Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Do You Have Strong Views?

Do you have strong views? That might seem like a silly question as most of us have strong views on many different topics.

But if you are trying to persuade others to accept your ideas be ready to have tomatoes (not literally of course) thrown  at you in the form of objects, sometimes quite hostile, thrown back at you.

This is bound to happen from time to no matter as there is no way  how pleasant a person or how highly you are respected by other that you will succeed in pleasing everyone all the time.

Still, you can minimize such strong objections in two ways: either through good, reasoned arguments that take into account others ideas or through dramatically rendered stories that prove your point of view through the experiences of yourself or other persons.

Keep a notebook (or recorder ) and take the time once in a while to think about what objections somebody might throw at you  as well as counter- arguments or experiences which help to prove your case.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Keep It Concise

Some very powerful and memorable expressions have come out  of the mouths of world leaders like Sir Winston Churchill, with his motivating words, We shall fight ...." in a clear, concise fashion.



That doesn't mean you always have to write in a simple fashion. You're sentences should have a lot of variety,  packed with good illustrations, examples  and colourful metaphors and similes to make your presentations and speeches  interesting, convincing, persuasive, and memorable, but they should be kept clear and concise -- that is with no more words than necessary. 

Arch Lustberg, in his classic book  Winning When It Really Counts  gives  good examples of just what this means -- first a long-winded version:

"It is incumbent on us to ensure that the principles outlined and  espoused in the manual of management procedures should be adhered to an implemented."

And then in the abridged, concise version: "We've got to follow the manual."

Keeping it clear and concise is the best goal.  That is what Winston Churchill did in his speeches with a word choice that suited his purpose and situation and what you should be striving for as well.