Hooray for Dylan!

Hooray for Bob Dylan! Homer would nod with approval, T.S. Elliot would cackle with delight, and Abraham Lincoln would grin and say bravo! I myself was delighted when I was driving in my car and heard the news story about some blogger who discovered that Bob Dylan used the lines of the civil war poet Henry Timrod, the poet laureate of the Confederacy in his new album. "Oh, this is wonderful, this is perfect," I yelled at oncoming traffic... Whaooooooo! In keeping with my series on "Steal like Crazy until you Make Yourself Up", thanks Bob!

Bob Dylan has only done what every great speaker, great poet, and great songwriter has been doing for centuries, for millennia. I don't like that they are calling it 'borrowing' though. Motoko Rich of The New York Times called Dylan a magpie... now that's more like it!

"In Mr. Dylan's case, critics and fans have long described the songwriter's magpie tendencies, looking upon that as a manifestation of his genius, not unlike other great writers and poets like T. S. Eliot or James Joyce who have referenced past works."

T.S. Elliot said that ""Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."

Homer himself said that "Poetic License" which we now call "Artistic License" is being able to take what you want for your yarns, speeches and songs. I have a license, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill had one, and now Dylan does too! And in doing so, not only do we enjoy his songs, but we learned about about an obscure poet who was lost in American History!

This is why I always say to my clients and students: read, read, read, watch, study great speakers, find sparkling words, copy their STYLE! Then.... play like you are them! Chances are, the style of the speaker you like is the same style you have deep in your psyche. Until you become a pro at it, this is the best way to "make yourself up."

Anyway, the words Dylan used from Timrod were fantastic: “More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours,” How magic is that? Heck, Dr. Martin Luther King stole words from Lincoln, who stole words from the Bible!

"The opening words that resonated to the ear were about cadence as well as content. He began with two rhyming words: four score. This set in motion a symphony of melodious sounds. The Hebrew cadence, rendered in Elizabethan English, would have been stated slowly by Lincoln: “Four . . . score.”

The biblical ring of his opening words was rooted in lines from Psalm 90: The days of our years are threescore years and ten; And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years."

So there you have it. I'll have more on "Steal Like Crazy Until You Make Yourself Up" later as I become a magpie myself and look for more goodies to "steal." (And Homer nods....)

Timrod and Dylan

Steal Like Crazy Until You Make Yourself Up!

The Constantly Reappearing "Stolen" Techniques of the Great Speakers

I have a fun assignment in my public speaking class. We study the greatest speeches ever made. My stack of these speeches is now a mile high, because I’m very greedy and love finding new speeches. A funny thing happens as we start to study the great techniques of the masters: the same techniques pop up over and over again. They all copy each other! For example, Abraham Lincoln’s message in the Gettysburg Address was the same message in the funeral oration at the ancient Greek leader, Pericles's funeral during the Peloponnesian War as described by Thucydides!

So after great delight in studying these speeches, I came up with a brilliant stolen idea: “Steal like crazy until you make yourself up!” (I’m talking techniques, not plagerism!) So here are some of the techniques that appear again and again in speeches. You too can steal these ideas. They turn a speech into magic!

Techniques to Copy from the Great Speakers:

1. Use parallel sentences: Start your sentences (or paragraphs) the same way.
2. Us vs. them (one or the other) (polarizing)
3. The Seesaw Effect (ask not what… but what)
4. Metaphors (highly successful!)
5. The List (the Homeric List – Homer first made use of the list. It’s powerful!)
6. Repetition, repetition, repetition
7. Play on words -- Using unusual words in different contexts
8. Opposites - contrast
9. Comparison
10. Pushing the boundaries, risk
11. Use word pictures (trickling down our economy) (twilight struggle)
12. Use what I call “sparkling” words.
13. Story telling, and parables
14. Weaving a (metaphor) theme….. throughout the speech
15. Tapping into a shared myth
16. Shock
17. Irony
18. A new twist to an old theme
19. The use of asking questions (and sometimes answering them.)
20. Evoke the senses
21. Create a sense of community
22. Conversational style
23. Alliteration
24. Ask Questions instead of statements (and repeat them throughout the speech.)
    
    

New Workshop!

