Here’s a gem from YouTube. A candid video of a very youthful Eric Schmidt in his early days as a manager at Sun Microsystems practicing his public speaking skills in a company-sponsored training class:

He’s being trained on how to better present and also how to handle hostile questions from an audience. His content is a nice insight into the Sun culture of the day.

You can hear him address the issue of criticisms he’s overpaid at 12:26 (before his Google billions) which gets a round of applause. This is followed at 13:00 by his self-assessment of his abilities as a public speaker and it’s apparent how open he is to honest critiques from the audience.

Wonderfully instructive session that shows how senior managers can benefit from presentation skills training.

This according to sales pro Frank Rumbaskus in Chapter 7 of his new book Selling SUCKS — mastery of public speaking skills will benefit any salesperson.

He lists some of the benefits as they specifically relate to sales:

• Your prospects will hear you clearly and never ask you to repeat yourself.
• Your louder voice will enable you to practice better body language, such as leaning back when talking with prospects.
• You will learn how to get your point across with fewer words, thereby appearing more profound.
• Your speech will slow down to a level that creates the appearance of supreme confidence.
• You will begin to naturally add pauses to your speech, again creating the appearance of confidence, because pausing conveys that you know you have their interest and are not afraid of losing it.
• You’ll practice better and more trustworthy eye contact with prospects.
• You will learn the proper posture and stance to make the best impression if you happen to make any presentations while on your feet.
• You’ll learn how to move about in the most effective way when addressing multiple people.
• You’ll learn how to divide your eye contact when addressing multiple people.

He also claims that having the ability to present in public increases your status and your value in the eyes of your prospects and customers.

When you speak at an event, whether it’s big or small, you automatically establish yourself as the leader and the person with the highest status in that room. Decision makers who have the ability to buy from you will recognize this and will tend to seek you out. They will value your advice and opinions far more than they do those of average salespeople who do not put themselves in leadership positions by speaking publicly.

No matter if you sell Fuller Brushes, waterless cookware or are just peddling ideas, this advice is right on.

Ars longa, vita brevis – Hippocrates

Can you tell your life story in six words?

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words.

His response?

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Last year, SMITH Magazine re-ignited the challenge by asking readers for their own six-word memoirs. They sent in short life stories in droves, from the bittersweet (“Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends”) and poignant (“I still make coffee for two”) to the inspirational (“Business school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah!” ).

In an age when Twitter messages are spreading like wildefire, this summary form might have a rosy future.

Try this: When planning your next speech, strategic plan or business venture, aim to capture the essence of what you want to say in six words or less. Get to the core of the story. Advertising copy writers – who know a thing or two about grabbing your attention – do this all the time. This excercise will distill verbosity and quiet the chatter in your mind and between your executives.

You could then set the text to music and images and create a Vision Statement to post on YouTube – what fun!

My own life story in six words:

“First England, now California, still dreaming.”

What’s yours?

In one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read in a long time, Simon Kupar’s analysis in the Weekend FT links the relative popularity of different sports to successive waves of globalization.

Soccer and cricket’s appeal around the globe originated in “Sport’s first wave of globalisation … in the late-19th century, when British sailors, merchants and missionaries spread British games like viruses.”

This was followed by “a century of stability. The Indians played cricket, the US resisted soccer, and Melbourne favoured Australian Rules football, which barely existed even in other Australian cities.”

The Pitch is Flat

The second wave of “sporting globalisation” in the 1990’s with cable TV broadcasting Man United to China, India the US and Japan. It’s a global world and, to paraphrase Friedman, the pitch is flat.

Soccer has the broadest global appeal.

The lack of goals, lampooned by late-nite TV comics in the USA, is part of its appeal. One astounding piece of information which Kuper unearthed concerns an unlikely fan of the Gunners:

Fans wait so long for a goal that when one comes, it prompts an unloading of joy found in no other sport. Osama bin Laden, who watched Arsenal several times in London in 1994, remarked that he had never seen such passion as among soccer fans.

