Your message and other things you say

Speaking with a friend recently who has been applying to jobs, looking to return to a work force that dumped him pretty abruptly.  He’s capable and experienced — and out of work.

He’s had several interviews — several have been quite promising.  He is still unemployed.

He shared two situations that stuck out.  In one, he made a follow-up call to the hiring manager, who in essence said, “I don’t have anything to tell you, blah-blah-blah.  We’re evaluating our options with HR.“  Subsequent calls got even more deferrals.  He knew interviewing had finished.  Eventually, HR sent a form letter that the position had been filled, thank for your interest, bye-bye.

A second interview was at the same crossroads.  Follow-up with the hiring manager yielded a long conversation that began with, “We’ve just settled on another candidate who is a better match to the skillset we were hoping to fill.  We liked a lot about what you had to offer, but this was a better fit.  If we have another need, we would be thrilled to have you come back to talk with us.”

Both situations are likely similar.  This candidate is not one of those, “How on God’s green earth did HE make the screen?” He’s competent and capable, trying to push the envelope into a new territory.

Which response would you rather hear?  Why couldn’t manager #1 even give a response?  What did he say by saying nothing and letting a form letter do his work for him?  The answer is not positive for that firm and group.

People want the truth.  They may be disappointed by it, surprised by it, don’t like it, and stay in denial for who knows how long about it.  But they want it.   The second half of the equation, according to Ephesians 4:15 would be to “speak the truth in love.”  There is no reason to make a point or kick someone while they are down.  Every interviewee knows that NOT getting the job is a possibility.  They prep for that, even.  To not tell a capable potential employee that they were not hired reeks of spineless dishonesty.  It’s not a lie, but my guess is my friend didn’t want to work there anyway.  Manager #2?  I’d work for him.  At least you know where you stand.

Speak the truth.  Kindly.

In working with so many technical presenters (or rather, technical people presenting), I’ve noticed an interesting trend.  Most of them give feature-rich, technically precise, and logically crafted presentations.  And they’re missing one very important part.

I can’t quite put a finger on why, but they will frequently fail to connect the dots from the facts to come to a conclusion.  They’ll give the architecture diagram, the facts on performance, a comprehensive how-to demo, background on the process leading to the product, what didn’t work, and  a precise  accounting for the project’s investment.  And yet they’ll fail to say why any of that matters one bit.

The phrase I’m falling in love with in helping these folks in their message is “What that means to you is…” When pressed, one presenter said “We think this is a revolutionary step forward that will set us apart in the market.“  His presentation was full of facts and figures but nothing close to that statement.  I guess he thought they’d figure it out.  He almost seemed apologetic for even mentioning it.  I guess he thought that ’spin’ should be left to marketing, or that trying to convince anyone is left to sales, or explaining next steps is a job for tech support.

Whenever a presentation is essentially a lesson in facts or information, the temptation is to stop right there.  But most often, the next step to tell the listener what the meaning and value to them is the most important one.  Don’t allow a listener to infer or have to make their own suppositions about what they should get from the talk.  Lead them to a logical, proper, and beneficial conclusion.  That’s why they’re listening in the first place.

Answer the question “What that means to you…” for the audience.

I’ve been asked to review some taped presentations of some technical presenters.  I’ve been shown their guidelines — it’s pretty minimal.  The sponsor of the program wants it “interesting”, “exciting”, “informative”, and “imminently applicable to the layman watching”.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The people knew their stuff — that was clear.  The slides all had their form and formatting.  The pieces were all there.  Everyone made the cut on their allotted time.  And the first 12 shows I watched all had one thing in common.  Their beginning.  Every one of them began with:

“Hi my name is Fred(a).  I’m a senior research guru in the Hyperbolic Stochastic Hyperspace group. I’m here to talk about fourth order nonlinear Guggenheim functions. Here’s the breakdown of what I’m going to cover today.”

Let’s break this down into the four sentences:

1. Since this is taped (but it would make no difference if it were live), the audience already knows who the presenter is, and made a conscious choice to watch us.  We’re starting by repeating information that is already known, and it isn’t to gain common ground.
2. We’re stating credentials that are about as impressive as the amount of bellybutton lint we produce in a week.  No one cares about our job title but us (unless we’re the president of a country).  Part b of step 2, where we work is inconsequential unless there is politics involved, in which case we stand to lose as much of our audience as we gain by even bringing it up.  The only other reason is to be drawn into the successes of others when our work doesn’t stand by itself.  Neither is a compelling reason to include the group.
3. Again, the audience likely knows the topic or they wouldn’t be watching (attending).
4. In addition to being quite self-centered (and a clear violation of Rule #1), this is fluff to get to content.  While I’m all about previewing content and making order to it, this should be done AFTER there is a compelling reason to listen — it rarely is compelling in and of itself.

