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articles, Guardian blogs, interesting links and general musings on communications from julie wales & company
If you want to climb higher, be very clear about the key competencies, skills and attributes you need to progress further. Know for sure:
What behaviours are valued and rewarded within your company or industry
What type of person is promoted within your team
What sets your company and its leaders apart
Where your competencies align with company mission, culture and values
How you currently display these attributes
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Firstly, apologies if you’re a vegetarian, or would generally prefer to blank out oven-ready connotations. Sensitivities aside, as a phrase, it works though doesn’t it? Rubber-ish or not.
So, how memorable is your professional messaging? Do people get what you have to say, or do your important points tend to get lost in the fog of too much information?
Experimenting with headline messages or finding clean, snappy phrases doesn’t have to equate to crass sloganeering. Used appropriately, they can help us convey dense and important information, making it more accessible, so that it’s, wait for it - easy to read, easy to understand and easy to act upon.
Good news when attention spans are shortening by the minute and the currency of academic expertise is allegedly not what it used to be. To be fair, TMI has always been anathema to most busy professionals, so we better be brief…
Over the years, we’ve coached many clever people, cajoling at least 90% of them to dig out vital facts or recommendations they have inadvertently buried on a busy slide or page 29 of their report. Often, the more expert they are, the bigger the cuplrit.
Edward de Bono long espoused the importance of simplicity. He asked why most product manuals are still steeped in such impenetrable jargon, when most of us will only access 20% of the capacity of our technology. He had much more to say than this about using plain English, but you get the gist - it’s about time we said less, without dumbing down our knowledge.
So, word to the wise, even if you do have a Phd in your area, help the rest of us out here. First, just share the best bits and then stop. Let us want to hear more, to ask questions so that we can properly digest the subject you’ve had longer to understand.
Speaking of digestion, we could all try to think more like chefs by anticipating who we’re catering for. To engage them by serving our most delicious points early on, or else providing them with advance appetisers or takeaways if there’s too much for one sitting, We could also try not to milk a metaphor to death - and vary the appearance, flavours and textures of our content. Indigestible already, Ed
So, if you’re in, commit to making your next report, update or presentation dazzlingly fit for purpose. Anticipate the appetites of your readers or audience. Plan, redraft, ask for a second opinion if the stakes are high, or employ a coach - be oven ready. And if you’re not? Brace yourself - it’s time to see it, say it, sorted.
Sadly, in the absence of a vaccine to inoculate us from procrastination, there’s a six letter word between us and fulfilment. We’ll be staying right where we are until we COMMIT.
So here we are, step three of our blog series on reclaiming your future. The first steps explored choices around thinking patterns and ways to set goals that are truly smart. This step explores commitment issues..
If you're still dreaming about your ideal future, or have had it up to here with your current situation but are locked in some sort of holding pattern - congratulations! You’re definitely a human being and not a robot and you didn’t have to spot traffic lights in a series of blurred pictures to prove it…
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In our last blog we explored the idea of reclaiming our futures - the first step of which was understanding our thinking patterns. The gist was that if our thinking files are corrupted, we need to switch off, wait at least three seconds and reboot.
This is especially important before attempting this second step of the quest: Know What You Want. Goal-setting springs to mind when we think about what we'd like to happen, hence our urge to publish a blasphemous headline..
SMART goals are rubbish!
And before you smash your palms to your forehead in total disbelief, let’s try to qualify that statement. In fact, let’s backtrack - SMART goals aren’t totally rubbish. They’re useful in terms of helping you clarify tasks and straightforward objectives. But meh - how does the A for Achievable help our dreams come true?
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Hands up - who thinks they get out of bed in the morning intent on self-sabotage? Didn’t think so. Yet how many of us start the day on autopilot - open eyes, fumble for alarm, check phone, read news, check emails?
Before we know it, we’re reacting to the external world - uplifted by good news or else hostage to whatever rubbish happens to be in our inbox - before we’ve even put the kettle on.
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We all know where we are at the moment, so I won’t dive headfirst into a cliché pothole by quoting Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, to make my point. What? Did I just …?
The thing is now is what we have, as those of us wearing Eckhart Tolle T shirts know. Not only that, but on the horizon, away from the deep trenches of fear and doom there may be opportunities in them there hills.
Rather than reacting with sadness, anger, fear or helplessness to unfolding events, what if this was our time to find better ways to respond to whatever life throws at us? Time to evolve, to choose to think differently, to do things differently? To be active in fostering our resilience?
As the chink of light keeps tantalisingly opening and then closing, for those of us who can find the time or oomph to put our sanity first - how can we stay focused on the positive stuff?
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