Clement Write Right Training, Coaching and Facilitation
ICEPICK
Improving Clarity and Enhancing Persuasive Impact with Creativity and Knowledge
Clement Write Right arranges courses, seminars and meetings on communications and media, issue and reputation management, corporate responsibility, stakeholder management and CEO training.
Our training programs also include commercial writing courses: on message development, copywriting, text coaching and speechwriting.
Clement Write Right fits well with corporate training requirements in the communications, corporate and public affairs functions.
An integrated communications course entitled ICEPICK has been created for in-house training within companies, organizations and associations.
This training can also be tailored to specific requirements.
The essential elements and major characteristics of the course are set out in this document.
ICEPICK Communications Training
Improving Clarity and Enhancing Persuasive Impact with Creativity and Knowledge
A five-day course to improve corporate and individual expression
In a recent survey of recruiters from companies with more than 50,000 employees, communication skills were cited as the single most important decisive factor in choosing managers. The survey confirmed that communication skills, including written and oral presentations, as well as an ability to work with others, are the main factor contributing to job success.
The ICEPICK training course, developed by Clement Write Right, appeals to leaders, managers and working teams needing to communicate to internal and external stakeholders to build corporate reputation and enhance the brand, as well as to those involved in urgent or sensitive scenarios needing to communicate and respond clearly, intelligently and persuasively, or to lead effective and spontaneous issue and reputation management.
ICEPICK is essentially about the art of using the right words in the right order for companies to build or defend reputation, or for individuals to drive or enhance a successful career.
The course is divided into five full days. These can be taken consecutively to fill a complete week, or in five regular stages of one day per week or one day per fortnight.
The five modules are each self-contained sessions that can be taken individually, although completion of the five together constitutes a significant integrated communications training achievement. The courses can of course be amended by arrangement where such amendments are consistent with particular corporate requirements and objectives. The core courses are composed as follows.
Day 1: The right words in the right order
In spite of the increasing importance placed on communication skills, many people are not able to communicate their thoughts and ideas effectively – whether in verbal or written format.
The purpose of communication is to get an appropriate message across to an audience clearly, correctly and persuasively.
The message must be clear, the audience for whom it is intended must be identified, and the audience’s perception of the message must be accurately assessed.
On virtually all of these measurements, the audience, not the communicator, is the determining factor in the success of the communication.
There are many different obstacles that prevent or inhibit the audience (separately or together) from understanding the same information as the sender has tried to convey.
Without successful reception, successful communication cannot occur.
They will wonder: What are you trying to say?
To ensure the right reception, the sender has to do the tuning. And because a failure to communicate exactly what you intend will stop you attaining your personal and professional goals, this will certainly inhibit your career progression.
The module “The right words in the right order” will identify and discuss these obstacles in the following four 90-minute sessions.
Morning sessions:
Discoveries and origins of persuasion and policy
The session is intended to investigate and analyze the origin of persuasion in communication as a preliminary to the deployment of words as tools. Trainees will work in groups to select and test words and phrases that persuade particular audiences in their policy decisions, eg political elections; that generate esteem and respect for the communicator (creating the vocabulary of reputation management); and that provide assurance and security (creating the vocabulary of crisis communications).
Other selected backgrounds and objectives will also be used in the course of this introductory session.
Understanding the Communication Lens
The session is intended to help participants understand the nature of communication, from initial transmission through a medium that may change or misrepresent the message, to the audience, who can only receive what has been mediated.
This can be likened to a communications lens, in which a text is refracted by external elements and which may not always arrive at the target in the same shape as it left the communicator.
There is refraction from various elements, including bias, time, relevance, perspective, culture, language, accent and the impression of credibility. Each of these factors will be examined and tested, and group work will take a message and pass it through this lens.
There will also be group role-playing around the game of “Chinese whispers”, in which a message almost inevitably gets distorted as it is passed from one messenger to another. Groups will be prompted to draw conclusions from this work.
Other selected backgrounds and objectives will also be used in the course of this introductory session.
Day 1: The right words in the right order
Afternoon sessions:
Examining the power of words in the right contexts
Groups will look at and use the power-words of effective communications in exercises showing that most words are particularly powerful within specific contexts, and that a mark of creativity and imagination is to use these words as descriptors in business communications.
