Why Sink or Swim when you can Play?
https://lex.dk/Cole_Porter
Astronauts do it.
Air Force pilots do it.
Children with their toys do it.
Let’s do it.
Let’s simulate.
We have taken a little creative freedom with Cole Porter’s lyrics about falling in love to make a point: communicators need creative learning methods to help us navigate the new—sometimes uneven—professional paths.
As we progress in our communication careers, most of us come to a point where we move ahead—or not—by doing and succeeding or by doing and failing. Once you become a technical expert in your field, the next step for you might be to become a strategic adviser to leadership and then, become a business leader in your own right. The real consiglieri know that the skills needed to become the best adviser you can be cannot be learned by maps alone: It is not a linear road, and although many have navigated it before and learned to surmount the obstacles in their way, very few leave breadcrumbs for those coming behind them.
When it comes to giving advice and leadership, most communication professionals are left to their own devices and their ability to watch and learn, sink or swim, succeed or fail. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Picture this: A seasoned communication expert—let’s call her Carmen—is promoted to the executive team of her company, mostly due to her hard work, talent and knack for delivering complex projects on time and on budget. Carmen knows that what got her a seat at the table will not be enough to help her succeed in her new role. As a leader she must learn to advise and influence more, while actually doing a lot less. Carmen is smart, she buys, The First 90 Days, consults her mentor, studies the company’s business model and strategy documents, speaks to other communication leaders through the IABC network and makes a plan of her priorities. But she knows, in her gut, that once she steps into the boardroom she will learn by fire.
The problem is that offering advice, speaking truth to power and influencing decision-making teams requires Carmen to bring together a group of very specific skills and understand when they are most effective. It is all about intent and timing. How can you teach that? You can’t. Not really. One has to live through it, to learn it.
But in the C-suite, lessons can be risky and mistakes can be expensive. So we looked at our alternatives. The answer, to our surprise, was right in front of our noses. If leadership is learned by experience, let’s bring the experience to Carmen before she goes into the room.
There is nothing revolutionary about this idea. Would you get on a plane with a pilot that hasn’t successfully landed lots and lots of planes in simulation? Would you let a surgeon who had never used a scalpel take out your appendix? In high school, many of us took part in school elections, Model United Nations, or Mock Court. In communication, many of us have prepared organizations to respond to crisis through simulations, stress testing a team’s response to media and organizational pressures. It works. We know it.
Teaching specialists think these types of methodologies—from role playing to simulating and gaming—encourage deep learning and make students use the creative thinking part of their brain. They are particularly useful to teach the ability to react to complex, multi-variable situations where decision-making can lead to multiple positive outcomes. Doesn’t that sound like a normal business day?
Take Carmen again. In our experience, the real question is not why use simulation to prepare her and the next crop of communication leaders, but why not? Yet, that’s not quite the full picture. In our quest to discover the perfect training model, we realized it has to be fun.
Make them laugh, make them laugh, make them laugh.
Let’s do an experiment. Bear with us. Read the next sentence and then close your eyes for five seconds.
Remember the smell of a batch of freshly baked cookies coming out of the oven.
If you did close your eyes and you have experienced the joy of someone baking delicious things for you, chances are you are smiling now. Chances are your brain has produced dopamine, the hormone that controls the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Neuroscientists know that a happy brain, a dopamine-infused brain, learns better. Learns for longer.
Now that we have primed your brain with a little bit of joy, by connecting you to the olfactory happy memory of cookies, you might be more able to finish reading this article and remember it. That is what neuroscientists tell us.
But let’s get back to Carmen. We have posited that in her move from technical expert to strategic adviser and then business leader:
- She needs different skills than the ones that got her to the executive team.
- It is more useful for her to learn those skills through experience.
- The more fun she has the more she can learn for the longer term.
These three principles are easy to take with you as you face a new stage in your career or as you guide your communication team through the next wave of challenges. Take some time to “practice” how you will react in a new environment, get someone to give you feedback and make it fun.
A learning experience for all
A learning experience for all
(Guest post from Hugh Mann) I have a five-year old nephew. His name is Hugo and he is a-ma-zing. The other day I picked him up from school for some special uncle-nephew time. It was a Friday and he was staying with me for the night. I told him we could do anything he wanted, and I expected him to shout “Let’s go swimming!” “Let’s have ice cream!” “Let’s go to the zoo!” I’m used to kids shouting out ideas and building on that energy. To my surprise, Hugo said “I need to think about it. Can I tell you when we get home?” I was taken aback.
On the 10-minute walk home, while Hugo pondered the million choices ahead of him, my mind wandered back to the office. For those of you who don’t know me, I am HR Director of Globocorp, the wearable tech company. My job is to help all our employees grow and flourish making the company the best in this business. We run an internal academy of learning with lots of interesting courses to help our employees move through their own career paths. Two weeks earlier, Kendi, my head of learning, sent me a video with a note: “Watch this and we’ll talk on our weekly catch up next week when we will discuss Globocorp’s academy for next year.”
Hugo’s response and Kendi’s gentle nudge, opened my eyes. I’m a musician, an extrovert and I love thinking and working out loud. I forget not everybody around me does. Kendi’s nudge … Hugo’s pauses … The universe was teaching me something.
Where does learning happen?
Great learning happens at the liminal zone between comfort and discomfort, so our job is to take people to the edge of their comfort zone and help them explore new territory. This the space that business simulations, like Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders, occupy.
We use simulations, play and scenarios to explore some of the key challenges faced by functional specialists working in HR, legal and communication. We make it real by getting participants to walk in my shoes for a bit. Or Carmen’s or Lloyd’s. We also develop scenarios based on real-life events that happen in companies big and small. This makes our sessions realistic, improving the learning potential.
Besides, it’s more fun this way. And, as some of you know, I earned my PhD proving the link between having fun and improving learning outcomes. (If you’re interested, this article is a good place to start).
Give them the silent treatment
Hugo reminded me that it requires more than game-playing to help people develop new skills. To help embed the learning, we must mix active play with theory and self-reflection.
I think too much teaching caters for extroverts. Teachers and facilitators think they are doing a good thing by building in Q&As or group discussions or syndicate work. While these are often a welcome break from “talk and chalk”, we must recognise that some people prefer thinking time and a chance to reflect quietly, process what they have learned, and reflect it back later. So I’m working with Carmen to ensure our programme design allows people to get the most from their time with us.
An excellent starting point to understand the power of introverts is Susan Cain’s work Quiet Revolution. I find her free resources very useful.
Even introverts need to play
When we got home, Hugo told me that on Saturday he wanted to go swimming and then for ice cream… and… could we set aside some time for him to finish his drawings? Of course he got what he wanted and we had a great day.
Back to work the next Monday, Kendi and I decided to roll out an “Inclusive meeting protocol” and agreed we would try to reshape my weekly standing meetings in which I ask people to shout out solutions. I realise now this accidentally gives more air time to extroverts. Now we post the questions a day before so those wanting time to reflect are comfortable too.
And when it comes to playing Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders, we have introduced some quiet time so that participants who prefer to reflect are comfortable. We also have an online voting system, so extroverts aren’t over-rewarded for yelping the answer first and loudest.
We’re still learning and trying new ideas. If you work in people and organisational learning, we’d love to hear ideas on how to cater for introverts.
Leaders gain precious insight from play
In this guest blog, Monika Lancucki, reflects on the value of play for strategic thinking.
Based in Melbourne, Australia, Monika advises her clients on governance, corporate affairs and strategic planning. She can be reached on mon.l@hotmail.com
Late last year I took a contract opportunity to lead an external communications team in a large and reputable Australian federal government agency. Whilst I had worked with many public sector clients and held in-house leadership in various types of organisations, I had not worked in-house in the public sector. So, when the opportunity to take part in Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders tailored for the Public Sector came up – I jumped at the chance.
While it may be tempting to dismiss game-based play and simulation workshops as aimed at early career professionals, I would caution against being too hasty to do so.
I had participated in a corporate version of Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders at a global conference several years ago so knew this was a chance to test my strategic thinking in a new operating context.
Given it is a team-based workshop, I also knew it would provide the opportunity to better understand how those who work in the public service reason, think, and discern the best, most strategic way forward.
I was not disappointed.
Simulation-based play provides an opportunity to test strategic thinking and decision-making in a safe and fun way, and not just for early career professionals. It offers leaders and experienced practitioners precious insight into the assumptions, motivators and thinking of people in different markets, organisations, or stages of their career.
Whilst there is a lot of rhetoric about “fail fast and iterate”, many organisations are still unforgiving of failure. For those who might be branching out into a different operating environment, from corporate into public sector or vice versa, this is a way to test out their understanding of the complexities of the sector in a safe sandbox.
Decision-making is not so much about choosing between “right” and “wrong” but about discerning the best of several “right” answers
Unlike a test or exam, there is no single “right” answer in Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders. The game places players in teams and then the teams deal with a series of hypothetical scenarios with possible decision options. These options come with impacts on stakeholder relationships, professional integrity, and substantive implications. The choice isn’t so much between right and wrong, but rather based on ethics, best practice, commercial and practical considerations, which is the best of several possible choices. And it is in the opportunity to hear your team members’ reasoning as to why they would make a particular choice that the true value lies.
Win or lose – don’t lose the insights
Of course, Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders is a game and in games “winners are grinners”. But for leaders and experienced practitioners, the benefit of the exercise is less about proving how clever you are by leading your team to victory, and more about gaining insight into how your colleagues think and reason. Why does the team choose a particular way forward? What factors did they consider? What did they miss? Did they take in different perspectives to find creative and innovative ways to navigate these challenges?
In a real-life work context, we have deadlines and a bias to execution, and a focus on decisions and recommendations rather than reasoning is often the priority. Too often you don’t have the time to delve into why team members take the approach they do.
As a leader, you may find the insights from Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders help you identify potential development ideas for your team, and test your own assumptions as to the motivators, drivers and understanding of colleagues.
Acquire a deeper understanding of stakeholder organisations
Hearing from other practitioners also provides the opportunity to discern how individuals from other organisations – of the kind with which your organisation may have dependencies – approach scenarios, again providing valuable insights to take back to the workplace. You can test your own assumptions and offer ideas about other ways to tackle complex challenges.
There is a saying that “win or lose, don’t lose the lesson”. When it comes to Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders, particularly for more experienced practitioners, you might rightly add “don’t lose the insights”.
Who knows, you may also have a bit of fun along the way.
Monika participated in a half-day Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders post-conference workshop delivered virtually by Australia delivery partner, Zora Artis GAICD SCMP and Canada delivery partner Sharon Hunter SCMP. Tailored public sector or corporate sector workshops are available for in-house teams, events or conferences for communication, engagement and HR professionals.
First job? Here's three winning insights to kick off your career.
In this guest post, Yulia Zaytseva, Media & Communication Professional shares a Generation Z perspective on her Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders learning experience.
New professionals often find it hard to navigate the corporate environment. Without experience, corporate politics and etiquette can often make aspiring executives feel like they are taking one step forward and two steps back.
Experts predict Generation Z will work 18 jobs across six careers in their lifetimes[1], so it made sense for me, as one of them, to invest in my professional development and seek my own answers as a new professional.
In 2020, I attended the Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders workshop in Sydney organised by IABC NSW and hosted by Zora Artis, CEO of Artis Advisory and seasoned IABC leader. Knowing Zora from previous IABC events, I simply couldn't miss the opportunity to learn from her expertise in the communication industry.
Lesson 1: Aim for the moon and you will reach the stars
Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders training participants took on the role of Carmen Spinoza, Communication Director at Globocorp, a fictional multi-national organisation. Even though Carmen's position was much more senior than mine, I saw great value in exposing myself to various high-level challenges she had to face as a leadership team member.
Junior staff members don't usually get a chance to sit in strategic sessions, so taking part in Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders can teach a lot about the nature of boardroom decision-making, strategic thinking, and corporate networking.
The insights and experience we get from such training sessions and talking to more senior workshop participants can help as we advance in our careers.
Lesson 2: We look forward to the "ladders," but it's the "snakes" that create life's greatest opportunities
Mastering the art of informed decision-making and maximising the options available to us is essential to success.
Our decisions are significantly impacted by the environment, such as workplace culture, work colleagues, leadership structure, etc. In the game, like most things in life, we win or lose points with every decision we make because every decision has its own set of consequences.
Experienced communication advisers are good at managing risks and calibrating their decisions based on the current climate, facts, and data, while also following ethical communication standards.
Participating in simulation activities can be beneficial for practicing calculated decision-making. When we impersonate a fictional character, we are exposed to new ideas, different situations, and unfamiliar scenarios that challenge us and push us to think outside the box.
Lesson 3: Thinking two, three, four steps ahead
Strategic thinking is one of the most valuable skills communicators can have. Pausing to think strategically before acting will pay off time and again. Strategy underpins all good decisions, whether it's mapping out a global communication campaign, manoeuvring corporate politics to achieve career progression, or living a balanced, happy, and fulfilled life.
Planning one move at a time is fine for beginners, but if you want to work with the best in the industry and climb the career ladder, you need to be able to plan two, three steps ahead and adapt your strategy on the fly when things don't work out as planned. That's what Corporate Snakes and Career Ladders training helps you to practice.
The game challenges you to bring the bigger corporate picture into focus to make strategic recommendations that help you gain reputation points with the executive team and position yourself and your team in the best possible situation to win. Mastering these skills in real life will ultimately help you advance your career and gain recognition as a truly strategic adviser.
#careeradvancement #strategicadviser
[1] https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blogarchive/gen-z-and-gen-alpha-infographic-update/
It's time to bring the joy back
The last two years have tested our resilience and imagination. I fear that we are not out of the woods yet, particularly as we enter the winter in the northern hemisphere. However, optimism is on the rise!
In the UK – where we have our headquarters – it seems that we are finding a way to live with this pandemic. Our life is becoming almost normal.
Around London, we see offices are reopening and those who can are rejoining the activities that give them joy. For us that also means doing what we love best, creating memorable learning experiences for our clients. I must confess we have missed seeing them. We have missed meeting new colleagues and connecting with those that have always supported us face to face. In real life.
Since that horrid March 2020, we have successfully pivoted to provide our lovely clients with an online or a hybrid learning experience, and we have loved every minute of it! The challenge of bringing our fun neuroscience-based approach to the virtual meeting room has been exhilarating and full of learnings in itself. We have learned the optimal time for sessions to keep them engaged; tested with different collaborative platforms; mastered the mute and unmute buttons.
But now, it’s time. We need to see you.
We have all been looking at each other through a screen for too long and our brains are hungry for joyous chemicals.
Stephen and I put our heads together and concluded that since our business thrives because we bring new energy into clients’ work through play, why not hold a session for them and other friends? Why not invite our courageous innovators to celebrate Christmas with us? We can’t travel just yet, but at least we can bring our London folk together.
So this is the chance. November 24.
We will have a short gaming session (it wouldn’t be our party without it!) and then we will all get a chance to chink REAL glasses, look each other in the eye and smile.
We are bringing back the joy and we cannot wait.
Playing Cooperative 'Battleship'
Are you old – or young – enough to recall playing Battleship as a child? In this game, you place a set of ‘battleships’ on a grid hidden to your opponent. She then fires random shots via Cartesian coordinates in the hope of ‘hitting’ one of your secret targets. You then reciprocate. The game starts with random firing and lots of ‘misses’. And then once you get a ‘hit’ you focus your fire to completely obliterate your opponent.
At Archetypical, when we are developing games and simulations, the Battle of Jutland is not an obvious first port of call. But maybe we can adapt the concept and think about how the game of ‘Battleship’ can apply in business. Here are two ideas.
Diary Battleship
I was trying to organize a meeting with a client the other day, and after a couple of exchanges, we realised we were basically playing ‘reverse battleship’ with each other and our diaries: firing random shots (ie suggesting dates for a meeting) and hoping for a ‘miss’. That got me thinking – maybe a cooperative approach would be better.
The obvious answer is to make your diary public. But I know many people in large organizations where this is the norm. They tell me it is a nightmare: colleagues – in Battleship they are called ‘opponents’ – espy a 20 minute vacancy and immediately fire something in. And even senior leaders find it hard to say no, despite the tips I published here .
I’m sure there is a systems/IT solution but maybe the real answer is respect and culture, as this article suggests. If the object of ‘Diary Battleship’ is to miss and find the gap between ships/meetings, then don’t deliberately aim for the space where there are two ships/meetings close together. After all, you will splash everyone on board and create waves which will upset the crew. Look instead for seriously clear blue ocean which allows plenty of time for people to prepare and plan … and then follow-up.
Cooperative Battleships
In Cooperative Battleship applied to the corporate world, we make our position known and clear (‘my ships are here, here, and here….’). With clarity comes understanding and discussion. How do we work together to achieve X? Is there a shared agenda? Or not?
The problem is that too often, the others’ agenda is hidden, so we are reduced to firing shots at random in the hope of hitting something. Sure, your overall goals may be different but real partnership only works when there is a shared agenda. And to have a shared agenda, you need to share your agenda. Why not have some cooperative play?
Strong process-oriented strategic advisers check in at the beginning of a discussion: What do you want to get from this meeting? What would you consider success? How does this meeting help you achieve your goals? etc. Maybe we should all do this more often.
Perhaps the original concept of Battleship applies in a purely corporate, competitive, cut-throat world – 'Corporate Battleship' if you will. But in the world of being a strategic adviser and business partnering, maybe it is better to play Cooperative Battleship, rather than Corporate Battleship.
What are your applications of Cooperative Battleship to the corporate world?
#seriousgames #gamebasedlearning
The Medium is Still the Message: Is technology to blame for WFH fatigue?
On this #ThrowBackThursday, I invite you to take a step back to reflect on our love/hate relationship with virtual working and its enabling technologies. In 1964, Marshal McLuhan coined his famous phrase, "The medium is the message," to describe how our technology influences society in his classic work, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Fifty-seven years later, his insights are more relevant than ever as we consider the monumental impact of the pandemic on our habitual ways of working. Let's explore.
We're only human, after all.
Here in Canada, as business rolls into Q4 amidst the pandemic's 4th wave, hopes of a complete return to "normal" work-life are on hold. While some have transitioned back to the office, many companies have backtracked their plans, still grappling with hybrid work logistics and complying with social distancing rules. And, much to everyone's despair, the feasibility of delivering in-person events remains a mixed bag. So, despite a resurgence of face-to-face connection, the need for online meetings and virtual events isn't going away anytime soon.
Big Brother doesn't trust you.
The pros and cons of remote working and its impact on productivity and corporate culture are well documented. We won't go deep on that now. But considering the most common complaints from employees, missing genuine human contact with co-workers has been paramount during pandemic isolation. Hard to argue with that - we are social beings, after all. Ironically in McLuhan’s time, people said the same thing about TV killing cherished family time at the dinner table - but it didn't stop our obsession with it nor acknowledging its value as an educational medium.
Employees also cite so-called "Zoom fatigue" as a pervasive ill, given expectations to be online in meetings all day long and worse - in some cases - their presence tracked by employers to ensure people are working a full 9-5. This lack of trust reflects the old 19th-century factory mindset that presence equals productivity - and standing over someone's shoulder is the best way to keep them on task. Is it fair to say corporate cultures clinging to this attitude are as much responsible for exhausting people and contributing to a negative experience?
Can we really blame technology, whatever the platform, for existential angst?
The introduction of virtual conferencing and collaboration technologies (long before the pandemic) was disruptive in that it opened the door to challenging the status quo. It provoked the question, "Could this be a better way?". Free employees from the tyranny of the daily commute and enable them to strike a better work-life balance for both well-being and productivity? Corporations were hesitant to embrace this radical change en masse. It took the forced chaos of the pandemic for many to see proof that embracing virtual working was not only a lifeline keeping business afloat but a productive way to achieve business results.
The Medium is Still the Message
Circling back to McLuhan’s theories, we can glean some striking insight from his musings on the impact of a light bulb. As noted in this summary of McLuhan’s book, it states:
"A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. " You might extend this impact statement by saying it expands the potential for human creativity and innovation to flourish.
"He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that 'a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence.' That is the medium's message.
Sound familiar? Virtual conferencing platforms enable people who would otherwise not have an opportunity to meet to connect, collaborate and co-create amazing things together. Virtual platforms have no content, but their presence creates an environment with unlimited potential.
Companies that can embrace this potential will be the ones to thrive in the future of work. What if you only hold meetings for essential purposes? Create outcomes-focused workflows, so it doesn't matter when people work if deliverables are on time? Create a safe space to engage in critical conversations, enable knowledge transfer across dispersed teams, commit to team-building activities to foster trust, and engage employees in fun game-based learning experiences? (Shameless plug).
Technology is just the medium, and in terms of its social effect - how you use it in the workplace will determine a positive or negative impact. For L&D leaders, the challenge is to help people gain the skills to thrive in virtual environments.
What is your experience with virtual working? What skills do you think are essential for success in the #FutureofWork?
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The Guru’s Big Five Questions
This article first appeared in Presentation Guru
WHAT IS THE GREATEST SPEECH IN HISTORY AND WHY?
Ronald Reagan – Pointe de Hoc speech on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day.
This one gets me every time. I love its rhetorical flourishes, such as…
“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.”
… one of the best examples of auxesis I know (actually double auxesis boys-men-champions-heroes; PdH-cliffs-continent-war). But especially powerful given the Boys II Men (Champions II Heroes) were sitting right in front of him. Reagan was known as the Great Communicator and this speech, written by Peggy Noonan, is him at his prime.
National Review called it “perhaps the greatest speech made by an American politician in that century.” Which his pretty good going, seeing as the competition (as nominated by my fellow columnists includes JFK, Martin Luther King and Bill Clinton.)
Asiatic content written in an Attican style. And he praises us Canadians. What else can you ask for?
WHAT IS THE GREAT BUSINESS PRESENTATION / SALES PITCH AND WHY?
When we think of business presentations, we think of sales pitches. We think of pitches that convince people to change their minds. We think of speeches that have made a difference to a company or an organisation. Or the world.
Many of my fellow columnists have (rightly) nominated various presentation from Apple, Inc. My nomination is not from Apple but about apple. Ladies and gentlemen, as an example of the best sales pitch ever, I give you the old silver-tonged devil …. the Devil.
His sales pitch to Eve, if we believe the literature, has to surely be the one with the biggest long-term implications. In John Milton’s version, this speech is spread over a couple of hundred lines of Paradise Lost. Like all great sales pitches, it starts with flattering the client:
“Wonder not, sovran Mistress … thy Celestial Beautie adore … with ravishment beheld … where universally admir’d.”
The second phase is basically the first ever ‘before and after’ story. The serpent tells Eve how he was just a lowly creature, ate (and sated himself on) the fruit, and, lo, now he has extra gifts:
“Sated at length, ere long I might perceive strange alteration in me, to degree of reason in my inward powers, and speech…
Thenceforth to Speculations high or deep I turn’d my thoughts, and with capacious mind consider’d all things visible in Heav’n, Or Earth…”.
In other words: buy this product and you will become a better person. This is the classic ‘testimonial’: still used today for weight loss, beauty products, etc.
For the third phase, they travel to the Tree but Eve is still doubtful: so, like all salesmen, Lucifer listens to her objections and then bats them away one by one, ending with:
“Here grows the Cure of all, this Fruit Divine, fair to the eye, inviting to the taste, of virtue to make wise: what hinders then
To reach, and feed at once both Bodie and Mind?”
Eve basically says, “uh, yeah, you’re right, nothing hinders me”, and reaches up……
And the greatest sales pitch in history is over.
WHO IS THE BEST POLITICAL / CAUSE ORATOR AND WHY?
I happened to be on a business trip to Berlin when I got the request to write this column. So, if you want the best example of how a politician bent a people to his will, and, through the power of oration transformed himself from a loser artist in Vienna to one of the most powerful people in the world in the 1930s and 1940s, I think you know where to look …. (in his book You Talkin’ to Me, Sam Leith provides a more detailed analysis his technique).
Instead, I’m going to nominate Nancy Astor’s maiden speech to the UK House of Commons in 1920. She was the first woman to take her seat and met with prejudice and animosity. This is maybe not the world’s greatest speech (otherwise I would have nominated it above) but stands out for its circumstances and situation*.
My fellow columnists have nominated Winston Churchill a few times. A brilliant orator but, by today’s standards, antediluvian. Apparently, after Nancy Astor’s speech, he remarked “When you entered the House of Commons, I felt as if a woman had entered my bathroom and I had nothing to protect myself with except a sponge.” A revealing 1956 interview with her can be heard here.
“I wanted the world to get better, and I knew it couldn’t … if it is going to be ruled by men. As a matter of fact, I think it is amazing how well the men did for 2,000 years, considering that they tried to do it alone.”
So, perhaps not on this speech in particular but for her wider work, she gets my vote in this category. And for giving us the mental image of a naked Winston Churchill.
* On the same day that Nancy Astor took her seat in the House of Commons for the first time, two women journalists also broke new ground becoming the first to report from the press gallery. It’s quite the tale… You can find out more about their story here.
WHAT’S THE ONE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT ANYONE MAKING A SPEECH SHOULD DO MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE?
Preparation / rehearsal / practice.
The world’s best actors, the world’s best orators, the world’s best comedians … they all practise and rehearse. Many many times. These people are professionals and they know the value of practising. And yet, many amateurs think they don’t need to practise. Are you really better than the professionals?
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was this: if you are talking to 100 people for an hour, this means they are giving you 100 hours of time. What is a fair exchange for you to invest in return?
WHO INSPIRED YOU WHEN STARTING OUT IN THE BUSINESS? WHO INSPIRES YOU NOW?
Edward Tufte. Now and forever.
What type of adviser are you?
This article will help you explore your personal advisory style. We have created a self-assessment tool which will help you understand your own preferences in how you like to advise others. Click here to complete the self-assessment.
SPOILER ALERT! We recommend you complete the questionnaire before reading on.
Have you done it? If so, read on….
For those who have completed the self-assessment, here’s a bit more about the Strategic Adviser archetypes and why they work.
One of the most popular tools we have helps people think about what type of adviser they are. In fact, being a ‘strategic adviser’ comes in five different flavours.
So what are the five? And which one are you? An easy way to think about it is via the analogy of a restaurant.
Imagine you are walking into an expensive restaurant for a date with the one you love. You will encounter several different people — all experts in their own field, and all ready to give you advice on how to have the best possible experience. But they will all do it in different ways.
Welcome to “Augustus”, your strategic adviser restaurant.
In fact, maybe your first adviser is one you encounter before you get to the restaurant. You meet a previous customer (or read an internet review): “Aah, you’re going to ‘Augustus’ for dinner! Wow! You must totally have the ‘Barcelona Chop’. It’s their specialty. Divine. And for dessert? There is only one choice. Of course you need to order the ‘Caramel Salée With Meringue’. It’s to die for.” This adviser’s heart is in the right place, and they generally believe that those choices are the best for you. But they have jumped to solution and ‘yelped’ it out before even having a detailed discussion. This is a great approach in a crisis: ‘just tell me what to do’. Yelping out the solution immediately they can save time and make your life easier. But the challenge for this type of adviser — the yelper— is that jumping straight to solution or action sometimes works but is not always the best approach.
After Martha shows you to your table, you’ll meet your waiter, William. This is the third adviser archetype. His job is transactional. He will give you a menu of options and then write down what you say. He’ll deliver whatever you ask. Maybe there will be a little conversation about options, but essentially the waiter’s job is to deliver. Sometimes as an adviser, that is what you need to do. A senior leader needs something and you need to deliver. There is a time and a place for this approach. But doing it too often is career-limiting.
As you choose your meal, you’ll maybe want some wine. Enter Salma, your sommelier. As your adviser, her job is to have a conversation to understand your needs, the context (the meal you have already chosen; your budget; your tastes) and then make a recommendation. At the beginning of your conversation, she doesn’t know your needs, your context, and there is no clear solution from her list of hundreds of options. If it was a crisis and you needed immediate wine, then the yelper is the adviser for you. But the sommelier will explore the issues, make recommendations and guide you towards a good outcome.
Your final archetype is Christiane, the chef. She’s the super expert — and has the Michelin stars, certificates and qualifications to prove it. In her hands, the mundane becomes dynamic. Her technical expertise is second to none and if you need an expert to solve your problems she’s the one for you. Like some chefs, she can be hard to handle. Unlike the maître d’, she doesn’t need interpersonal skills. In fact, you probably won’t even meet her. But her solution will be the thing that you rave about later. As an adviser, she’s the expert and the one that will go away and build a solution to meet your needs.
Successful business partners and strategic advisers will make sure there is an alignment between three components of the relationship:
- What does the buyer want? Sometimes, actually, it is a waiter problem, pure and simple. Just do it. Going in with a sommelier approach is just going to annoy people.
- What is the job? This might be a job description, an RFP or just an email request from one of your colleagues. You need to identify what type of response is needed.
- Finally, as a person, where do you get your energy? Plenty of people ask us, “how do I become a maître d’?” but actually when we quiz them in detail it is apparent they are most happy being a chef.
This typology is a bit of fun, and it comes in useful when diagnosing business partnering relationships. One of the big challenges in consulting or business partner relationships is that the ‘buyer’ and the ‘seller’ can sometimes have different ideas of why the partnership exists.
If you want to know more, please get in touch: info@archetypical.org
The RECIPE for success
Welcome to fourth challenge of our #testingtimes campaign!
To help you explore your influencing styles, we created a self-assessment tool. Click here to complete the short quiz.
SPOILER ALERT! We recommend you complete the quiz before reading on.
Once you have completed the quiz, you can ask for a personalised report and 30 minute coaching session to help you improve your own influencing style.This costs GBP50 or A$90 + tax where applicable.
Have you done the quiz? If so, read on….
During our business simulations we often explore how important it is for a senior executive to adapt their influencing style to the objective and the audience. While many leaders do this intuitively, this is a skill we can all learn and practice.
Indeed, there is a strong market in courses on Influencing Styles. Companies and French and Raven, Musselwhite and Plouffe and the fantastic work of Positive Power and Influence. But the challenge we find is that, while people can (mostly) remember their own preferred style, they have trouble naming, let alone recognising, the other styles in the model.
Influencing styles are like languages. We all have our preferred, our default, and sometimes a second or third language we can speak well. And many of the readers of this blog will be able to recognise other languages even if you don’t speak it.
That’s why we created RECIPE. “R-E-C-I-P-E” is a mnemonic for the six most common influencing styles used in business. Building on the ingredients from existing models, RECIPE can help you understand not only your own style, but be able to spot other styles in action.
Without further ado, here are six archetypes to remember your RECIPE for success:
| Style | What it sounds like… | Use it when … | Tip! |
| Reward | “As a sign of good faith…” “Here’s a little extra” |
… don’t need anything immediate … want to establish long-term rapport |
Every time you work late, for nothing, you are investing in the relationship with a “reward” behaviour |
| Exchange | “What can I do for you?”
“Here’s the deal” |
… you both have something the other wants … short-term |
This is great for sales or to motivate a team with a clear goal in sight. |
| Connect | “This is what we can achieve together” “Yes, we can!” |
… want to create an atmosphere of unity … have a shared goal |
Find the high level goal you are both aiming for. Good for internal communication. |
| Inform | “I recommend this for three reasons” “Evidence suggests that…” |
Your audience will be persuaded by facts and figures | Use it sparingly or when you have an airtight case. Remember: not the only tool in your arsenal. |
| Picture | “Imagine what our business will be like in 2021” “Make America Great Again” |
… you want to tap into emotions … paint a picture of success |
Powerful way to open and close a presentation. |
| Exit | “Let’s take a break!” “Let me reflect and come back to you.” |
… sense you are not getting anywhere … need to change gear … feel you are the wrong person |
This is not bluffing or walking away. Make sure you establish a time and place to reconnect. |
Now put it into practice
Using RECIPE can help you improve your chances of getting what you want, and in a way that works for the other person. A great influencer can mix and match styles depending on the situation. But as with everything mastery takes practice.
Start by taking the time to consider your preferred approach, then start practicing other styles in low-risk environments (like a business simulation!) and, then, start mixing and matching.
Good luck!