Tork & Grunt

Stiff Upper Lip

2009-08-28T18:04:00.003+01:00

The Tork & Grunt blog is changing with the emigration of their author to sunnier climes.

Maybe I'll write some management stuff from time to time, but meanwhile here's something you may have seen, to add a smile to the Bank Holiday Weekend:-

The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats in Islamabad and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross". Brits have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance". The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender". The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability.

It's not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing". Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides".

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose".

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Americans meanwhile are carrying out pre-emptive strikes on all of their allies, just in case.

New Zealand has also raised its security levels - from "baaa" to "BAAAA!". Due to continuing defence cutbacks (the airforce being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and the navy some toy boats in the Prime Minister's bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is "Shit, I hope Austrulia will come and rescue us". In the event of invasion, New Zealanders will be asked to gather together in a strategic defensive position called "Bondi".

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, mate". Three more escalation levels remain: "Crikey!", "I think we'll need to cancel the Barbie this weekend" and "The Barbie is cancelled". There has not been a situation yet that has warranted the use of the final escalation level.

Is it Speaker Support or Audience Support?

2009-06-14T14:52:00.001+01:00

Why do you hold meetings and why do you make presentations?
If the answer is “to share information,” then you’re living in the pre-literate age. After all, why would you hold a meeting when you have all the resources of information technology in addition to paper-based media, telephones and even the notice board by the coffee machine?
There is only one purpose behind any presentation or meeting, and that is to change the mindset of the audience. In simple terms, a presentation should be designed to make people think differently and either do things differently or do different things.
That’s why speakers must project the issue in a way that the audience can relate to. They’re sitting at your presentation with simple thoughts in their minds: “Why am I here? How is this relevant? What’s in it for me?” Many speakers leave their audience to work out the answers to these questions for themselves. They make a presentation of facts and figures without adequate interpretation and with no clear directive about what needs to happen next.
If you answer these three questions you’ll have the framework of an effective presentation:
1. What do you want to change, why and how?
2. What information will support your proposition?
3. What imagery will make the emotional connection to enhance the logic of your argument.
Good presentations are about the logic and relevance of what you have to say, and good PowerPoint is about creating the emotional connection between your message and your audience.

Is it Speaker Support or Audience Support?

View more Microsoft Word documents from Bob Harvey.

The Clutter of Identity

2009-05-11T08:58:00.004+01:00

The picture is my desk, a couple of minutes ago when I stopped searching Google images and reached for my Nokia 8gb. My desk is always cluttered, crowded and messy. From time to time I scoop everything off into a crate and try to get around to sorting it out sometime. This apparent lack of discipline has effectively enforced some rather strict disciplines. The post is opened the moment it arrives and bills get paid immediately, on-line, with a delayed date -naturally - so I don't lose any notional interest. Creative people seem to fall into two categories: the cluttered and the minimalist. My category is obvious, though I love the blank canvas of minimalism, which just waits for a few pieces of well-chosen clutter until... Well, at least I try.
But the reality is that I tend to identify myself through my clutter, everywhere in my life. A dish of pebbles on the bookshelf, a box full of old postcards, those empty jars scrubbed clean of their labels and waiting to be filled with screws, or nails, or maybe sand from a beach I remember.
The challenge now is the prospect of moving home. My partner has had countless homes in the past decade across two continents. I have moved twice, - but within a 5-mile radius. My clutter has moved with me, the pebbles placed back on their dish, the box of postcards placed in a dusty cupboard and the collection of jars neatly boxed under the bed.
Now the prospect looms of moving to Italy, starting afresh with a joint home and combined resources, energies and... clutter. Except that I have to admit a sense of confusion in the way that I identify with my clutter. It's a strange sense of loss and a wonderful sense of newness.
It's coming to terms with all the impact of a new identity. Exciting.

Home is where the tax is

2009-04-25T17:57:00.005+01:00

Writers have always been able to work anywhere; it's taken me a while to find the courage to move away from my clients and - more importantly - to acknowledge that I am actually a writer. And it's taken me years to fully accept that idea, going back to a dinner party a dozen years ago when the hostess introduced me to her friends with the unforgettable words:"This is my friend, Bob - he's a writer."
In truth, I've always thought of myself more as a communicator, and hence Tork & Grunt, and the books on two aspects of interpersonal communication, negotiations and presentations. Then, when I was asked to write children's books, I didn't hesitate, and I'm excited by my next project of personal-development books for the sub-teenage group, starting with one all about happiness. Mind you, corporate communication still fascinates me, and I am continuing my work on helping people to improve their presentation content and style with a much-needed book that will denounce much of what has been written about the effective use of PowerPoint.
What I've now decided - with the help of a very dear partner whose love of Italy is as intense as mine - is that I don't need to be in Tunbridge Wells, or anywhere near my clients, in order to put fingers to keyboard and create my work. And so, if it's not tempting fate to write it, we are in the throes of the excruciating process of acquiring a former farmhouse in the Marches, twixt Ancona and the Sybilline mountains, where 4-wheel drive and the arrival of broadband will ensure that we can operate just as effectively as in Britain.
With my clients all in the English-speaking world (well, their version of English, you know) I am still wondering where I will stand in terms of taxation. I am now officially on the Italian radar, with my Italian taxcode that enables me to open a bank account, but as a self-employed person I have no idea how the system will operate.
And to be honest, I'd rather not rush to find out. It's more than enough of a complication to follow the Italian property purchasing system, and worry about important considerations like whether the removals van will make it down and up the gravel track.
In our global society, with e-bay and money that moves at the touch of a PIN code in a hole in the wall, I wonder how the establishment will keep tags on everyone in years to come.
Meanwhile, I far too busy wondering where I'll put the herb garden, and longing to try out the wood-burning oven that's conveniently near where the patio and pergola will be.

The meaning of words

2009-02-14T13:37:00.005Z

As a linguist and a writer, I appreciate the critical importance of understanding the subtle nuances of language. Both French and German (and many other languages around the world) have several words for "You," according to the degree of familiarity and formality. As a foreigner you will probably be perplexed by the way Latin countries are moving the goal-posts on conversational familiarity, and may find that generational differences and even regional variations between town and country.

Don't let anyone tell you they speak our language in the United States, especially if you're shopping for clothes. You'll find that knickers are shorts, pants are trousers and vests are waistcoats. All of this can be mildly amusing, but move language into the the fields of business and politics and the implications can be serious.

The problem arises when the word carries different connotations in different languages, and if you are unaware of these differences, you can land yourself in difficulties. Such a word is "crusade." Dictionaries give "military campaign" as the prime meaning, but in general parlance it's the figurative meaning of "aggressive movement against public evil" that is meant to be communicated. A major diplomatic flare-up occurred when the US projected the invasion of Iraq as a crusade, meaning "aggressive movement against public evil" while the Muslim world perceived that America was considering the action in its literal context of a Holy War - specifically in the context of reclaiming Holy Land from Islamic rule.
As I am at pains to point out in Tork & Grunt's Guide to Effective Negotiations, what matters is not what you say, but what the other party hears and how they interpret your communication.

So - it's Valentine's today, and did you hear what you wanted to hear...?

How to forget the credit crunch

2009-01-28T19:23:00.002Z

Try as I might, I can't find a still of the T-mobile commercial, so you'll just have to watch it here at the dedicated You-Tube section they've set up for their "Life's for Sharing." campaign.

Is it fun, or is it just hype? I don't care.... I just wish I'd been there.

Hurrah - Someone's got the message...!

2009-01-07T06:05:00.006Z

'Tork & Grunt's Guide to Effective Negotiations' gets a glowing review in the January issue of Management Today. The current issue of the UK's leading management magazine reviews three new books on negotiations and praises our cavemen's tale as 'Best of its kind.' At last, someone has read the book and really got the message, unlike the lukewarm response of the UK book-selling fraternity whose inability to grasp the concept has meant virtually no in-store display and promotion. To quote the heart-warming reviewer: 'If the idea of taking advice from cartoon men wearing animal skins seems unusual, be reassured that it works - and very well too.'
My proactive response to the retail trade since before Christmas has been to make sure that whenever I see a W H Smith or Waterstone's shop I pop in and rearrange the business shelves so that my books are both face-out to the customers.

