Tag Archives: Michael Parker

IF YOU DON’T LEAD, NO ONE WILL FOLLOW.

Leadership, or lack of it, is in the news right now and rhetoric lacking that leadership is less persauasive.

In America a war-weary public is no longer responding, as many of them did, to his often soaring rhetoric. The reason being they do not see him as a decisive President, one who leads. As Max Hastings writes “His rhetoric remains as impressive as ever, but his conduct of office is hallmarked by weakness and indecision.” Conversely, while David Cameron demonstrated a specific lack of leadership over his Party when the ‘war’ vote went against him, he is still seen according to the polls as a strong leader. His defiant “I get it ” front foot approach hits the right note.

Meanwhile Ed Milliband, who is not without eloquence and subtlety as a politician, has not had the greatest success in taking his ideas to the TUC conference. His argument for a changed relationship, and promises that a Labour Government would stamp out ‘Victorian’ employment practices, failed to sway the Union bruisers.

He did not come across as a strong confrontational leader worthy of their attention. In the latest IPSOS MORI poll 58% rate Cameron as a capable leader and only 28% rate Milliband (same for Farage, ahead of Clegg.) He is seen as less good in a crisis, with less sound judgement, all aspects of leadership.

All this is, of course. a question of perception as it is in the business pitch where leadership is operating on two levels. The first of these is the corporate. No matter how open-minded they aim to be anyone on the recieving end of a pitch will already have an opinion of the company they are seeing.

This will be partly based on facts of market share and business performance but as much on the intangibles of innovative thinking, decisiveness, positive attitude- characterisics of leadership. If you are pitching a company without some level of perceived leadership you are going to have a problem. However, by the time you are invited to do battle you must assume your rivals are as good as you, with similar corporate reputations, or they would not have been short-listed. In other words, in battle parlance, their troops are your equal in numbers and weaponry and disposition.

The winning difference is leadership. In preparation, in the signals of a meeting well managed, with clarity and certainty, but above all in the intangibles of attitude.

Spirit, desire, courage, camaraderie. These are what win battles, hearts and minds.

Shakespeare said it best:

“..But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood..” Henry V,

RHETORIC IS ALIVE AND WELL

It has been a good week for rhetoric. It started with Stephen Fry on BBC Radio 4, with his English Delight series, hosting an entertaining and informative programme under the heading ‘Rhetoric Rehabilitated.’ This reminded us that despite the popular dismissal of rhetoric as political spin, it is in fact alive and well and underpins most persuasive communication, whether we realise it or not.

It has been a good week because several public figures have demonstrated rhetoric at its best, not least of course Martin Luther King in various anniversary programmes. In different ways they have brought to life the art of rhetoric, built around the five canons or parts; invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery. All are as relevant to developing the political address as they are to the professional business pitch. Continue reading →

THE FRONT COVER JUDGEMENT.

As the idiom goes, “Don’t Judge a Book by its Front Cover.” The reality of course is that most of us do just that. The look of the cover alone is a big factor in the buying decision and even influences our enjoyment of the read.

We ‘should’ be judging on intrinsic values such as the writing, the story and the characters but in the main we respond to the visual clues around style, genre and subject. The look alone is a significant communication. It acts powerfully to raise our expectations and to influence our enjoyment, and experience, of the real thing. Continue reading →

LESSONS FROM THE GENERALS

They may not be wars but pitches are battles. To win you have to succeed on two fronts. You must beat your rivals and you must win-over the hearts and minds of the prospect. Not surprisingly the world’s great military strategists are worth listening to.

“In war, three quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.” Napoleon.

Your content, size and clever solution may meet the rational brief, but the people and chemistry, the relationship building and the emotional connection count for the three quarters. He also said “A a picture is worth a thousand words.” Continue reading →

THE KILLER PITCH

In the June edition of Harvard Business Review one of the most popular articles is the excellent How to give a Killer Presentation. It is written by TED curator, Chris Anderson who describes the process developed, in over 30 years of TALKS, for helping inexperienced presenters “frame, practice and deliver talks that people enjoy watching….cycles of devising (and revising) a script, repeated rehearsals, and plenty of fine tuning.”

On the basis of this experience, he is convinced that “giving a good talk is highly coachable. In a matter of hours a speaker’s content and delivery can be transformed from muddled to mesmerising.,.and that the lessons learned are surely useful to other presenters,including anyone pitching”. He is right and the article is a must-read guide to creating the killer pitch.

frame 3 Frame Your Story

There are differences, of course, between a talk where your audience is judging you as a speaker-engaging, entertaining, thought provoking -and a pitch, where your audience is judging you as a team in direct competition with other teams. In both cases however it is the emotional response that counts and his most valuable lesson is all to do with how you frame your story.

“There’s no way you can give a good talk unless you have something worth talking about. Conceptualising and framing what you want to say is the most vital part of a presentation. The most engaging speakers do a superb job of very quickly introducing the topic, explaining why they care so deeply about it, and convincing the audience members that they should too”.

In more mundane pitch speak, this is the ‘tell’em what you are gonna tell’em’ phase of the presentation. It is potentially the most telling,and compelling part of your argument told when your audience is most alert and most receptive to the well framed promise you are making. Think like the chess masters who plot the killer opening to gain early advantage. Capturing the emotional high ground at the outset will raise the level of engagement throughout.

This is where story telling scores. “Many of the best talks have a narrative structure that loosely follows a detective story. The speaker starts out by presenting a problem and then describes the search for a solution.” In the pitch, as in the talk, bring things to life with examples. Lots of them.

Plan an opening salvo! “Ideas and stories fascinate us. (Organisations bore us-they’re much harder to relate to. Business people especially take note: Don’t boast about your company; rather tell us about the problem you’re solving)”.

“If a talk fails. it’s almost always because the speaker didn’t frame it correctly, misjudged the audience’s level of interest, or neglected to tell a story.”