Strategic communication thus begins with the choices of whether to communicate at all, when to communicate, and whom to address. In many cases a communication task is assigned as part of normal work responsibilities, which has been treated in previous chapters in terms of the productive transmission of information. There are other occasions, though, when the decision to communicate is a difficult one. Should the brand new person on the team propose her idea to the old timers? Should the sales director request a raise now, or after the end of the quarter? Does the desk clerk want to become part of the hotel’s decision-making process? or simply to have some input on the question of scheduling?
A multitude of factors play a role in the decision to communicate, including the likelihood of success, the difficulty of the communication task, the communication skills of the individual, the information available, and the impact of a message on organizational relationships or stakeholder interests. Sometimes, with some analysis of the situation, a communicator will decide to wait until conditions for success have improved.
Usually, decision-making communication is directed toward an audience that already perceives the communicator to be a part of the decision-making process. In most business environments, individuals will have some automatic right to participate on the basis of the status that comes from job title or position within the organization.
§ Generally
the right to communicate follows the organizational chain
of command: everyone has the
right (and the responsibility) to speak to an immediate supervisor or
subordinate.
§ Peers
are presumed to have the right to speak on decisions that affect each
other: a
team member can expect to be included in decisions that affect the
group’s
defined work responsibilities.
Theresa, a new sales person, notices there is an error on her commission slip. She thinks about complaining to the marketing director about the “working conditions” but realizes that she would be violating the chain of command. Instead, she stops by her supervisor’s desk, inquiring politely about the proper procedure for initiating a correction.
With time,
individuals are given access to more decision-making situations as a
result of
their expertise in relevant areas.
§ Once
others recognize a person’s competence in a technical area, general
good sense,
or sensitivity to relationships, he or she will generally be invited to
join
various decision-making teams, task forces, and committees.
§ The
frustration, of course, is that getting invited is to appear to have
something
to contribute, which involves demonstrating good contributions! A strategic contribution to the
decision-making process that demonstrates expertise can thus open a
door for
future participation.
After several months of employment, Theresa realizes that commission errors occur whenever she makes a sale on the last day of the month. Although the corrections are made, she thinks her experience indicates a problem that should be resolved. Furthermore, she thinks with a little investigation, she’ll be able to come up with some kind of explanation. She decides to stop by the accounting office to ask whether the same pattern of errors is occurring for all salespeople.
Over time, access to
the decision-making process begins to reflect the network of a person’s
past relationships. Business
organizations vary with respect
to how widely dispersed the typical decision-making process is, but
those who
are participating in a decision are generally quite well aware of who
else is
involved. Entering into the
decision-making process can often come about by having developed
relationships
with others who are already involved.
§ The
classic line, “it’s not what you know but who you know,” reflects the
importance of relationships in the business world.
Access to various decision-making processes
often comes from developing a network of personal relationships across
the
organization.
§ Often,
communicating with multiple audiences is an important strategy in a
decision-making process. It is generally
not appropriate to involve those who are not already legitimate
decision-makers, but advocates will sometimes send copies of a message
to
stakeholders, supervisors or allies in order to emphasize and gain
support for
a position.
In
conversations with her supervisor and the accounting department over
the next
few weeks, Theresa discovers that the month-end figures for sales are
cut off
at
Decisions can be made with virtually any kind of communication, but organizations will usually feel only a few of them are effective or acceptable. At some organizations, for instance, it is considered inappropriate to make decisions “behind closed doors” in oral conversation. Other companies, on the other hand, find the formality of written decision-making procedures to be a waste of time and detrimental to social relationships.
A communication method is often chosen for its effectiveness in transmitting the information, but the complexity of a decision-making situation can make the choice difficult. Communicators find that they must choose between the speed of email, the permanence of writing, or the feedback of conversation.
§
A
face-to-face meeting might come to decision with relative ease, but
give the
appearance that a small group of “insiders” made it alone.
§ A
long memo offers a way to carefully organize the arguments and evidence
for a
proposal, but the busy staff won’t have time to read it.
§ E-mail
allows a project’s international team members to stay involved in the
problem
solving, but misunderstandings and frustrations mount when
conversations range
across multiple time zones.
The timing of the communication, whatever its format, can be crucial to the decision-making process. Timing can be thought of in several senses, and all of them will have an impact on how the communicator and the message are received:
Timeliness of the response If there has been a request for the communication, the businesslike style (Chapter Four) would require a communicator to meet any deadlines, of course. Late reports, presentations or emails are always taken as a sign of poor communication. In decision-making situations, the expectation can be complicated by the degree to which the decision itself is perceived to be critical. In most cases, business decisions need to be made quickly—or at least those involved in the decision will have a sense of urgency if there is action being delayed for the outcome. On the other hand, decisions based on incomplete, incorrect, or unconfirmed data can be disastrous.
