Business Rhetoric by Akademisk Forlag

METTE HØJEN BUSINESS RHETORIC

METTE HØJEN

AKADEMISK FORLAG

BUSINESS RHETORIC HOW TO TURN YOUR WORDS INTO GOLD Translated by Carol Todd-Moir

Business Rhetoric. How to Turn Your Words into Gold Mette Højen Translated from the Danish by Carol Todd-Moir © 2018 Akademisk Forlag, København – an imprint under Lindhardt and Ringhof Ltd. The Egmont Group No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Jacket design, text design and typeset by Lisbeth Damgaard This book is set with Baskerville and DIN Alternate Printed in Latvia by Livonia Print Illustrations copyright © Mette Højen and Akademisk Forlag. All rights reserved. First edition, ﬁrst impression 2018 ISBN 978-87-500-5149-7 Find us on Facebook or at www.akademisk.dk.

CONTENTS TEST YOURSELF

GOING, GOING, GONE! It is not easy to make it look easy . My goal is your goal . . . . . . . The background for the book . . . Use the book . . . . . . . . . . .

11 . . . .

. . . .

12 13 14 15

FIRST BUSINESS RHETORIC – A NEW DISCIPLINE

1. TALK IS LEADERSHIP

Turn your words into your strongest currency Focus on the message audience . . . . . . . . The battle for attention . . . . . . . . . . . . Business rhetoric terms . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . .

21 21 23 25

2. ACTING AS YOURSELF

Economize your relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Regardless of title, whenever you speak you are leading . Nobody is born a natural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Training counts more than talent. . . . . . . . . . . . . Training zone vs. performance zone . . . . . . . . . . . Professional proﬁciency is irrelevant . . . . . . . . . . .

. 27 . 28 . 28 . 29 . 30 . 34

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SECOND PREPARATION & TRAINING

3. FIVE STEPS THAT WORK

4. ANALYSIS AND ARGUMENTS

The star . . . . . . Speaker proﬁle test Rhetorical strategy Argumentation . .

. . . .

. 39 . 44 . 45 . 59

5. OUTLINE

4 x A outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Speaker Spots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Get the room, tables and chairs to work for you Emotional interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . .

. 69 . 72 . 74 . 78

6. LANGUAGE You are your words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Avoid early beginnings and spineless endings Stories – strategic tools . . . . . . . . . . . . Opposites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Count to three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

83 . . . . . .

. . . . . .

. 83 . 85 . 89 . 95 . 99 101

7. SLIDES Hand in hand or drama triangle? . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Walk and stand still with slides behind you. . . . . . . 106 Design of slides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

| BUSINESS RHETORIC HOW TO TURN YOUR WORDS INTO GOLD

103

8. VOICE AND BODY Your voice and body language are your instruments . Respiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nervousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mood Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Power Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Serve the message on a silver platter . . . . . . . . . Practice ar-ti-cu-la-ting for three minutes . . . . . . Gestures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119 . . . . . . . . .

120 122 126 129 133 137 138 140 143

THIRD SOLUTIONS TO EVERYDAY RHETORICAL CHALLENGES

151

9. MAGICAL MEETINGS

153

Fewer, shorter, and increasingly productive meetings Sales meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Status meetings and work meetings. . . . . . . . . . Telephone meetings and online meetings. . . . . . . Conï¬&#x201A;icts and difficult conversations . . . . . . . . . Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Investor pitches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . .

153 156 159 160 162 164 166 168 170

GONE!

173

QUICK FIXES

174

THANK YOU

176

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| BUSINESS RHETORIC HOW TO TURN YOUR WORDS INTO GOLD

TEST YOURSELF Before embarking upon this book, please take this little test. All you have to do is to answer yes or no to the following three questions:

• Am I able to hold the attention of my audience in the palm of my hand for 45 minutes without anybody shuffling about in their seat, checking their mobile or doodling on their notepaper?

• Do I master the art of inserting pauses and controlling the silence in order to create suspense and manage the audience?

