Category Archives: Communications

Communications, Management, public relations, Uncategorized

You Online, The Forever Footprint

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu1C-oBdsMM]

When I wrote, “That Awkward Personal Branding”, I referenced the bright side of an online persona.  The way it can work to your advantage if you are honest and polite. Being present online can get you a new job, an informal or formal education, a new profession; it can introduce you to interesting and bright people.  What was not explored was that sometimes there is a downside to being online or at least that some caution is required. I had a different post lined up for this week, but then I had some interesting conversations and when I ran across the video above, I decided to write this post instead. The TED video provides some brilliant insight on the reality of our online lives and I thought I should share it and some of my own perceptions.

I grew up in a large and extended West Indian family and it always struck me as uncanny how my aunts in Montreal could know what my cousins in Barbados were doing at any given time and vice versa. The family grapevine was fast, effective and efficient.  You couldn’t blink without it being recorded, shared and discussed. It was therefore always a bit of a challenge to me to try to operate under the radar. Doing something, anything, and keeping it a secret was an accomplishment. It’s not that I was doing anything nefarious, questionable or even interesting.  It’s simply that when it seems as if every waking moment of your life is constantly being transmitted through the world’s most well-organized grapevine, you learn to appreciate privacy.

Given that background, you can imagine that when Facebook first emerged, it gave me nothing less than the creeps.  It felt very much like a self-inflicted Big Brother scenario. Why would anyone want everyone  knowing their activities? I watched with some amazement as people I knew and respected posted pictures and particulars about things that would have been better kept discreet or at least offline.  In a professional capacity, I have quietly scooped up and destroyed compromising photos of colleagues that would have devastated even the best careers. I have cringed when friends have posted highly political commentary and have blasted my son on more than one occasion for inappropriate posts from him and his friends.

So having said that, why would I ever encourage anyone to be online or promote themselves online?  The answer is that social media is a reality.  It’s not going to fade away and become a distant memory.  For good or bad, it’s part of our culture and imbedded in the way we communicate, so use it. Engage but be strategic about it.  If you were remembered for one thing, would you want that comment you recently made on Facebook or LinkedIn to be it? Would you be all right sharing your online comments with your boss, your mother or religious leader?  If the answer is no, then you may want to rethink what you post. Your digital trail is forever, so make each forever footprint with care.

Generational differences mean that my children and even those ten or fifteen years younger than me are comfortable posting things I wouldn’t dream of sharing.  When you grow up in the shadow of Facebook and the internet, your perception of what is private is very narrow, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted. Provocative language, heavily loaded double entendres and sexually suggestive witticisms are brilliant repartee at the dinner party table, but not necessarily, what you want to put out there for potential employers or clients. Most of the cues that are present in real life exchanges are missing online.  The sarcastic tone, the raised eyebrow or the knowing smirk that put a different meaning on words are all absent in online exchanges. You never assume in communications.  You always act with the expectation that your audience will need specificity, transparency and information.  If you know that the majority of messages are delivered through non-verbal cues, then you understand that when you engage online you are always communicating at a disadvantage.  In this setting clarity becomes king.

A very smart businessperson recently asked me, “Would you rather be on record online as a new Plato, Cicero or Voltaire or a Dr. Ruth or Pamela Anderson?”

While I don’t expect to reach the intellectual heights of the first three, reason, if not experience, would have me avoid the pitfalls of the last two. Dr. Ruth for the focus of her conversation and Pamela for her illustration of the same. I have other ideas to explore. To that end, I would encourage caution when managing your online persona. Engage and be present, post and share your ideas.  Take advantage of the benefits that online life has to offer, and there are many, but always ask yourself, would I be comfortable with everyone in my life seeing what I wrote and is this how I want to be remembered?

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Communications, Internal Communications, Management

Silence is Deadly

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Challenger Explosion: Image from NASA,/Wikipedia Commons
Challenger Explosion: Image from NASA/Wikipedia Commons

In 1986 the Challenger Space Shuttle lifted off the ground with millions of onlookers from the world over watching in awe. When it exploded 73 seconds later, those same viewers stared in shocked disbelief. Those who witnessed this horrifying incident can still recall where they were as they watched  it unfold.

