Changeworksblog.com

Podcast

Changeworks Blog

When we write public relations material, whether it is a release, a case study or a script for a video, we need to be part journalist, part marketing person. However the former is always more important because the material we write has to tell a story and must be worthy of readership – see my previous blog ‘Is it worthy?’.

So how come, assuming we understand this, do so many press releases, case studies etc written by PR people, seem lack-lustre? I think it all boils down to the mental attitude of ‘brilliant’.

Remember that Fast Show character? The Manchester teenager who thought everything was brilliant! Whilst this character has his faults, not least falling down holes in the ground, you have to admit he was passionate.

And passion is the difference between lacklustre and sparkling, between a job and a calling, between a tenacious desire to hunt the best story out so that people will read.

You need to be passionate about writing. You need to be passionate about your subject. So, for some, this is ‘limited’ to: write what you are passionate about.

As for those ‘brilliant’ others, well they can get passionate about anything, if they need to. And this makes for brilliant PR writing. Keep a Zen Mind-Beginners mind, and develop the mind of a child again, a mind that is open to be filled with wonder about anything! And be Brilliant!

Here’s a reminder of how to do it!

My next blog post will tell you how to do ‘passion’ as a behaviour to change your writing success.

Visit Changeworks Communications for more brilliant PR

I was thinking about a conversation I recently enjoyed: a colleague asked me what I enjoyed writing the most, features, case studies, releases, scripts, blogs etc. my first response: everything !

But it is the relish of the release that feeds several of my values in life: creativity, challenge and powerful communication .

There is no reason to write a press release except for having something worthy of news to tell.

The editor doesn’t want to fill space heshe wants to engage, captivate,educate or entertain readers. This is about relevance, and relevance is context specific. Someone reading a trade mag at their desk seeks a different meaning than the reader of the local free rag or the online news site. Whether its microlocal, educational or minute by minute, it’s your responsibilty as a writer to make it newsworthy.

It might take 2 hours to get the skeleton down. And this assumes the right probing questions have been put to the client? What, why, how, who etc … Kipling’s 6 honestserving men. The 250 to 350 words of a release require the most careful and loving crafting of all. Get the ‘mini what’ in the first paragraph, then plan the flow of paragraphs to tell and engage. One idea per para and one big idea.

remembering of course to weave in your client’s key messages, to enhance the story. Use the right quoted people to add the C factor: credibilty. Edit many times. And only then, sense check it for newsworthiness. What is new, appealing, educational, news about this? Will it capture, captivate and keep the readers’ attention?

Here are some tips for creating newsworthiness:

1. is there a monetary value you can use?
2. is there a big brand involved?
3. are there hidden drivers and influencers behind this story that you can research?

think carefully and spend time to make it worth the editor’s AND the readers’ while.

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

Podcast

Changeworks Blog

Listen to Changeworks’ 60 PR Podcast on this now

A recent HBR article talks about Hiring for attitude and training for skill. Employees who are in sync with your values are assets because they will contribute to making your organisation different. And differentiation is critical to survival in the competitive economy we live in. If you recruit for character, over and above credentials, you will more likely be able to build a team who are passionate about making a difference to your clients and to your brand. However, this is the hardest thing to get right in the recruitment process and requires a Columbo-like persistence and flair at asking questions!
 
Whilst character is critical,  in PR an ability to write is an equally important trait. A trait implies a fixed quality rather than a state that can be taught. And from what I have seen in 20 years of working in the industry, writing talent is more innate than taught. Some senior PR expert say it comes from early childhood exposure to critical reasoning and precis writing at an early age. If, like Columbo, you can put people under the spotlight, test them, whilst putting them at ease; you will likely see their natural talent. (We do a writing test like this).
 
Of course, having some experience is also a huge asset for any new hopefuls, because working in PR is uniquely demanding: creativity and detail; big picture and organised planning; mental toughness and strong sensitivity for relationship building. In fact, experience is so important in this competitive field that the PR industry itself has gotten itself some bad publicity lately, in the furore over unpaid interns. But, like Columbo, it is best to not get caught in the ‘trappings’ of experience: after all, someone will have 14 years’ experience but may have learnt nothing at all, yet another with a year’s meaningful work could have embodied every minute into his or her ‘muscle memory’.
 