Blooming Where You Are Planted
--Coping With Relocations Abroad

Description:
Relocating to a new country can be stressful, confusing and frustrating. It can affect your work and your relationships with co-workers and family members. Fortunately, there are proven methods of reducing culture shock that can help you adjust and flourish. Understanding host nations and cultural differences can lead to new experiences that minimize stress and provide a fresh outlook. This course features a role-playing exercise that actually puts participants in culture shock. After understanding the feelings and stresses, the facilitator provides methods to prevent mistakes based on our own cultural blinders. Participants gain an understanding of cultural differences and ways to adjust. It can be developed for country-specific programs or an overview program for all personnel and their families preparing to relocate abroad. This program was first offered to State Department and military families relocating in Europe.


Content:

1. “Never Eat Chinese Food In Rome” Rules To Make You Happy In A New Place
2. Host Nation Sensitivities And Understanding
3. How To Fight Culture Shock
4. The Six Stages Of Culture Shock
5. Cultural Markers That Predict Behavior
6. The World Of Nonverbal Communication
7. Dealing With Hidden Stressors And Finding Ways To Blossom
8. “I don’t Want to Go Home!” Minimizing “Return Culture Shock”
9. ‘Third Culture People’ And Why They are ‘Agents Of Change”

Format:
Half Day or Full Day Workshops. Programs can be designed for ongoing classes.

Instructor: Lisa Jeffery, MA, MBA
Lisa Jeffery is a motivational speaker, consultant and trainer; and an adjunct professor at Barry University. She has a Master of Arts in Communication and a MBA from the International University of Monaco. She has a diverse background with 21 years international experience -- living working, and teaching in nine countries: the United States, Italy, Greece, France, Monaco, South Africa, Nigeria, Jamaica and the Bahamas. Her clients include NBC, Ritz Carlton Hotels, BusinessWire international sales teams, Diageo, Inc., Miami-Dade County, the Palm Beach Human Resources Council, and the U.S. Air Force. She is a member of the Florida Speakers Association and the National Speakers Association.

Contact:
LC Jeffery Communications, Miami, Florida 305 479-8337 or lcjeffery@yahoo.com

We offer a guarantee of satisfaction on all of our training programs!

The Abilene Paradox...

That's why we ended up in a mess!

Here’s a funny form of miscommunication that often happens in organizations, teams, families and even couples! (You have probably experienced it before, but didn’t know what to call it!)

It’s called the “Abilene Paradox”

Management guru Jerry B. Harvey observed the paradox in his book "The Abilene Paradox and other Meditations on Management." ISBN 0-7879-0277-2

Here’s the story of why it got that silly name:

It’s hot summer afternoon in Coleman Texas. A newly-wed couple and the bride’s parents are playing cards next to the fan and sipping ice-cold lemonade on the porch. The new father-in-law thinks the kids might get bored and suggests an adventure to Abilene for lunch, although he’s totally happy to stay next to the fan. Everybody else (who is also happy to stay home next to the fan) thinks the father wants to go, and they are eager to please him, so they all agree it would be a good idea too, including Mom, who really hates going to Abilene.

So they jump into the old station wagon with no air-conditioning and suffer the 53-mile drive to Abilene in the scorching Texas summer heat. They’re soaked and grumpy when they get there, and the food is awful. Mom gets sick. Then they have to pile back in the hot car and take the 53-mile miserable drive back home. Finally, back on the porch, sipping their lemonade, they discover that not a single one of them actually wanted to go to Abilene in the first place, they just agreed because they thought everyone else wanted to go, and it was dad's idea and they didn't want to disappoint him! That’s the Abilene Paradox!

When the Abilene Paradox happens, millions of dollars can be wasted in an organization, families can break into arguments, and couples can split up! Everyone is angry!

The Abilene Paradox is a paradox in which the limits of a particular situation force a group of people to act in a way that is directly the opposite of their actual preferences. In an Abilene Paradox, people take actions in contradiction to what they really want, therefore they defeat the very purposes of what they try to accomplish.

The Abilene Paradox is not a symptom of not being able to manage conflict, but it is a symptom of not being able to manage agreement. In groups, people are afraid to communicate what they really feel or want, and often agree with the CEO or a strong member of the group, in fear of disagreeing. The results can be disastrous.

Groups that suffer from the Abilene Paradox display a number of characteristics:

* They agree individually in private about the nature of the situation or the problem facing the organization
* They agree individually in private about the steps that need to be taken to cope with the problem
* They fail to accurately communicate their desires and beliefs to one another
* Failing to communicate, as a group, they make decisions that make them take actions counterproductive for their actual intention
* As a result, they become frustrated
* The cycle of inability to manage agreement will repeat itself if not dealt with accurately through communication

The Abilene Paradox theory is often used to help explain extremely poor business decisions, especially notions of the superiority of "rule by committee" or “group think”.

