Speaking, Writing and Presenting In SOCKOS

Communication

FOREWORD

There’s an old saying on the lecture circuit that if you don’t produce a book about every two years, you’re forgotten. Allan is unlikely to be forgotten. This is his seventh book in ten years. Since we took over the publishing-rights of his first two books from other companies and reprinted them, we can now say that all seven are Sextant Publishing titles.

I always know when Allan is busy on the road—I receive new chapters and ideas from him. He practises what he preaches in this book.

He doesn’t stop for writer’s block and is quite productive on planes, in airports and hotel rooms on five continents. He also follows an exercise routine that keeps him fit and energetic for writing. A result is this book.

This book began as a vehicle to capture the major applications of Allan’s SOCKO® communication system not dealt with in earlier books. The main subjects then are writing, speaking and presenting—as the title indicates. However, because of his practice in the field, and the fact that I’m a lawyer, I asked Allan to add a strong section on witness preparation. Small sections on the sales, media, crisis and political applications of the SOCKO® system are designed to whet the appetite or get someone who has occasional and rudimentary needs in these areas over a bump in the communications highway. For more, it’s worth consulting the full treatment of these topics in the books listed at the end of this volume.

Allan, I and all Sextant authors share a passion for the environment, civility in public policy and lasting initiatives. We are hoping to leave our world and jurisdictions a little better than we found them. I worry we won’t succeed. But I do know that SOCKOs® are a time-saver, a way to focus the mind and a way to have impact. This book shows how versatile they are, too.

Ken Chapman

Edmonton, Alberta

"Whether you are today’s Cicero or

facing your first time behind a podium,

Allan Bonner can enhance your performance."

~ AMBASSADOR KENNETH D. TAYLOR

CANADA’S AMBASSADOR TO IRAN

DURING THE HOSTAGE CRISIS

AND REVOLUTION

INTRODUCTION

The words ‘communications’ and ‘technology’ are so closely linked today that there’s a danger of the two becoming confused. We may be lulled into thinking that because we use the latest communications technology, we are communicating effectively. It ain’t necessarily so.

Technology can help us communicate more widely and more swiftly, but we still have to speak or write our messages. The more clearly we do that, the more likely we are to be understood. With Twitter, we have to be clear and short.

Speaking and writing are such basic human activities, most of us give them little thought—until we are called on to say a few words to a group of people or write a formal report for the management committee or article for the local newspaper.

Most people are very fearful of speaking in public. It would be nice to be able to say this fear is just a matter of inexperience and that after one or two outings and a little practice it becomes easy, like riding a bicycle. Unfortunately there are too many examples of people who never get over their fear of speaking in public. Even some well known actors admit that their stage fright never goes away completely.

However, this fear can be controlled, even if not completely conquered. Just as many people who are terrified of flying continue to climb into relatively flimsy and cramped aircraft that fly several miles above the earth for hours on end, so people with stage fright continue to stand up and make interesting presentations.

It’s much the same with writing. We can dash off emails, Tweets, notes and sometimes letters to colleagues, friends and family but ‘freeze up’ when it comes to preparing a formal report or other document. We think we know what we want to put down, but it never seems to look right. So we change it, over and over again, consuming valuable time and fraying our nerves.

These issues become an even greater challenge in a time of controversy. You want to say or write something and give it just the right weight and tone, but time is running out. Interested parties want details and information. Shareholders, regulatory agencies, concerned citizens and the media may all be calling you at once.

How do you cope?

The most important thing to remember is that good communicators are not born. There are skills that can be learned—and those skills are in ever-increasing demand.

The days of the monosyllabic folk hero are long gone. In today’s fast-paced and challenging world you have to be able to formulate ideas and concepts and present them to busy people to understand and act on. It’s a challenge, but it can be done.