What followed were 32 months of investigation and millions of questions. Why, how, when did things start to go wrong and what had caused the explosion were prevalent among them. Perhaps even more amazing were the answers that followed. Every engineer on the project had felt the flight should not happen.  They all had misgivings, hesitations, reasons why they thought it should be rescheduled, yet it was scheduled anyway. When asked why they had remained silent, they said, they felt pressured not to speak up. So they coached their concern in the language of hints and abstractions.  They wrote messages that were lengthy, used convoluted language that so distilled the essence of what needed to be said plainly that the style of writing effectively obscured the message.

Their management, under tremendous pressure to produce results or lose funding was reluctant to acknowledge failure, so reluctant that they eventually evolved and encouraged an atmosphere of false optimism. This structure discouraged anyone who expressed hesitation or doubt about the mission’s success from speaking up. They built a structure of silence and it ended up costing lives.

Over the years numerous people have cited the explosion of the Challenger as a sign post to warn us against the danger of silencing employees.  Plain language specialists use it to demonstrate how organizations can not only lose money but lives by not speaking in simple terms and short sentences. Organizational facilitators use it to illustrate the costs of not having a culture that supports open dialogue.  Any organization, collective or group that is focused on outcomes needs to consider the lesson. Ineffective communications is not just inconvenient, slow or frustrating; it can be disastrous.

The stories associated with the cost of miscommunication are almost countless.  The thing is, we don’t need to add to their ranks. Miscommunications isn’t inevitable, unavoidable or inescapable, it’s a choice. We can choose to communicate effectively by making an effort to understand and pursue clarity in our exchanges. We can take the time to ensure that messages are delivered accurately or we can pretend that we don’t have time to communicate and then spend much more time later correcting our miscommunication.  That is, we can spend more time later if we are lucky.

In our personal relationships, we can address miscommunications by taking the time to know what inspires the people around us and then listening with care.  By understanding what motivates a person we create a window into understanding why they say and do the things they do. By eliminating distractions and focusing on what they are saying, we are more likely to have meaningful exchanges. Coincidentally, the same is true of our work relationships.

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Communications, Government Relations

The Fastest Way to a Politician’s Heart is Through a Camera Lens

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press and politiciansIf politics were for wallflowers, government buildings would look like bungalows and politicians wouldn’t need to give speeches.  So for the sake of simplicity let’s start from an understanding that politicians expect to be seen and heard.  They would like it to happen at their convenience and on their issues, but they will adopt an issue if you capture their attention, if they can make it serve their needs and if they think it will have resonance with the public.  This description may make them sound opportunistic, but keep in mind that as public figures, they need to be, well public.  If you never hear from or see your legislator again after you elect them, then you might begin to wonder what if anything they were doing for you.  Also keep mind that a representative in parliament who can’t seize an opportunity when one is presented isn’t going to do you a lot of good in the long run.

What this preference for press means for you and your issue is that you have to think of ways of making it sexy or at least ensuring that elements of it have broad appeal.  While working in the public interest is a great starting point, it doesn’t necessarily capture headlines much less passing media interest.  The media likes conflict, sex appeal, violence and sensation, or more to the point, the assumption is that consumers of media like those things.  If you’re lucky on a slow Friday in the summer, you might get them to pay attention to human interest stories. Again, this isn’t a commentary on the personal peccadilloes of reporters, but a reflection of the corporate demands that now plague journalism and what you and I as a members of the public have indicated we are willing to pay for. This is what bumps online ratings, sells papers and raises television audience numbers.

So how do you make your news and issuesissue interesting?

As a start test its appeal with family and friends.  Do people start to glaze over when you tell your story?  Do they get angry, do they laugh, sympathize?  Do they appear shocked? If you can get a reaction from them that isn’t bored indifference you’re on the right track.  If your audience is glazing over halfway through your story, then you might want to take a slightly different approach to telling it.  For instance, you can take your issue and consider the worst-case scenario.  What could possibly happen if nothing is done? What are the implications of leaving things at the status quo?  Don’t stretch the bounds of believability, but try to follow through on what might happen if things did not change.  Stir in a few experts. Consider the plight of those impacted and suddenly you have a news story.  It also helps if you can think of a catchy way to express your concerns. The catchier, the more likely it is to end up as a sound bite on the news.  This may seem crass, but it works.

Then of course there is social media. There are volumes written on the many ways you can generate attention on your issue by blending traditional and social media campaigns or simply taking the social media route.  I would say though that unless you already have a strong online following or are about to start an active campaign to get that following, then you will want to look at blending. Although it can sometimes seem that anything can be made popular online from screaming goats to funny dances, it’s harder to do than it looks.  It’s also true that not all coverage is necessarily good coverage.