I'm probably just too impatient, and should take heart from the fact that the MT review has rocketed my book into the Amazon UK top ten on negotiation. Meanwhile 'Tork & Grunt's Guide to Great Presentations' just makes it into the top 50 in its category leaving me fuming at the some of the titles that rank higher. It's not a matter of jealousy, it's the knowledge that I did read these other titles in the course of my research and I know that they - for the most part - churn out old theories that have long since been superseded.

However, I can't say this without praising two of the top ten which both enjoy well-deserved success. These are Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and Slideology by Nancy Duarte. They are both mainly focused on the style and appearance of your presentation, and you won't find anything out there to compare with these excellent books. My own genre is to aim for a broader appeal, and hopefully Management Today will - in time - review Tork & Grunt's Guide to Great Presentations and get more copies out there and talked about.

The longest week of two years

2008-12-26T12:31:00.010Z

It's Friday and it's the day after Christmas and the day before the weekend. Most shops are open with all the nervous mood of a fire-sale after the credit-crunch hit pre-Christmas spending, stemming cash-flow and squeezing profits. My local department store launched its winter sale in several departments back on December 15th and the big retailers launched their January Sales on the internet yesterday - on Christmas Day.

If you're not out buying stuff then there's another weekend coming up, so there'll be entertaining and parties a-plenty. Many businesses across Britain will stay closed right through next week, cushioning the further hang-overs of New Year, and building up to traffic chaos on the following weekend as thousands return home to go back to work on Monday 5th. Or not. How many jobs will there be to return to? How many companies will be counting the cost and taking the difficult decisions?

Is there anyone out there who can make sense of this crazy world we're living in? Businesses are collapsing because nobody's spending and nobody's spending because businesses are collapsing. The banks are paying next to nothing to borrow money centrally and between each other, but they're not lending so nobody can buy or sell their home. Is it capitalism that's failing society, or society that's failing capitalism? How can we live the utopian egalitarian dream when a greedy few can seriously damage all the economies of the world in a matter of weeks?

Then there's global warming and the irony of well-meaning pleas not to leave the TV or computer in standby mode, not to fill the car right up with petrol because that reduces fuel efficiency, and not to boil a full kettle if you only need a cupful. All very worthy, I'm sure, but did anyone dare to suggest that Christmas decorations might be a profligate extravagance? One person did, but it does sound something of a kill-joy voice in the wilderness.

So where next? My pre-resolution prediction is that the only choice we have if we are to maintain our sanity and move forward is by adopting the powerful mixture of creativity blended with optimism. The next decade is going to be very different from the Noughties. We'll be less focused on quantity and more concerned about quality in many aspects of our lives, and in all areas of consumption. There will be a hunger for values, because so many have been lost since the global egotism that was born in the 80's. The alternative is the descent into a totally self-centred material jingoism that defies any concept of humanist values.

09 must be radical. Or else...

Future Marketing Summit

2008-12-20T15:41:00.007Z

It's the wet Saturday before Christmas. I did the local street market before the car park was packed, bought my clementines, parsnips and Cox's apples, then decided mistletoe was both naff and over-expensive. Depressed myself reading the news in the Times over a cappucino, then abandoned the search for the outstanding pressies and came home. Lit the fire (Ah - remember now from Cub Scout days that shiny paper stops the wood kindling catching.) Finally the logs caught and the place started to smell lightly smoked and Christmassy. Collapsed on the sofa, found the remote under the cushions and started channel-hopping. The advertised programmes were the usual Strictly Come Snooker and repeats of old sit-coms but then I stumbled on the "Future Marketing Summit" and discovered a recording of the discussion panel at this recent London conference. Top marketing people airing their opinions on what's happening and where it's going.
The programme is being repeated on several occasions over the coming week. So, if you're interested in trends and innovation, and want to know what the gurus think of brand and advertising, make sure you catch it for a fascinating and intellectually challenging insight. For more thoughts on the Future Marketing Summit, here's an interesting view from one of the delegates.
But what am I doing, talking business when I should be decorating the tree or making mulled wine? Ah - wine - now there's a thought.! Well, maybe it's about time to find the corkscrew.

On my Soapbox

2008-12-04T16:00:00.008Z

If your meetings mean going through a lot of detail, don't use PowerPoint. People can't listen to what you're saying and read what's on the screen both at the same time. It's at the heart of what all the experts are preaching about presentations and it stems from solid academic research in both Australia and the States. I had an article on this subject published this week, and I am hoping that I'll stir up a bit of controversy. There's more of the same on my Slideshare posting so - as you can see - I'm getting quite worked up about my favourite topic. I'm on my soapbox.

Wikipedia makes the point that blogging is the modern version of soapboxing though the advantage of a soapbox at a venue like Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner is that you do at least know if someone is out there. Sometimes writing a blog feels like a voice in the wilderness, but it is wonderfully therapeutic, and in a way it's a personal diary that one chooses to share. After all, a musician doesn't always need an audience, so why should a writer need a reader?

Tell me, am I starting to sound my age?

Presentation Skills

2008-11-27T20:20:00.005Z

"Presentation Skills," says my web-design guy," When you're posting about presentational skills, you must include that phrase as a link to your site where you have content on the presentational subject matter. That linked to page must also have correct meta information and headings which match the phrase. This is the way to increase rankings on search engines for your chosen subject matter you wish to enhance." But I suppose I'm just too purist and simply don't like self-promotion in a typically British way. I love building the business by recommendation because that's rather flattering, but selling - well it's a bit below the salt, eh what?

However, it's a sign of the times that everyone suddenly seems to be expanding their "Linked-In" network in the hunt for turnover. Suddenly I have almost as many "connections" as there are "Bob Harveys" in Linked-in. In my search for increased visibility I also decided to have Google Alerts for my name so that wherever my name was mentioned I would have receive a notification from Google. It's a free service and it works well for the "Tork and Grunt" alert I've been watching for a few months but alas, there are just too many BH's out there, from the mayor of Waitakere in New Zealand to the founder of the band "Jefferson Airplane." There's been nothing much to report from either of those recently, unless you're interested in surf life-saving.

Goodness knows, we need some good news in the press right now. My own blogs seem to reflect the general note of despair and the world feels a loss of direction and purpose. The demise of MFI (how did they resist the might of IKEA for so long?) and the collapse of Woolies leaves us without two iconic symbols of UK retailing. Who next?

So it's time to think positive - and it's no wonder that "The Secret" and all its offspring publications, CDs, DVDs and ra-ra seminars have swept across the world. I simply loathe the saccharin-sweetness of the message and the constant intrusion of angel choirs, ethnic chants and inevitable pan-pipes in the sound-track. What makes it even more infuriating is that if you can survive the dross of the packaging, the core message is truly priceless. We do determine our own future; we are in charge of our destiny, and in the words of my own high-achieving and successful son: "If you think you can, you can!"

We've talked ourselves into depression. We can talk ourselves out of it. We are creatures of habit and we can turn it all around if we change the mindset. At the momentall the official messages from those on high are simply the pain of Death by PowerPoint. What it needs is the right presentation, good professional training. Ah yes, must remember to mention the key words: presentation, PowerPoint, training.

Why is everyone so tired...?

2008-11-18T18:27:00.012Z

I felt tired the other day. Then I was talking to a friend: "I'm so tired..." she said,"..and I was talking to a couple of friends and they were saying how tired they were. It must be something that's going around." Next day I was talking to the manager of a local restaurant. "The staff are all so lethargic this week. I can't think what's come over them. Everyone appears to be exhausted."

It seems that when there are the signs of a depression, it's not just economic, affecting retailing and export. It's emotional, personal and all-pervading. Nobody has anything to be cheerful about, so everyone goes into a state of general mourning.

Sorry, guys, I just don't buy the idea that we're in some sort of accidental depression because the banks over-stretched themselves. They've been sending out credit cards with a £1,000+ credit limit as an 18th birthday present to teenagers for the last decade. It was calculated; they created an ethic of universal affordability of anything; a concept of unrestricted materialism. I am darned sure they knew exactly what they were doing. Gradually more and more of the population were sucked into the culture of living on maxed-out plastic. The bubble had to burst, and what the banks hadn't counted on was that when they pushed their customers to the wall, they themselves might be following close behind.