Time constrains of the audience Timing can also be understood in terms of the best time for a particular audience to receive a particular message.
§ A
staffer
might send bad news in an email late on Friday afternoon in the hope
that
others will care less about the information.
§
A
sales team might provide its information early so that its performance
overshadows that of teams who wait until the regular meeting.
§ An
advocate might simply wait until the boss is in a good mood before
proposing an
idea.
The entire range of competing demands on a person’s time, energy, attention, should be taken into account, along with his or her personality and mood.
Regardless of the audience, channel or timing of a message, the willingness of the audience to listen to it will depend on its assessment that the speaker or writer understands the fundamental goals of the group. This is not to say that a group would never listen to an “outsider’s” perspective, but such a viewpoint will always come from someone who, by definition, is not part of the group’s decision-making process. For the individual who wants to be recognized as a legitimate and contributing member of the group, it becomes important to frame the message in a way that is consistent with the fundamental rhetorical norms of the culture.
Any proposal or idea in a business environment will thus be more acceptable to its potential business audiences when it is framed as something that exhibits organizational sensitivity, reciprocity, objectivity, and an orientation toward action. Getting just the right “tone” for a message can be challenging (Beaufort, 1999), and multiple versions of a message will sometimes be created before finding a way to communicate it so that the audience perceives it to be “our” message—a message that accurately reflects the organization’s understanding of itself.
Deb Ahrens-Vandahaar comments
In sales, we talk about understanding an audience…same as what pr people sometimes call spin. It’s not a bad thing, just a way of describing how an idea has to be made acceptable to multiple audiences; my boss, my trainers, my clients, and the managers that work for my clients who will be the students in the course.
Once the communicator has determine who to approach and what to say, the success of the bid to “join” the decision-making conversation will depend a great deal on the way in which the message is delivered. Our society puts a great emphasis on listening equally to every speaker, and many managers will pride themselves on an “open door policy” that fosters “open” communication with everyone in the organization. The reality is that some doors are more open than others. The effectiveness of a communicator is often determined by whether or not another person is willing to listen.
In the first few seconds of any communication, the audience will assess the personal credibility of the communicator, making a judgment as to whether the person is someone “worth” listening to. Competence, sincerity, and affinity—the elements of “professional” credibility—must be communicated rapidly in order to get the decision-makers’ doors opened wide enough to allow communication to begin.
The three seconds it takes to gain the boss’s attention might have more to do with the decision outcome than the content of the conversation you have. Some truly remarkable communicators are described as having “charisma”, but nearly anyone has the tools to create a personal style that marks him or her as “someone worth listening to.”
Much of a person’s reputation depends on what he or she has previously done, of course, and there is no quick way to make amends for past incompetence. On the other hand, people do listen more readily to those who look and sound competent—those who project self-confidence in what they have to say.
Present yourself authoritatively, and unless you provide evidence that is patently incomplete, illogical or false, you are more likely to be believed (Cialdini).
Virtually any speaker will say “more practice” is the key to self-confidence as well as a more polished and effective presentation. In the business organization, the stakes are high. A poorly prepared presentation is not just an uncomfortable experience, but also a lost sale, an angry boss or an insulted client. Effective communication requires attention to details that simply cannot be left until the last minute (Pearce, 1995). Furthermore, when the situation is a chance meeting in an elevator, an impromptu project update during a meeting, or a conversation spread out over eighteen holes on a golf course, there is little time to get warmed up and comfortable. The effective communicator must display confidence immediately and continuously.
The purchasing agent is more likely to listen to a proposal from a previous vendor than a salesperson making a “cold” call. The analyst who wants to get a hearing at the upcoming budget meetings might make a point of having lunch at the same time the controller does, hoping to strike up a conversation and develop a better “working relationship.”
“If you have to walk into a final presentation needing to win the business based only on the one meeting, you’re probably in serious trouble.” –Mark Goldstein, Chief Marketing Officer, Fallon Worldwide (Zielinski, 2000)
Likeability: Creating a Dynamic Presence
Whether the relationship is personal or professional, an audience will listen more carefully to someone who is likeable. Even in the most formal business meeting, people are drawn to those who are friendly, relaxed and responsive. The advice to a communicator who wants to be perceived as dynamic is simple to describe (although not always as easy to perform):
No decision can ever be based strictly on the “facts” because the validity of the facts themselves depends on a judgment of how well the speaker seems to understand and their interpretation. A listener must further judge whether the facts have been selected and interpreted according to the values he or she deems important. Especially when it comes to formal proposals and presentations, business audiences are “up to their eyeballs in information” and looking for ways to quickly determine whether they should place any faith in what someone has to say (Simmons, 2001). Audiences are not merely assessing the information presented by a communicator, but “probing, consciously or unconsciously, for someone to trust” (Pearce, 1995 2). The audience wants to know that the speaker sincerely values its own interests before it can trust the facts or interpretations he or she offers.
