Tag Archives: communicating with purpose

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Protest Communications 101 – Three Keys to Clarity

I really hadn’t intended on doing anything more on the Occupants of America but after all the comments over the last few days I thought I’d continue the dialogue.

Let’s be clear one on thing at least: I’m not against what these people are doing. I just don’t have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish.

With that being said allow me, as a communications coach, to suggest three keys to clear protest communications. These work outside of a formal protest just as well but contextually I think it would help the movement.

Key #1: Know your Audience

“The press” is NOT your audience. The press is a means to communicate to your audience. Realize they also editorialize your message. Interestingly enough in any form of protest you actually have more than one primary audience. You have the people against whom you are bringing a grievance and you have the people who you hope to recruit to the cause.

These audiences are different in that what you want communicate to them is essentially different. You need to anticipate their response, their propensity for agreement or attack, even their level of understanding of the issues. In regards to your targeted villain you will be communicating demands. In regards to your targeted supporters you’ll be communicating objectives.

Key #2: Distinguish between Demands and Objectives

This is crucial. A lot of the current chatter around Occupy America has to do with taxing the richest 1%. But is this a demand or an objective?An objective is what you want to accomplish. A demand is a part of how you hope to accomplish it. Taxing the rich folks is a means to an end, not an end in itself…at least I hope not.

Once the emotions start to fly demands and objective get wrapped up in rhetoric and sound bytes and, as several of you suggested in your comments yesterday, rational dialogue goes out the window.When rational dialogue goes out the window you start to lose both your primary audiences and attract only the attention of those who already agree with your emotional position. (Typically the villain doesn’t agree as a rule.)

The objective can be contained in a single sentence. Once you get it there, and it takes work to do it, you have a clear, precise, easily understood statement of what you hope to accomplish and THAT opens up dialogue with a much wider audience.

Key #3: Clarify your Objective

Let me say it again. Your objective should be a single sentence. Your demands are how you hope to accomplish that objective.  The importance of a clear objective shouldn’t be underestimated. The objective is the bit which you want me to agree with as a potential recruit. If you can get the villain to agree to the objective too then you’re down to discussing tactics, in this case demands, for achieving that objective.

Here’s a clue though, “We want a better America” is a nebulous objective. EVERYONE wants a better America, even people who hate America want a better America.The last two elections were supposedly votes for “change” but because there was no clear objective, nothing targeted to change TO, we find ourselves wanting more change.

Ok, enough of THAT. I always avoid political conversation…

But THIS is where I get lost in regards to Occupy America. I am starting to see lists of demands but I’m not seeing a clear single objective. In fact, it seems to be working backwards. It appears there are multiple objectives tied to single demands: Tax the Rich! …so we can get better schools…to punish corporations…to limit their political influence…  A lot of assumptions there don’t you think? Tax the rich and the government gets the money! Not sure that’s good!

Many objectives to one demand is how a five year old tries to get their way: Get me this toy!…and I’ll never ask for anything else…I’ll clean my room…I’ll do whatever you ask. Just acquiesce to my demand and the world shall be yours!!

Understand your audience. Distinguish between objectives and demands and for cryin’ out loud make your objective clear! Then I’ll bring the beer, we’ll sit down and discuss the issues rationally, and we’ll arrive at some conclusions.

A couple people pointed me in the direction of demands and supposed objectives for the movement yesterday and I thank-you for those. Anyone else have a sense of the objective or a place to find it? I’d love to hear your views.

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Four Characteristics of a Good Protest

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to try to get a handle on the madness occurring in and around Wall Street. I confess I am almost totally at a loss on this one. From what little I can tell by scanning various news sites and the protestors own site:

  • There are somewhere between 500 (conservative estimate) and 1200 (generous estimate) people involved. Fewer than attended my son’s high school homecoming game a couple weeks ago.
  • The number tends to be larger during the day. Apparently many of the protestors go home at night to get a good night’s sleep and catch up on some corporate sponsored sit-com.
  • They have no specific demands other than a seeming distaste for banks, large corporations, and anyone they deem to be in possession of too much money. “Too much” being defined loosely as “more than I have.”
  • They seem to want to align themselves tactically with what has gone on in the Arab world recently. You know, where they’ve been overthrowing oppressive militant regimes that have been in entrenched power for years?
  • The media love it…but seem to be growing a bit weary since they can’t find a good contiguous angle.

So in the interest of helping these angst filled souls disentangle themselves from their socialistic ennui allow me to suggest four characteristics that are the mark of a really good protest:

You ought to have a recognized villain

The French got this right when they did their revolutionary gig. Yes, yes they hated ALL the bourgeois but they REALLY hated Marie and Louie. A really good protest need a villainous face to point at and spit on and shake fists at. This idea of vaguely villainizing the corporations that built much of America and gave the protestors parents jobs, and contributed to their schools is ineffectual. Pictures of ‘corporations’ don’t work well on posters.