What I still don't understand is how the governments of the world suddenly found tens of trillions of currency to "rescue" their economies when there is never any money for schools and hospitals and clinics and welfare. It's the same as when there's going to be a war; there's always blood-money. Trillions are a bit of a joke because nobody can actually agree on how big a trillion is. The world is divided into those who use the "short scale" and those who use the "long scale." The short scale has increments of one thousand-fold, so that a billion is one thousand million. The long scale has increments of a million-fold, so that a billion is one million million. In not one piece of journalism in the past weeks of numerical overload have I read which scale we are working to. Is one trillion 1,000,000,000,000 or is it ONE MILLION times greater and would be written as the mind-boggling sum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000?
And does it matter, anyway? Banks have never lent money that actually exists, they lend money that doesn't exist and pay for the gamble by charging interest. In the past decade they didn't cover their risk but were happy to do this because they would create an indebted society.

When I was at primary school the first record (a circular black vinyl thing that rotated at 78rpm) that I purchased was "Sixteen tons." These are the lyrics of the chorus

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...

Nothing changes much, does it? Company stores acted as bankers for the miners, and - yup - they bought the souls of the company employees. The chorus repeats after each verse, and, you know what, that's just like history. We're just up for the next round of singing the chorus: "Another day older and deeper in debt."

Come to think of it, I feel really tired....

The Silence of the Tills

2008-10-31T13:14:00.006Z

A long weekend in Massachussets visiting my grandchildren, and a visit to Emerald Square Mall in Attleboro on Friday morning. Where have all the shoppers gone? I'm used to bargains after Thanksgiving, but the holiday season sales are early this year. The discounts were massive, with ticket prices slashed and with further discounts for newspaper coupons and store-card account holders. So where was everyone at 10.30 on Friday morning? In recession, no doubt, Later, when we went to a children's party on Saturday afternoon, the Mall was once again almost deserted. It's sobering, and it's scary for any business as the psychology of recession affects everyone. The catch is that I sincerely believe that it's the 80/20 rule: 80% of any recession or boom is in the mind and only 20% is real. This was highlighted in an article in Monitor on Psychology earlier this year, following research at the University of Hawaii. So the answer is simple: go on! Have a drink! Cheer up! You could reverse the trend with a bit more positive thinking. Meanwhile, I'll get back on my hobbyhorse about linguistic confusion.OK - you think I'm nit-picking again, but it's that word "momentarily," in the phrase 'This Ticket Counter is momentarily not occupied' [- and let's overlook the fact that ticket counter isn't a proper noun or title so doesn't justify any capitalisation.] Momentarily in Oxford English means for a moment or an instant, 'the light flickered momentarily and then all was dark,' but in American usage it generally means either 'currently' - as in the sign on the unmanned ticket counter above, or 'in a little while' as in 'the waitress will be with you momentarily.'
I find Anglo-American language differences fascinating, especially when they become quirkily contradictory to an almost British extent. One favourite is the immigration form when I land at Logan airport, which demands that the date be entered DD/MM/YYYY while all the rest of America writes MM/DD/YYYY. Good on you USA! You can be as amusingly inconsistent as a British municipality - like my own in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

We now have new litter laws in town. Instant ticket fines of £75 (about US$120) if you drop a cigarette butt or scrap of paper. But this scene in the park the other Sunday morning proves the old adage that it's one thing to make a law and another to enforce it. So, what's the answer? Surely it's the same as the boom and recession problem. It's all in the mentality of the people, all of us. If we believe in our country I honestly think we can keep - at least - our internal economy buoyant. And if we take pride in our environment, we'll look after it. Mind you I've been "thinking thin" for years and it's not yet done anything to reduce my waistline!

Column-Inches

2008-10-13T19:09:00.005+01:00

In the London Times, nestling next to the announcements of the Royal family's engagements for the day, in the "Personals" section where you expect to find discreet classified advertising for "Personal Services," you would - last week - have found the genteel announcement that put Lehman Brothers into administration.

It's been quite a time, hasn't it, these past few weeks?

Meanwhile I've been chasing around with a standing-room-only workshop in Birmingham at the Chartered Institute of Management's Annual Convention, followed swiftly by a flying visit to Frankfurt for the International Book Fair.
Here it soon became clear that publishing is no longer just about books. I was delighted to find that foreign publishers were encouragingly enthusiastic and receptive to the concept of linking the book series to the Tork & Grunt website, and to the audio-introduction CDs that we recorded to accompany each title. It's nothing revolutionary, but while it's been commonplace for self-publishers to generate "product" for back-of-the-room sales, it's not something the big imprints have yet much cottoned onto.

And, as you'd expect, it's the Koreans who take the lead in multi-media exploitation. My Korean colleagues at Thenan publishing had asked for a meeting to discuss various developments. You can imagine my delight when they asked if I would support their proposal to develop e-learning programmes based on the Tork & Grunt series. Now that's exciting - and as far as I'm concerned - it's worth a few column-inches in the London Times.

A totally sophisticated environment

2008-09-25T14:07:00.009+01:00

Korea is not generally thought of as an ideal tourist destination. When I told my friends I was off on a trip to Seoul they looked puzzled and had no idea what I might be letting myself in for. I knew from a previous visit that I would be in for a treat.
Korea is dynamic, with an explosive economic growth rate and almost limitless ambitions. It's exciting, and years in advance of so much in Europe. I looked down from my friend's 35-storey apartment to see the school-children off in crocodiles in their immaculate uniforms. Parents here spend up to a quarter of household income on their children's education. I strolled along tree-lined boulevards serving coffee and croissants to board the metro - for the 80p flat fare. Sitting on the spotless suburban train into town I saw fellow commuters watching TV programmes on their mobile phones. Down-town it might have been Manhattan, but without potholes, without litter, without pushing and rudeness and without vagrants. The people on the sidewalks were elegant, meticulously groomed and immaculately dressed. If there is a "dress-down Friday" policy in Korea then you wouldn't know.
I went to the International Art Fair, and decided that this offered some interesting insights into the people and the culture. This picture by local artist Dool You shows a stereo-typical teenage schoolgirl surrounded by scowling corporate business men who are portrayed as rabbits. Her comment is "Why so seious?" The visitor to Seoul will soon appreciate that in Korea as anywhere else around the world, the youth have their own perspective on life.
The attitude to corporate existence is captured in this photo-montage by Tomoko Sawada, which is more a wry comment on corporate institutions than any suggestion of sarcasm or harsh criticism. There's a gentle wit that cloaks the underlying awareness of the gradual need for change.
I was in Seoul for meetings with my agent and publisher. Korea was the first country to take up the Tork & Grunt series, and, like their enthusiasm for educating their children, their appetite for business education is voracious. Samsung even has its own English-language business seminar site, www.seriworld.org where issues of national, regional and global interest are discussed by leading thinkers from around the world. What has been fascinating is to find that the one business issue that I heard about time and again during my visit is the need for improved "communication." With the changing nature of society and the rigid hieararchy of the traditional management structure, communication is a challenge, which is, perhaps, why the concept of Tork & Grunt was welcomed positively. What's more, it's an opportunity that is quite simply - huge.
The scale of life in Korea has to be seen to be believed. To give you a glimpse into the size of their ambitions, take the example of the housing programme. Korea is building 10 million new homes, to be completed by 2015. New cities are being created in open country. It's mind-boggling and inspirational. I love the energy, the focus, the ethical values and the cool determination of the young people. It's a great place to be right now, a great place to be published and to plan new workshops and seminars.