Timing is also critical to the successful launch of a story.

Any number of things can obliterate a good story, from bad weather conditions to a single but memorable violent act. A sporting event that has captured the attention of the public can make your story go from leading to pleading for coverage. You can manage some things, like avoid launching a story around an important holiday unless you can tie your story to it. Elections are tempting times to launch stories too, but do it with care.  If you cost a party a drop in the polls or even a temporary setback during an election campaign, they will remember you and it won’t be fondly. Take a look at the local events calendar, not just to avoid conflicting activities but to look for opportunities.

Whatever approach you adopt remember, media is a blunt tool.

There is little purpose in using the media strictly as a way of getting a legislator’s attention.  If you use it, it must be with the understanding that you are trying to get a message out to a broad audience, including those who may disagree with your perspective.

Do you have any media success or failure stories? Any news you saw that you knew wasn’t true or received a revelation by watching the news? I’d love to hear your stories.

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Communications

Trips, Sniffs and Nerves – Managing You, So You Can Manage Your Message

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Nerves are the most common obstacles to the successful delivery of messages. Managing them can often make a difference in how your message is received. The trick is to acknowledge your nerves. If you are feeling a little nervous before a meeting, you may want to take something to settle your stomach. Sometimes eating a few soda crackers does the trick, while other people find using chamomile or mint tea may work best.  Have a breath mint in case your nerves set off a case of bad breath. Don’t have that extra cup of coffee or caffeinated soda, it will only add to your overall jumpiness.  Whatever you do, don’t pop a piece of chewing gum in your mouth, not only can it make any nausea you are feeling worst, you may also find yourself chomping away unattractively.  If you can’t seem to shake your nerves, tell the people that you are meeting with or presenting to that you are a bit nervous.  They are human and can relate to nerves and what’s more, they will generally work to put you at your ease.

If that won’t work, try some of these calming tips:

  • Do some deep breathing exercises, shoulder roles and neck stretches.
  • If your face tends to go red when you are nervous, consider wearing a red or bright shirt to offset your face.
  • Keep your food intake to simple non-fatty foods.
  • Never drink alcohol before a meeting.
  • Avoid taking medication that will make you drowsy.
  • Visualize yourself speaking, imagine yourself confident and assured.
  • Realize that people want you to succeed; they want a good meeting as well.
  • Forget about yourself, the audience is not meeting with you to see YOU, they want to hear your message so focus on your message not you.
  • Try to think ahead of all the possible questions you may be asked.
  • Be yourself, be genuine and natural.
  • Bring cheat notes for yourself in case your mind goes blank.

Keep in mind that all of the adrenaline moving through your system can be used to your advantage. With the extra energy, you are producing you can add passion and excitement to your discussion. If you have done your homework then you are operating at an advantage. You know your audience because you have researched them, you know your presentation content because you have practised it.  You have briefed the participants about what you will be discussing so there are no surprises because surprises at work are a bad idea.  In short, you are prepared for the meeting/presentation.

So now that you’re calm enough to string together a sentence, keep in mind a few things. Little things can easily distract you and others, so don’t do anything that will take away from your message. Wear clothes that are neat and tidy but most of all comfortable. Don’t get caught having to adjust a too tight tie throughout a meeting.  Continuously adjusting your tie can turn into a nervous habit that is distracting and has the additional side effect of making you look like a liar…or a bad Rodney Dangerfield impersonator.

If you have a series of meetings on the same day, wear sensible shoes. Stumbling into the arms of an unsuspecting colleague because the heels on your shoes are too high or your shoes are too tight and your toes have gone numb won’t help you to focus on your issues. Falling flat on your face isn’t exactly going to put you in the right frame of mind either.

Make sure your clothes don’t  detract from your message.  It would be unfortunate if, after taking the time to craft a smart message, the only thing your audience can remember is a low cut blouse or a shirt so loud it should have come with ear plugs.

Bring tissues.  There is nothing more distracting than a runny nose. Not only will you start to sound like a bloodhound on the trail of a fox, but your sniffling will distract you and everyone else in the meeting. On a similar line, avoid strong perfume or a heavy aftershave.   No matter how appealing the scent, in a small enclosed space it can be too much of a good thing.  There are also people with sensitivities or allergies to scent and a brief whiff of a strong cologne can give them a vicious headache or other unpleasant side effects.

