Extract from the book:-

Choose your key words

I’m not saying that words are not important. A well-chosen word can have enormous impact on an audience, as can the order in which you use words. ‘This car is cheap to run because it does 50 mpg’ is less powerful than, ‘It does 50 mpg, so it will save you money’ because the audience will tend to

remember the last few words, and saving money is what really appeals to them. Think about the most powerful words in the English language, and use some of them – easy, simple, new, money, safe, secure, protected, save, retain, health, strength, results, benefits, discover, free, promise and guarantee. Use these words in your presenting, and roll them together for maximum impact: ‘New ways to save you money’. One of the best ways to use key words is to be aware of the key words on each visual that you use. Not only will this make you realize what the key words are (you could make them bold), it will prompt you to cut unnecessary words from your visual. Unless you really do want to alert people to a danger, use the positive more than the negative. So if you are, for instance, presenting how a change should be explained, avoid ‘Don’t be worried if this approach causes your people to become resentful’ because you have planted a negative image in their brain! It’s much better to say, ‘If you want a positive response to this idea, explain how this will work for them.’ Use the active rather than the passive sense. ‘Use short sentences’ is likely to grab your audience’s attention more than, ‘Short sentences should be used.’ (It’s also a lot easier for you to remember, and to say.) ‘What I would like to do’ is less positive than ‘What we will do’. Use ‘prevent’ not ‘preclude’; ‘ask’ not ‘request’. You choose – but it makes a difference! ‘Dream’ is an innocuous enough word, but when Martin Luther King said, ‘I have a dream’ it inspired millions, so I’m not saying that words aren’t important – only that when communicating with others we tend to overestimate their importance and underestimate the impact of how they are said and of our body language. Martin Luther King reminds me that it is important not to swallow the ends of your words, or allow them to tail off. He hung on to the ‘I – -’ and the ‘d- r- e- a- m’. You need to do the same for maximum impact. Another way of looking at this is to enunciate key words by opening your mouth more precisely than you would in normal speech. TV presenters do this all the time in order to give key words added weight.

http://www.scott-brown.co.uk

http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/show_title_details.aspx?isbn=9781444159707

The few times I had played with it reminded me of the early days of video conferencing, with jerky, out of synch conversations and little eye contact.  As a very visual person, these things mattered to me and I found it really hard to get beyond my prejudice.

The first time I chose to use it was when one of the delegates on my NLP Business Practitioner course moved to Peru just before the final assessment.  I realised that the only way she could complete the assessment – a series of verbal questions and answers, was via Skype.  The visual element meant that she couldn’t cheat by looking at her notes (not that she would do that of course).

I was surprised how well it worked as a process and thought that perhaps the fact that I had a very clear focus and outcome in mind helped me to ignore the technological issues.

When Matthew and I decided to write ‘How To Build An Ark’ we realised that it was going to be a difficult process due to the fact that we live and work 300 miles apart.

We wrote the whole book via Skype, having long (often up to 4 hour) sessions where we shared desktops – to make changes to the document, held drawn diagrams up to the camera and brainstormed ideas.  We used Google Docs to hold the most recent copy of the book so we could edit the right version.

The only time we met face to face was during the initial planning stage of the project where we applied our own processes (the detail is in How To Build An Ark).

Since we set up Ark Project Leadership, we have our Board, Operational and Marketing meetings via Skype which means we can ‘meet’ on a weekly basis – something we wouldn’t have been able to do without Skype.

We are currently designing a presentation to use to introduce Ark and our services.  It is important that we can both deliver the same presentation across the UK for consistency and, of course, we are using Skype to do this.

I have finally overcome my aversion to Skype and don’t notice the picture quality problems any more – of course having a 100MB broadband facility helps, although  this doesn’t really affect the quality of the picture uploaded from Matthew.  I am now organising a lot of ‘meetings’ via Skype now; being based in Cornwall it means a lot less driving, and a lot less time away from the task in hand.

I am also beginning to use Skype as a coaching tool – I never really liked phone coaching because I missed out on some much non-verbal communication.

So I have finally moved from being a Skype sceptic to a Skype Evangelist and recommend it to everyone.

By Martin Crump

Martin is a Director and co-founder of Ark Project Leadership www.arkpl.com.  He is a certified NLP Master Trainer with a wealth of experience of working with organisations of all sizes and types across the UK.

