Anyone who does communication or presentation skills training is probably aware of the work of Albert Mehrabian PhD on the relative importance of verbal and non-verbal messages in face-to-face communications. The ‘7-38-55′ rule is that the content of speech (the actual words used by the speaker) accounts for only about 7% of meaning. The way it’s said (pitch and tone of the speaker’s voice for example) accounts for about 38% of meaning, and the body language of the speaker accounts for the remaining 55%. Which explains why, if you’re saying one thing, but your voice and body language are saying another, people are more likely to accept the message you give through your non-verbal clues, not the literal meaning of the words themselves.

So what happens when communications aren’t face-to-face, and the body language element is absent? I was intrigued when I heard Alison Fragale, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Strategy at the University of North Carolina on Radio 4’s All in the Mind programme on 23rd January. She talked about an experiment to find out what type of speech, a more powerful style or a more powerless style, is more conducive to gaining promotion in the workplace. I think most people with a background in business would say that an assertive style is a prerequisite.

She described powerless speech as a more submissive or tentative style, characterised by hesitation (e.g. ‘um’ and ‘well’), intensifiers (e.g. ‘very’ and ‘really’) as well as phrases like ‘don’t you think?’ and ‘I’m not really sure but’…’. Powerful speech, on the other hand, has none of these linguistic markers.

All the communications skills training I’ve ever come across is aimed at getting people to speak more confidently and assertively, but what Fragale’s experiment revealed is that it depends on how much interdependence there is in an organisation. If there is a high expectation that people will work collaboratively, then a submissive style is seen to be preferable, and people with this style of speech will be promoted. In organizations where people work independently, however, an assertive style will more likely lead to promotion.

Fragale’s advice to people in business is

1) to increase your awareness of the type of culture you’re working in,
2) practise the style of speech that will lead to the outcome you want, and
3) continually ask for feedback on your style of speech.

So it would seem, context, rather than content, is still very much king.

Did you read the articles on Happiness in the Independent on Sunday ? Fascinating stuff. I loved Happy Now? by William Leith, the whole ‘Christmas = consumerism gone mad = cause and effect of unhappiness’ argument is very persuasive. How many people do you know who really did have a fantastic Christmas holiday, full of joy and goodwill towards others, not blighted by tears over burnt turkey and unsuitable or forgotten gifts (at best) or ugly family rows and break-ups (at worst). According to Manches LLP, a leading divorce law firm quoted in the Telegraph, the 2^nd week of January is the busiest for divorce lawyers – once the kids are back to school, parents have the time to start divorce proceedings….

Leith talks about his experiences of happiness, and in particular an exceptionally happy moment from childhood; he describes being so involved in the activity that he doesn’t notice time passing. Three hours actually seemed like twenty minutes, so when it’s time to go he is shocked. What he neatly describes in this short paragraph is what psychology professor, Csikszentmihalyi, calls ‘flow’ (see Flow: The classic work on how to achieve happiness) i.e. a state where you are so absorbed in what you’re doing that time passes much faster than you realise. This optimal state is one which we all strive for, since it is then that we perform at our best, whatever we are doing. By the way, don’t be put off by the unpronounceable name; this book is an extremely good read and is highly recommended.

Sarah Harris’s Happiness: a user’s manual also quoted in the IoS gives you a dozen or so ‘rules’ to follow to increase your happiness. She doesn’t quite give you the full story, however: she says ‘get married’, for example, quoting a large research study in the States in which 40% of married people described themselves as happy compared to only 24% of single people. But might it not be that happy people are more likely to get married in the first place (and unhappy people more likely to stay single)? You’d need to do some kind of survey of the same people before and after getting married to prove that point, wouldn’t you?

She also says that people who believe in God are happier than those who don’t. But this might not be to do with God per se, it might instead be something to do with optimism, or hope (life after death). According to Snyder et al (see Chapter 19 of the Handbook of Positive Psychology) , hope provides a buffer against negative emotions and negative self-talk, is critical for psychological health and has been shown to improve sporting and academic achievement. But then, as Dr Ilona Boniwell points out, it might be more to do with the social connections that people make through going to church. Sarah Harris also states that finding ‘a class or group of any kind (that) fosters a sense of belonging’ is important to increasing your happiness.

