Less is More

September 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Why giving options is a bad idea

The temptation to ask for, or deliver, options is a trap worth avoiding. Whether it’s a graphics treatment, speech tone or overall approach, creating options wastes everyone’s time. Most often, there’s a best idea and everybody knows it. The other ideas limp along, nursed into marginal condition by junior team members for one of several reasons:

  1. Unclear criteria: Most options can be eliminated by asking a few questions before the team begins work. Identify the various possible directions and make inquiries to eliminate them. Do you prefer illustrations or photos? What emotion should the speech evoke? Talking takes a lot less time than doubling or tripling the creation effort.
  2. Flaunting capabilities: There is a time to showcase a team’s many and varied strengths, but executive speech writing is not that time. For executives, expertise is more valuable. The tenor of the conversation should be, “here’s the best approach and why” vs. “there are five ways we could address this audience, what do you think?”
  3. Abdication of responsibility: Owning an idea requires courage and a strong point-of-view. Many of us have the instinct to identify the best idea, but lack the bravery to forsake other options and fully develop one. We push the decision to the next guy to mitigate risk for ourselves.

To counteract these traps, think of executive speechwriting like a race, not a gallery. Leave it to our colleagues in the fine arts to put ideas on display. Set about the business of identifying the winning idea and axe options before they make their way into a workflow—or worse, in front of an executive.

Filed Under: Executive communications, Speechwriting

The secret to tight, effective communications are rambling thoughts and bad ideas

September 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A great communication requires finding a truth and then giving voice to it.

When you have something really important to say, it almost always requires working with others to bring it into focus.

Much of the work we do deals with complex strategies and surrounding executive communications. Finding the words that describe the truth is often hard. Translating that truth into cogent communications is harder.

You say you face this all the time?

We have a couple of suggestions.

To find the main point and to build a story line framework:

  • Get a team. A small team of really good thinkers.
  • Let people ramble. Some people need to think out loud. It can be messy. Wait. Wait for it. There may be a jewel in there.
  • Your job: Pull out the jewels. The person rambling may not hear their own good idea. Capture the idea by saying something like “I really like the part about…” and write it down. A white board is a good option.
  • Use too many words. When it is your turn, apologize for saying too much. Then say too much. Too many words are the raw material of good ideas.
  • Let bad ideas on to the table. A close cousin of too many words are bad ideas. You don’t want these exclusively – if that is all you are getting you have fielded the wrong team. But stupid ideas can lead to good ideas. Give them space.

After the framework and main point is in place…

  • Don’t give up. The initial framework is rarely tight. Stay on it. Make it tight. Make sure it is a story.
  • Don’t accept something that feels like a hitch. If an idea or the words or the visuals feel like a hitch, it’s a hitch. Don’t let it go. Go back and fix it.

And forever…

  • Be trustworthy. Often people have to say things that are off-track to find the thing that is on-track. Permit them this imperfection and don’t repeat the lame ideas that were discarded in conversation.

Just finished with a tough executive communications?  Offer your thoughts and suggestions.

Filed Under: Executive communications, Speechwriting Tagged With: , ,

The quality of executive communications is a simple math equation

September 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

People ask and offer opinions (heck, that is what we are doing with this blog) regarding what makes executive communications high quality.

For any given communications, there are lots of things. Audience. Presenter. Topic. Duration. Medium. And stuff.

Let me give you a completely different way to look at executive communications quality in the form of a simple math equation.

image

Material in hand. This is the source materials and ideas that the executive and his/her team have already prepared. People often say they have much of the material ready.

This is a damn lie.

I’ve come to conclude that people believe it when they say they have 90% of the thinking and their supporting visuals gathered. It just turns out to be different when you get into the communications that need to be developed. And in their hearts they know this.  It is why they brought you in.

Talent. There are some people that are natural communicators. I’m not. But I’m practiced. And that can be a pretty good predictor of effectiveness. The more speeches someone has written, the faster they are and most often – the better they are.

Time. Time can be the enemy of quality. With little time, fewer options can be explored. Refinements are more limited. Reviews cursory. Rehearsals truncated.

Here is a rule of thumb related to time:

A skilled executive speech writer can take a 30 minute speech 2 letter grades in 2 weeks.

Give a skilled speech writer a D and you have a B in 2 weeks. A C can be an A. You get the picture. And it also gives you some guidance with respect to how much time you should allow to write and deliver a stunning executive communications.

Have your own formulas for success? Share them. We would love to trade trade secrets.

Filed Under: Executive communications, Speechwriting

Important, and (GULP) last minute executive communications

September 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We support some pretty large organizations. One of the consequences of being large AND nimble and fast-acting is there are times when important decisions are made that must be communicated without much time for preparation.

This is an executive moment. Not necessarily make or break, but something that sets part of the tone of who you are.

There are lots of opportunities for things to go badly.

  • You fail to communicate adequately
  • You have too much throat clearing
  • You go on and on
  • You are maudlin or insincere
  • You are aloof or uncaring
  • You ramble

This week, one of our clients made a bold set of decisions that impacted their most important channel partners, the field personnel worldwide and a significant portion of the executive staff. They made the decisions fast (1 day) and it was the right thing to do as information had to get out accurately – right away.

A senior executive was selected to send the baseline communications. Other executives around the world were asked to forward with an introduction in addition to the mail. Several things about these mails made them very effective.

  • The subject line was the headline
  • Context was established quickly
  • The decision was offered factually and completely
  • The reasons and benefits were described succinctly
  • The actions to take were highlighted

It was short!