Lipstick on a Pig

2008-09-14T19:34:00.005+01:00

It isn't a very attractive vision that springs to mind when the phrase "lipstick on a pig" is used. While it is generally applied to policies rather than people, there is uproar if the policy has come from a female, rather than a male protagonist, so that the "lipstick" remark appears to be directed at her, rather than at the policies. And when a male politician slips the lipstick phrase into a major speech, he shouldn't be surprised if the media scent blood. You'd hope (in vain) that reporting political speeches would be about policies not personalities, but sadly it's more about the opportunity for sensationalism and controversy.
It all started with John McCain using the phrase to describe Hillary Clinton's health-care plan, and then when Barack Obama used the same phrase to describe the Republicans' attempts to repackage themselves the Democratic presidential candidate was immediately accused of sexism.
In the greater scheme of things, it's pathetic; as if there weren't more important things to discuss. It's made all the more pathetic when you reflect that neither candidate was talking about the opposing vice-presidential candidate but, in both cases, about their policies. One suspects that if they'd used the English expression and accused the other side of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, then the National Association of Handbag Manufacturers would have been up in arms.
So, if you've got to make a speech, what do you do? Do you avoid anything that might so much as brush against the sensitive toes of the other party's feet, or do you let them have both barrels in the belief that all publicity is good publicity?
Well, first, get your story straight - because you can be sure that someone will be looking for a totally different angle from the one that's in your mind. Secondly, practice your sound-bites, make sure you can encapsulate what you want to say in one sentence. Thirdly, have a colleague rehearse all the difficult questions with you in advance, so that you've worked out your responses. Finally, to keep the Cockney porcine metaphor - keep off the pork pies. If you really have screwed up, come clean, because if you don't you'll get found out eventually, and that's something the press, the other side and the public at large will never forgive you for.

Identity Crisis

2008-09-02T09:04:00.005+01:00

People in an organisation see themselves in different ways. Some identify totally with the organisation, feel part of it and believe that they are totally involved with its values and beliefs. Others think differently; to them it's just a job, a way to pay the bills and have the money coming in so they can support their home, family and lifestyle.
Traditionally there are some types of work where we expect people to be totally involved: teachers, doctors, religious leaders. In fact we'd be mortified if we faced a doctor who didn't take an interest in our health or a teacher who didn't really care about our children's level of achievement, and as for the idea of a priest who didn't believe in his calling... well, it doesn't bear thinking about, does it?
My first job was with a company that prided itself in its family atmosphere. The factory had its own village and social club making a complete self-contained community. Every morning we walked across the estate as first the factory hooter sounded and then the company advertising jingle blared out from dozens of loudspeakers across the campus. It was Orwellian or Huxleyan - shades of "1984" or "Brave New World," and it was a huge culture shock for a newly graduated young man coming to rural France from Swinging London.
These days very few companies in the Western world would attempt to engender this sort of corporate identity though the style is still very much in vogue in much of Asia-Pacific. The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was breath-taking and awe-inspiring, but were we really watching REAL people? Are these people still individuals or is this a society where individuality is sacrificed to the greater good of the larger number. I'm not going to deny that I was impressed, but when my mind wandered to the idea of what we might do in London in 2012, I have to confess that the very idea of a crowd of 2,000+ people all perfectly synchronised filled me with images of Hitler's mass rallies in Nuremberg rather than happy crowds in East London. At its heart, identity means a common culture, which means common values and common behaviours. But just as believers don't have to be evangelical to be true to themselves, so employees don't have to whistle the company song as they walk to work.
So - what's the secret of corporate identity? It's the same as most aspects of an efficient and effective organisation: it starts with the people at grass roots, not with the hierarchy who are removed from the everyday operation. Companies are their people, and unless identity grows from the bottom up, there will always be a barrier to anything that's coming from the top down.

It's all in the detail

2008-08-18T16:25:00.005+01:00

This photograph is entitled the girl with the dog. Everything in the photo draws your eye towards her, the perspective of the lines, the shadows and the patch of light as she runs towards the dog. At first glance you might just see the bright tiled facades (of the Moorish Quarter in Almeria) but inevitably she catches your attention.
If the photographer had started by looking for a photograph of a girl and a dog they would probably have been looking for a close-up shot, with a cute smile and a wagging tail. Sometimes, an oblique approach is more powerful.
That's especially true of mass communication; it's the advertisements that you don't immediately "get" that ultimately stick in your mind. Just think about it: how many Brits speak enough German to translate Vorsprung durch Technik...? - and yet anyone can now tell you what that Audi strap-line means - at least in general terms, if not with precise accuracy. Which is just like the photo above. You can't quite see if it's a dog or a cat, and you're guessing it's a girl, but the message is all there and more importantly, you can feel the playfulness in the characters. Just as the word "Technik" hints at solid German engineering even if you don't speak the language.

Communication is not about what you write or say; it's about how people interpret your words, and you don't always need to spell it out in block capitals in order to be understood. In fact, a little subtlety is a powerful weapon in mass-communication. Did you know that to date the mobile communications company ORANGE has never shown a mobile phone handset in any of their TV or cinema advertising? The handset is just a piece of equipment: what ORANGE wants to be associated with are the concepts of community and shared experiences.
What is it that you're trying to tell your audience? Does the key message really need to be centre-stage, or can you be more subtle, focus the audience towards the message and let them absorb the mood. Like the little Spanish girl running down the hot street in the afternoon sun.

Worth the Journey

2008-08-09T10:36:00.008+01:00

It's not just the building that matters when you're planning a corporate event; it's where the building is and the excitement that you can generate by choosing a location that takes delegates away from their everyday environment and gives them a new experience.
Many European cities are attractive venues for international organisations since international air travel makes them easily accessible from most global locations. Delegates like the idea of encountering a different culture; it makes the conference something of a mini-break from routine.
Amsterdam is a favourite conference destination, with its canals and boats, its vibrant night-life and welcoming, relaxed atmosphere. It's also well equipped with a variety of venues from conventional large hotels to the truly obscure, like the gasworks.
The aerial photo shows the Westerfabriek venue in Amsterdam, and from this angle it certainly doesn't look like the venue for an exciting corporate event.

Then take a look at this fashion show, or the photo of the main space dressed for a Gala Dinner and you can see the impact that can be achieved with a little creativity.

A successful event needs a WOW! factor, and nothing works better than the unexpected to surprise people and keep them talking for months afterwards.

Veni, vidi, venue

2008-07-27T18:37:00.003+01:00

The choice of venue is central to the planning of any event. For some conferences it's simply a matter of finding the right sort of hotel, located with easy motorway access from most parts of the country. For others it has to be an international venue that has good connections globally and offers a touch of glamour - like Budapest, which is featured in the picture above.
Most conferences require overnight accommodation, so organisers are generally looking at hotels with a 4+star rating, but the challenge then is that conference hotels are all very much of a muchness. The event can end up in a conventional ballroom, with a standard platform, looking like the venue for a concert or some sort of rally. The result is predictable: the delegates march in to the soothing tones of "walk-in muzak" and take their seats in the role of audience, to be entertained by the show on the stage - or motivated by the political messages from the platform.
It's more imaginative to use the hotel for what it's best at - a place for dinner, bed and breakfast. Then choose an alternative venue for the conference, somewhere that can serve as a blank canvas for the creativity of the internal communications department and event producers. Premises that become a stimulating location for interaction and debate. Conferences are not about being in an audience, politely listening and then applauding: conferences are a dynamic communication tool that can change the mindset of the delegates, getting them to think and act differently once they return back to base. Conferences belong to the delegates, not the platform, because the delegates are the ones who make it all happen, whether they are employed by the people on the platform, or are the distribution channels that move the company's products.
This isn't anarchy and it's certainly not communism, but for many organisations it will come as something of a revolution. For years Budapest suffered under "management" that told the people what to do. It didn't work, and once the power returned to the people the country rediscovered its identity and dignity. Companies and organisations that think this way are the ones that will thrive in the 21st century: it's all about belonging to something that you believe in.
Caesar may have come to Britain, seen and conquered, but leadership today is more about involvement and less about control - and that takes both foresight and courage.

What do they teach kids today?

2008-07-12T16:10:00.020+01:00

When I first went to school (no, don't laugh!) we learned to read and write. Learning to read was all phonics-based and writing started with pencils and then progressed to dipper- pens.
In secondary school we were allowed fountain pens, which had to be Osmiroid italic pens, and we were rigorously taught in our Art classes how to write aesthetically as well as legibly. This was a skill that was considered essential if one was to survive in the New Elizabethan era, (as it was ambitiously referred to after the Coronation in '53.) Ball-points were, of course, outlawed, and the role of "ink-monitor" - filling the inkwells in the school desks survived well into my teenage years.
One would have thought, logically, that modern Primary education would teach the appropriate written communication skills today, but with one or two isolated exceptions, like Whinstone Primary School, we are raising a generation - generations - in fact, who are totally keyboard illiterate. Just about every executive uses a keyboard on an hourly basis, and the overwhelming majority peer down and tap away with two fingers.
The technical illiteracy continues with the arrival of PowerPoint, which is almost universally used as an alternative speaker-prompt rather than as an illustration to support the spoken word. But, happily, there are exceptions as this simple but highly informative High School video from the States demonstrates.Yes, it's very amateurish, but I can think of a dozen senior executives who would do well to follow its basic teaching.