It’s been said that sincerity is one of the easiest things to fake. Yes, you can learn to project credibility, confidence and empathy, although we have names for people who sue those skills at another’s’ expense: hustlers, panderers, demagogues. On the other hand, honesty, vision and moral integrity can brand you as a leader without your ever saying a word.
If any information is available, an audience’s judgment of a speaker’s values and sincerity will begin with an assessment of personal values, character and ethics. To a large extent, ethics are judged on the basis of similarity; someone is ethical when she makes decisions in the same way as the person doing the judging. In the business community, a few commonly held values of ethical conduct do apply: contractual truthfulness, financial honesty, and organizational equity. Those who have a reputation for acting otherwise will find themselves hard pressed to gain an audience with someone who considers him or herself to be ethical.
Most people believe that they can’t be too careful when dealing with strangers, and they are wary when listening to someone they don’t already know. On the other hand, human beings are notoriously willing to believe those who give the signals of familiarity.
§
Direct
(but not too lengthy) eye contact is the universal signal that a human
is
“willing to talk” to another.
§
Within
a business environment, a firm handshake similarly signals a
willingness to
communicate as a peer.
§
Other
signals of familiarly and openness in the relationship include a
relaxed
posture, positioning the body to face the other, and, of course, a
smile.
Words can be used to convey familiarity with the audience and a concern for its interests, but it is the non-verbal cues that will convey most of the information audiences will use to judge another (Mehrabian). Audiences judge any discrepancy between a person’s words and body movements to denote dishonesty. In particular, signals of unwillingness to speak openly—slouching so the body isn’t facing the audience, keeping ones hands out of sight, and fidgeting—are all interpreted as signs of dishonesty.
In decision making communication, information is very seldom presented as “pure” data. Instead, the organizational role of the communicator is to add value to the information by coming to a conclusion, advocating a position, or recommending a course of action. Clarity, brevity and professionalism will characterize decision-making communication, just as it does any kind of information transfer, but the communication is somewhat more complex and often requires careful attention to the strategic use of structural elements.
The structure of the main body of information will reflect the type of decision-making that is being conducted. Typically, some sort of analysis is being done, but a specific communication might be performing just one particular part of a larger process.
Whatever the organizational structure, each point should be connected to what the audience already knows, believes, or does. In an oral presentation, a speaker can use immediate feedback from the audience to insure that everyone involved in the discussion understands each point before proceeding to the next. Writers should take care to provide sufficient detail, either in the text or as supplemental material, that any reader can understand not merely the information presented but its relationship to the decision issues that are being addressed.
Regardless of the overall structure of points, information is presented so that it specifically supports appeals that are being made, typically in a series of claims, with evidence provided to support each one, and an explanation of how the point supports the appeal.
Having the right to be a part of the decision-making process is only the first step, of course. As a communicator begins to develop a proposal or put ideas into words, he or she will quickly realize there is a wide choice of things that could be said. Success depends on picking the right things to say to this particular audience under these specific conditions.
Western philosophers have spent hundreds of years trying to identify the “good reasons” that any audience will find persuasive. They have found instead that every community, each audience, and even single individuals define for themselves the elements of persuasive communication.
Understanding the Audience and Situation
Strategic communication is particularly mindful of the content of a message, recognizing that audiences are induced to believe or comply for some complicated psychological and social reasons, as well as on the quality of the objective evidence and logic of the analysis. In fact, most effective communicators will find that their own decision-making process has been based on a series of cognitive steps that are not at all appropriate for justifying the same outcome to other people.
Recognizing that her increased insurance costs, increasing gas prices, and high mileage have made her company car too expensive to drive, Sarah decides to request a new vehicle. She crafts a memo to her manager that mentions none of these issues, however, but points out the positive image a new vehicle will project while she is driving clients to the company’s job sites.
Appeals are the reasons that a communicator gives or the unspoken reasons an audience understands, which induce behavior or create shared meaning.
§ Persuasive
appeals are the direct attempts a speaker makes to motivate, for
instance an
appeal to fear, self-interest, or common benefit.
§ Invitational
appeals present reasons to change along with assurances that mutual
understanding are respect are primary and that the speaker is also
willing to
change(Foss
& Foss, 2003).
§ Implicit
appeals can include non verbal and even unintended
communication, as
when a dark, dingy conference room convinces the recruited college
graduate
that she does not want a job with the organization.
Appeals should be planned to take advantage of the audience’s knowledge, belief and values, as well as the speaker’s available evidence and the relationships between speaker and audience. The answers to some key questions can guide the creation of appeals:
§ What
specific action do I want my audience to take at the close of this
presentation?
