I Can See Clearly Now

I can see clearly now the rain is gone. All obstacles disappear..

Remember that song? It is a great metaphor for how we can clutter our communication so it no longer makes any sense. When we try to be everything to every one we tend to dilute the message down so much that it no longer makes any sense.

Okay, so how do you get your message to cascade down in your organization if you aren't addressing all of the different concerns and needs? Most leaders get so frustrated that they strip the message down to a point that makes sense to them. What they forget is that the party reading or listening to their message will filter the message through experiences and knowledge that they, the listener or reader, has in their own brain. Therefore you are almost always guaranteed that they will misinterpret a stripped down message.

So the point is not to put tons in the message but instead to understand the message as it will be received. You need to tune in to your audience first or else they will tune you out. Make sure you read or listen to your message from the other person's perspective to make sure it makes sense.

Anne Warfield, www.impressionmanagement.com

What Is Your Purple Cow?

I am a ferocious reader. On average I read 4 books a week. They tend to spur my mind and I cross pollinate the ideas and learning’s from one book to another until I gain new insights.

In college I took a speed reading course. It was one of my best investments. I found that my comprehension went up the faster I read (that is because your brain reads at 600 wpm—the average person reads at 150-250 wpm and the space in between is where your brain wonders and your comprehension goes down—and I was able to accomplish much more in much less time. In college this meant I studied less and could meet every one at the bar. A bonus at that time.

So, some of these blogs will try to give you the insights these books have spurred for me and hopefully will spur your thinking as well.

In Seth Godin’s book, The Purple Cow, he emphasizes that in today’s world our brains are overloaded with information. We are constantly bombarded by it so hence we become desensitized to it. We no longer even hear it. He even shares how he went up to people reading the New York Times and asked them to name one of the companies in the ads they had just read. They couldn’t name one.

This got me to thinking about how people’s brains function at work. If we are programmed to tune out advertisement, how do you think we feel about corporate meetings where the manager just talks at us? Do we view it as a commercial that we can or cannot listen to? Do we see it STUCK in our day (like a commercial is stuck in our TV program) rather than see it as a REASON for our day?

Seth’s point is that as you drive and see fields of cows they lose their novelty. But if you come across a purple cow, that would get your attention.

What do you do to turn your meetings from being a field of cows to being a PURPLE COW? What do you do with your sales presentation that makes your prospect stop and say, WOW? What do you do with your corporate communication that makes employees WANT to read it?

TAKE ACTION: Look today at your communication with fresh eyes. If anything bores you, you can bet it bores your audience. Stop, make it eye catching, unique and something that gets them to see you, not as the commercial, but as the program they want to listen to.

Anne Warfield http://www.impressionmanagement.com/