Find more videos like this on TeacherLibrarianNetwork

Last night I received the galley proofs of my book on the subject: Tork & Grunt's guide to Great Presentations. In the section on PowerPoint, I reiterate what Garr Reynolds, Guy Kawsaki, Professor Edward Tufte and other voices in the wilderness are preaching. You need 3 documents for any presentation. You need your notes; you need (optional) some visual support to help illustrate your story, and you probably want to have a hand-out that can be circulated after the presentation. They are not one and the same document, because if a PowerPoint document is properly designed, you'll need the script to follow the story. Please, join the revolution. Inoculate the world against Death by PowerPoint.
The book's published by Marshall-Cavendish, with a prequel on Negotiations. Most of the UK web-based booksellers are taking pre-orders, and if you log on to the Tork and Grunt website in September, you can also purchase a 40minute audio CD that encapsulates the key points of my arguments.
Now I'll get back to proof-reading and corrections - and enjoy reading the book with all the cartoons in the final layout. After four long years, it's great to see it all coming together.

Beyond Summer

2008-06-30T20:54:00.012+01:00

It's summer, and autumn seems far away, but it's seriously time to be thinking about how you're going to build on all that revitalised energy when the kids are back at school and the office is more or less back to full strength.
It's a challenge. It's easy to go for yet another "kick-off conference," with the same old agenda of Death by PowerPoint, a motivational speaker and a rowdy gala dinner.
Isn't it time you did something different, put the emphasis on feed- back and participation so that everyone felt involved and engaged?
Anti-conferences are the latest buzz in the industry. At an anti-conference the audience don't come to listen to the experts, they come to be listened to. Not what every CEO might want, but I've experimented with this concept, and found that it can be quite a revelation.
The usual agenda is to have the Management Board present the company results to the assembled delegates. We decided to reverse the roles and had the delegates present the year-end figures to the Board, instead of the conventional top-down procedure.

The result was revealing. The whole team of 90 delegates took ownership of what needed to be done, and any idea of blame culture was out of the question. The exercise gave both parties an insight into what the other side was thinking, and clarified key issues and the way that all parties viewed them.

It has to be said that this took considerable persuasion on our part and courage on the client's part to take such a radical decision, but when you think about it, the worst outcome would have been an even more lively discussion, and the executive board were confident that they could handle that effectively.

Conferences are not about communicating information; they're about exchanging information, sharing ideas and listening to alternative viewpoints. In fact, that's at the heart of almost any kind of communication, whether it's negotiation, presentation or change management. If you know what the other side wants, then you're in a strong position to work out how to get what you want. Leadership is only marginally concerned with standing up and telling people what to do, but be careful how you phrase that when you're talking to the boss.

Look right: Feel right!

2008-06-24T22:53:00.011+01:00

It was Ladies Day at Ascot last Thursday. I had appointments in London and passed through Waterloo station, where the main concourse was crowded with ladies in hats and men in morning suits. It made a wonderful, colourful change from the usual mix of grey men in grey suits and tourists with backpacks.

Ascot is a tradition, and Ladies Day is the day when the women dress to kill or, in the case of some, just give the men mild heart attacks.
Waterloo station concourse was a wonderful scenario with railway employees in high-vis daffodil-yellow tabards and well-groomed aristocrats mingling with the WAGS and the crowd from the office. Most of the ladies wore hats, which is an official stipulation, together with shoulder straps at least 1 inch wide, hems no more than 2 inches above the knee and - new for 2008 - a request that all ladies should wear panties - now there's a sign of the times if every there was one!

When it comes to corporate events, the dress code is critical. I fronted an event for a major multi-national a few years back, and the CEO decided, minutes before the delegates arrived, that his team looked too formal, - too stereotyped. Off came the carefully chosen ties, leaving the executives wishing they'd chosen more casual jackets and informal shirts. The delegates themselves turned up in jeans, sweatshirts, polo-necks... they'd been told it was informal and they all interpreted it their own way.

There was a total lack of congruence, creating another barrier for the speakers as they strived to build a rapport with the audience.
So:- simple rules.

Work out the policy well in advance, so you don't have any last-minute changes
Make sure that the delegates know what the dress-code means so that nobody is uncomfortable on either side of the platform.
Get in the mood. Prince Philip used to talk about "pomping up" before he emerged at a State occasion. He wanted to ensure that he matched the expectation of the audience. Make sure you do the same, whether that's the dynamic rip-roaring leader or the reliable and solid sage,

Well, do you meet their expectations? Because if you look the way they expect you to, then you've already created the platform on which you can communicate more effectively.

More or Less

2008-06-17T20:05:00.017+01:00

Of the four major supermarket chains in Britain, it is Waitrose who have taken a stand on correct grammar at the checkout. Most chains of supermarkets have a "fast lane" for people who have only a few purchases, and most stores around Britain have bold signs that state: "6 (or whatever number they have decided on) items or less." Waitrose is the gramatically correct exception with the sign - this one is in in their Peterborough store - "6 items or fewer." The rule about "less" and "fewer" is that the latter should apply to quantities that are easily identified as being made up of individual units. The mnemonic that I was taught was "Fewer than six bottles will cost less than five pounds." Bottles can only be subdivided as individual units, whereas pounds can be subdivided into pounds and pence. To many people this will sound pedantic, but others will smile when they see traditional English usage, and the same people probably cringe at incorrect grammar.

Liverpool has two locations for its renowned football teams, and the council has been very conscientious in the road signs around the city. The signs say "Football Stadia." When I was driving there earlier this year, I smiled. My Latin teacher would have been pleased, because the correct plural of stadium is stadia. But how many football supporters studied Latin, and wouldn't "Stadiums" be more readily understood by most motorists? If you're printing leaflets that advertise places to book a holiday, should you write "travel bureaus" or the more correct "travel bureaux?"

Purists would argue that something cannot be "more correct."
It's either correct or it isn't. To take another example,would you object to "my writing this..." - which is grammatically correct, while "me writing this" is wrong in this context? But gerunds - as Nigel Molesworth would certainly have claimed in Down with Skool and How to be Topp - are dead. And I choose him as the example because I suspect that less than 5% of you will have any idea about Nigel, or any of the other characters that kept me amused when I was in short trousers. All of which serves nicely to make my point.

Being right or being clever or witty won't serve the purpose. The objective is to get your message across, whether you are preparing a presentation, or a document, or a speech. It will serve no purpose if your audience go blank at the mention of Nigel Molesworth. Similarly your customer for a holiday might think "bureaux" is a misprint, while your motorist could take a wrong turning at "football stadia."

It's all about communication. Always. It's not what you write, it's what they read, and it's not what you say, it's what they hear.

But when all is said and done, I still admire Waitrose... more or less.

Getting the message

2008-06-10T07:28:00.009+01:00

Sometimes we just don't get it. And nobody is worse at this than I am. I'm sure it's happened to you; someone says something and you totally miss the point. Or there's a big road sign (especially speed limits) and you drive happily by without noticing it. Or you're busy on a project and you simply don't hear someone who's calling to get your attention. The reason's simple enough, you have your own agenda and you're blind, or deaf to the unexpected. It works two ways. Sometimes you're so confident that you don't hear the bad news, and sometimes you're so anxious or pessimistic that you are always anticipating the worst scenario and can't come to terms with it when your luck changes. In "Mammoth Strategies," Tork and Grunt struggled to communicate the idea of a single community with their fellow tribes-folk because the people rejected the idea out of hand. It had never been something they'd considered, so they were incapable of coming to terms with it.

It happened to me last week. I had an email with some very exciting news, but I simply didn't see it until the third time I read the message. It was unexpected, and I certainly wasn't programmed to expect anything positive from that particular quarter. Perhaps it would have been easier to hear the message on the phone, or better still, see the expression on the face, and then I might have guessed what was coming, or at least been more receptive to that particular communication.