§ What
is the benefit to my audience?
§ What
are the needs, objections or concerns of each of the people who will be
here?
§ What
is the evidence I am using to make or support this decision?
§ How
will the evidence be understood or interpreted by the audience?
The biggest difference between business presentations and the kind of “speech giving” or “paper writing” that most students have done is the overall purposefulness of the business environment. Meetings, presentations and report writing are expensive uses of professional time and should reflect considerable care in their preparation. When the outcome of the decision-making process depends on their accuracy and thorough development, these communication events become even more important.
The key element of in presenting a case to management is its relevance to the overall decision-making process. No matter how charming the speaker or how interesting the statistics, a presentation will mean nothing to an audience that can’t figure out how it applies those figures to the decision it is trying to make.
The introduction must clearly explain how the presentation or memo or email relates to the overall decision-making process. Ideally, it will be possible to clearly identify the stage of decision-making that is being conducted and the role this particular communication plays in the process.
The introductory section should also indicate how the material relates to decisions or decision making processes being conducted in other parts of the organization. If several departments are working on aspects of the same problem, their reports should never be written as though they are working as disconnected entities. The connections between the various parts of the process should be made clear.
Don’t worry that you will “bore” an audience with a message that is too explicit. Management expects you to be explicit as a signal that you know what is going on.
While explaining the organizational relationships involved, the effective communicator will point out relevant differences in perception, understanding or values and identify decision issues that remain important at this point in the on-going conversation.
Finally, the introductory context should explain how the information or analysis being communicated is responsive to management’s requests. Both the audience’s needs and the speaker or writer’s point of view, position with respect to any choices, or interests in the outcome should be clarified at the start of the communication.
Any appeal is based on one or more “truth” claims, which create a chain of logic that can lead the group toward a decision.
Jarrod, a marketing analyst, supports a proposal for an expansion of the product line by appealing to management’s desire for profitability. He will make a series of claims to support the potential for profit: 1) the brand has a high value to customers, 2) new production is possible with current facilities, and 3) brand extensions lie within the current market segment.
An important part of professional persuasiveness is the clarity with each claim is stated. Management audiences, in particular, are using the communication of various positions as a means of testing the validity of each one. The point of the exercise is to determine whether the claims are true or not, and until the claim is clearly understood, the process cannot continue. Participants in the decision-making process are obligated to clarify the various claims, but this does not imply that they personally believe there can be no argument about its validity. In fact, it is usually because there is some question about the truth of a “truth” claim that a decision still has to be made.
A business audience will always expect an advocate to “prove his point” but there are many forms of proof. While the expectation is that every point in a message can be supported with evidence, there are often multiple types and pieces of evidence and multiple interpretations of that evidence to choose from. Further, the evidence can be used to support a wide variety of appeals. It will be the persuasive communicator’s job to select those that are most likely to convince his or her audience.
Whether decision-making is performed by oral, written or graphical methods, business participants work on the presumption that objective evidence and analytical thinking will be displayed. Generally speaking, “intuitive” or “emotional” decision making is avoided, and choices are justified on the basis of “hard” evidence.
Communicators are expected to provide evidence in support of their positions, and all participants in the decision making process are expected to “test” the evidence for its completeness, validity and accuracy.
For most people, the truism “seeing is believing” makes empirical evidence the strongest kind of proof. This is the concrete demonstration of the truth of a fact or situation. A salesman makes arrangements to demonstrate the product in the customer’s own plant, showing “without a doubt” that it will perform as promised.
Traditionally, photographic evidence has been treated as a form of empirical evidence, although the ability to manipulate photos is now available to anyone with access to a computer. In truth, magicians and con artists have always depended on their ability to fake empirical evidence, and cognition research has amply shown the degree to which human perception can be deceived.
A common kind of evidence is the testimony of an authority on the subject under consideration.
Evidence from authority must be tested on the basis of the source’s credibility. In areas of expert authority, the questions are simple to ask, if sometimes difficult to find answer: does the person really have sufficient knowledge to make a judgment on the topic? When the authority derives his or her credibility from past decision-making performance or a relationship with the audience, there is very little objective testing that can be done.
Most of what passes for “evidence” is in fact an interpretation of evidence. That is, empirical evidence (data observed personally) or authoritative evidence (data observed by someone else) is then used to reach a conclusion somewhat apart from the pure “facts” of the situation. A customer service clerk, for instance, who has observed that “people who purchase lawn mowers are also interested in purchasing garden hoses” has not empirically observed customer attitudes. At best, she can say that she has observed the purchases of some individuals. After that, she has generalized from the sample to come to a conclusion about customers overall, and she has interpreted their purchasing behavior as an indication of their attitudes toward garden hoses.