As a broadcast journalist for many years, I was appalled at the number of well educated, well meaning people I interviewed who did not know how to marshal their thoughts and express them clearly and concisely. My experiences as an interviewer led me to study the problem academically and eventually to develop the SOCKO® system—the most powerful communications learning tool available anywhere. SOCKOs® (Strategic Overriding Communications and Knowledge Objectives) help you decide what you want to say or write about. SOCKOs® then help you present your ideas effectively.

SOCKOs® make you think and speak clearly, no matter how much pressure you are under. If you ever have to address an unsympathetic audience, justify your actions in writing to a dissatisfied customer, appear as a witness in legal or other formal proceedings or deal with the media, then this system is indispensable.

The SOCKO® system has already helped people all over the world. It has proved its value in high-profile situations with politicians, diplomats, military leaders, trade negotiators and other public officials. It’s also worked with business executives, police officers, lawyers and social institutions. The SOCKO® system is user-friendly and versatile.

This book will show you how to use the knowledge you already have about your organization, activity or interest and mould it into a series of SOCKOs® that will add authority and interest to all your communications—written or spoken. Best of all, it will help ensure that when you speak or write, your message will not only be received but also understood.

The sections that follow deal with specific communications needs— speeches, presentations, writing, dealing with the media, sales, risk and crisis management, political communication and witness preparation. At the very beginning, because it’s the core of all effective communications, is a section on SOCKOs®: what they are and how they work. You can ‘cherry-pick’ how you use the rest of the book. But you will need to be familiar with SOCKOs® before you can really improve, polish and hone your communication skills.

SOCKOS® A Definition:

(soko) n. acronym for Strategic Overriding Communications and Knowledge Objective. A short, positive, sharp, memorable, honed, polished, true, unassailable statement. A 'media-genic' clip or quotation on radio, on TV or in newspaper stories. A quotable quote with impact, often showing caring, knowledge and/or action, lasting 15 seconds or less. A rough equivalent to a headline, cutline or lead, best delivered after full rehearsal at least three times: e.g. I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat; Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country; Just watch me; Yes, we can!

Most of us know the term ‘soundbite’—the all-too-brief part of a report in broadcast journalism. A SOCKO® will often become a soundbite, but, sadly, far too many soundbites are not SOCKOs®.

Organizations big enough to have their own communications and public-affairs departments often use such terms as ‘aces’ or ‘key messages’ to talk about the information they want their spokespeople to convey. The difference with SOCKOs® is that they are designed—as the name implies—to have an impact on the listener.

Some people rely on pre-prepared answers to questions they hope will be asked. If the right questions aren’t asked, they’re left struggling for an opportunity to get their message out. The SOCKO® system encourages you to make your own opportunities to be heard and understood.

SOCKOs® help you communicate more effectively because they help you identify your objectives and stay focused on them. Most people take their daily life and activities for granted. When asked to describe what they do, why they do it, and why it’s important, they generally look and sound uncomfortable. Imagine how this discomfort can be magnified when such people or the organizations they represent come under scrutiny by stakeholders.

SOCKOs® are not secret documents to be hidden away where no one will find them; they should be circulated as widely as is practical and kept where they can be found and used for easy reference. They also are not carved in stone. SOCKOs® need to be revised regularly.

SOCKOs® are particularly useful in the early stages of an unforeseen situation that attracts attention—either positive or negative.

What happened? How many people are affected? Who’s to blame? Who gets credit? Who pays for the damage? Are you insured? How will this affect your future?

These are the sort of questions you will likely have to confront. And even when you don’t have the answers, you had better have something to say, or your organization will risk looking like one that (a) doesn’t have a clue what’s going on (b) doesn’t care or (c) isn’t prepared for success or failure.

You need to back up your SOCKOs® with fact sheets. These can deal with production figures, the work force, product information, unique selling-points, accomplishments, prestige customers and so on.

SOCKOs® are not designed for the eye but for the ear. That’s why they are brief and to the point. They are not read as if part of a memo but heard as part of a conversation.