According to Martin Seligman, the American guru of happiness and, with Csikszentmihalyi, co-founder of the Positive Psychology movement, about 40% of your happiness is within your control (the rest is due to circumstances and genes). So in addition to the rules given by Sarah Harris, what practical things can you do day-by-day to increase your happiness? Here are a few of the ideas I’ve picked up over the past year or so:

1) Avoid keeping up with the Joneses, whether literally next door or the celebrities you’ll probably never meet. There will always be people who have ‘more’ than you (wealth, beauty, luck, success, Prada handbags, or whatever), and continually comparing yourself with other people is proven to cause dissatisfaction. Notice when you compare yourself to other people, and notice how you feel about making those comparisons. The more aware you are of it, the easier it will get to avoid doing it.

2) Get involved with something which is bigger than you (eg a choir, charity, community group, soccer team, anything which you can’t do on your own) – this helps to build social connections, and keeps you focussed on life outside.

3) Do a good deed every so often, or talk to someone at the bus-stop, or the supermarket check-out . See this fabulous Random Acts of Kindness website for ideas.

4) Write a daily journal and keep a note of the three best bits of your day. I took this up when I did my NLP training, and it really works. The three best things could be anything, big or small. Writing it down is useful -  it’s very encouraging to reread it several weeks or months later -  however if you haven’t got time to write, put aside 5 or 10 minutes at the end of the day to recall those moments.

I did look for the YouGov poll mentioned in Leith’s article, but the only thing I found was a link to a Daily Mail article (Britons despair of falling standards in society despite increasing affluence), not the actual results themselves. If the figures he quotes are correct (only 11% of us think Britain will be a better place in 5 years time), let’s at least be positive about it. The only way is up, as they say!.

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What initially struck me about the CWM was the sheer energy in the room, even before the main debate got underway. About a quarter of the delegates were new to the network, the atmosphere warm and welcoming, in sharp contrast to the rather solemn surroundings.

The panel, made up of

• Aliza Blachman O’Keeffe (Executive Coach with Eden McCallum)
• Jane Atkinson (PR and image consultant, former spokesperson for the late Diana, Princess of Wales),
• Stuart Higgins (ex-editor of the Sun and now MD of Stuart Higgins Communications), and
• Neville Hobson (VP New Marketing for Crayon and blogger-extraordinaire),

contrasted traditional and new media contexts in a lively and engaging way, drawing on their personal experience and including many anecdotes to illustrate their points of view.

And what also intrigued me was the contrast between the way ‘old’ and new media works, with the latter having an unforeseen level of impact on every aspect of PR and personal branding, as well as on society more generally.

* In traditional media (newspapers and mainstream TV) it may take several months or even years to carefully craft the ‘right’ public image. With new media (basically anything delivered using the internet), this might be achieved within days or even hours.

Business people might dismiss this as only relevant to the world of celebrity, but the point is that personal and corporate reputations can be improved or tarnished in just the same amount of time.

In addition, your (or your company’s) public image can even be created or affected without your agreement or knowledge. We were advised by Neville Hobson to google our own names when we got home – whilst we may not be able to change what is out there in the public arena, at least we can be aware of it. Forewarned is forearmed.

It seems that the rewards for getting it right can be enormous, but the risks are equally large.

* The way new media works dictates that authenticity is crucial. When you’re in the public eye (voluntarily or not), if you’re not authentic you’ll be found out and exposed, and probably sooner rather than later. So why is authenticity so important?

* Well, authenticity is linked to trust, and new technology has contributed to a huge change in the nature of trust in society. According to Neville Hobson, we are more likely to trust ‘a person like me’ than our politicians or the media. It seems that we are now prepared to trust people we’ve never met and probably never will, simply because we got talking to them in an internet chat-room, or liked what they had to say on a blog. Therefore, if you want to create a professional image which is trusted and respected, be authentic.

There were several questions to the panel along the lines of “given what we’ve heard about the dangers, should I try to establish a personal brand at all?” Stuart Higgins quoted an example of a very high profile woman whose reputation has been enhanced by the fact that she has resolutely kept quiet at public engagements. It works both ways. The key is to know what you’re going into and to adhere to the simple rules.

And what of the business world? Well, the Edelman Annual Trust Barometer states that

Trust has important bottom-line consequences. In most markets, more than 80% [of respondents] say they would refuse to buy goods or services from a company they do not trust, and more than 70% will criticize them to people they know, with one-third sharing their opinions and experiences of a distrusted company on the Web.

So companies are not immune from the issues surrounding authenticity and trust.