So how should we start?  Simple.  The opening of a presentation, speech, class, dialog, or monologue should garner the audience’s attention and get them interested in the communication.  Ideally it gets the audience agreeing that there is a problem and makes a sharp turn to a moral or point, whereupon the presenter provides the solution to the issue at hand.  The presenters name, title, group, speech title, and order of material does none of that.  It speaks boring, eats up two minutes of wasted time, and — when on tape — may just cause people to hit STOP.  The live audiences can’t do that, but mentally they do the exact same thing.  “Wake me when it gets interesting.”

I’ve wondered why this “Standard Start” is so ubiquitous.  I think it’s because that is what is trumpeted around the globe on the conference circuit, replayed in boardrooms around the globe by ‘leaders’, and thus produced by every line employee who has 10 minutes of content to fill.  Imitation is supposed to be the highest form of flattery, but in this case it reeks of lacking any sort of creativity and is simply replicating boredom.

Begin by grabbing the audience’s attention.  Provide credibility along the way, not through an opening title.  Segue to unknown content through a known connection to the audience.

Keeping with our Sunday night tradition, we went through the drive-through of a well-known fast food restaurant that shall remain nameless, but it’s image is led by a red-haired girl named Wendy.  We order the same thing every week.  We’re fairly habitual about it.

Tonight the unseen voice cut me off before I could get “#2 cheeseburger combo with sweet tea; two Jr. Cheeseburgers plain, another Jr. Cheeseburger regular, and a large Frosty” out.  She said, “We’re sorry, we’re out of fries tonight.  How else may I help you?“  OUT of fries?  How can that happen?!  Clearly, someone screwed up fairly seriously.  It’s hard to imagine the scenario that would lead a fast food restaurant to be out of french fries.  But the fact remains: tonight, this local establishment was out of fries.

And considering there was nothing (tonight) they could do to change it, I thought they chose the better scenario to deal with it.  Don’t let me order fries and then have to tell me you don’t have them, and don’t hope that I don’t order them and not tell me.  Face the issue up front, ‘fess up to it, and make it clear you’ll be glad to help in any other way possible.  It’s a most unfortunate occurrence, but make sure service and information gets through clearly.

When there’s bad news brewing, get it out of the way up front with clarity and focus on what you CAN do to provide a great experience.

In my speaking, often I’m asked to share the stage with experts or others who complement the program. I have such an occasion in my current round of safety seminars. I’ve worked with several ‘experts’ who have been given instructions from the one contracting our services and they’ve all done what is asked of them. Until now.

For reasons that cannot be explained, this presenter has ignored the directions and is telling us (the hiring entity and me, the host presenter) what he’ll do. Rather than answer questions, he outlined a “here’s what I’ll cover” presentation and even crafted his own slides and sent them along (the experts have been instructed to simply comment on some points of the program and answer questions). The slides included paragraphs of information and flowcharts that were not readable. When I pinged him (for the third time) to suggest they be reformatted, his response was, “Please leave it as it is. I want the cites in the slide for me so that I make sure I cite correctly without looking at notes.” It is most notably not Rule #1 compliant and tells me that he’s only interested in his content.

It’s a funny thing, advice. When we ask for it, we often don’t really want it. When it’s given freely and without request, it’s almost always hated. Here’s a guy who is standing on stage and has given me his key point, which is that when people need help, they should call him (and pay him). And yet, he is unwilling to take advice from others on an area in which he needs help (following the directions of a client and presenting). I’m sure I have similar blind spots.

Proverbs tells us that “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” (12:15).  None of us wants to be foolish.  But by being bullheaded and refusing to accept the wisdom others have to offer, we put ourselves squarely in that category.

Consider areas you need others’ help in. Then ask for, and accept, the advice of those who have proven wise in that area.

Ran across one of those posts today that leaves you scratching your head.  In addition to being in all caps106, it had at least two word phrases that left me completely bewildered.

One was: “I HAVE GOT TO FIND THIS CAT A BETTER HOME! HE REALLY NEEDS TO BE AN INSIDE CAT AND IF I DIDN’T CARE SO DANG MUCH ABOUT HIM I WOULDN’T BE GIVING HIM AWAY!”