Does your organization, board or family suffer from the Abilene Paradox?

How can we fix this communication problem? The first thing you can do as a CEO is to encourage and reward staff members to speak up -- courageously and honestly for the welfare of the organization, family or team. If you are a CEO, have you created an environment where your employees fear disagreeing with you? How can you encourage your staff members or employees to communicate courageously and honestly? If you are a staff member or employee, you can take steps to learn how to communicate courageously and honestly.

For both these things to happen, an organization needs to create an atmosphere that encourages rather than discourages opinions and disagreements. Disagreements are healthy for the end result.

But they can be difficult because of a phenomenon called the “The Spiral of Silence” a phemonen observed by communication expert Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann.

Noelle-Neumann illustrates the interactive relationship between our own opinion and a perceived public opinion. The spiral of silence process is driven by a fear of isolation, which overrides the worth of our own judgment and triggers us to permanently scan our environment for clues of opinion and go with the flow. This happens even when we feel something is wrong!
(Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974). The Spiral of Silence: A Theory of Public Opinion. Journal of Communication, 24 (2), 43-51.)

So practice communicating with courage, and reward courage in your organization. When you communicate with courage, you become brave enough to say what you really feel. It’s as simple as that! Be a "Nelson Mandela" or a "Rosa Parks". Now that's progress!

Elegance in Communication

Be An Elegant Communicator
by Lisa Jeffery

Elegance in communication is like Dress for Success only it goes deeper than the clothes. Elegant communication involves every part of your being: your actions, your speech, your non-verbal communication, your choice of words, and your character. Elegant communication involves your mannerisms, your manner of speaking and basically, your manners - to yourself and others - at all times, especially in a crisis. Elegance involves having grace under pressure.

Both men and women can be elegant communicators. John F. Kennedy was an elegant communicator, so was Abraham Lincoln, especially in his debates with Douglas -- when as an unknown, he won the nation's heart. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu-Kyi of Burma was one of the most elegant communicators of all times. In a violent pro-democracy protest, she could silence a crowd using only her eyes and immense dignity. And Nelson Mandela's elegance and grace under extreme pressure and hardship helped change the world in the 20th century.

Many of the most elegant communicators of all times were not born with their skills, but worked very hard to acquire them. Grace Kelly was so ashamed of her harsh Philadelphia accent that she asked her father at 18 for a tape recorder and worked hours listening to her voice and correcting inflections with great discipline. Later, as a successful actress and Princess in Monaco, this discipline and determination made a monumental difference in her communication to the people of the Monaco, Europe, the world and helped her serve as an elegant ambassador of the American culture and people.

The ancient Greek orator Demosthenes, was the classic example of someone who worked very hard to become an elegant communicator. He was born with a serious speech impediment, and people jeered at his stammering in his first public assembly. To learn to speak distinctly, he talked with pebbles in his mouth and recited verses while running uphill. (Not only did it force him to improve his speaking abilities, but also it got him in great physical shape (another aspect of being elegant.) To strengthen his voice, he spoke on the seashore over the roar of the waves. His discipline and determination helped him become one of the greatest orators of Ancient Greece.

You can learn the skills you need to become an elegant communicator. I call them the "Elegant Dozen" -- guidelines you can follow that can change your life.

How can you become an elegant communicator?
There are 12 crucial ingredients for elegance:

1. Honesty - Practice rigorous honesty in everything you do, all your transactions, all relationships
2. Confidence - Develop confidence, and exude it, without arrogance, help others to be confident.
3. Flexibility Adjust and adapt quickly to unexpected changes. Life is "Plan B" -- be adaptable to changes.
4. Passion Exude passion in everything you do. Feel passion. Do things you are passionate about, and do them often!
5. Practice - Practice hard, for long periods of time until you are tired, and practice often.
6. Praise - Be enormously encouraging to yourself and to others. Give Praise showers.
7. Play - Yes, play. If you want to be elegant, learn how to play. Play creates balance in our lives and allows us to be more creative and productive when we work.
8. Posture -- When you have good posture, your performance improves. Don't let yourself be lazy. Posture yourself as a person with good character and UNRELENTINGLY stay there, matter what the circumstance!
9. Physical fitness Strive to be fit, it gives you confidence and keeps you at your best.
10. Be Interesting - Learn, have a varied life, read, go to workshops, study, have hobbies, have adventures!
11. Be interested Have and show interest in others, ask questions often. Ask questions always!
12. Discipline Be highly disciplined, find ways to bring discipline into your life. Have focus and use discipline to keep your focus. Have Goals, every day, every month, every year!