A friend of mine was recently telling me about a colleague who had a violent reaction to the smell of chocolate.  Her reaction was so strong that one day when someone accidentally brought it into her space, she took one whiff and was out of commission for three days. Talk about leaving a lasting impression.

My best tip? Try to remember that you are in charge of your message and if you deliver it with confidence, then that’s how it will be received.

Do you have any memorable first impressions or meetings that have gone wrong or right stories to share?  I’d love to hear them.

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Communications

A Simple Lesson About Brand Taught By Disney

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Day One of Our Disney Trip - Miami 165I went on a Disney Cruise with my kids in February. I specifically chose Disney because my husband wasn’t going with us (he’s busy working on his master’s thesis). I felt that if I was going to travel alone with my kids to unfamiliar places, I needed to have some back up. I needed to be completely confident that no matter what happened, we were covered. I wanted the comfort of a solid brand. Disney does that. It gives me comfort. Disney says you can feel safe taking your kids onto that giant ship and your first cruise.

We had a wonderful time – an excellent vacation complete with 200 plus photos. Based on the conversations I’ve had with different people both during and after my cruise, chances are I would have had an equally wonderful time on a number of other cruise lines too, but that’s not the point. I would not have taken another cruise. I took the cruise because of Disney. When you build a powerful brand, amazing things happen. Grown women dress-up like princesses, executives laugh like pirates and people take risks on new ventures based on your reputation.

So how do you get your brand to where you want it to be? Well if you’re a communications professional working in an association or not-for-profit, the most difficult things to accept are that a) good brand building isn’t up to you and b) you can’t help it along with advertising or promotional work. The best thing you can do to improve your brand is to talk internally. Your brand isn’t about what you portray, it’s about what you do and what the public and your clients perceive about you.

Let’s go back to the cruise for a minute. As you can imagine, if you put thousands of people in a confined space and throw hundreds of over-excited children into the mix, things don’t always go as planned. There were melt downs and temper tantrums, not to mention some of the children‘s bad behavior, but those things never got in the way of service.  The staff was always pleasant, funny, innovative and even on occasion suitably sarcastic. They got adults to laugh off situations that can quickly escalate into anger and distracted children who were revving up to whine. At one point, my 15-year-old came back from the breakfast buffet angry because another passenger had been rude to the server at the counter. When I asked him how the server dealt with the rude passenger, he said, “He just kept trying to do what the passenger asked.”

And there it is in a nutshell. You build a good brand by giving customers what they are asking for. My son didn’t want a scene at breakfast; neither did any of the other passengers at the buffet, so the server did his best not to create one. The result was that my son was angry at the passenger on behalf of the crew member. When a four-year-old girl had a fit while the ship was debarking at one of our island stops, the staff immediately distracted her. They got her attention focused on them and not her parents and managed to keep the rest of us moving.

So if you want to build a strong brand, build a strong service orientation into your team – even if that team only serves internal clients.  Make your raison d’être centred completely on helping your clients be successful. In health care we call it client-centred care, but experienced business people and the folks at Disney simply say, the customer knows best.

Lessons learned

  • Good brands come from good client centered experience.
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Communications, Internal Communications, Management

Does Working From Home or the Office Really Matter?

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Winter TrafficThere have been a few articles, to say the least, on Yahoo C.E.O. Marissa Mayer’s decision to ban all working from home for all Yahoo employees.  Following her earth shattering announcement was a series of, “She had to do it” articles that explained about the shiftless, mindless, non producing consequences that followed from allowing employees to work from home. Or the list of missed opportunities that it represented.

Not long after that came an article in the New Yorker that mockingly explained something that I had been thinking all along. I don’t need to be at home to be non-productive. Statistics have shown for years that the majority of employees are not engaged.  One study indicates that 60% of employees in Canada are disengaged; another 15% are actively disengaged leaving just 25% who care about their work.  By actively disengaged I mean that they are not only not interested in their work, but they spend most of their time at work trying to ensure that others are not interested in their work. As someone who has to manage and motivate, I’d prefer if those actively disengaged employees were at home…permanently, but that’s another discussion.

The problem with employees who work from home and don’t produce isn’t location, among other things its culture and approach.  The work culture, the management approach, the tools provided to employees to do their work, the incentives given and of course, how accountability is reinforced. Working in the office is not going to be a magic wand that solves a lack of engagement, commitment and dare I say it, poor work ethics.

