Session On Crystal Clear Communication Closes INSPIRE 2016
By Jim Roddy, VP of Marketing, RSPA
“The greatest power you have is to talk with your people during times of change and uncertainty.”
That’s how Dr. Robert Bies, the keynote speaker for RSPA INSPIRE 2016 in San Diego, began today, the final day of the conference for leaders in the retail IT channel. For the next three hours Bies, a professor of management at Georgetown University, along with Jonathan Perelman (pictured), the former vice president of BuzzFeed global pictures and former global lead of industry relations at Google, helped the near 100 channel executives in attendance craft their communication skills.
So the pressure is really on me as a writer to communicate clearly, huh? Instead of acting as a filter between you and these expert speakers, I decided to capture as many slides and quotes as I could from Bies (pronounced “beez”) and Perelman.
Dr. Bies: “Use storytelling to generate passion, motivation, and excitement for innovation”
A compelling story answers four key questions:
- Why?
- How will it affect me?
- What is the road map for mission success?
- Will there be a happy ending?
The hero’s journey storyline:
- Act I: Embark on a new adventure filled with hope – such as entering a new market
- Act II: Meet with setbacks and adversity
- Act III: Regroup, refocus, and conquer
3 keys to communication success:
- Your persona: Be positive and optimistic, bring passion and enthusiasm, and demonstrate an “action bias”.
- Your vision, your ideas: Create a sense of urgency, look to the future, and provide the grand purpose. “People must understand their role, their contribution, and their importance,” Bies said.
- Your use of communication techniques: Repeat key phrases, change the pace, practice “c-cubed”: crystal clear communication. “Use simple words,” Bies instructed. “And you may have to tell the story more than once to get people to take action. Oftentimes people have to hear the same message multiple times before they take action.”
Give life to your vision.
- Tell stories: personalize and humanize the information you are trying to communicate.
- Use examples that people can relate to. “And don’t say ‘I can’t do this because I work in data, so I need to bring the data,’” Bies said. “If that’s the case, then bring data and examples. Always have stories. If you want to motivate people, put a face on it.”
Say “imagine”; don’t say “but.”
- “When people hear ‘but,’ they shut down,” Bies said. “When you hear the word ‘imagine,’ it releases endorphins. I was told once that if you’re going to say ‘but,’ put the words ‘let’s kick’ in front of it.”
Perelman: “Content is the new currency in this economy”
If a message doesn’t spread it’s dead.
- “How do you do that?” Perelman asked. “The way is to create content that acts as a form of communication and will be shared. Today we live in the sharing economy.”
Why do we share?
- To form community. “You’re here with industry peers and talking about the community in which you live,” he said.
- To build a personal brand. “You’ve been here for three days. If any of you have a cell phone and a social media account, I’m guessing you took a picture and shared, ‘Well look where I am!’”
Keys to good storytelling:
- Ethos: What trust do I have that what you’re telling me is important?
- Pathos: The emotional connection that you have. Am I laughing? Am I crying? How do you connect to me?
- Logos: Does this make sense to me? Is this logical?
Four truths of the story teller:
- Be true to the teller: value and conveyed with candor
- Be true to the audience: worth their time, involve them
- Be true to the moment: matching the context. “There are a hundred of you here,” Perelman said from the INSPIRE stage. “I would not be speaking this way to you if we were one-on-one.
- Be true to the mission: having a point, asking for something. “I think this is the most forgotten aspect. You can talk about the virtues of why someone should go with you and someone else, but you forget to ask them. Never be afraid to ask for something. And be specific about what you’re asking for.”
INSPIRE 2016, the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) conference for thought leaders in retail technology, is being held January 31 to February 3, 2016, at the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in San Diego, CA. For more information, go to www.BSMinfo.com/go/InsideRSPA.
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