LEADERSHIP

Surprise!

Bite sized leadership advice

Our brains are overloaded with data. We can’t sift everything that comes in.

The good news is that our brains have found shortcuts to deal with this, the bad news is that the shortcuts mean that a lot of what we hear or read is immediately discarded and forgotten.

If you read a great article, bookmarked it, or hit the save flag, then immediately forgot about it, you can consider yourself human.

How do you make your message stand out in the forest of communications?

Take some lessons from viral marketing and include something surprising. A disruptive fact is often remembered. Especially if it relates to your message.

There are more trees on the earth than there are stars in the sky

Find an observation that surprises you. Use it frequently to reinforce your message.

One of my favourite from a sales effectiveness project worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year was;

Our entire project is dependent on two people having a different conversation

It focused the attention on the single point of difference; the conversation a salesperson had with their customer.

Include something surprising in your communication for increased recall, our brains sift and forget much of what we read and hear.

A disruptive fact is remembered.

This is part of our Leadership Wizdom series, bite sized leadership advice for leaders who wish to improve their leadership, but don’t have much time. For more indepth articles check out The Change Wizard. We coach leaders and help their organisations become more adaptable at www.thechangewizard.com