I have been working with clients this month around the issue of communicating a ‘dry' or 'dull’ message to their teams. A classic example might be a health and safety update, or the need to communicate detailed, technical information on a topic to an audience who are not experts in the area. Now to be clear - I’m not saying health and safety isn’t important - it’s essential. However, I’m struck this month by how often I hear leaders talk about the fact that what they need to communicate is dull, boring, dry - whilst at the same time expressing that there is a clear need to communicate it. Our challenge as leaders is to engage those listening in the topic, otherwise there’s no point in trying to convey it. If we don’t look and sound like we care; neither will our team.
So, I’ve been talking a lot about two powerful and extremely effective concepts in communication.
The first is that of the ’social curiosity driver’. All this means is that if we show interest, passion, enthusiasm for something in front of others, then they will get curious too. An oft quoted and simple demonstration of this phenomenon is this: imagine you are walking down the street, and you see a crowd of people looking up at the sky. Would that make you curious? Undoubtedly. What are you most likely to do? Look up and see what all the fuss is about. That’s the ‘social curiosity driver’ in action. So, my point is this - if we do the opposite of enthusiasm when we are communicating - in other words show that we are bored/disinterested in our topic, then let’s not be surprised our audience reacts in kind.
The second concept is also straightforward: there is no such thing as a boring story; only a boring angle. I often quote Malcolm Gladwell, who once posed an interesting question to create an interesting angle for a video. The question was: ‘why do brands sell so many styles of spaghetti sauce, when they used to sell only one?’ As a result, he got over two million people to watch a video on the topic. The point is that he found an interesting angle to what might otherwise be a fairly tedious subject. How can we do the same? By posing the right question. Think ‘ who, what, where, when, why, how’ as the basis to create an angle for our story that entices, intrigues and engages the listener, reader or viewer to want to listen, learn and connect with our message.
Leaders with ‘executive presence’ can ‘reach’ their audience through their communication, even if the content is traditionally perceived as dry, dull or boring. And they make it look easy. The rest of us need to learn the skills.