According to Edelman, “To build trust, companies need to localize communications, be transparent, and engage multiple stakeholders continuously as advocates across a broad array of communications channels’

For another perspective on this CWN event, see writer Yang-May Ooi’s blog.

Other reports and surveys about the nature of trust :

Reuters survey

Public trust and confidence in charities – Nov 05

Public Affairs News – Democratisation of Trust

IEEE Communications Society – Survey of Trust in Internet Applications – 2000

Trust Us – Survey of Corporate Sustainability Reporting

I’ve got a couple of meetings in London this week, one at the University of East London over in Stratford. Last time I went to London I just bought tube tickets as I went along; this time I thought I should look at getting an Oyster card, which I thought would definitely save time and maybe save money as well.

So I looked at the Transport for London website for information about the Oyster card, and costs of ‘normal’ tube/bus/train tickets to compare it to. After searching various web pages, at last I found a 20 (yes twenty) page brochure of tube/bus/train ticket costs for 2007 called ‘Your Guide to Fares and Tickets: Tram, Tube, bus and DLR’. I’m sure to find the answer here I thought. Not a chance. Having trawled my way through tables, capping rates, travel card and season ticket options, I was simply delighted to notice that at the end, as if the previous twenty pages weren’t enough, the brochure listed the titles of five other leaflets I could pick up from the Tube Station if I needed further information. Sacrebleu!

Compare this complete fiasco with my travel experience in France just after Christmas, when I wanted to get from Charles de Gaulle airport to central Paris. I get a 1 page summary of all the ticket options from the information desk. That’s it. One page. Admittedly it wasn’t a nice glossy brochure, in multicolour with graphics and a lots of diagrams. In fact, it was pretty poorly photocopied sheet of paper in black and white. It wasn’t even one page, it was HALF a page (the other half is left blank for notes), and it’s A5 at that. But it did the job superbly. I got the ticket I wanted straightaway.

The French definitely know something about Customer Service that we in the UK don’t. Plus, and this is where they have a huge advantage, they know how to be concise when it really matters. None of this ‘business speak’ that we so love and revere in the UK.

Think about how much time it takes to write a 20 page brochure, check its accuracy, and keep it up-to-date. And all the time (and money) it takes to maintain the myriad of different pricing tariffs that the brochure tries to explain. According to the Economic and Social Research Council, the good news is that UK productivity has increased substantially across each of the last four decades. However, they also quote data from the Office for National Statistics which shows that France has higher labour productivity per worker than the UK (see the paragraph called ‘Comparative Productivity: International), and this has been the case for many years. Another example of where ‘less is more’.

Maybe it’s the traditional British reserve but whenever I mention that I’m interested in the subject of happiness, people tend to raise their eyebrows and look a little bemused. Very often they say ‘that’s simple, if I had more money I’d be happy’, or at this time of year in particular, ‘if I lost a little weight/stopped smoking I’d be happy’. Happiness is worth a closer look because, actually, it’s not that simple; research has shown that health and wealth might bring happiness to a point or temporarily, but that it doesn’t last.

Happiness is becoming big business now. If you type ‘happiness’ into Amazon, you get over 5000 books on the subject. There are TV programmes about it and websites devoted to it. But why does it matter to organizations what makes people happy?

In his article ‘Happiness is a serious business’ quoted in People Management, Nic Marks, head of the Centre for Wellbeing at the New Economics Foundation, refers to the CIPD employee attitude survey 2006, part of which looked at the relationship between positive and negative emotions and several key performance indicators (KPIs): job satisfaction, meaningfulness of work, absorption in work, commitment to complete work, loyalty and performance.

What the survey found was that, with the exception of job satisfaction, positive emotions seem to have more than twice the impact on these KPIs as negative emotions do. In the case of job satisfaction, says Marks, people’s satisfaction ratings and assessments of others are more clouded by their negative feelings than their own experience and behaviour. He concludes that organizations could therefore have more impact and improve individual, team and organizational performance by promoting a climate that fosters positive emotions at work.

In short, there is a very serious point to ensuring that people are happy at work. In the past, we have thought that feeling happy was a result of good functioning i.e. ‘life is going well, therefore I feel good’. However there is a growing body of research (e.g. by the psychologist Dr Barbara Fredrickson, a world expert in the field of positive emotions) which suggests that feeling happy is also a cause of good functioning. So happiness is important to organizations because feeling happy actually helps promote creativity, resilience and resourcefulness; all qualities that we need to improve our performance and succeed at work.