• Do I get reactions from people who can remember me or my presentation, my speech, etc. months or even years later? Did you get full marks – three times yes? Congratulations, you are already a gifted business rhetorician. Return to the store where you bought this book and get your money back or give it to a worthy person in need. Did you get one or several nos? Congratulations, this book will provide you with the recipe for becoming a gifted business rhetorician when talking to and with other people, at meetings, when delivering a presentation or making a speech. Perhaps you are already a competent speaker and presenter, even though you might not have achieved the above-mentioned indicators of rhetorical sublimity. But why settle for mediocre when fantastic is achievable? Continue reading and become affirmed, provoked, surprised, annoyed, and inspired – and acquire a rhetorical lead on your competitors. Mette Højen Copenhagen, January 2018

Test yourself |

| BUSINESS RHETORIC HOW TO TURN YOUR WORDS INTO GOLD

GOING, GOING, GONE! Imagine you are a conductor, not the type at a general meeting, but for a symphony orchestra of 100 musicians. You are waiting in the wings while the musicians tune their instruments and practice scales, and chatter ﬁlls with the room with a cacophony of sound and life. You close your eyes for a brief moment and straighten your back. You see yourself entering the room with a determined gait stepping up onto the conductor’s podium in the centre. Your posture and eye contact reveal that you are conﬁdent and send a positive, dedicated vibe to your musical colleagues, 100 highly specialised experts. Your task is to mediate your vision, so that each individual expert knows exactly how to contribute to bringing your vision to life. You are present without being the centre of attention. In a short while – approx. half a second – you will be communicating your vision to the musicians. It is your task to bring it all together and to clearly communicate your joint goal through your baton and body language. It is your job to orchestrate the resources – the time, skills, and goals – in the best possible way. You are a business with a musical goal, and you have to be successful jointly. You are in charge of getting the success going.

You are, of course, not an orchestra conductor. However, if I take the baton away from you and replace the podium with a meeting room and the musicians with employees or stakeholders, I expect you can recognise the situation. Standing – or sitting – in front of others and talking about creating results is most likely something that you are very familiar with in your everyday business life. In a way, the conductor’s challenge corresponds to the challenge leaders and other business professionals are confronted with every day when meeting employees, business associates, and other stakeholders.

GOING, GOING, GONE! |

IT IS NOT EASY TO MAKE IT LOOK EASY The audience experience the supreme performance as effortless. However, like everything that appears to be easy as pie, it requires more than what meets the eye and ear. An eminent musical performance requires more consideration, additional tools and training than many are aware of. Likewise, an eminent performance at strategy presentations, sales meetings and speeches requires more than merely turning up with the right slides. For example, you know that:

• Your performance starts the second you enter the room. Therefore, use the time you spend entering the room to look at the audience and establish contact with them by smiling accommodatingly and thus creating the right atmosphere for your message.

• Apply pauses strategically during your performance, because you know that silence signals power, perspective, and energy.

• Your success depends on you being present right here and now. • Your passion, professionalism, and personality accompany you the entire time – and you are still in control of what is about to take place and how you want the audience to react to what you do. A rhetorical performance that forms a synthesis requires a lot of you: a thorough rhetorical analysis of yourself, a solid message, well-chosen words, the right arguments, a clear outline, a suitable selection of slides and aids, an immaculate use of techniques, voice and body language showing commitment with pauses, eye contact, and strategic exploitation of the room you are in. Just to mention a few examples. All these factors are ones that the audience can neither see with their eyes nor put a ﬁnger on while you are speaking. However, ones that will eventually contribute to determining whether you end up in the category of speakers who are tiresome to mediocre or in the category of speakers who really achieve a return on their speeches and presentations.

| BUSINESS RHETORIC HOW TO TURN YOUR WORDS INTO GOLD

Similar to a conductor or auctioneer, your job is to sell your visions/messages/ideas in such a way that employees as well as stakeholders show interest in them and act according to them. The same applies to me with this book. I want to contribute to business rhetoric and introduce it in business meeting rooms and congress halls. Going, going… gone!

MY GOAL IS YOUR GOAL My purpose with this book is very clear: to help you to compose and make speeches, presentations and conduct meetings that will win the customers over, create growth and shift opinions – and maybe mountains? Growth curves? Satisfaction curves? My goal is your goal – the goals you have when speaking with and to your stakeholders in everyday life within and outside your business. Rhetorical abilities become increasingly important the more managerial responsibility you have and the more oral communication is part of your job. You may be a CEO, CFO, CXO, expert, manager, middle leader, key account manager, customer supporter, consultant, professional advisor, entrepreneur, lawyer, project leader or management trainee. Your daily communication may take place at sales meetings, strategy presentations, in-house meetings, work group meetings, presentations, investor pitches, interviews with the media, external meetings, status meetings, board meetings, network meetings, performance reviews, one-to-one conversations or in customer support situations.