There will also be text-coaching exercises showing how certain words suit particular media.
Words for texts and emails are to be distinguished and treated differently from words used in speeches, reports or web sites.
Finally, in group work, insights gained will be put to the test in different contexts and self-assessed by the groups. Examples will be shown of excellent examples of word management in political and commercial situations
Extracting key messages from complex issues
The first day closes with group work on a corporate issue that will be introduced to all participants. The issue will be extensively researched and documentation will be made available.
The issue needs to be understood, scoped, addressed, and managed, and groups will develop processes to do so.
Specifically groups will be asked to create a multi-perspective definition of the issue with the use of clear, correct and powerfully persuasive words and an effective vocabulary to calibrate the issue appropriately and generate the thinking, the networks and capacities that will be needed to manage it well.
Groups will be prompted to draw conclusions from their work to scope out the issue and extract from the process one or more key messages that can serve as the preliminary basis of a communications programme.
Day 2: Issue Identification and reputation risk assessment
Most executive managers know the importance of their companies’ reputations. Firms with strong positive reputations attract better people.
They are perceived as providing more value, which often allows them to charge a premium. Their customers are more loyal and buy broader ranges of products and services.
Because the market believes that such companies will deliver sustained earnings and future growth, they have higher price-earnings multiples and market values and lower costs of capital.
Moreover, in an economy where 70% – 80% of market value comes from hard-to-assess intangible assets such as brand equity, intellectual capital, and goodwill, organizations are especially vulnerable to anything that damages their reputations.
Most companies, however, do an inadequate job of managing their reputations in general and the risks to their reputations in particular.
They tend to focus their energies on handling the threats to their reputations that have already surfaced.
This is not risk management; it is crisis management—a reactive approach whose purpose is to limit the damage where much of it has already been done, and where earlier issue reputation work alone can provide mitigation or even prevention of the crisis..
The overall purpose of the day is to establish clearly the processes and priorities that need to be observed when dealing with risks, both enterprise and reputational, and issues of all types.
Day 2: Issue Identification and reputation risk assessment
Morning sessions:
Identifying, scoping and examining issues from different perspectives
Groups will be given a range of different issues and they will identify and examine them from different perspectives: financial, strategic, stakeholder impact, security, reputation.
These will then be listed in priority categories of each group’s choosing in work that will be submitted for assessment to the other groups using and applying different contexts and considerations.
Investigating the scope and potential impact of issues passive and active
Groups will re-assess the issues in the light of potential and likely impacts, and in different contexts of passive and outcomes, as well as consideration of the budgets and other resources necessary for the management of the issues.
Day 2: Issue Identification and reputation risk assessment
Afternoon sessions:
Risk: distinguishing between risks of enterprise and risks of reputation
The facilitator will introduce a debate on the differences between reputation risks and enterprise risks, and the significance of these differences in corporate communications practice, issue management and risk assessment.
Assessing, evaluating and reporting on reputation risk
Groups will examine the factors that affect risk assessment and consider how a company can sufficiently quantify and control these factors.
Such a process will help managers do a better job of assessing existing and potential threats to their companies’ reputations and deciding whether to accept a given risk or to take actions to avoid or mitigate it.
Groups will consider the elements necessary to construct a risk management process, and will consider some example from major corporates, before creating their own reputation risk checklist.
Day 3: Storytelling and Immersive Communications
Storytelling and immersive communications
As ubiquitous publishing and sharing tools transform our digital lives, storytelling is becoming essential to corporate communications. And as we spend increasing amounts of time consuming content, storytelling has become a skill that every business — and individual — will need to master.
Businesses now need to tell good stories. As the majority of corporations start thinking of themselves as publishers, the defining characteristic among the successful ones will be the ability to craft compelling stories.
No one cares about somebody else’s marketing goals. But everyone likes a good story, and most particularly in today’s media flurry. The businesses that can tell a good story (and there are some really good ones around) will have increasing advantage.
We share billions of links every month, to tens of millions of pieces of content. As the deluge of content in our lives and the means of accessing it grows, what stands out has to be increasingly compelling. Those who can create, find, and share the good stories will build significant followings and markets.
