Communication happens in the recipient. If there is no recipient, it is not communication. It is called noise, or as the Irish say: “shouting at the storm”. Communication can only begin when you understand what the recipient wants, what their goals are, what is missing in their current way of life. If you don’t know … Read more
Devdutt Pattanaik tells TEDx that if you know the patterns that you are looking for, India’s apparent chaos is actually order. The mythology of the West: kill the chaos-creating dragon, create order The mythology of India: liberate yourself from boundaries A beautiful western garden is ordered. Weeds are weeds, trees are trees and flowers are … Read more
There is a power tool in negotiation. I would say this is the single most useful tactic that I use in my years of selling (I sell private jets among other high value products). It is not competitive, it is not aggressive, it is not avoiding anything. It does not require massive intellectual development, years … Read more
I was teaching a seminar recently and a young film producer told me “I am not a good manager”. I asked him why he believed this. He described a recent series of disasters that he had overseen with his team. I asked him “who are the people on your team?”. He said his cousin helped … Read more
Have you ever harboured ambitions of a role in TV news broadcast? Learn the ropes in 2 minutes with Charlie Brooker. Structure Always Matters This video is a joke (yes). However, anyone who has attended my communication courses has learnt the importance of good speech structure. It allows your message to reach the audience in … Read more
I was watching the UK version of the TV show “The Apprentice” a few months ago. This particular week’s challenge was to sell caravan and camping equipment at a trade show. Early on, there was a key decision to make: Which model of caravan would the team try to sell? Now, this was a trade … Read more
A person can have the great idea, but if that person cannot convince a number of people: the idea dies. Good ideas do die. Good ideas must have good advocates. Good advocacy and good idea makes an idea live. Ideas need advocates like humans need oxygen. The Leader as Communicator The Leader’s #1 job as … Read more
The purpose of giving a speech is to give the audience something valuable to them. If I open most of the books on communicating well that I have on my bookshelf, they will tell me that step one is to know my audience. How do we achieve this? How to do Audience Analysis First, you … Read more
I so loved the title of Brad Feld’s post, that I just had to copy the title. This is an important one. We live in a world of personal branding, quick online reputation checks and a lot of noise. Authors, Entrepreneurs and job seekers get less and less time to explain themselves. This morning I was … Read more
How do I become a better listener? Become aware of what level you are listening at. There are 5 levels of listening: not listening hearing the noise, waiting for silence hearing the words, preparing my response hearing the meaning from my point of view hearing the emotion, meaning and point of view of the other … Read more