GOING, GOING, GONE! |

THE BACKGROUND FOR THE BOOK The book is based on rhetorical communications science and the experiences I have acquired through working as a trusted advisor, rhetorical trainer, facilitator, lecturer and ghost writer for national and international companies in various business sectors, among others the financial sector, pharmaceutical industry, media and marketing, construction industry, fitness industry, educational industry and professional computing. I customise individual training courses for executives, workshops for leader teams, specialists and talented persons. Despite distinctions between industries, boundaries between countries and career steps, all the above have one thing in common: a need for being able to convince other people and convey a message. A requirement for rhetorical competencies that enable each individual to change the behaviour and thoughts of others. The initial image from the world of music is not taken out of the blue. In the course of my 22-year long capacity as a trumpet player, coach for conductors and rhetorical trainer for business executives, I have had ample opportunity to study and compare musicians and business people – and to wonder... The general assumption is that creating music is something soft and ’fluffy’, whereas achieving business results is something difficult, but concrete. Now, here is a paradox: In the ’soft’ world, musicians as well as conductors are judged much, much harder regarding their vision, strategy, time consumption, personal figure, drive and professionalism than those with the same responsibilities in the ’hard’ world. Why? Because in the world of music, it is much easier to hear whether the conductor succeeds in getting the musicians to redeem his/her vision or not, because anything off key, pitch or stroke grates on the ear. I wish to bring this same distinctness and focus into business life. At the moment, there is not the same ruthless focus on adding value with each individual sentence, in each individual meeting or at each individual presentation. Often an awful lot is said; however, afterwards nobody can really give an account of whether it actually has had an impact or not, and, if it did, what part of it worked.

| BUSINESS RHETORIC HOW TO TURN YOUR WORDS INTO GOLD

Apart from introducing rhetoric to the business sector, my ambition is to introduce some of the virtues of the professional musical scene into business. Because I believe that the business sector could beneﬁt immensely from taking a glance at and learning from the world of music with regard to discipline, training, collaboration and communicating a vision. Business rhetoric consists of a complete set of tools tailored to meet the business sector’s needs for making sense of strategy, execution, and effects in their everyday work.

USE THE BOOK I hope you will wear this book out by using it. You have now got a manual for everyday use. Consult it for five minutes, five hours or five days before making a presentation or conducting an important meeting. Regardless of how much time you have – a lot or a little – I promise you that the exercises are applicable and that they will have an immediate impact. You can do whatever you want: You can read it from A to Z to acquire a complete introduction to business rhetoric. You can look up a subject of interest, one for which you would like some training hints and tips. Or you can open it up on one of the everyday rhetorical challenges and receive a suggestion for a solution right away. The book consists of three parts: In the first part, I present the philosophy behind and the need for a new rhetorical discipline: business rhetoric. Here, you also get a dictionary with the most important terms. In the second part, I present methods, tools and techniques for you to use to benefit from preparation as well as training. In the third part of the book, I provide you with practical solutions for concrete challenges that you often will come across. Finally, at the back of the book, there are a number of Quick Fixes that you can use when time is sparse and you need to brush up on the key points. There is also a homepage associated with the book: businessrhetoric.com. Here, you will find links to short videos, where I demonstrate selected exercises, exercise sheets you can download and quota-

GOING, GOING, GONE! |

tions from leaders and professionals whom I have trained in business rhetoric.

| BUSINESS RHETORIC HOW TO TURN YOUR WORDS INTO GOLD

â&#x20AC;&#x153;BY ALL MEANS NO! You have already started! Actually, you have jumped the gun and that is just as foolish as a musician starting to play his instrument in the wings or on his way onto the stage. There is only one start and that has to be distinct.â&#x20AC;? Mette HĂ¸jen does not beat about the bush when she, with immaculate precision and a twinkle in her eye, points out the rhetorical bad habits of corporate life. In a simple and informal style, she shows us how you stand to gain more from your speeches, meetings and presentations by making a few rhetorical adjustments. It is plain speaking with one clear objective: NBYJNJ[JOH UIF SFUVSO PO ZPVS BMMPUUFE TQFBLJOH UJNF m PS QVU EJGGFSFOUMZ NBYJNJ[JOH ZPVS SIFUPSJDBM 30*

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METTE HĂ&#x2DC;JEN BUSINESS RHETORIC

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