All of this occurred in the frame of the email without scrolling. Additional details, links and thanks followed.

You won’t necessarily see it coming. But when critical communications are needed suddenly, how you react and communicate says a lot about you – and if done well, tells the organization what to expect and what they need to do.

Just finished surviving a similar situation? Let me know what worked. We’ll publish it here.

Filed Under: Executive communications, Messaging frameworks, Speechwriting Tagged With: , ,

Use like an analogy

September 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We have a terrific client for whom we are doing speech writing. Her job is to roll out consistent accounting practices to a group of consulting managers that works worldwide. The program is important. It is complex. And the topic is so dry, that when first presented, the material was like a dust cloud that filled the conference and made attendees cough, drink coffee and close their eyes.

That last sentence was a metaphor.

But today we are talking about using analogy as a story telling device to frame a discussion more powerfully.

An analogy is best used to associate something that is obviously true with the thing you are saying for the purpose of building understanding and agreement.

In the case of our accounting executive, she needs to explain that different systems, methods and techniques of collecting accounting information require literally an army of people to translate the information into normalized form for worldwide reporting and analysis. And because translation takes time, information coming back to the teams across the globe is always a bit out of date.

Here is the analogy she came up with to strengthen her talk and to have a far greater impact on her audience.

It is like we have a lot of wild horses we need to keep together – and rather than put up a few fences we have hired thousands of cowboys. The cowboys work hard to collect the horses and bring them back, but they are forever wandering off. So at any given time, those that manage the ranch are getting information about the horses that is sometimes incomplete and nearly always out of date.

Our accounting systems are, unfortunately similar…

Her point is that “a few fences” will inevitably simplify the lives of everyone.

She continues to explain how consistent worldwide practices are going to enable everyone, lower work effort across the board and provide greater insight into the business. There is about an hour of somewhat technical material.

She closes with this.

With our horses in one place, our ranch managers can see what is happening in real time. And our cowboys have more time to work on other important work around the ranch.

Share your analogy examples. We can’t wait to hear.

Filed Under: Executive communications, Messaging frameworks, Speechwriting Tagged With: , , ,

This time, it’s personal

September 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We offered a description of when to use personal stories to say something powerful.

Today we offer an example.

We did not write the talk – but it is really good.

Ginny Musante wrote it. She is one of the architects of Microsoft’s television strategy – officially – Director of Trade Marketing, Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business Advertising Business Group. She and her team are responsible for bringing Microsoft television innovation to life for industry audiences through communications, executive presentations and industry events. In her talk below, she kicks-off a day-long set of presentations on strategy and tactics to members of the Microsoft team.

Here is why it is really good: It’s personal. It’s revealing. It’s thought provoking. It’s relevant.

One of our managers, Hanna Boyle, designed the visuals – a couple of which I add here for flavor.

Have a listen.

Hello everybody and welcome to beautiful Lake Tahoe.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of participating in the new hire training. I think there are 24 new faces here. And that got me thinking – about why I joined ABG in the first place …

…and why I’ve stayed in this role for 4 years. The answer is simple. I’m passionate about what we’re doing here. I believe we are making television history.

imageHow can I be so sure? Again, the answer is simple. I’ve seen it before. Those of you who know me, know I began my career in broadcasting. Yep. That’s me anchoring the news in my hometown.

I worked at a station called TV 22. My boss at the station was this man – William L. Putnam. He was quite a visionary. President of the American Alpine Club, President of the Sierra Club, Founder and President of the National Association of Broadcasters, and widely known in the industry as the father of UHF TV because his station was the first successful UHF station in the nation. For those that don’t know, UHF was a disruptive technology in broadcast offering new channels and avenues for content much like the cable technologies that followed.

imageBut that wasn’t the only first. Bill was an avid outdoorsman who hated the fact that the film processing chemicals polluted the environment. So, one day, I think it was about my third day on the job. All the film equipment was gone, and we became the first station in the nation – make that the world to go all ENG. Electronic News Gathering. Otherwise known as video tape. We were also the first station in the nation to have a fleet of satellite trucks and report LIVE on the nightly news.

But the innovation didn’t end there. The guy who sat next to me in the newsroom was this guy – Bill Rasmussen – He did 3rd string sports. One day he called me into the control room to watch the inaugural episode of Entertainment Tonight. Do you know what we’re watching? He said. A blond doing gossip, I replied. No, he said, this is the first program to ever be distributed via satellite. It’s going to change everything. Imagine, the Entertainment and Spoimagerts Programming Network – 24 hours a day. I told him he’d be best off to stick with sports since that’s what he knows. 6 months later ESPN was born. Oh! There’s one more thing. Bill wasn’t just a 3rd string sports guy. He was also our ad sales guy. He sold people on his vision, and the rest as they say is history.

So what does all this have to do with you? What does all this have to do with now? I say – everything.

Because it is happening again. Our team here at Microsoft is changing the face of television in ways that industry watchers have called revolutionary.

You are part of that revolution. And as my experience suggests, media visionaries and ad sales guys can do just about anything they set their minds to.

It is my honor to introduce you to one of the leaders of the revolution. Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome the General Manager of the IEB Advertising Business Group, Mark Kroese.

As you can see, Ginny has  a lot to say about the changing nature of television.

We are particularly interested in your personal experience sharing personal experiences.  Share one with us.

Filed Under: Executive communications, Messaging frameworks, Speechwriting Tagged With: