Beyond Summer

It's summer, and autumn seems far away, but it's seriously time to be thinking about how you're going to build on all that revitalised energy when the kids are back at school and the office is more or less back to full strength.
It's a challenge. It's easy to go for yet another "kick-off conference," with the same old agenda of Death by PowerPoint, a motivational speaker and a rowdy gala dinner.
Isn't it time you did something different, put the emphasis on feed- back and participation so that everyone felt involved and engaged?
Anti-conferences are the latest buzz in the industry. At an anti-conference the audience don't come to listen to the experts, they come to be listened to. Not what every CEO might want, but I've experimented with this concept, and found that it can be quite a revelation.
The usual agenda is to have the Management Board present the company results to the assembled delegates. We decided to reverse the roles and had the delegates present the year-end figures to the Board, instead of the conventional top-down procedure.

The result was revealing. The whole team of 90 delegates took ownership of what needed to be done, and any idea of blame culture was out of the question. The exercise gave both parties an insight into what the other side was thinking, and clarified key issues and the way that all parties viewed them.

It has to be said that this took considerable persuasion on our part and courage on the client's part to take such a radical decision, but when you think about it, the worst outcome would have been an even more lively discussion, and the executive board were confident that they could handle that effectively.

Conferences are not about communicating information; they're about exchanging information, sharing ideas and listening to alternative viewpoints. In fact, that's at the heart of almost any kind of communication, whether it's negotiation, presentation or change management. If you know what the other side wants, then you're in a strong position to work out how to get what you want. Leadership is only marginally concerned with standing up and telling people what to do, but be careful how you phrase that when you're talking to the boss.

Look right: Feel right!

It was Ladies Day at Ascot last Thursday. I had appointments in London and passed through Waterloo station, where the main concourse was crowded with ladies in hats and men in morning suits. It made a wonderful, colourful change from the usual mix of grey men in grey suits and tourists with backpacks.

Ascot is a tradition, and Ladies Day is the day when the women dress to kill or, in the case of some, just give the men mild heart attacks.
Waterloo station concourse was a wonderful scenario with railway employees in high-vis daffodil-yellow tabards and well-groomed aristocrats mingling with the WAGS and the crowd from the office. Most of the ladies wore hats, which is an official stipulation, together with shoulder straps at least 1 inch wide, hems no more than 2 inches above the knee and - new for 2008 - a request that all ladies should wear panties - now there's a sign of the times if every there was one!

When it comes to corporate events, the dress code is critical. I fronted an event for a major multi-national a few years back, and the CEO decided, minutes before the delegates arrived, that his team looked too formal, - too stereotyped. Off came the carefully chosen ties, leaving the executives wishing they'd chosen more casual jackets and informal shirts. The delegates themselves turned up in jeans, sweatshirts, polo-necks... they'd been told it was informal and they all interpreted it their own way.

There was a total lack of congruence, creating another barrier for the speakers as they strived to build a rapport with the audience.
So:- simple rules.

1. Work out the policy well in advance, so you don't have any last-minute changes
2. Make sure that the delegates know what the dress-code means so that nobody is uncomfortable on either side of the platform.
3. Get in the mood. Prince Philip used to talk about "pomping up" before he emerged at a State occasion. He wanted to ensure that he matched the expectation of the audience. Make sure you do the same, whether that's the dynamic rip-roaring leader or the reliable and solid sage,
   

Well, do you meet their expectations? Because if you look the way they expect you to, then you've already created the platform on which you can communicate more effectively.

More or Less

Of the four major supermarket chains in Britain, it is Waitrose who have taken a stand on correct grammar at the checkout. Most chains of supermarkets have a "fast lane" for people who have only a few purchases, and most stores around Britain have bold signs that state: "6 (or whatever number they have decided on) items or less." Waitrose is the gramatically correct exception with the sign - this one is in in their Peterborough store - "6 items or fewer." The rule about "less" and "fewer" is that the latter should apply to quantities that are easily identified as being made up of individual units. The mnemonic that I was taught was "Fewer than six bottles will cost less than five pounds." Bottles can only be subdivided as individual units, whereas pounds can be subdivided into pounds and pence. To many people this will sound pedantic, but others will smile when they see traditional English usage, and the same people probably cringe at incorrect grammar.

Liverpool has two locations for its renowned football teams, and the council has been very conscientious in the road signs around the city. The signs say "Football Stadia." When I was driving there earlier this year, I smiled. My Latin teacher would have been pleased, because the correct plural of stadium is stadia. But how many football supporters studied Latin, and wouldn't "Stadiums" be more readily understood by most motorists? If you're printing leaflets that advertise places to book a holiday, should you write "travel bureaus" or the more correct "travel bureaux?"

Purists would argue that something cannot be "more correct."
It's either correct or it isn't. To take another example,would you object to "my writing this..." - which is grammatically correct, while "me writing this" is wrong in this context? But gerunds - as Nigel Molesworth would certainly have claimed in Down with Skool and How to be Topp - are dead. And I choose him as the example because I suspect that less than 5% of you will have any idea about Nigel, or any of the other characters that kept me amused when I was in short trousers. All of which serves nicely to make my point.

Being right or being clever or witty won't serve the purpose. The objective is to get your message across, whether you are preparing a presentation, or a document, or a speech. It will serve no purpose if your audience go blank at the mention of Nigel Molesworth. Similarly your customer for a holiday might think "bureaux" is a misprint, while your motorist could take a wrong turning at "football stadia."

It's all about communication. Always. It's not what you write, it's what they read, and it's not what you say, it's what they hear.

But when all is said and done, I still admire Waitrose... more or less.

Getting the message

Sometimes we just don't get it. And nobody is worse at this than I am. I'm sure it's happened to you; someone says something and you totally miss the point. Or there's a big road sign (especially speed limits) and you drive happily by without noticing it. Or you're busy on a project and you simply don't hear someone who's calling to get your attention. The reason's simple enough, you have your own agenda and you're blind, or deaf to the unexpected. It works two ways. Sometimes you're so confident that you don't hear the bad news, and sometimes you're so anxious or pessimistic that you are always anticipating the worst scenario and can't come to terms with it when your luck changes. In "Mammoth Strategies," Tork and Grunt struggled to communicate the idea of a single community with their fellow tribes-folk because the people rejected the idea out of hand. It had never been something they'd considered, so they were incapable of coming to terms with it.

It happened to me last week. I had an email with some very exciting news, but I simply didn't see it until the third time I read the message. It was unexpected, and I certainly wasn't programmed to expect anything positive from that particular quarter. Perhaps it would have been easier to hear the message on the phone, or better still, see the expression on the face, and then I might have guessed what was coming, or at least been more receptive to that particular communication.

When you have something important to say, you have to choose how you're going to say it, the medium needs to be appropriate to the message. In the heydays of the 60's Marshall McLuhan's book first claimed that the "Medium is the Message" then, thanks to an error at the printers, the book was published with the title "The Medium is the Massage." Because, in reality it's both. If you put enough hype and energy behind a message you can whip up an audience to be enthusiastic about anything.... as television demonstrates with tedious frequency.

When you want to be sure your message reaches your audience, the more routes you use, the more likely you are to get through.