The adequate communication of evidence in business decision-making depends on carefully defining such interpretations. Data that has been derived as a generalization or correlation on the basis of statistical probabilities must be carefully described. Comparisons and analogies must be described with sufficient detail that audiences can be confident that the situations are similar in all important respects. Interpretations made on the basis of examples or case studies must be accurately distinguished from the results of surveys.
Graphics as Evidence
“Bad
graphics, says Tufte, fail because they omit or manipulate context,
deceive by
discouraging comparison or obscuring important details, and confuse
with visual
miscues. We are, he says, surrounded by
poorly rendered data.”
Although there is an old saying that the facts should “speak for themselves,” the reality is that every listener can hear the evidence “say” something different. If a communicator wants others to understand and interpret the facts in the same way she does, each fact must be presented in an interpretive context:
“State the points of the discussion out loud…and don’t force senior execs to draw their own conclusions. Being coy, shy or indirect often leads to a lack of closure with senior managers. They have neither the time nor the inclination to decipher your subtle innuendoes or wad through the subtext of your data and anecdotes for the truth of what you are saying….The facts don’t ‘speak for themselves’—especially to senior managers. They expect you [to] explain what the facts mean…Don’t let their lofty positions prevent you from telling them what to think and do—that’s the kind of directness they respect” (Cook, 1998 30)
An auditor closes her memo with a summary of the discrepancies that had been identified in the team’s meeting and indicates that work remains to be done on two of the items.
Eloquence thus refers to an ability to move people with words—to create a vision they can see, describe a path they can follow, tell a story they can feel, and give words to ideas the audience cannot yet express. Anyone who expects to be successful in an organization needs the ability to participate in the decision-making processes of an organization. It is the eloquent communicator who is able to lead the organization beyond those decision-making processes. This is not merely language that convinces followers to act; it is the expression that creates a narrative that “followers tell themselves when they try to discover what they are thinking”(Weick, 1980 18).
Leadership communication is often particularly important during some of the more formal speaking occasions of the business community, but eloquence in a meeting or an “elevator speech” can also have a dramatic impact on an individual’s career.
“In the past, only a few individuals in the executive suite needed to understand the big picture. In the new organization, everyone is a vision-keeper. All members of the team must deeply and fundamentally understand the context of what they are doing if they are to make fast, effective decisions.” (Lindstrom, P20)
The speech of praise is a common event in the business world. Promotions, retirements, are building dedications are all occasions to honor those who have served the organization and to encourage others to emulate their good deeds. The speeches at these events are often mundane recitations of a person’s resume, boring to the audience and useless to the organization. The eloquent speaker, however, can create a compelling vision of the future.
The result is a speech that uses the praise of one individual to renew a sense of shared values within the community and invokes those values to support future actions. (Werner, 2003)
Although an important presentation obviously requires careful planning and preparation, the real leader is prepared to speak eloquently at a moment’s notice. A project manager gets onto an elevator with the Vice President. A team leader finds she is sharing a cigarette break with the Budget Director. An auditor bumps into the client’s CFO on the morning commute. At any of these moments, the simple “how’s it going?” becomes an opportunity to speak quickly—but eloquently—about the job.
The elements of eloquence remain the same: tell a story, build personal rapport, and provide a vision. That project manager who has a great story about the client’s reaction to a new innovation can smile broadly, provide a SHORT version of the story, and leave the VP with a vision of an energetic team burying the competition with a cool new product.
Business commentator Michael Schrage claims that “five minutes is more than enough time to get even the most harried manager or employee engaged in an initiative that matters.” The eloquent individual will not stumble about trying to think of something to say, or ramble on about irrelevant detail. Instead, a clear vision, provided with self-confidence and clarity, will make a memorable impression and mark the speaker as a leader.
The real difficulty, of course,
does not lie
in understanding what professional
delivery looks like; especially for
the new
employee, the mystery is in how to achieve the “polish.”
An important first step, of course, is to actually
be
competent, enthusiastic and friendly.
However, even very competent people become apprehensive and
tongue-tied
in front of an audience. A few “tricks
of the trade” can help you to become comfortable, and the good news is
that
most professionals actually find their presentations to be an enjoyable
part of
the job
People are never comfortable talking about concepts they don’t understand. A potential audience’s reaction to data can’t be gauged until the data is gathered. A speech can’t be practiced until it is written. The obvious tactic for effective communication is thus to become familiar with the concepts, gather the data, and prepare the language to talk about whatever topics the business requires. In reality, new issues come up in the middle of the conversation, key data is not available, and it seems altogether silly to write a script for “the next time I see the boss in the elevator.” The point is not to simply “write a speech” and practice it; the real aim of the effective communicator is to prepare him or herself to speak confidently on a topic.
