Leaders know that communication is one of their most important jobs. Often I find leaders who know this and yet don't do it nearly enough. At the heart of this knowledge and skills gap is a critical question.

What do I need to communicate?

Often leaders say, "I've already told them that, sent the email, gave the presentation." While this may be true, not only do these communications need to be repeated, but often what is being communicated is the wrong thing, or at the wrong time.

Here is a simple rule of thumb:

Communicate why before how, and don't switch too soon.

In most organizations and teams the "why" is missing. When the why is strong enough, the how will be figured out. Besides, if you are trying to empower your organization, as a leader you probably need to spend less time on how anyway.

Focus more of your communication and conversation on why and less on how.

Labels: communication

It is October so it has become natural in the past few years to notice lots of pink (silly me, I thought October was autumn, so I used to think of browns and oranges during this month).

But The Susan G. Koman for The Cure (of breast cancer) organization has done an amazing job of enrolling people, companies and organizations in supporting their cause and they seem to now own the color pink and the month of October.

I've noticed pink towels for NFL Football teams (the towels were all signed and then sold at auction), a pink edition of Deal or No Deal - where the contestant was a breast cancer survivor, and this morning, pink Campbell's Soup at my grocery store (here is a link to that story from a year ago).

All of this thinking of the pinking of our products and services leaves me with several lessons for all of us.

• Branding is incredibly powerful for any business or cause.
• You can brand your message with anything, including a color (beyond pink, think UPS and brown).
• The color pink will (continue to) help cure breast cancer.

But since this isn't a marketing blog, let me connect all of this branding talk to leadership.

We as leaders can take lessons from great brands. For example:

• We communicate more powerfully when are messages are consistent.
• We communicate more powerfully when we connect our core message to something memorable.
• We communicate more powerfully when we communicate frequently.

Think about great brands the next time you have an important message to communicate (which is probably now) and think of these lessons the next time you see pink.

Labels: communication

That was the title of the sermon J.K. Jones gave at Traders Point Christian Church yesterday. While in this post I won't include the scripture references, I believe the five points he made are extremely relevant to all of us as leaders, team members, and professionals (and as human beings).

He suggests asking these five questions regularly:

Are my words true?
Are my words helpful?
Are my words inspiring?
Are my words necessary?
Are my words kind?

If you take the first letter from the key word in each question: true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind; you get THINK.

Asking these questions, and adjusting our actions accordingly will make us better communicators, better team members, better leaders . . . and better at just about anything else you can think of.

In short, words matter, so THINK.

Labels: communication

Note: This is a post in the brand new Remarkable Leadership Book blog. I post it here to whet your appetite for some of the things you will find there in the future . . .

This week in my Unleash Your Potential newsletter, I wrote an article titled, Preparing a More Powerful Presentation. (This article by the way will be available to readers of the book as a Bonus Byte - one of over 50 additional resources available online to supplement and add value to the reader's experience and use of the book). As a response to the article a colleague of mine, Marc Shiman, sent a note suggesting these questions to use in preparation for any presentation. I loved them and thought they meshed well with what I had written, so here they are for your use:

• Ask yourself the question "What is their (your audience) pain?" This is obviously the problem you are trying to help them solve.


• Now look at your first few slides. Do they address your audience's pain or are they about you?


• We also talk about OUR goals when we make a presentation. What about our audience's goals?

All three of these questions help us get to the heart of communication which we often forget in preparing for a presentation - that our purpose is first and foremost about our audience and helping them.

If you want to communicate more powerfully in any situation, focus on the audience and their needs first.

Labels: audience, communication, preparation, presentations skills, Remarkable Leadership

To be the most effective as a communicator, it is our responsibility to communicate in ways that work for the other person. We must become adept at seeing the other person's perspective, their skills and their style. One of the best short pieces I've read recently on this truth was written by Guy Harris (who calls himself the Recovering Engineer) this week.

This communication truth applies to us in all areas of our communication - in working with Customers, leading others, being a part of a team and more.

His article really hit home for me, and I believe it will for you too. It is titled Speaking Their Language, and I highly recommend reading it.

Labels: communication

I am a customer of PhotoReading - a product of Learning Strategies. You can check out my reviews of both the book and the full system as written about in my newsletter, Unleash Your Potential.

I also recently, partnered with Learning Strategies to promote this product to our Powerquotes list . . . which is why I write this post.

A couple of my readers emailed me expressing concern about me "hawking" this product to my list. I replied to these readers with my thanks for their notes and I addressed their concerns.

I wasn't hawking a product, but promoting something I feel is of great value. I wasn't selling it to make a commission, though I will make one. I was sharing the opportunity with people because I see the value and benefits to them. If you are interested in learning more, you can go here.

The lesson for all of us is that it is important that we make our true intentions clear. When we are transparent and truly working from a position of providing value and benefit to the other person, we can't just assume the other person will see this perspective.

As you communicate with others make sure you message and your intent is clear, and you will have much greater success in the communication process and in building the relationship.

Labels: accelerated learning, communication, intention, PhotoReading, selling, speed reading