The universal appeal of soccer was vividly obvious during a 2004 family vacation in Thailand and Laos. My 11-years-old son wore a Man United shirt and got high-fives from tut-tut drivers in Bangkok. Each evening in the streets of Luang Prabang he played in a pick-up game with the local kids, reveling in the shared language of soccer:

Cricket, while not as universally popular, has taken root in those areas of the world influenced by the British Empire: India, the West Indies and Australia.

Both sports spread on the backs of the British Empire, and have outlived the decline of that institution.

The Gridiron

So what of the sporting influence of today’s Imperial power, America? Is there a spread of States-side sports around the planet which follows the traders and the troops?

No.

It’s not through want to trying. As John Cleese remarks, one difference between American and Britain, is that unlike the Baseball World Series, when we host a World Cup, we invite other nations to play. (The other difference, noted at the time of the Monica Lewinsky affair, was that when you meet our Head of State, you only have to go down on one knee…taa-boom!)

Estimates are that of the 93m SuperBowl fans in 2005, just 3m were outside North America; that year the World Series attracted 21m viewers in North America and less than 1m elsewhere; the last game of the NBA finals, also less than 1m.

Contrast this to 100m Chinese who stay up late to watch two Chinese players in an Everton vs. Man City game.

Why American sports don’t travel well

Kuper’s article lists a host reasons:

• Players of over 70 nationalities compete in the UK Premiership leagues vs. almost no foreign players in the NFL
• More American kids under 12 play soccer than baseball, American football and ice hockey combined
• American sports arrived late to the party – soccer was well-established
• American football is infernally complicated “as confusing to most non-Americans as cricket is to Americans.”
• Broader cultural artifacts which travel well are often British, not American. The six bestselling novels of the past 100 years are all British: four Harry Potters; one Agatha Christie and one Tolkien (Middle Earth holds more appeal than Middle America).

Yankees Go Home!

Most telling, from an economic and political standpoint, is the fundamental difference between the British Imperialists of the 19th Century and the current neo-con ones. In a passage worth quoting at length, Kuper nails the reason for America’s lack of moral standing among many in the world today. These are issues that any American executive speaking overseas would be well to be cognizant of and tailor their message accordingly (not least by avoiding clichéd sports analogies common in America board rooms, such as “quaterbacking a deal” or “gameplan”):

The difference between British and American empires was summed up by an American lawyer who worked for the British government in Baghdad. He said that when American officials wanted an Iraqi to do something, they would generally call him into the Green Zone and, if necessary, ”bawl him out”. Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it didn’t. But the Americans only summoned Iraqis when something needed fixing, the lawyer said. By contrast, British officials were always inviting Iraqis in, for parties or just for chats, even when there was nothing particular to discuss. This is how the British used to rule their empire: by making long-term allies.

”European imperialists spent large parts of their lives immersed in the cultures of the countries they had colonised,” explains John Gray, professor at the London School of Economics, ”learning the languages and often forging enduring alliances with local rulers. As well as subjugating and exploiting their colonies, they also ruled and lived in them.”

Few Americans today do, notes Gray. The US does not govern any countries. Under the British empire, Nelson Mandela learned British sports at school, but in the American empire, that sort of thing scarcely happens. In fact, American troops in Afghanistan have been reduced to wooing the natives by handing out soccer balls. (The exercise failed: Allah’s name was found to be printed on a ball, blasphemous on an object designed for kicking.)

There’s much more in Simon Kuper’s article, such as an observation that the two most famous archetypes of the Englishman abroad are the gentleman and the hooligan.

Great stuff, well worth downloading and reading in full.

Meanwhile, Go Patriots (of all nationalities…)

Why do more people with law degrees than MBA’s run for President? Is there something about the cut-and-thrust of the courtroom which prepares a person for politics, versus an ability to deliver an annual report or run a PowerPoint presentation?

I’ve always been impressed by senior managers whose skills at the podium light up an audience. Being a success as a presenter, however, does not guarantee advancement in business. Many top managers were clearly promoted in spite of, not because of, their public speaking abilities. So it is worth an executives time to invest in improving their rhetorical skills?