For each area of responsibility, product, or issue that must be prepared, begin with a general outline of the ideas that must be communicated.
Decide the single point to be made on each element, and begin gathering data, examples, and visuals to support it. The preparation process might begin with a file folder to throw clippings into, a spreadsheet that guides data gathering, or a note page on a PDA. These records will serve as the basis for more formal documents and presentations that might be created later, but in the meantime they create a mosaic of knowledge that will come across to others as a comprehensive grasp of the topic.
An effective communicator chooses the topics about which she wants to be prepared to speak competently, and then finds the material to support her position. She doesn’t wait until she’s asked to speak before “doing research” on a topic.
When the “speech” is just notes a manager has scribbled on a copy of his or her appraisal objectives, the notion of rehearsing might seem odd, but this is the moment when a good communicator begins to think, “what will I say when I’m asked about….” Not only do the ideas begin to take shape as clear, coherent sentences, but holes in the logic or evidence will begin to show up. There is still time—before that fateful conversation in the elevator—to get the ideas in order, gather up the supporting data, and prepare a self-confident opening to introduce the idea.
The
single most powerful feedback tool you can use is videotape
Your capability is
judged very literally in terms of how healthy and successful you appear
to be
. You want to seem normal and natural
On Stage
When making a proposal in a formal setting, take advantage of the opportunity to create a dynamic and powerful stage presence.
Avoid speaking from behind a lectern; stand at the room’s focal point, facing the audience at about a 45-degree angle. Set up the equipment so that you are never turning away from the audience to see the monitor or screen, speaking in the dark, or standing in the glare of a projection bulb.
Move
any furniture that lies between you and your audience, and use your
whole body
to interact with the audience, express your feelings, and emphasize the
points
you want to drive home. Stand a foot or
two away from any furniture so you can comfortably gesture
Make
direct, conversational eye contact—about 5 seconds—with each person in
the room
Electronic
media did not create the use of narrative.
Stories were the first kind of public speaking, and the hunger
for
narrative is a basic human instinct (Ganzel,
1999). During
the age of literacy, the "rational”
philosophies tended to ignore storytelling as a persuasive tool.
Especially for academic and philosophical purposes, "logical" arguments
were created that reflected a reliance on analytical,
scientific thinking (Haynes,
1989). In the real world of
business, however, audiences are still swayed by
stories (Boje,
1991; Denning, 2001; Endicott, 1999 29;
Gabriel, 2000; Toogood, 1996 17; West & Anthony, 2000),
and they remember information better when it’s presented in a
narrative form (Giuliano, 2000). Professionals
don't give speeches; they tell stories.
Doug Stephenson's
Story Theater methods The Ant and the Dove
Plausibility A persuasive story requires coherence—an internal logic that explains why the various characters might have done what they did—and fidelity—a sense that the story is “about” the real world in which the audience could see this all happening (Fisher, 1987). The details of the narrative must be internally consistent, consistent with facts the listeners already know, including not merely the facts of the immediate situation, but with what is “known” to be true by members of the culture (Ralston, Kirkwood, & Burant, 2003).
Not all stories are factually true, of course. The greatest stories have always been the myths and fantasies that allow human imagination to soar to new heights. Nevertheless, in the business world, the careless use of “made up” stories can have negative repercussions. Consumers were incensed, for instance, when they discovered that the humble pair of farmers selling Bartles & James was a fiction of the Gallo Corporation’s advertising agency (Ganzel, 1999). Personal stories that are inspiring within the workplace might be embarrassing or incoherent when presented to audiences outside the organization. Good storytellers are careful to base their narratives in the experiences of real people, and while some embellishment and embroidery is inevitable, the power of the story is in its underlying truthfulness.
A convincing story, furthermore, provides sufficient detail to support its claim (Ralston et al., 2003). A story that includes enough details for the audience to “get” the point before the speaker has to explaining it will find the story more compelling. On the other hand, too much detail will overwhelm a story. A good story simplifies the issues. Large quantities of logical, substantive evidence can create information overload, and the story is a way to translate all that abstract data into concrete, local experiences the audience can truly understand on a personal level (Pearce, 1995).
The eloquent storyteller is one who is helping an audience to understand things in a new way, so the point of story telling is to create a shared context so that speaker and audience understand the issues the same way. Even thought the characters or situation are new to the audience, by the time the story is told, it should be able to understand why the characters acted the way they did, why they made the decisions they did, and why they should behave in the way the speaker suggests (Pearce, 1995 72).
Research shows that once jurors have heard a story that “makes sense” they will accept and remember only those facts that “fit” the story (Giuliano, 2000).