When you have something important to say, you have to choose how you're going to say it, the medium needs to be appropriate to the message. In the heydays of the 60's Marshall McLuhan's book first claimed that the "Medium is the Message" then, thanks to an error at the printers, the book was published with the title "The Medium is the Massage." Because, in reality it's both. If you put enough hype and energy behind a message you can whip up an audience to be enthusiastic about anything.... as television demonstrates with tedious frequency.

When you want to be sure your message reaches your audience, the more routes you use, the more likely you are to get through.

Motivation

2008-05-27T23:29:00.010+01:00

By and large, people don't need to be told what to do and what not to do. As Peter Hunter loves to point out; the workforce is already motivated. They've turned up, on-time ready and willing to do the job they've agreed to do. That's the deal as they understand it, and that's pretty powerful motivation. If the reality is that they're not working to maximum efficiency and productivity, then it's probably because something that management is doing gets in the way.

This is pretty controversial stuff, but then Peter Hunter is not one to abide by conventions he doesn't believe in. The idea that people can be motivated should have died out around the millennium, with the end of the Piscean era. The Aquarian age is all about flat management, empowerment and the strength of the individual. For me, it was epitomised by a decision at BT some 15 or 20 years ago when they allowed the customer service staff (then known as "the operators") to give an instant cash refund to a customer who had a grievance. This was revolutionary at the time, but it transformed the relationship. Both parties benefited from a feel-good factor and contrary to what the old-guard had predicted, the system was rarely abused.

The only person you can motivate is yourself, and all that a "motivational speaker" can do is encourage you. Not in the Napoleonic style of shooting the stragglers "pour encourager les autres" (to encourage the others,) but by reinforcing self-belief and delivering respect.

Teenagers who carry knives and use them on their peers don't do so from confidence and security, they do so because they believe that society puts no value on them. It will take time to change the culture, and what will transform society is self-esteem. Which you don't get from shouting at people; you get it from listening - and that's why I try to persuade my clients to make their conferences interactive.

And that's another story: - a book, in fact. And I'm working on it.

The value of silence

2008-05-17T23:50:00.007+01:00

Temples, mosques, churches, cathedrals: they all seem to cling to something of the purpose for which they were constructed, even if decades or centuries go by while the buildings stand deserted. Like this little chapel in the Chateau of Pirou in Normandy.
I spent some time just soaking up the peace and calm of these well-worn walls, remembering how rarely we make those breaks for moments of peace and solitude in our everyday routine.

It came back to me last Tuesday when I was running a workshop / seminar at a trade exhibition in London. The mood of the exhibition was bustling and frenetic and I was stressed at the prospect of delivering a presentation to a very mixed group drawn from a wide variety of professional backgrounds. I was reminded that every speaker, whether experienced or total novice, needs a "chapel" to escape to and get grounded before facing the audience. So I took myself off to the smallest room and locked myself away for 10 minutes to practice some deep breathing exercises. Then I walked across to the hand-basins and talked to myself in the cloakroom mirror, reassuring myself, encouraging myself and getting that balance between the man on the outside and the little boy panicking inside.

Everyone has nerves. You need stress and nerves if you are to be at peak performance; - do you really think that athletes aren't full of stress when they take to the starting blocks? Without nerves you would come across as arrogant, disconnected and uncaring. When I tell people this, they always laugh and tell me that I don't look nervous, but this is precisely because I've taken time to acknowledge my stress and ground myself so that I appear to be in control. Meanwhile, of course, my tummy's full of butterflies, but at least the butterflies are starting to fly in formation.

Some things threaten your confidence. Mine took a knock when 15 minutes into my hour two women collected their papers, made their way to the end of the row and walked out. I could feel the sweat prickling on my spine as I tried not to let my emotions show. At the end of my session, no amount of applause and encouraging remarks from various members of the audience who came to speak to me could compensate for the memory of two important-looking women leaving when I was in full flow, presumably because they did not think I was worth listening to.

Then on Thursday I had an email. "I attended your session on Tuesday afternoon, but unfortunately I had to run out before I could speak to you. I found your presentation very useful and was very impressed with all the various communications training that you do."

The email then went on to ask for details of the training and coaching that I deliver in various areas of inter-personal communications. You see, even if you do all you can to control your nerves, you can still completely misinterpret incidents, - especially if you think they are demonstrating your own weakness or incompetence. You must take encouragement from the people who take the trouble to talk to you afterwards.
And if your audience is hushed to the point of silence and nobody comes to talk to you, remember that this might just be because because you've given them so much to think about.

Features and Benefits

2008-05-11T20:45:00.005+01:00

When you want to sell something it's no good just asking people; you have to give them a reason, a benefit, an advantage they'll get from buying what you're offering.

Consider my client meeting this week. There were lengthy discussions about the size and colour of the display panels for an exhibition; serious concerns about aligning with corporate brand policy and ensuring we had the Pantone colour references. Some talk of product specifications, but no mention of customer benefits. No discussion about words. No clarification of either the general message of the whole event or the specific messages that would be relevant to each of the displays.

The rules for an exhibition are not much different from the rules for a presentation. When the show's over, you want them to do things differently or do different things. In a nutshell: you aim to change their mindset. The alignment with corporate branding is a nice touch, and the technical specifications may well be impressive, but the bottom line is: "What does it do to make my life easier?" Not much else really matters. The punters have come to your show to find out how you can help them. That's what's in it for them. They want to get the message.

And my job was to create the message for the X4300c GTI with optical interface. But the message I scripted didn't emphasise the carbon-fibre locking pistons, nor the slide adjustment factor. My message told them it would do the job better and save them money: specifically HOW it would do the job better and HOW MUCH money it would save.

Don't let the specifications get in the way of the benefits when you're in front of your customers. What matters is whether you tell your story clearly enough for them to understand how you can help them. The rest is - realistically - almost irrelevant.

Quantum Physics and childhood gangs

2008-05-05T22:38:00.012+01:00

Apart from open warfare, jargon is probably the biggest threat to communication. People use jargon to limit the number of people with whom they communicate, rather in the way we invented our own language and code-words in childhood games. Jargon is a way of communicating complex information through a mutual code; the trouble is that the code excludes outsiders. Now if you're six years old and you don't want the other gang to understand what's going on in your gang, that's fine! But if you're trying to communicate the benefits of a technical process to a potential customer, you need a jargon-buster.

Tork and Grunt were inventing language as they started to communicate, but today we've all got our own language and secret meanings. Every craft or profession has its jargon. Retailers have BOGOFs (buy-one-get-one-free,) telecommunication companies have WANs and LANs (wide / local area networks,) physicists have string theories. I can do retail, financial, telecoms and computing jargon, but Quantum Physics is not one of my hot topics.

Which is why I chose this topic after watching one of the TED presentations. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds and since then www.TED.com has been an inspirational source of ideas, creativity and whatever rocks your boat intellectually.

I was inspired this week by Brian Greene's presentation on string theory. OK, I'll have to watch it a couple more times before I totally understand it, but why can't all professors, experts, nerds and boffins speak with this degree of clarity and passionate excitement.

When I'm working with presenters they often dismiss my protestations at their jargon by telling me that the audience will understand. I will agree with them that will reach most of their audience, but my point is that what specialists need to do is learn to reach those who don't speak the same language, those who are thirsty for the new knowledge that the experts have uncovered in their research.

Enjoy TED... it's a wonderful exposure to cutting-edge thinking, and a sombre reminder of the legitimate leadership America has in communicating and exploiting knowledge.

A different perspective

2008-05-02T00:24:00.007+01:00

Cretans are fiercely proud of their country and maintain a powerful regional identity. As in so many places, the tourists seem to huddle around the centre of the resort with its pseudo-sophisticated bars and clubs, while a few hundred metres up a side road will take you to a timeless village.

The simplicity of Crete - the gleaming white walls and the dominant sky-blue paint of the chairs, tables and woodwork in many of the little tavernas are in stark contrast to the neon and clutter of the tourist centres.

The waiter in the village taverna was almost at his wits' end. One evening he pleaded with us: "What has happened to my country? Where can I find the Crete of my childhood?"

And there's the rub! We can no longer expect things to stay the same, even for a few short years between youth and adulthood. Change happens regardless and change is accelerating.

My next book in the Tork & Grunt series, on the subject of Change Management, is proving to be a fascinating challenge and I needed the break and the perspective of my isolation in Crete to work out the detail of my approach to the subject.