Michael Skapinker argues in his column in Tuesday’s FT that chief executives should learn the art of oratory. He hits the nail on the head when he highlights the fact that lawyers are better prepared for politics because they are used to being interrupted (by the judge or opposing counsel) when they speak in public. CEO’s, on the other hand, might give plenty of presentations, but no-one answers back when they speak. Poor preparation for Prime Minister’s Question Time, what?

Skapinker notes the contrast, on a panel at Davos last week, between Tony Blair and his new employer, James Dimon, head of JP Morgan Chase as being “like watching the new Australian Open Champion…warming up with a ballboy.”

View the first 5 minutes of the opening panel at Davos and judge for yourself if Skapinker is being too harsh:

But, again, why should CEO’s bother to improve in this area?

Chief executives are there to do, not speak – to make decisions, conclude deals, damp down crises. (But) if you are going to speak on so many platforms, you might as well do it properly.

So, as always, the advice is deceptively simple:

• When you present on a podium, keep it simple and keep it concrete
• Avoid abstract proclamations

Simplex sigillum veri.

Can humor cross frontiers? Do Americans laugh at the same thing that tickles the English funny bone? Would German humor amuse the French, if only as an oxymoron?

I clearly recall when I came to the USA for the first time in the mid-1970’s being confounded by the “humor” of Don Rickles and Johnny Carson. I did not find them at all funny. The English and Americans seemed worlds apart when it came to what each culture found amusing.

Boy, was I wrong.

If I had been asked to say which brand of English humor was the least likely to appeal to American sensibilities, I would have guessed Monty Python’s Flying Circus. I still find Rickles and Carson deadly dull. But Python is a global hit. So what’s going on?

A new series at the London Southbank Center, Laughing in a Foreign Language, explores the cultural relativity of humor in a global age, asking

if humour can only be appreciated by people with similar cultural, political or historical backgrounds and memories, or whether laughter can act as a catalyst for understanding what you are not familiar with.

The event showcases over 70 works including videos, photographs, and interactive installation, investigating the whole spectrum of humor, from jokes, gags and slapstick to irony, wit and satire, as well as questioning what it means to share a sense of humor and what it is that makes an individual laugh.

I caught a discussion of the event on a BBC podcast of the Today program. A couple of comedians I’d never heard of debated the point. It was claimed that whereas mainstream humor was often culturally specific, there is a significant alternative niche which transcends borders. As Python, and later, Seinfeld, showed, the globally hip recognize each other’s jokes.

Laugh and world laughs with you. Xenophobe’s, meanwhile, cry alone.

Rocketman

And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I’m a rocket man
– Elton John

I spent a fascinating day at the Fort Mason Center on Saturday in the company of 30 others and an irrepressible Australian, Malcolm Cohan.

Malcolm, an ex-TV producer and video editor, who is an expert applied kinesiologist, has developed tools for people to create and deliver a video ‘Vision Statement’.

What’s a Vision Statement? According to his website:

A VISION Statement Video is a movie about your goals, your Quest, your bold idea or endeavor – use it to get clear about who you are and what you wish to achieve – and then have the world share your Vision.

Mal’s day-long workshop, humorously termed the ‘Rocketship’, uses simple exercises to bring people into balance; defuse our tendency to negativity and doubt; then walk us through a set of fundamental questions to arrive at a place where we could write a first draft of our own Vision Statement. Underneath the negativity is truth.

YouTube: a 21st Century mirror to the soul.

Malcolm calls us to write out our life’s Quest — where every aspect of our experience counts. If we then add music and images to this text and capture it on video it will feel profoundly right when we play it back. If we fail to capture it, the results will be uncomfortable. And we will then have an opportunity grow into a deeper and more profound vision. This feedback is the gift we reap from what would otherwise simply be a Narcissistic exercise. And it can be used to help others work through their issues. There are plans to use the process with the homeless, those recovering from addictions and so on.