Each letter of the acronym SOCKO® adds something to the power and impact of the message. A message is Strategic because a spokesperson thought about it, practised and rehearsed it and gave serious consideration to what s/he hopes it will convey. Overriding reminds speakers that they need to be giving out the most important piece of information they can at all times. Communication refers to the difference between oral and written messages. Good oral communication features repetition, imagery, simplicity, brevity and clarity. Knowledge is reflected in facts, figures, history and dates. Objective refers to measurable, behavioural objectives you can see.

Let’s take a closer look at these individual elements.

Strategic

Before they speak, few people stop to think about the effect their words may have. To have a strategic value, your message needs to be thought out, practised, rehearsed and seriously assessed for whether it can achieve a measurable result.

The most effective way to improve oral communication is to practise it out loud. A formal letter may be spell-checked, reviewed and re-written several times before it finally goes to a boss or potential client. But why is it that we don’t take as much care over the words we say as over the ones we write?

Overriding

Speakers need to stay focused on the most important pieces of information they want to convey. Remember, memories are poor and your messages have lots of competition.

Try to picture an iceberg (see page 13). Think of all the information and knowledge you’d like to convey in that shape—with the most important 10-15% on the top (the part that sticks out of the water). The rest of the information is there if you need it, but what you need to focus on is the information contained in the visible tip.

Then you can reinforce your message by delivering the next most important 10% of your information, and so on.

The concept of an iceberg of information accomplishes several important things:

• You impart complicated or technical information in manageable bits. An audience that does not know you, your organization or its activities will have some chance of understanding you if you stick to the tip of the iceberg.

• It keeps you from getting exasperated or annoyed if you are asked the same question over and over again. You won’t be pushed into saying Look, I’ve already told you ... or something more combative.

• It prevents you from conceding something negative, unless you frilly intend to. Many people blurt out Maybe we should have done things differently, just to get away from the repeated questions on the same topic.

• Finally, the iceberg enables you to take a finite amount of information and stretch it out for as long as you need to.

Communications

There are vast differences between oral and written communication, and if you really want to communicate, you need to understand them. One of the biggest requirements of oral communication is for repetition.

If we read the same phrase or sentence over and over again in a book, we’d assume somebody had goofed in the editing-process. But when you rely on your voice to communicate and want your message to be clearly understood and believed, repetition is not only desirable but mandatory. If you want your audience to understand your point, don’t be afraid to repeat it several times.

Another key to communicating, whether you are speaking or writing, is simplicity. Throughout history great leaders have used simple words and concepts to reach out to their audiences and move them to momentous actions. Compare the speeches of Lincoln, Gandhi or Churchill to the pumped-up and pompous jargon favoured by today’s speakers.

Knowledge

Most of us are reasonably sure we know all we need to know about the basics of our organization and its activities. If we absolutely must have the exact number of employees or people served, the amount and type of raw materials we import to make widgets and the number of trucks that pass through our plant gates every day, the answers seem to be a phone call or email away.

But when stakeholders want information quickly, you may not have time to go looking for those answers. Worse—the answers you try to get on the fly may be harder to find than you thought. Many may prove to be wishful thinking. If your facts don’t stand the test of intense scrutiny, you can turn a routine question into a time-consuming controversy. If you don’t have basic factual information about your organization at your fingertips, your questioners, critics and adversaries will not understand.

Objective

The final ‘O’ in SOCKO® refers to the measurable, quantifiable, human, behavioural or tangible result that you want to achieve—your objective. Behavioural objectives can be seen and measured.

• What is your objective in a speech? Applause? Heads nodding yes?

• What is your objective at an annual meeting? A show of hands voting in the affirmative?

• What do you want people to do in your meetings? Take notes? Volunteer for tasks? Agree with you?

• What is your objective with reporters? Favourable coverage or no coverage? A headline, pictures, quote? (see Media Relations later in this book).

Now that you have a definition, let’s see what SOCKOs® can do for you when used effectively.

A Multi-Purpose Tool

The very simplicity and adaptability of the SOCKO® system is what makes it so powerful. Once mastered, it will completely change how you approach and practise public communications, both oral and written.