The villain really ought to have done something decidedly bad

You’d be hard pressed to call any of the recently displaced leaders in the Arab and north African world “good guys” and once they start firing on their own people it’s all over. While I agree that we have seen continuously mounting evidence of rampant corporate greed in the news lately the jury is still out on how they choose what is fit to show. After all Pine Creek’s homecoming had more people out than this protest and it got NO air time.  At the end of the day corporations provide jobs. You’d have to give a LOT of money to illegal immigrants and homeless people to put them in a positions to create jobs.

You really ought to have specific demands

When my kids were little we taught them that ranting, pouting, and grousing were not effective methods for getting what they want. As a result all three of them have turned out to be first class negotiators. (My bad on that one.) A ‘protest’ without specific demands or calls for specific action comes across rather like a flash-mobbed tantrum. Cool idea, but you really need more commitment to make it fly. Plus, with no call to specific action how do you know when the protest is over? How do you keep score?

You really ought to have a plan for change

A workable plan. At least the rudiments of a plan. “Redistribution of wealth” isn’t a plan unless you’re Robin Hood and working on a small village scale.

I can completely identify with the sens of disenfranchisement expressed by these protestors. I empathize even more with the fact that it is difficult to sort out who to vent their spleens towards when it all just feel oppressive, unfair, and constant. I applaud them for trying to keep their carnival non-violent.

But I’m afraid that shy of defining these four characteristics for their current shindig it’ll be tough to have any consistent, meaningful dialogue and without consistent meaningful dialogue I’m afraid we’ll all continue to flounder a bit.

Care for a slice of consistent meaningful dialogue? I’d love to hear your thoughts on these protests and their issues.

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Relationship Building – The Four Levels of Agreement – Level 3

We’ve been looking at four levels of agreement that relationships move through as they evolve and grow. In a marketing sense it is possible to be somewhat prescriptive  about moving relationship, ie customers, through the levels but in personal relationships the process is slightly more organic.  The levels as we’ve defined them are as follows:

We looked at the notion that level one, Cognitive Resonance, is that mental click that happens when something catches your attention and your interest. Level 2, Completed Response, occurs when you move from a mental agreement to some form of physical action. Level 3, Contractual Responsibility, is where it all starts to get REALLY interesting. (Spoiler alert: Women understand this level intuitively, men may or may not…)

Let’s start with a simple marketing example: You see a commercial for a burger restaurant that claims to have the healthiest, most unique burger anywhere. It has won taste test after taste test AND it helps you lose weight. In fact if you don’t like it they’ll give you your money back. If you eat their burgers three times a week and change nothing else about your diet you’ll lose weight!! You happen to LOVE burgers AND you’re trying to lose weight. The commercial catches your attention – Level 1 agreement. The following day on your lunch break you go check it out – Level 2 agreement.  You purchase a burger – Level 3 agreement.

“Hold on a minute”, some of you are saying, “I signed no contract here.” You’re right. You signed nothing. But you’ve entered into a two part contract. The first part is taste. The second party is weight loss. Those claims that caught your attention at Level 1 are about to be put to the test. There is a promise: great taste, less filling, and a consequence of failing the promise: money back. A set of expectations. A promise to deliver with stated consequences. A simple contract.

That’s an easy enough day to day example even if the great tasting weight loss burger does not yet exist. But what about personal relationships? Glad you asked…

A guy walks into a bar (cheesy I know but better than ‘once upon a time’) and notices an attractive woman he has noticed there a time or two. (Level 1) He’s learned what he can about her through distant observation, asked a few friends what they can tell him about her,(Level 2 – taking action. Although this is weak action until he talks to her directly.) and now has reached the decision to go up and ask her out. (We’re skipping the small talk for the sake of brevity) He asks her out. (Level 3) There is definitely a set of expectations, mostly unspoken, each of them believing something good will come from the date, a set of promises, time, date etc. and understood consequences, thus a simple contract.

Interestingly “the date” is a time bound contract. It ends when the date ends. But it does establish a new set of expectations based on an assessment of how good a time was had by each party. It may be that the contract is extended at the end of the date…setting up another one. It may be that the contract is left hanging…”I’ll call you.” But even THAT statement if a form of contract!

So now lets fast forward a few weeks or months. Here’s where we learn that women get this and guys don’t…or pretend they don’t….because after that span of time the girl wants to have, duh, duh-dun, duuunnnnn…the talk.

Women are inherently relational! They get this! They don’t want a series of short term intermittent contracts, they want definition. Questions like, “Where is this going?”, “Where are we in our relationship?”, “How are you feeling about us?” are really attempts to establish the terms of the contract! I know, I KNOW it sounds like I am cheapening it somehow but I’m not. They really do want to know the correct set of expectations and promises. Guys, many times, don’t want a set of expectations floating over their head so they’d rather have a “gentleman’s agreement” than a contract!

Believe me, entire book could be written on that paragraph alone. But lets shift gears slightly.

Think about the relationships in your life. The ones that matter. I’d be willing to bet that the most stable ones are the ones with clear contracts. Not on paper necessarily but there nonetheless. We ‘hear’ contracts breaking all the time don’t we? “I thought she was my friend but…”, “Him and me used to hang out all the time, I don’t know what happened…”, “They said they were coming…” Most of these contracts “break” because the expectations are rarely stated, they’re assumed. But remember that dating relationship? The young lady did not WANT to assume, she wanted to know.