Could you please repeat that, this time so it makes sense?  This followed up an explanation of why this declawed cat was left outside and was being tortured by the ducks who ate his food.   Now he was now starving.  His (her?) conclusion was that the cat was really having a nice situation.  Then a plea to get rid of the cat.

I think someone will probably take the cat, but not for any reason in the posting other than pity.  Perhaps this is a ploy to have that exact effect.  I have to believe if one resorts to duping the audience to get a result, something else isn’t quite right.  I much prefer to live, talk, and do business on the up and up.

And if this was an honest attempt gone awry, then a proofreader is a must.

Make sure the meaning and action are appropriate.  Be especially careful of negating words (e.g. NOT).

Traveling a few weeks back and found a number of customer service stories from the line of work that seems absolutely determined to provide bad service — the airlines.

After missing one flight (due to no fault of my own — in fact, I ran through the airport and arrived 10 minutes before departure only to be told the plane I was looking at was “closed”.  Another post, perhaps) I made my make-up flight that sent me back to where I’d just come from to make another (later) flight home.  I settled in and prepared to sleep.

The flight attendant, smiling sweetly, started about row 2 to ask folks to move.  Story was something like: “We have to move some people towards the back of the plane for weight and balance issues.“  Being a pilot, this got my attention.  A plane that is out of balance can easily become uncontrollable, with disastrous results.  The attendant received blank stares, and proceeded to the next row.  And the next.  People flat-out ignored her.  Finally she goto my row and asked if I — and my seatmate — would move.  Sure, says I, wanting to live to see another sunrise.

To my surprise, we were asked to move exactly one seat rearward, to the exit row (she was selling more footroom and people still weren’t biting).  So in effect, she moved about 350 pounds about 18 inches on a plane that probably weighed nearly 20 tons.  And this was near or at the existing CG (Center of Gravity) of the airplane.

Now I have degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Mathematics, and am a pilot and aviation safety instructor.  While there is certainly a mathematical and aerodynamic change, I don’t believe for an instant it mattered one whit.  Which as a communications coach, raises one of two questions:

1. Why would an Airline-whose-name-means-change-or-triangle-shaped-part-of-the-head-of-a-river employee deliberately lie to customers, with the likelihood very high that they would be found out?
2. Why would an Airline-whose-name-means-change-or-triangle-shaped-part-of-the-head-of-a-river employee charged with safety of flight issues not be instructed as to the ramifications and parameters that must be met to ensure said safety?

My guess is that the regulations require an able-bodied person to actually be in the window seat of an exit row.  Why can’t that be said?  It would even put the blame on some bureaucrat instead of the person standing in front of me.  Either answer is quite disturbing to me.

Tell the truth or find out the reason.  Else you will be found out.

It’s often amazing to me how much is said and how little is communicated.  Many people seem intent on making sure they are heard — not that their message is heard.

It’s Toastmasters contest season again, and due to another obligation I was unable to attend or participate in my club’s contest.  It was a well-publicized event — I received at least three blanket emails and two direct personal ones inviting me to participate.  I know they had contestants — an email said they did and I saw a fellow member outside the club meeting and was told there were folks competing but they needed/wanted more people.

The contest was scheduled for 90 minutes across lunch, ending at 130pm.  At 255pm, I received an email to our entire club saying that someone had been overlooked in the Thank You fest that ended the contest (I’ve posted before about how useless thank yous are at Toastmasters — and anywhere else).  He worked hard (it’s a thankless task) and deserved some recognition.  But after that initial email, six (6) others replied to all to say “Hey yeah, thanks bud! Ditto!“  One person — who, like me, missed the contest — did chime in to ask who actually won the contest, since that was omitted from any of the emails.  Two more people replied to that query, apparently ignoring the request to add “Me, too.  Thanks!” messages to the growing thread.  I still do not know who won — it hasn’t been posted to the web site, and no email has gone out to acknowledge the contest ants (sic), who apparently are just an afterthought.

So what’s the purpose of this string of communications?  One person thanked someone else publicly (and deservedly so).  Five others felt the need to echo that sentiment publicly (when privately would have been FAR more appropriate).  No one felt the need to acknowledge the result of what supposedly was the stated purpose of the whole meeting.  What’s wrong with this picture?

Never hit send unless there is a purpose to the message, and match that message purpose to the (entire) audience you are sending it to.