Relevance Business
stories are structured in the same way every other business document is
structured. A beginning identifies the
audience, the purpose of the occasion, summarizes the speaker’s purpose
and
acknowledges any organizational resistance to it. The
middle of the story provides the reasons
or steps toward the vision; the ending summarizes the path and
clarifies the
specific action required of all members of the audience (Pearce,
1995 35-37).
While stories to
entertain can often be taking in multiple ways, and ambiguity is their
entertaining element, leadership stories are most compelling when they
lead to
a single, clear conclusion (Ralston
et al., 2003).
At least in Euro-American cultures, a narrative is expected to center around a single climactic episode, to be told chronologically, and to demonstrate the psychological development of its characters (Lipman, 1999). Something “happens” to someone in the story, which leads to a consequence of some kind. The single thesis of the presentation should be theme of any story (Toogood, 1996 44-45). In general, humor is not the point of a business story, even though humor can be useful for gaining and keeping an audience’s attention (Hendricks, Holliday, Mobley, & Steinbrecher, 1996 82).
On the other hand, the audience usually is the point of the story, although a story is sometimes told from the perspective of some stakeholder who otherwise lacks voice (e.g. the customer, the environment). The tale will begin from the perspective of some sort of hero, or teller, or main character whose description of the world the audience is being asked to share (Hendricks et al., 1996), not with an introduction of the speaker, a history of the project, or other lead-in material. Start with the point, the overview, or the “big picture” in 45 seconds or less (Toogood, 1996 34). Too many characters can create confusion for listeners (Lipman, 1999 38), but the key point is that relevance is judged in terms of relevance to the audience. A storyteller might give the sequence of events going on in the project or explain the situation or issue from his or her own personal perspective, but the focus is not on telling a personal story. It is the organization’s story and a tool for helping the organizational members to form a new story for themselves (Lipman, 1999 113).
In many ways, the point of the story is the presentation’s action step. The end of the story is not, in a business context, merely a moral. The story offers a vision and illuminates the path to get to it. By the end of the story, your audience must be able to see not only where it is going, but also to clearly see the first step on the journey.
Values Stories
are a way to establish common ground between speaker and audience (Ganzel,
1999). The
story is the way in
which human beings call up their own emotional responses, giving moral
and
social value to information. Facts
and
figures abound in the business environment, so it is the eloquent
communicator
who can translate those figures into
a story—turning vision into action, numbers into ideas, and presented
facts
into a probable future (Toogood,
1996 26). The
story is a
translation of one person’s perception into a form that is so real, so
compelling that others can believe the story and come to share the same
perception (Ganzel, 1999). A good story is thus one that
reflects the
storytellers values, beliefs, identity, emotional outlook (Ralston
et al., 2003).
Perhaps even more compelling, the story is a method of creating an authentic relationship between speaker and audience. Storytelling is an artform that requires the physical presence of both artist and audience (Lipman, 1999). Unlike the oratorical focus on powerful words and logic that seem to speak to a “universal” audience, the eloquence of narrative depends on the form and energy of an interaction that connects this speaker with this audience at this moment in time. However many times you’ve told a story before, you must still “show up” to tell it again to the audience in the room.
That relationship, furthermore, is a better
one as a result of good storytelling. A
good story makes people feel good. This
is not to say that every story is pleasant or has a happy ending, but
especially when the goal is organizational development, it is a
positive to
make an audience feel curious, hopeful and enthusiastic, but not guilty
or
fearful. Negative emotions can be
persuasive,
but they heighten individualistic behaviors (Todo,
1980). Especially in an organizational setting, it
is important to offer a story that draws on socially cohesive feelings.
Although every community comes to expect and appreciate a certain storytelling style, there is no one “right” way to tell a story (Lipman, 1999). Each storyteller has a unique way to tell his or her own story, and developing that sense of personal honesty is an equally important part of eloquence. Nevertheless, a storytelling event can be enhanced with attention to its oral and aural characteristics.
The principles of telling a memorable story have been known for millennia (Eric A. Havelock, 1968; Eric A. Havelock, 1986; Haynes, 1989; Ong, 1982).
§ The
structure is additive. Ideas
are never laid out in the nice neat
lists of a written document, but added to each other one at a time so
that the
links remain clear in the audiences mind.
§ The
plot of a memorable story is agonistic.
There are good guys and bad guys, and of
course, the audience should be able to identify with the good guys.
§ Memorable
oral presentations are rhythmic. Repeated
phrases, rhymes, and regular pauses
and silence will all serve to make an idea memorable to the listener’s
ear—and
thus to the listener’s mind (Hendricks
et al., 1996 83; Lipman, 1999 33).
§ The
structure of a story is often circular,
following the logic of human discovery rather than the “ordered”
structure of
an outline.
§ The
best story is one that is as rich as possible, with concrete
information and
vivid details (Haynes,
1989).
Human beings rely on a complex and nearly invisible set of cues to decide whether to trust each other. Using multiple non-verbal cues, in particular, our minds engage an implicit “gatekeeper” function to gauge another’s trustworthiness in a complex process of social cognition (Decker & Denney, 1992 54). The result is that audiences are swayed by the personal rapport that a speaker builds with those non-verbal movements, gestures, expressions and actions (Toogood, 1996 17).
It takes an audience only 8 seconds to decide whether a speaker is worth listening to (Toogood, 1996 96), and an eloquent speaker uses that first few moments wisely—this is not time to waste with a recitation of your name, department and the name of your project! Furthermore, a climate of openness, trust and persuasiveness is built with a consistent sense of personal connection with the audience. The contemporary eloquence of self-disclosure is a significant shift from the more traditional speaker-centered model in which the orator has full responsibility for persuading the audience. An eloquent speaker now recognizes the presentation event as one in which he or she will invite audience members to transform their understanding of reality into one that is shared with the speaker (Foss & Foss, 2003)
The idea is to go with the flow; the eloquent business speaker is not “in charge” of a lecture or a sermon; but participating in a discussion. It’s the leader’s job to carry on a conversation with the audience, telling his or her own story (Simmons, 2001), but equally ready to listen to the audience’s story. That might be a literal listening session, but an “experienced speaker learns to sense audience response even without verbal comments or questions” (Lindstrom, 1994 9).
Perhaps most obviously, contemporary eloquence is characterized by a new reliance on visual images. Business speakers have always been more likely than political and academic speakers to tell stories or rely on personal rapport for persuasiveness, and presentation software is common now in business (Nunberg, 1999) and increasingly expected by audiences raised in a media era (Hill, 2000).
The use of images in contemporary multi-media presentations is an important tool, but visualization includes far more showing the audience a series of picture. The most memorable thing about an eloquent leader is the ability to communicate his or her own internal vision to an audience—the ability to “see” a future that doesn’t yet exist.
The first step in communicating a vision, of course, is to have a vision. This might mean spending some time doing the detailed planning it takes to be able to explain a new program. A leader might need to spend creative time simply thinking about where she would like the business to go. Often, the eloquent leader is the speaker who can put into words the shared vision a group of people is already beginning to discover.
Next, the eloquent speaker strives for a presentation that helps the audience visualize for themselves, rather than simply showing the audience an illustration. This can mean providing images, graphs or charts as presentation slides, but it also means telling stories and developing a personal rapport to entice the audience into joining you in creative “re-visioning.”
The eloquent leader will use language to create a vision, using a rich vocabulary, precise language to allow people to “know their environment and themselves more fully and see more ways to cope” (Weick, 1980 21). Concrete language is important, but the eloquent speaker will also try to go beyond words, engaging as many senses as possible, perhaps passing something around for the audience to touch or smell (Tymson, 2001).
Of course, any good story paints a picture. A major element of good storytelling is the creation of visual images (Lipman, 1999). Visual images are an important aspect of contemporary eloquence and a basic tool of the presentation software and projection equipment you will be using in business presentations, but don’t neglect to paint word pictures as well. Be specific about who was there, what they did, and the details of what happened (Simmons, 2001).
Finally, recognize that leadership communication is a risky business. The ability to see clearly is not always comfortable, and an audience might be frightened by a vision of the future. “Words can capture nuance and detail, but sometimes what they capture is so stark and frightening that people flee from precision toward approximation, simplicity, and comfort” (Weick, 1980 21). The eloquent leader uses words to paint a picture of reality, but the leader who provides his or her followers with a clear picture of reality is also using language to produce strong emotions (Weick, 1980 21). There is risk in eloquence, but the speaker who uses the language of leadership will never be able to get lost in the crowd of ordinary workers.
Visual Identity and Credibility
The primary function of many business visuals is to create a corporate or product identity that will leave the audience with a visual memory of the speaker’s organization. The slide background thus “can make or break your presentation.” Rather than using the templates that came with the software, customized backgrounds say “my identity is important and I am different from my competitors,” a particularly crucial element in a sales presentation(Wilder, 1999 30). Generally, most large companies will have a fully designed visual “look” including logo, letterhead, and even slide templates. Use the corporate colors, design elements and prepared materials!
Your verbal and physical image should correspond, of course, with the visual images. In most business situations, you will be introduced as an employee of the company, with specific business responsibilities. You will be wearing the business suit uniform, and your posture and demeanor will convey a “professional” identity. Your visual images should support the image cues and corporate symbols with a clean, crisp, action-focused design.
Often a persuader will be offering evidence to refute the claims and evidence of another advocate. In this situation it is especially important that an audience understand which issue your own claim is addressing. Many decision-making groups have failed to reach good outcomes because the conflicting claims or evidence are not clearly articulated.
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