I would be a poor communicator indeed, if I didn’t add that what’s also missing is communications. It would be challenging for even the most dedicated of employees to get their focus right without clear direction and ongoing communications, no matter where they work.  In a world where teams are increasingly spread across continents, never mind cities, the whole debate of home or not home seems a bit moot. We have to learn to adapt our management approach to accommodate the concept that we won’t always be able to see our employees.

We have the technology required to do it. We have webcast, podcast, teleconference calls, videoconferencing, email and that ancient technology called faxes among other things. Yes, people still use fax machines. We can Jostle or Jive our employees into better engagement, we can even use Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus or any other interactive medium to inform and take a pulse. We just have to figure out how to use that technology to help us effectively manage and motivate staff.

I’m in Ottawa, Ontario and I have someone who reports to me from Halifax, Nova Scotia.  She is easily one of the most dedicated employees I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I don’t worry about what she’s doing.  I don’t debate the merits of having someone reporting to me that I can’t lay eyes on every day. I know what she’s doing based on weekly reports, calls and daily emails. I also get a clue from the products she produces and the services she delivers to our internal clients. We brainstorm on the phone and I have made fun of her by email.

I should also add that I work for an organization that has 5000 employees, the vast majority of whom work independently taking care of clients in their homes.  These incredible employees spend their days on their own and rarely take time for lunch, never mind making their way into an office.  They epitomize dedication, commitment and have a work ethic second to none. As it happens, the majority of the home and community care sector operates this way. So I think before jumping into the, “You need to be in an office to be productive” line, the more critical question is, what kind of culture have you created for employees to be productive in?

For the record, I’ve stared into space from my office desk and worked 12 hours without pause from home. I have also had great impromptu conversations that produced useful insights while I’m in the office and have been known to put a load of laundry on while at home.  There is no magic related to location. The only real impact that working from home has on productivity, is lower traffic volumes.

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Communications, Government Relations

Lobbyists are Liars and Cheaters

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lobbying myths

Lobbyists are liars, cheaters focused on bending government to their personal interests. They are the dark side of any political engagement. When they are very good at their jobs they can influence not only government policies, but also force cultural change and remove our essential rights.

Rights like, the right to drive drunk, the right to litter or the important right to abuse our children.  In Ontario, they have already stripped us of the right smoke in our own cars when children are present and to smoke where people have to work. What about those lobbyists who insist that recycling is better than building bigger landfills or those slimy buggers who lobbied to make us wear seat belts?

OK, misconceptions about lobbyists is clearly a pet peeve of mine and no, not all lobbyists are as pure in their pursuits as those just mentioned, but neither are they evil doers bent on shoring up corporate interests. Despite this, the myth of “bad lobbyist” is a persistent and frustrating one. Like every profession there are those individuals we could all do without, but generally, lobbyist are a smart and strategic group of communicators doing good work. I’m quite proud of that aspect of my career and it completely lines up with my current work for a national charitable organization focused on serving Canadians.

Lobbyist are often officially defined as those paid to represent a particular group or interest. Given the complexities of the government, it is not unreasonable to assume that an organization might seek the assistance of those who specialize in understanding government to represent them.  Paying someone to lobby or accepting money in order to lobby is not suspicious behavior. Despite this, lobbyists carry with them the expectation of bad behaviour.  I have actually had people laugh in my face when I’ve raised the issue of lobbying ethics, but keep this mind the next time you think about lobbyists.  What other communications professional is obliged to complete a public explanation of their activities and intent before and every time they initiate their business practice?

Another pervasive myth that surrounds government relations is the discussion of access.  The myth runs something like this, a good lobbyist is someone who can get you access to government officials.  What this implies is that access is limited, content irrelevant and objectives extraneous. It says that your issue, its effect on the public and any informed solutions you may have to offer are irrelevant if you don’t have a personal friendship with the right government official or enough cash to hire the right lobbyist.

If that’s true, I want to know who died and left professional lobbyists in charge of my rights as a citizen? Having a lobbyist with good contacts in government can facilitate the timing and effectiveness of your meetings, speeding things along, but it shouldn’t be and rarely is, a requirement for meeting with elected officials or civil servants. If effective government relations are reliant upon hiring a lobbyist who has some prior affiliation with the ruling party, do you really want that government?  Fortunately, if access to politicians ever becomes reliant on prior relationships it’s easy enough to fix. Remember who your friends are during the next election…

Lessons Learned

  • Great things can come from lobbying.
  • Real lobbying is not about selling access.
  • Good governments (and good politicians) are never afraid of hearing your opinion.
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Communications, Internal Communications

Are You Thinking About Creating Misinformation?