What I'm finding difficult is not the theory, but the fact that the more I research the subject, the more I come face to face with the realisation that in essence - it's communication, and while some traditional management communication has been about maintaining status and authority, what I am talking about is genuine exploratory communication that gets to the core of the matter and establishes the reality of the situation, not the gloss behind which people - managers, operatives, directors or senior executives, can hide....

It's really so frighteningly simple....

Thinking time

2008-04-15T17:34:00.011+01:00

I'm about to head off for a week's vacation at a

villa on the island of Crete .

Many of you know I create all the photography for my publicity materials, and I'm hoping the Orthodox Easter celebrations on 25th - 27th will prove to be a rich source of visual material.

But - of course - it's essentially a holiday and an opportunity to recharge the batteries and take time out to reflect and do some free-form thinking. And that's something many of us don't do enough of...

I'm reminded of a TV programme about a senior professor of philosophy at Oxford or Cambridge who described part of her day as being thinking time - feet up on the desk, sitting back and thinking. That can be a challenge for a freelancer, when you charge by the hour or the day and need to allow "thinking time." And when you're a writer, there's not much scope for thinking time if the contract pays by the number of words.

One of the themes in Tork & Grunt's next book, on Change Management, is the importance of taking a pause, of assessing the situation before you complicate everything by rash, hurried decisions. It's sometimes difficult in our busy world to think about slowing down and spending time on evaluating all the options. Especially when a change in corporate structure demands realignments and new processes. But it's essential.

"Pause!" should be the motto for the decade, while we get used to our instant society. You can formalise it into meditation if you like, or you can just let your thoughts race in that strange silence that exists even in a crowd. Switch off the aural wallpaper and listen to what's going on in your head. Call it day-dreaming if you wish, but I assure you it's a worthwhile investment of your time.

London Book Fair

2008-04-11T01:42:00.006+01:00

At last it almost feels real, my books will be in the shops soon!
I don't know what Marshall-Cavendish were playing at, but my publisher friend Marco assures me all publishers leave everything till the last minute. We were originally scheduled for publication in January and it's slipped month by month until we now finally have a publication date of June 26th. What makes this real is the news that the dummies will be on show at the London Book Fair starting this weekend.
No, the designs are not quite right yet, but the caveman idea is there, and I love the gentle colours. Of course the "Presentations" book follows the same overall style. There'll be changes before it goes to print, but the feeling's there - fun, whimsical, tempting...

Meanwhile, my own plans for the launch forge on, and I'm in the recording studio on Monday to make the audio CD introduction to Negotiation that will be one of the promotional tools that I can bundle with the books. Although it's the Presentation book that's been attracting the most initial interest, it's the Negotiation theme that first got me writing. I was - and still am - a huge admirer of the Harvard Negotiation Theory, which seemed to me to make so much sense when I first came across it. However, like so much that is academically brilliant, it seemed to me dry and boring, and a really tough read! That's why, when I wrote Tork and Grunt's Guide to Effective Negotiations I spent so much time putting all my theories across in what I hope is entertaining and accessible language. The truth doesn't have to be high-faluting to be any more credible - a principle that I carried straight into the Presentations book.

With my background, I can't stop seeking out news from Africa. The troubles in Zimbabwe haunt the fears of the world. Forty years ago, when I lived in Zambia, reactionary white Rhodesians and old-school Afrikaaners in South Africa were predicting precisely the sort of chaos that we are seeing this week.
That hurts, because I never wanted them to be right and I argued vociferously that they were wrong.
We are left with the bitter reflection of Dr Martin Luther King, that "A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard." Or worse, the words of Josef Stalin, when he said: "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes."

One final note: GMTV are holding a competition for a TV presenter, based on a 15second mobile-phone video clip. Here's my entry - wish me luck!

The importance of a promise

2008-04-07T00:38:00.004+01:00

As I work on Tork & Grunt’s guide to Change Management, I come across the critical issue of trust. Corporate communication relies on trust between the levels of an organisation, especially when one party makes a commitment to another.

As a child I could never properly come to terms with the idea of the Geneva Convention. I reckoned that if war was a last resort, and if war was – in my simple childlike terms at age 7 – bad... then it was a nonsense to talk about a convention that embodied rules of war. War was war, and it ended when enough of one side had killed enough of the other.... the concept of rules and criminal proceedings seemed ridiculous. I could understand anyone finding the idea of Rules of War to be quite absurd.

Not so with elections. These are held according to strict procedures and accepted conventions. Well, we hope they are. You have to admire the ingenuity of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe who positioned agents at every Polling Station across the country. These agents then texted or emailed the election results to South Africa as soon as they were posted locally. They then photographed the documentation and promise to make the full archive available on-line. You can check out the results as they stand here. Sadly the last activity on the site was on last Thursday afternoon, which may mean that there has been an intervention. What it does show, however, is clear example of the quote I mentioned last week that “The information war is the final war [and] this final war will be fought with weapons of mass cooperation.”

Having spent 4 years in East and Central Africa I have a profound connection with that part of the world and its wonderful, eternally optimistic people. My experiences both working as a volunteer and later working in the corporate world was that they relied heavily on trust and understanding in the way they organise their lives and all their inter-personal relationships.

I remember how I soon learned that my word was always taken as an absolute commitment, and I had to be very careful never to promise what I could not deliver. I know that’s a given anywhere in the world, but in Africa trust is everything.

To come back to Change Management, there is always much talk about the importance of communication, but perhaps not enough emphasis on the relative weighting that recipients attach to different messages. I have watched presenters at conferences make announcements on the specific instruction of their superior management, knowing that they might not be able to deliver the promise that they were then making. Result? Delegates learn not to trust what managers say..... and hence there is a climate of poor morale.

But even a worm will turn, and the most frightening – but reassuring news from Zimbabwe was to see the quiet patience of the people who have suffered so much that they have little left to lose. They know how close they are to change, and they also know that if Mugabe ignores them once again he risks losing his original reputation as the heroic freedom fighter who led Rhodesia to become Zimbabwe, and becoming remembered like Idi Amin of Uganda, as a tyrant whose brutal policies destroyed one of Central Africa’s most thriving economies.

The Power of the Spoken Word

2008-03-31T11:31:00.009+01:00

The best news of the month was the message from Pom at Marshall-Cavendish last week, fixing the publication date for the first two books in Tork & Grunt’s Guides to Business Skills. I should see the cover designs in the next few days, then the next task will be proof-reading and checking everything. That sort of detailed task isn’t my strong suit, but the prospect of finally getting to print will be worth working towards. You can already pre-order from Amazon, and in mid-June there’ll be a unique pre-order option on the Tork and Grunt website incorporating an audio CD-ROM based on Tork & Grunt’s Guide to Negotiations.

That’s my big project for April, getting into a local sound studio to lay down the audio tracks and choose some music to break up the sections of the recording. The CD will be available from the Tork and Grunt website, both as a CD and hopefully – if I can work the technology – as a downloadable podcast. I think people react well to hearing an argument put across by its author, in addition to having the printed word and being able to go back and re-read it.

Which is why I am using this week’s blog posting to highlight the beautifully eloquent speech of Barack Obama made on March 18th with the title of “A More Perfect Union.” There are no visuals, no video clips, and certainly no PowerPoint. There are also no attacks on either the other candidate or the other party. What you have is a superb piece of story-telling. Almost the entire speech is about Obama’s personal experiences, his background and his beliefs.

So, where are the policies and the political principles behind the man? The answer is that in this contest both candidates are representing the same party, and there will be few real differences in their policies. The question is whether the electorate can put their faith and confidence in the speaker. It is not until the last minutes of this speech that Obama comes to policy, by which time he has - I would suggest - won over the audience as far as trusting him and believing his sincerity.

When I looked on the Youtube "comments" on this piece of video, I came across a posting that encapsulates the essence of what is happening with politics, blogs, and the accelerating revolution in the communication of information.

This is what was written:

"The information war is the final war. This final war will be fought with weapons of mass cooperation. The enemy will be ignorance. Ignorance is not always a lack of good information. Ignorance is often an abundance of bad information. We are not born with this bad information. It is all learned behavior. Fear is the product of ignorance. Racism is one of the many byproducts."