When you emerge from a courtroom, boardroom or war room and start explaining a new policy or what went wrong, the first 10 seconds can have a profound effect on budgets, the regulatory environment and careers. SOCKOs® just might be all that stand between you and a red face. SOCKOs® can protect against lower share prices, investigations and damage claims.

SOCKO® is a Way of Thinking

Once upon a time, anthropologists tell us, our actions were governed by nothing more than self-preservation and survival. There wasn’t much thinking involved. Today, with a highly educated workforce, the rise of social science and the pervasiveness of pop psychology, we prize introspection. But introspection can be disabling. Action is often what’s needed.

The SOCKO® system doesn’t suggest what you should think about as much as how you should decide what to think about—and then how to proceed.

The SOCKO® system teaches you how to keep your most important ideas and their most important aspects percolating to the surface. SOCKOs® keep you out of the weeds and minutiae.

It's a Management System

The SOCKO® system lets you focus on what’s important and gives you the confidence to act. Many mangers prefer to talk about a project. Some want to tell you how to do it better, but very few can actually do the project—warts and all. The good can be the enemy of the great. Better to do the project than continue to talk about it.

The SOCKO® system ensures that the actions you take are useful—that you don’t Just Do It for the sake of being seen to be doing something. Seventy percent of management consulting studies that senior executives commission go unheeded. Eighty-four percent of mergers and acquisitions destroy value. Something is wrong with the thinking and decision-making process in modern organizations. SOCKOs® help clarify and are a spur to positive action.

It's a Way of Talking

We’ve all been at social gatherings where one or more of the participants forget the thread of the conversation or punch line of the joke they were telling. We may find it amusing or annoying, but it’s harmless. But there’s nothing amusing about having to listen to someone stumble through a more formal presentation or be unable to complete a sentence without saying ‘urn’ or ‘uh.’

Free-wheeling discussions pose significant obstacles to coherence and continuity. We all, at times, finish our sentences with gestures and interrupt others before they can complete theirs. We also assume certain things about those who send messages and those who receive them. Senders assume they have accomplished their goals merely by speaking. They assume the receivers have the background knowledge to understand the new aspect or dimension that senders are speaking about.

With the SOCKO® system, you don’t assume anything. Through repetition, clarity, simplicity, brevity and other techniques, you get your message through. By requiring those who make presentations to you to have SOCKOs®, you can focus on the merits of the argument or intent of the question, rather than the superficial qualities of the speaker.

It's a Time-Management System

Everyone is busy. The busier we get, the more time we spend telling others how busy we are.

The fax machine drastically reduced the time business executives and others had available to make decisions. Then voice mail added tension and emotion to instant communication. Now email reduces our response time to a few clicks. Twitter reduces the clicks. You’d better be a fast, good decision-maker.

The SOCKO® system forms the basis for an active, rapid and effective management system that recognizes that ‘fast relief needs to be faster now. Besides saying Just Do It, the SOCKO® system says Get on with it!

It's a Meeting-Management System

We’ve all been in meetings not knowing why we’re there. The meeting appears to be an end in itself, with little thought given to an outcome.

What if we held fewer meetings? What if fewer people attended the remaining meetings? What if those meetings were shorter? That’s what the SOCKO® system advocates and helps you achieve. The SOCKO® system helps you deal with the real issues in a more direct and productive way by focusing on the issues and ensuring that listeners/readers clearly understand them.

It's a Speech-Writing, Editing and Delivery System

One way to brainstorm is to fill up a blank piece of paper with as many ideas as possible as quickly as possible. Getting something down on paper and then sorting it out is much more productive than staring at a blank sheet.

Too many speakers don’t get a clear, memorable, powerful message out during a speech. Worse, many speakers actually can’t be seen or heard by the audience, and their visual aids either don’t make sense or can’t be read from the back of the room.

The SOCKO® system will shorten and strengthen your visual aids. It will shorten your speech, make it more visual and memorable and make you a more effective public communicator.