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Misinformation GraphicsIt occurred to me that the number of articles I was reading on weekly basis was growing at an incredible rate. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever consumed as much new information on a regular basis in my life.  Not even in my university days when trolling through the stacks for the best and most insightful articles was a regular occurrence did I read so much. If you’re reading this from Facebook, LinkedIn or Stumbleupon, you probably know what I mean.

On any given day, I’m getting smart tips from social media gurus, insights from those in the communications or marketing fields. Thought provoking pieces from political pundits, updates and comments on Facebook, not to mention the range of topics I cover when playing on Pinterest or Stumbleupon. In addition to my own pursuits, my friends are regularly sharing links to interesting articles with me too. I don’t think I’m alone in these habits.

It should come as no surprise then that we are seeing some interesting trending towards the popularization of information graphics.  The general idea of an information graphic is to deliver multiple messages in a snapshot. They are hardly a new concept, but the mechanisms for creating them are more readily available now. Today, all you have to do to create an information graphic is import the content you have in mind into a program and tada, an information poster is produced.

I work in an organization that has thousands of people operating out of different locations. Its my job to get messages to them on a wide range of topics and in a manner that they will actually digest. Information graphics seem like the perfect solution.  All the best parts of a poster, but also a way to convey multiple messages. What could be better? Great idea right, well, sort of.

Last week a friend of mine sent me an information graphic of her resume. I was fascinated to see how these documents worked in action when I knew the content. The resume looked ok, but there was one problem.  Her new resume didn’t come anywhere close to demonstrating how smart or experienced she was. In fact, if anything, it made her seem more junior. Taking her 20 plus years of brilliance and distilling it down to a couple of awards and statistics that at best was of passing interest. I started looking around for better versions.  I checked out a range of information graphics from those meant to impart pearls of wisdom on social media to those intended to act as an organizational dashboard. When they work, they are brilliant, clear, concise and exactly what you need when you’ve got a lot to say in a little bit of time. The problem is, for the most part, they don’t work well and that’s because they are created on the principle that you can apply a one size fits all mind set to communications.

After all of these years of talking about getting more effective at the knowledge transfer process, it’s almost as if we now seem intent on turning information back into data. That’s effectively what most of these information graphics do. They obliterate relevant information and highlight irrelevant statistics. In one instance one of the stats that showed up was the number of cups of coffee the applicant required to get started in the morning. In my personal favorite, the creator of the graphic effectively argued that the reason small businesses should embark on social media was because everyone else was doing it. Really? Are we in elementary school? I’m sure I could come up with more sound reasons, but then those reasons might not have convenient numbers.

To be clear, its not that I think information graphics are a bad idea, on the contrary, they can be brilliant. What I think is that like any communications medium, you need to use your brain. You can’t just stick your information into a formula and get good results like magic. Communications has always been about understanding your audience, knowing your objectives and speaking to them clearly. How does a one size fits all solution do that effectively?

I’d love to hear from you if you know of some examples of brilliant information graphics. Drop me a line on the blog or LinkedIn.

Lessons Learned

  • It isn’t better to look good than to be good. Don’t use statistics where a sentence would be clearer and pie charts where a picture would do the job better.
  • No matter what medium you use to communicate, you have to keep your skills as a communicator in the forefront.  If you want to use clever graphics to deliver a message, talk to a professional about designing one that meets your particular needs.
  • Take a note of those who have used information graphics effectively and find out how they did it. Canadian Blood Services has done a brilliant job of it for years.
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Communications, Government Relations, Management

What Exactly Is Your Issue? Four Tips For Better Lobbying

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what's your issueI was on Parliament Hill recently and as my colleagues and I fanned out to share our messages I kept thinking about all the possible outcomes ahead of us.  We had the same message to deliver, but personal style and approach can make subtle changes occur that effect comprehension, reception and even perceived objective. This means that when presenting an idea, the question of knowing EXACTLY what you want is critical.

