To celebrate the paperback release of The Virgin Way, I wanted to share a free excerpt to give you a taste of How to Listen, Learn, Laugh and Lead the Virgin Way.
Whether you’re pitching, answering a Q&A, or talking to staff, you should work hard to maximise on your audience’s attention level while minimising the chance of any ambiguity and subsequent misunderstandings. Here are a few popular words and phrases that, in my experience, are best avoided:
‘That’s not a bad idea’
Any use of double negatives such as this is an open invitation to mass confusion within the audience. Add the word ‘maybe’ and it gets even more problematic. The take-away from anyone hearing you say such a thing can vary from, ‘They love it’ to a diametrically opposed ‘They hate it’. So, be definitive. If you approve or disapprove of something be assertive and make your position absolutely clear, making sure you explain why.
‘You’re not going to like this but...’
Avoid any such negativity whenever possible. Rather than immediately sowing a seed of doubt with the audience it’s far better to say something like, ‘This may be a tough nut to crack but I’m sure we’ll get it done.’
‘That’s certainly different!’
A statement such as this could be anything from a ringing endorsement to a stinging condemnation or even an admission of ‘I have no idea what the heck this is all about’. Differences, like ‘change’, can be good or bad and for every company that differentiates itself by its excellence there’s at least one other that achieves it by mediocrity.
‘We’ve had better years’
This kind of negative half-statement is yet another often-heard cop-out of a comment. People want the truth, not some sugar-coated version of it. ‘Unfortunately last year was a bad one’ followed by an honest explanation as to what is going to be done to learn from it and ensure next year will be better is a much more positive approach.
‘Let me get back to you on that’
When you truly don’t know the answer to a question, rather than making something up and possibly looking foolish in the process, this is absolutely the correct response, but only if you take a note of the question and then make certain that you do indeed get back to them with an answer in a timely manner. Even better, make a commitment that, ‘I will get back to you by X date.’
‘That said...’
Put at the front of just about any sentence, these two little words form what is quite possibly one of the most destructive phrases in the English language. I am constantly amazed at how people can unwittingly shoot down everything they have been saying by using these two words. To most people’s ears, ‘that said’ immediately invalidates everything that has gone before and can breed instant resentment in the listener who may have been buying into the subject matter before ‘that’ was ‘said’. As a verbal bridge from the pros to the cons, try using something like, ‘Of course, we shouldn’t overlook...’
‘No comment’
Even if you find yourself in the unenviable position where your legal advisors have said, ‘We can’t tell them anything at this time’, please avoid the ‘no comment’ at all costs. ‘I’m really sorry but until we gather all the facts we are not in a position to issue a statement’ will play much more favourably on YouTube and or the evening news! A stark ‘No comment’, on the other hand, tends to come across like, ‘We’re guilty as hell and don’t want to talk about it until our lawyers have come up with a plausible alibi.’
‘Okay’
Apparently this is the most universally recognised word on the planet next to Coca-Cola and yet it is one of the most ambiguous. The original meaning is rumoured to have come from ‘Oll Korrect’ but in popular usage it can mean a wide range of things. One person’s ‘okay’ might mean ‘good’, another’s ‘it’s adequate’ and to yet another’s ‘barely acceptable’. It is a word that is also used in a dismissive manner.
‘Quite’
Quite is a word that can cause as much trouble for Americans visiting the UK as it can for Brits in the USA: the word is ‘quite’. To an American, ‘quite good’ means ‘very good’ whereas to a British ear it can mean anything from ‘reasonably good’ to ‘barely acceptable’. If in doubt it’s best to avoid it on both sides of the Atlantic as the results can be quite dangerous.
Do you have any public speaking no-nos? I’d like to hear about them in the comments below.
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