Clearly stated expectations, understood promises and consequences, these are the basic elements of a Level 3 agreement that carries with it Contractual Responsibility.

So, in looking at your relationships…

Where have you clarified expectations and where have you assumed them?

Where have you made promises and where have you assumed them?

Where might a “clearer contract” have saved a relationship for you?

 

 

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So…why Disciple Making as a concept?

image courtesy of cornnius at sxc.huThe word Disciple, for most people, either conjures a mental picture of the biblical twelve or of some quasi-cult-sci-fi-horror devotee of an incredibly evil/demonic villain. (Now THAT is an interesting contrast to explore in and of itself, but I digress.) The concept of discipleship is ancient and carriers many nuances depending on which particular tradition you examine.

The Greek philosophical schools used a type of discipleship model. Students typically paid masters to learn from them in a much more “dialogue through life” educational approach than our schools use today. Eventually the students became proponents of what they had learned from their masters. Socrates to Plato to Aristotle being perhaps the most well known of these linkages.

Eastern religions such a Hinduism and Buddhism contain within their practice the concept of disciples: those who submit themselves to the teachings of the master in order to climb the path towards enlightenment.

The biblical notion of discipleship grows out of an origin in rabbinical tradition where a student followed a rabbi, typically paid for the opportunity and devoted themselves to the teaching of the rabbi’s interpretation of the Torah with the intent of eventually becoming rabbis themselves.

In general them the common thread seems to be that disciples engage in four activities:

  • They commit themselves by choice
  • They pay for the opportunity
  • They devote themselves to deeper understanding
  • They seek to promote the teaching of the master.

In a marketing context the term we typically find used is “net promoter”, those people who, on a scale of 0-10, say that they are “highly likely” to recommend a good, or service, or business to a friend. There exist some pretty solid arguments for why this is such a valuable piece of information to track and such a valuable score for a business to increase.

I want to suggest that a Disciple goes beyond simply recommending IF they are given the opportunity. The third activity of the disciple holds the key.

They devote themselves to deeper understanding. This means they want more than the menu items. They want to know the back story. They find value in the business ethics and decision making paradigms of a company to whom they give their allegiance. They don’t just want to know and use “what” you do, they want to know “why” and “how” you do it.

Of course, you can’t just give lip service to the “why and how” you have to actually live it. Just like the rabbis and Greek philosophers and Buddhist monks have to.

When I was in full time vocational ministry I used to joke that there seemed to be a fine line between ministry and marketing when it came to church growth. This model of Discipleship lends itself to a different approach to spiritual discipleship than we see in most churches today but it also has some seriously strong ju-ju in the marketing world. Whether you run a corner store, a home based business, the local soccer club or a fortune 500 company you’ve got people out there who want to promote you if you’re giving them the goods.

Do you give potential Disciples access to the “why and how” of what you do?

Do they get to see your “corporate values” exhibited in your dealings with them?

More importantly do you live by them when the customer isn’t looking?

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FYI-tis: Are YOU Drowning in Information?

Original image courtesy of SSPIVAK at sxc.huThe “information super-highway” (remember when it used to be called that?)  has done a lot to change the way we behave. We shop online, we do business online, our kids do homework online…if someone has a question they don’t know the answer to…they google it. The trouble is we’ve become afflicted with information.

Even though email is rapidly becoming a thing of the past when it comes to personal communication everyday hundreds upon thousands of pieces of email speed through the servers of American businesses with the subject heading “FYI”. The lazy sluggards who do this to you probably do so as a result of an unconscious prompt such as:

  1. I’ll probably forget this so I’d better send it to someone else as informational insurance.
  2. This doesn’t look like it is important to me but it looks REALLY important to someone who is not me.
  3. I’m not sure what to do with this so I’ll pass it on.
  4. As long as I pass this a long I can’t be held accountable.

It’s a lot like someone handing you a wilted plant in a damp clay pot, telling you it is important, and then walking away!

The worst of it is that we’ve gotten so used to simply “exchanging information” that it effects how we regularly communicate. Meetings are held, presentations are given, and memos are written that contain a LOT of information but seemingly little explicit purpose. Unfortunately our human brains LIKE purpose and DISLIKE a vacuum so anytime we’re given bulk information sans purpose we fill in our own, even if only subconsciously. This, in turn, spawns multiple rabbit trails of understanding which often have to be undone with yet another meeting, presentation or memo.

Effective communication happens not when we’ve given the MOST information but when we’ve given the RIGHT information. How do we know which bits are the RIGHT information?  The right bits are the bits that can be connected by a clearly focused clearly articulated purpose that is understood and shared by the informer and the informed alike.

So the next time you’re tempted to forward along an email with a simple FYI added to the top pause and consider WHY the recipient needs this information. Then, instead of taking the lazy way out and just leaving your FYI, take the time to write out a single sentence description of why they need the information. VOILA! An email with a clearly stated purpose is born!

How many FYI’s do you get in a typical week? How many do you forward along? How many of them contain any real purpose?