It's a Reputation-Management Technique

Imagine being stuck for information when your reputation is at stake. It’s precisely when you don’t know what’s happening—in the early stages of a controversy or attack—that you find you are pressed for answers. Even if you lack up-to-date facts, you can talk about your track record, your policies, your community and philanthropic activities.

You need to prepare your defences long before your reputation comes under attack. The SOCKO® system helps you codify your values, beliefs and accomplishments to enhance your reputation. These statements will be ready to go when you need them.

Your Reputation: Your Most Valuable Asset

All people, issues and organizations have a reputational momentum— ascending, descending or stalled. All have a reputational status, from Attila the Hun to Mother Theresa. Where are you, and where are you going? At the core of your reputation are things you need to protect at all costs. At the margins are things not worth fighting about or wasting time, money or energy on. We all have pressure points where we’re vulnerable and where adversaries may choose to attack us. That’s as quick a ‘military appreciation’ of what you’re up against in reputation management as you’ll need to start assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats—the well known SWOT analysis.

THE SOCKO® ICEBERG

Building your Own System

Most of the information you have at hand cannot simply be given out without ordering and contextualization—there’s just too much. You need to respond quickly and safely—sometimes in just a few seconds. The information you give out had better be pre-planned and safe. It should also be the most important thing you need to say, because you might not get a second chance.

This is why the iceberg image works.

The most important 10 or 15% of what you know should always be floating at the top of your mind. That’s all you should give out at one time. Then, just as real icebergs rotate, so will the pieces of information in your mind—and another important 10% will then rise above the surface, and another, and another.

Use the iceberg diagram to help yourself think about your three most important issues. These are the issues you really want the world to know about you, your organization, its policies, structure, goals and aspirations.

Put these topics or issues into brief headings, such as Funding, Compliance, Investor Confidence, Ethics, Health, or Safety. This will give you a perfect opportunity to take stock of what really matters to you and your organization.

The format to follow is: ISSUE—SOCKO®—DISCUSSION. The issues are just there to trigger a stimulus response in your message delivery. They need to be general enough for your SOCKO® to address any number of the specific questions concerning that issue.

It doesn’t matter if a question dealing with costs is phrased to ask whether it is too expensive or how you are going to pay for it or even who will pay for it. Your cost issue should contain a generic SOCKO® that can respond to many questions dealing with cost. You get multiple uses out of your SOCKOs®.

After that you can add four or five supporting discussion points that you can use when you answer follow-up questions. This way you ensure you have enough material to present and defend your case, no matter how rigorous the interrogations.

Here is an example of SOCKOs® made for the vinyl-pipe industry. This is just an extract—a page or two from a multi-page SOCKO® binder that we put together—so don’t expect to know everything about vinyl pipe when you’re through reading. But you will get a good idea of the format.

Issue: Economics of Vinyl Piping

SOCKO®: The cost-benefits of replacing iron with vinyl piping can be dramatic. The relief for municipal governments and taxpayers is immediate.

Discussion:

The National Research Council in Ottawa says that municipalities could save $22,000 in repairs for every 100 kilometres of underground vinyl pipe, compared with the same length of ductile iron pipe.

About half the underground water mains and sewage pipes in North America are made of cast iron (no longer being installed) or ductile iron. Unfortunately these are the materials with the highest failure rate, with more than 200,000 breaks occurring every year.

Cast-iron pipes date back to the 19th century. Often they're replaced with ductile iron pipes that have thinner walls and don't last as long.

The oldest vinyl pipe was installed underground 70 years ago and is expected to last for at least another 100 years.

Breaks in aging water mains in Canada cost municipalities $650 million in lost water every year. It costs taxpayers another $82 million a year to repair the leaks. Nearly all that is due to failures in iron pipes.

One half of Calgary's underground watermain system is made of iron, and the other half is vinyl. The city has found it is 300 times more expensive to install and operate iron pipes than vinyl pipes.

Vinyl pipes and fittings are