So when it comes to PR recruitment there is a double edged sword. Attitude is vital in securing people who can be flexible, creative and organised;  with strong interpersonal skills to handle your clients well. At Changeworks we demand the best. So we test for a key level of skills and experience but we become PR Columbos at  looking for what makes people who they are. Which boils down to behaviour. We don’t recruit on values, or attitudes; we recruit on behaviour. We have identified six non-negotiable behaviours that are essential to our vision of success. We recruit on these, we manage on them, we align our PDR process around them. (And we’re not telling you what they are, you’ll have to guess!).
 
Attitude consists of three components of existence: thoughts and values/beliefs; emotions and emotional reasoning;  and behaviours. Behaviour is the only directly observable, therefore measurable component. So whilst in our recruitment process at Changeworks we have a three stage process that involves psycho-metrics (MBTi and MTQ48), skills tests and (usually) two interviews. Our favourite tack is Columbo-style questioning: “…. and one more thing …?”.  We weave the subtleties of the meta model and other techniques drawn from NLP to do this (almost) as well as Mr Columbo (we hope).
 
Find out more about Changeworks Communications.

Viral ChangeTM: Leadership zen?

Continuing my series on Viral ChangeTM, I wanted to consider the role of leadership in the process of such a cultural change programme.

The Leadership Paradigm
Firstly we need to unpick our paradigms of leadership. When you hear the word – leadership –what immediately comes into your mind? What do you see, hear or feel?  For most of us, if we are honest, we see person(s) in some position of authority who are directing, controlling and guiding the organisation. If we are Gen-Xers rather than baby-boomers (and I do recognise that I am guilty of generalising here) we perhaps see these people as ‘enablers’ too.

So what is leadership? It is a word that has become a generalisation or rather, a nominalisation. This means that what is actually a process word, which implies movement and doing, has been turned into a fixed form of a noun. This is a lazy way for our brains to give a label to what is actually a complex process.  But in so doing, our language forms our reality and this means that we over simplify and miss the deeper meaning of ‘leadership’ or rather the process of leading.

Who’s the Leader?

How many of those lucky people designated as ‘leaders’ are now rallying for more example of leadership from the ranks? How many claim that ‘everyone is a leader’. Yet as Mike Cook says in his recent blog post; how many of them actually mean that they want to see more ‘do as I want you to-ship’.

Now, you already know that Viral ChangeTM is not linear, mechanistic, top down change but organic and spread through peer to peer networks. Of course, different challenges and contexts require different processes for leading but at its very heart leadership is done through example: being the change you want to see (to quote Gandhi). And, as Warren Bennis says “Letting the self emerge is the essential task of leaders”.

Do you notice two key words here:
• Being
And
• Letting (or allowing)

How many of us do you think truly understand, yet alone embody, the concept of leadership as ‘being’ as opposed to ‘doing’ and ‘allowing’ rather than ‘directing/controlling’?

And this is exactly why Viral ChangeTM is the process of leadership in action! And it is also why many leaders are actually VERY uncomfortable with the whole idea of Viral ChangeTM and certainly what presents itself as the main challenge for leaders undertaking a Viral ChangeTM project.

The true leaders in Viral ChangeTM are the employees ‘chosen’ to be the change catalysts. As leaders they need to be ‘allowed’ to influence change in their peer networks, to challenge the status quo and to rally action. Essentially they become the change that you want to see in your organisation.

So what do the ‘traditional’ leadership (senior management, CEO etc)have to do to ‘allow’ this to happen:

• They need to live and breathe the non-negotiable behaviours – they are examplars and it will all flounder if they don’t ‘walk the talk’
•  They need to learn to feel comfortable with feeling uncomfortable 
•  They need to put mechanisms in place to allow the new leaders – certainly at first this means overt support mechanisms to nurture and support the change catalysts
•  They need to be seen to be supporting them
•  They need to proactively reap the fruits of the change that the new leaders achieve – for example have ways of solidifying and reinforcing new processes and ideas

In short, they need to let go and notice how, in such letting go, how change is allowed to happen!

Further reading
1. HBR, How Gen X Leads: http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2009/12/how-gen-x-leads.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HarvardBusiness.org%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Other posts you might enjoy:

• Viral Change means letting go
• How to implement Viral Change TM
• Interview with Dr Leandro Herrero             about Viral Change TM
• Cultural Change is behavioural change
• When it’s not working – go Viral ChangeTM