Information is spread many ways, but when a CEO is speaking the key element is not the communication of information, it's about the individual and it's about the audience. If there are major policy changes to be communicated, then these are best done in interactive workshops, where people have the opportunity to probe, challenge, investigate, analyse and understand. Keynote speeches should be about giving the audience confidence in the speaker and hence, under the speaker’s leadership, confidence in themselves.

Which is where my day-job can help you. If you want me to work on your conference presentation, let’s start with the basics in establishing why you’re speaking, what outcome you want, and what stories you can tell that will unite your audience behind your messages. My task is to help you find those stories, and then help you deliver them convincingly.

Common Sense in Party Clothes

2008-03-26T14:35:00.007Z

I had lunch today with Peter Hunter, founder of the "Breaking the Mould" movement. We met up at the Royal Society of Arts just off the Strand and spent an animated couple of hours sharing our views on management. Peter's website is the hub of his project, which is very much centred on the concept that change can only happen when the people who are at the base of an organisation take ownership of the opportunities and the initiative to do things differently. These are the people who will "break the mould," and without their wholehearted commitment nothing lasting will ever happen.

This thinking is also at the heart of the third book in the Tork & Grunt series, which deals with Change Management. Tork and Grunt rapidly come to the conclusion that Change is one thing which cannot be "managed" in the conventional sense of being autocratically controlled. They realise that once they brought their tribes to live together, everyone had to accept a common vision, with common values and a clear identity. You can see how easily that metaphor translates into mergers and acquisitions in modern commercial organisation.

The more I write the Tork & Grunt series, the more I am coming to realise that so much of all this management literature is essentially a blend of common sense and courage. It takes courage to discard the jargon and get back to basics: it's much easier to hide behind the rhetoric of management-speak with theory X, theory Y and a dozen truisms that masquerade as cutting-edge thinking. In reality, most of these new ideas are common sense in party clothes.

The delight of the unexpected

2008-03-16T12:55:00.005Z

The unexpected always delights. Athens is Athens, but the real Greece is hidden in a side-road somewhere in the middle of the Peloponnese, or on one of the islands that has no airport and which you reach by ferry, along with the cartons of beer and the occasional goat or crate of chickens. I often find that it’s the places that are barely mentioned in the guide books that yield the most charming surprises, as I discovered once again this week.

I had rented a tiny cottage in Normandy for a week. I needed to get away and try to work out the structure for the third book in the Tork & Grunt series, which will be about managing change. For five of my six days I struggled and thought I would never get it sorted. I was going round in circles, lots of nice stories but no thread to my argument. Dismayed I closed down the computer on my penultimate evening and lost myself in French television, just about managing to follow the excellent adaptations of Guy de Maupassant’s famous short stories that were showing on Channel Two. Maybe the master of story-telling inspired me, and this morning I finally found my theme and guided Tork and Grunt through the first couple of chapters of book three.

As a reward for my achievement, I decided this afternoon that I would take a break from my hermit-like existence in Pirou-Plage and headed off to explore the village of Pirou itself where I had heard there was a 12th century chateau. And this was my unexpected delight, for not only is this an idyllic moated castle which is in the course of painstaking reconstruction and renovation; it also holds a hidden treasure.

Tucked away in a side building is project that represents a task of great magnitude and incredible attention to detail, a modern tapestry 58 metres in length, depicting the history of Pirou and the Norman conquest of Sicily. The treatment of the design is a painstaking copy of the style of the Bayeux tapestry (which depicts William the Conqueror’s invasion of England and the Battle of Hastings.) The full-length tapestry awaits permanent display until a suitable room in the Castle keep has been renovated with appropriate air-conditioning, but some 15 metres are on show in a climate-controlled cabinet for visitors to admire. It’s an incredible piece of handiwork, - one of those amazing unexpected surprises that awaits the inquisitive tourist.

The unexpected surprise is a powerful element in corporate events, too. Just when the delegates think they’re in for a couple of hours of Death-by-PowerPoint surprise them! Bring in actors, a magician, get them to create their own vision of the future of their organisation.

Anything is better than the CEO’s 15 minutes of fame… and let’s face it, he usually manages to stretch that to the best part of an hour!

Virtual weekends

2008-03-16T12:42:00.008Z

Today, I came across a children’s website that trades in its own currency - Kinzcash®.

I’m not really into virtual worlds like Second Life, but I’m always interested in all types of social phenomena, and the idea of replacing the playground or back yard with a screen-based scenario is something I find both fascinating and frightening.

Kinzcash® is based around a range of soft toys each of which carries a code number that acts as a password to the Webkinz® world. Children register their pet and then start spending money to feed and clothe their pet and decorate their pet’s home. What caught my attention was the fact that Kinzcash cannot be bought with normal money, it can only be earned through time spent on the site.

I can see that by creating a virtual playground, children want to invite their friends and hence the friends need the product in order to gain access. It’s a nice twist on viral marketing. But wearing my “Negotiations” hat, I wonder what benefit this teaches children about working, earning and trading. The Golden Rule that Tork and Grunt learn in the first book in the series is that negotiations happen when someone’s got something you want. Generally you have to work out some sort of exchange that offers mutual benefit.

In the Webkinz environment, just as in the real world, you barter your time for their cash. However, the benefit to Webkinz isn’t the product of your labour, it’s the fact that you’ll enjoy the environment sufficiently to encourage others to purchase access and “play with you” on the site.

Is this the future of employment? Already we see this in creative industries, where the work environment is play-oriented. Here’s a quote from the Apple UK website page advertising job vacancies in Apple stores:

“Working in a place you used to go into and feeling a tingle in your body is amazing, because I get that tingle very day going to work for Apple, I am still waiting to wake up!”
Paul, Mac Specialist, Apple Store, Bullring, Birmingham

I believe that the need to belong, to participate in a community is a powerful element in many people’s approach to employment. Consequently the production-line work-house environment has long since given way to a less formal, more friendly and playful setting in which to work.

In some retail chains I sometimes think we’re getting to the point when the end-consumer is funding an environment that contributes little to the customer experience. Background music is more often aimed at the staff age-group than at the customer profile and the concept of retail service is often reduced to a checkout mentality. In the end the consumers are supporting staff remuneration and benefits packages that bear no relation to the skill level required for the positions.

In my real world it doesn’t work like that. Every freelancer knows that our world is more like a video game of survival than a virtual playground. And most of us live with the Thursday afternoon syndrome, when a job comes through late Thursday and is wanted early Monday.

What the self-employed sole trader needs is a website that creates a virtual weekend, and gives us time rather than burning it up...!

Hi, and welcome to the Tork & Grunt Blog

2008-03-16T11:00:00.015Z

Everyone asks me the same question. How did I come up with the idea of Tork and Grunt? I wish I knew the answer, but I don’t remember.

It all started when Eric Yang in Korea asked me if I would write a series of business books. I owe him a huge apology for the fact that it took me so long to get around to it, and a big debt of gratitude for persuading me that I could do it. I wanted to write about inter-personal communications, and I started with communications, because I had a passion for the work of the Harvard Negotiation theory. It was great stuff, but I found it hard going, and I believed that such useful principles deserved a wider audience.

I had generally found that business books fell into one of two categories. They were either dull and boring - too reminiscent of the dry academic tomes I had to read when I was studying Economics at Sussex University, or else they were lightweight and didn’t really come up with anything new or enlightening. I wanted to create business books that were entertaining but at the same time based on solid academic theory.

So, somehow, I hit on the idea of my two cavemen arguing about food, needing to find a way to negotiate, and that’s where it all began.

Then the stories developed with other characters in modern scenarios like house purchase, holiday-planning and promotion at work.

In the course of the book Grunt's tribe decide to live with Tork's community and the two tribes decide to live together.

When Grunt is persuaded to stand for election as the new leader, Tork has to teach him how to make a presentation, which links into the second book on that subject.

Both books are based on sound academic theory, written in what I hope you will find to be an entertaining and accessible style.

There are details of special offers and corporate training courses to be found at the main website: http://www.torkandgrunt.com/ which goes live in mid-June - at which time this blog will also migrate to that location.

You’ll find more about my work as a writer and conference presenter at:-

http://www.messagesintowords.com/ and http://www.bobharvey.co.uk/