What was different about the flight?  What happened so that my daughter didn’t feel the need to ask “are we there yet”?

Usually, on a car journey, she doesn’t have a picture of how far away our destination is and consequently how long it’ll take to get there.  She’s not usually bothered about the distance, where the place we’re going to is in relation to home, or how we’ll know where we are along the way.

Contrast this with the build up to our holiday.  The three of us talked about where we were going, what the place is like, and how far away it was.  We described the plane journey, it’s duration, the seating, meals, each seat having our own in-flight movies and a “live” map of our journey.  We talked about what would happen when we landed and the things we’d need to do once we landed to collect our bags, pick up the hire car and find our hotel.

Our holiday “project” shared many of the characteristics of projects that are ultimately successful, especially having a clear, shared end point in mind.  Effective endpoints share several characteristics;

• They are created by the team,
• Use of concrete images,
• Simple (but not simplistic) language,
• Specific, relevant and testable measures,
• Early consultation with key project influencers,
• Helping people see “what’s in it for me”.

We planned out where we would go, what we’d like to see.  We painted a picture of our holiday destination, the things we wanted to do, what it would feel like to be there, the sound of the Pacific ocean, the smell of the clean sea air.  We were happy to change the things we did, depending on how we felt, what we’d already done, the weather.  I think that it’s safe to say we all understood “what’s in it for me”.

The endpoint is markedly absent from projects that lose their way during execution, or continue past their “expiry date”.  Perhaps our car journeys suffered from a lack of this shared end point?

The last couple of car journeys have been different…
We’ve talked a bit about why we’re going there, where it is, how we’ll measure our progress (this is as simple as using my forearm to report where we are.  Home is my elbow crease, our destination the tips of my fingers.  So, my watch strap becomes just over half way there, my wedding ring is “nearly there now”, and the creases in my finger joints build up to “just around the corner”).

Of course, when we’re using our SatNav, my daughter can see for herself how long it is ’til we get there, which brings its own set of questions…

By Matthew Theobald

Matthew is a Director and co-founder of Ark Project Leadership www.arkpl.com.  He is passionate about helping people and their organisations improve the effectiveness of project delivery.  Working with companies across Europe and the US, he achieves this by combining experience of challenging and complex projects with extensive process understanding.

That paradigm has well and truly shifted.  From now on the main agent for change should be the Finance Director.  Here’s why.

1. Energy efficiency and carbon management are continuing to receive an increasing profile in industry.  This is driven by legislation as well as consumer and social pressure.  All businesses have to pay the Climate Change Levy (CCL) through their energy bills.  Larger energy users might be operating within a Climate Change Agreement (CCA) and/or the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC).
2. There is a likelihood that in the relatively near future the CRC threshold will be reduced.  However the CRC is reformed, it will still be a tax on energy.
3. The pressure to report carbon footprints voluntarily has increased through the activities of NGOs such as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) which produced a league table of absolute levels and amount of improvement for companies that have shared their data with the CDP.  Also, the UK Government is consulting on proposals to mandate that all large companies include their carbon footprint performance in their annual report.
4. The cost of energy has risen to such a level that it is now a much more significant proportion of business costs.  This, combined with current and potential taxation, has made investment in energy saving technology more visible, higher impact and larger scale.

So we have a situation where carbon management affects taxation, compliance with legislation and regulations and approval of investment decisions.  Ultimately all the responsibility of the FD.

Rather than seeing this as an onerous burden, the progressive thinking FD is taking the opportunity to drive lasting change through their organisation to help it become more sustainable and robust to meet the challenges ahead.  With the correct support, tools, systems and processes to hand the FD can champion changes in their organisation to achieve lasting benefits.

Richard Ansell

Richard Ansell is the owner of Envertis, a consultancy dedicated to helping organisations become more sustainable and profitable through improved resource efficiency.

www.envertis.co.uk

1. Introductions (brief)

2. What we learnt last time and the difference it made

3. Keep in Touch…….and Generate Work

4. Confirmation of the next sessions’ subject

Group Purpose: To meet other Interims / Freelancers in an informal environment; to share best practice; to facilitate collaboration.

Future Meetings

Sep 2012: Best Practice Use of your Professional Bodies

Dec 2012: To be confirmed

And a £10 charge to cover room hire, tea, coffee and biscuits.