Whether presenting to government, an interviewer or potential client, it can mean the difference between success and failure.   If you are unclear about your issue, or do not ensure that your audience is clear on what you want, you may find yourself achieving an outcome you didn’t anticipate.  As time management expert Alan Lakein so succinctly put it, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Take for instance the consumer advocate groups that lobbied the Canadian federal government for years on the issue of labelling of cigarette packaging.   They asked government to ban or restrict the word “light” from cigarette packages.  They were concerned that the use of the word would lead the public to think that these cigarettes were somehow not as bad for them as “regular” cigarettes.  In December 2004, then Minister of Health, Ujjal Dosanjh, was pleased to announce that the use of the words “light” and “mild” would be prohibited from use on future cigarette packages. Imagine his surprise, when on hearing his announcement, the various associations in question responded with criticism.  It seems that they were actually using the “light” discussion as an example of the kind of wording they did not want used. As it happens their “ask” was a good deal more complex than the use of one or two words, they were quite legitimately concerned about the use of any language or imagery that might be perceived as misleading, this included the use of numbers or coloring.  Subsequently, they did not see the change as sufficient.

By February of 2005, a grassroots campaign had been launched to tell government that their announced changes hadn’t gone far enough.  The subsequent nature of the relationship between the Minister and the associations following these events can only be speculated on, but needless to say a good deal of engagement would have been necessary to maintain good relations.

Knowing exactly what you want before you initiate anything, from a meeting to a full communications campaign,  provides you with a path. Waiting until you are at a critical meeting or juncture is not the time to to determine what you want. Brainstorming in tight circumstances is unlikely to be productive or successful. Its also likely to lead to frustration for you and those around you.  If you know precisely what outcome you are trying to achieve, you are also in a better position to spot options or opportunities, it gives you the flexibility to take short cuts that will satisfy your objectives. Knowing what you want means you are also in a better position to anticipate how long the process will take and what you will need to do in order to be successful.

When have you planned and succeeded?  Have you been taken by surprise by an outcome? Have you ever failed to plan and subsequently missed an opportunity?

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Communications

3 Tips for Creating the Right Mood For Your Message

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This blog entry is a bit of a departure for me, but the experience illustrates so well how setting and approaBook Clubch can influence how ideas are communicated that I thought I would share the experience.

I recently joined a book club.  I am not a fan of book clubs.  They remind me of being in school and having to read books that are informative, but really boring. Simply not my idea of fun. So I’ll say that I went into the process with some trepidation, however I went because in this instance, my friend Jen Hunter, a dynamo who defines optimism, was leading the club.  Jen was also hosting it at a cool new venue, the Hub Ottawa. The book also had an intriguing title and I thought, if a book club could work for me, this was its best shot. The book, The Art of Possibility is a wonderful read from Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. It will make you laugh, cry and show you how to see the possibilities in every situation.

As it happens, just as I was starting to read the Art of Possibility, another dynamo friend of mine, Leslie Turcotte, suggested that I take a look at a TED presentation by Amy Cuddy, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are”. The presentation explored how we could boost our own self-esteem or sense of power by changing our body posture.  The first chapter of the Art explored how we could give ourselves an “A” psychologically and consequently improve our performance. It seemed obvious to me that they were two ideas that should be joined.  I shared the TED presentation with Jen and she shared it with the book club members.  We all laughed at the antics that followed in our private worlds as we implemented the suggestions from the book and the presentation. Worlds destined to collide, collided and the only reason they did was because I received an invitation that worked (and I opened my mind to the possibility that a book club might be an enjoyable experience).

I should add that in addition to the book being a good choice, the book club members were smart, funny and insightful.  Nothing boring about this crowd.  The setting at the Ottawa Hub was thought provoking and in fact, the way we explored the book using a “World Café” style, was engaging.  So the book club in no way resembled what I imagined book clubs to be,  obligation and boredom. I am now optimistically looking forward to the next meeting of the book club and the newest book.

Lessons Learned

  • The best communications in the world will fail if the audience is unprepared to listen. It’s your job as a communicator to make sure they are prepared to listen.
  • Find vehicles that deliver old messages in new ways.  If you’re planning an event, consider what you can do to raise its appeal or intrigue your audience. It could be a clever invite or an unexpected theme, venue or approach.
  • Find multiple ways of delivering the same message.  People learn in different ways and by approaching the same message in different ways you are more likely to a) be understood by a wider group of people but also b) reinforce your message for those who can take it in multiple ways.
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