, his optimism was contagious, his integrity unmatched, his values consistent, and his caring genuine. He worked harder and was arguably better at his craft than many who will be covering tomorrow’s election results.

Russert had a professional credibility and personal likeability about him–he asked tough questions with a smile, told stories that helped people relate, and built relationships with people from all walks of life (and from both sides of the aisle).

So, on the eve of this historic election, my hat goes off to Tim Russert–partially because I share his hometown of Buffalo and can relate to his story (Go Bills), but mostly because I appreciate people who are the best at what they do, and do it with their own genuine style, compassion, and humility.

Dr. John Sweller, Professor of Education at the University New South Wales, Australia, developed this relatively straightforward theory that suggests people learn, process, and remember information better when it’s presented in a simple manner that doesn’t require considerable memory load–the amount of memory necessary to process and remember information.

In today’s boardrooms many people use PowerPoint as the way to present information, regardless of the content. This is a problem because people tend to include too much information on each slide and, as a result, end up reading the information directly off the projector screen. According to Sweller’s Theory, this presentation method is redundant and reduces the audience’s ability to remember what you’ve said.

So, the next time you’re putting together a business presentation, remember that every person has a different capacity for processing information and PowerPoint is not always the right tool for the job. Try to resist the temptation of putting everything on the slides, and improve your likelihood of presentation success by remembering two key things:

Focus on Simplicity: Make your messages clear and simple, and avoid using complex data. This will reduce memory load and increase audience recall.

Avoid Redundancy: If you’re going to use PowerPoint, do not read the information directly off the slide. PowerPoint presentations are more effective when they’re used to highlight key points from your presentation, not to repeat it.

To learn more about Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory click here.