Out of the mouths of babes

Key to a vision statement is it’s simplicity as a heartfelt appeal. Too many fancy words or jargon get in the way. A 5-year-old should be able to understand it. I found this out when Malcolm, literally, called his own 5-year-old daughter back in Sydney on SKYPE and had her critique some of the words I’d written in the first draft of my statement. She understood “I feel happy”. She did not understand “Where social and political forms of cooperative community evolve”. Oops. Back to the drawing board. This time with less mind and more awareness of what it is to communicate from the heart.

Once we were clear on our intentions, the creation of the video was a delight. The software we trained on, while not totally simple, is fascinating. With it we created the music, text and image collages which make up the finished piece. I realize I have work to do before I can deliver something as profound as this:

At the end of the day the group who came together left Ft. Mason with more awareness of the possibilities of creating a Vision Statement and seeing how true this is to our essence.

Hard on the heels of my last post about the job security communications professionals enjoy (as the executives we support struggle to rectify their poor reputation as communicators) comes a report from Ragan Communications asking what will happen to internal communications staff in a recession.

Author Michael Sebastian quotes authorities who claim

Communications efforts … are among the first areas targeted for cuts when companies retrench.

In 2001…Edelman fired 100 people; Temerlin Consulting lost 200 and more than 3,500 employees of Interpublic Group lost their jobs.

On the other hand, every risk is also an opportunity, and when the times are tough, the tough start communicating. The report focuses on Internal Communications (employee-to-employee) but the lessons apply to all of us – external, internal and public relations:

• Show business savvy, think strategically, not just tactically.
• Get political. Have a few crucial conversations with executives (in other words, take advantage of your ringside seat in the C-Suite, exploit the access non-communications staff can only dream of).
• Be a communications superstar with more than one arrow to your bow: write speeches, communicate to employees and contribute to meetings. Say to your superiors, “How can I be of use here?”
• Don’t whine. If you’re seen as a complainer, you might be one of the first ones out the door. And definitely don’t carry a sense of entitlement—that too will send you packing.

This is all great advice. I’d add that a continuing back-beat of any communications professionals career should be to keep one eye outside the enterprise. Be ready to launch yourself into the marketplace at a moments notice. It’s only going to make you more entrepreneurial and inherently more valuable to your current employers – as long as they see fit to keep you around, that is.

Those who employ the speechwriters, PR professionals and others in big company Executive Communications departments won’t be dispensing with these services anytime soon.

This is easily inferred from a report in Tuesday’s Financial Times which quotes a study about corporate reputation. While noting that business leaders are “trusted” it reveals that many are hamstrung by their:

poor reputation as communicators among western elites. Fewer than one in four Americans and only one in three Europeans said they regarded a chief executive as a “credible” spokesperson for the company

The study, to be presented at the Davos Conference, was commissioned by top PR Agency Edelman. It notes some challenges top executives face as communicators:

“There is an issue of pay and performance and of rewarding perceived failure,” says Richard Edelman, the PR firm’s chief executive. “In addition, I am not sure that chief executives are getting out there and tackling important issues such as the environment.”

For anyone in an Executive Communications advisory role this all means one thing – job security.

Elfrena Foord owns Foord, Van Bruggen, Ebersole & Pajak, a Sacramento wealth-management firm.

She and her 3 partners are in the process of distilling their 20+ years of experience together in a book titled “Wealth & Beyond”.

Elfrena plans to do speaking engagements after her book comes out. She currently does seminars for non-profits to help donors use their wealth to create their family working together and staying connected and to benefit causes that are important to them.

Last summer she attended just one day of the National Speakers Association Convention in San Diego. This convinced that NSA is the organization to help take speakers to the next level. She has now enrolled in the 2008 Pro-Track program offered by the Northern California Chapter of NSA. The program kicks-off on Saturday 26th in San Francisco. It is sold out.

Her enthusiasm for the program is contagious. Not only did she persuade her husband Bruce to join her, but her sister Matson also! They’ll be carpooling in once a month for a full day of training on the business of professional speaking.

I talked with Elfrena on the phone about her business and how she sees speaking fitting in. We also discussed her plans for Pro-Track 2008.

To hear the interview, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:53 — 1.3MB)

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