Immersive communications is not just engagement. Engagement takes place when a story, or a marketing message, provokes some sort of action among the audience—a tweet, a post, a face-to-face conversation.
Immersion takes place when the lines between communicator and recipient are forgotten, when the lines are blurred between story and marketing, storyteller and audience, illusion and reality. This day will give you the tools to tell a good story, about yourself or your company.
This day course is intended to turn managers into effective storytellers and to change their method of communication by using effective words in a narrative that is likely to be better and longer retained by their teams or by customers. This could help to:
- Attract higher quality customers to the company
- Present technical or business information more simply and (therefore) memorably
- Improve internal communications
- Lead rather than just manage a team or organization
The course will show simple and powerful ways to motivate and persuade other people of your ideas, strategies and arguments through powerful storytelling techniques.
By the end of the course, attendees will be able to:
- understand how stories work (interest, seduction, satisfaction);
- understand how to use stories, framing and images powerfully and creatively; and
- create stories to inspire themselves, their organisations and their clients
Day 3: Storytelling and Immersive Communications
Introduction
- What communications do you need to create?
- Review of objectives
What is a story?
- How stories differ from other communications
- Why stories are so powerful as communications tools
What can you use stories for?
- Using stories to shift perceptions deeply
- Using stories to persuade and sell more convincingly
- Motivating your audience more strongly
Where can you use stories successfully?
- Stories versus statistics (as back up or replacing figures)
- Stories as examples to reinforce points
- Stories to improve presentations/arguments
- Stories as framing devices and metaphors
- Stories to bond with your audience
Developing your own stories
- What must a good story have?
- Where to get the best material
Does a story have to be true?
- The truth continuum: where should your story sit?
- Developing your personal story
- Developing stories for your organisation
Mini stories/images/metaphors
- Creating concentrated stories to dominate the debate
- Using stories as memory exercises
- How to use jokes as miniature stories
Immersive Communications
- The changing demands and access points of social media
- Blurring the lines between communicator and recipient
- Illusion and reality. Impressionism and scientific communications
Practical show: the final session of the day will end with each group being challenged to co-create a compelling story around a selected theme.
These will be worked on within each group and presented to the other groups in turn and assessed by them.
This day as a whole will give you the tools to tell a good story, about yourself, your interest or your company.
Day 4: Creating tailored messages and identifying stakeholders through selective filtration – the STEEPLE communications programme
The day module consists of a thorough exploration of the STEEPLE process, utilized after the initial development of the central and defining message or description of the issue or problem to be solved.
The STEEPLE process uses group work to filter the message into differentiated messages through different categories or “filters of obsession and prejudice”. It will involve all participants in a full day of interactive group work, commentary and analysis, in which the key stages are:
- Identifying the key message
- Refracting the message against the seven filters of STEEPLE
- Developing a list of stakeholders
- Stakeholder identification systems
- Incorporation of drivers and motives; assessments of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
- Application of stakeholders with messages
- Applying effectiveness, relevance, linkage and cost factors
- Media and presentation testing, using video and taped interviews in role playing
Objectives of STEEPLE
- Improve message creation and development
- Develop capacity for disciplined thinking
- Encourage sensitive, tactical and targeted communications
- Understand interactive nature of good lobbying / public affairs
- Think “outside the box”
- Develop capacity for consensual decision-making
- Encourage teamwork in problem-solving through communications
STEEPLE
S Social – the quality of life, security, family, education, employment, health
T Technical – The relevant sciences, technology, academic and lab research & tests, statistics, evidence
E Economic – Economic or financial value to country or to national economy, value to clients
E Environmental – Sustainability, Biodiversity
P Political / Popular – Government, political and public policy issues, interests of non-specialist politicians
L Legal – Litigation, law, legislation and regulation
E Ethical – Standards and moral behavior, CR, morality
S Social – the quality of life, security, family, education, employment, health
T Technical – The relevant sciences, technology, academic and lab research & tests, statistics, evidence
E Economic – Economic or financial value to country or to national economy, value to clients
E Environmental – Sustainability, Biodiversity
P Political / Popular – Government, political and public policy issues, interests of non-specialist politicians
L Legal – Litigation, law, legislation and regulation
E Ethical – Standards and moral behavior, CR, morality
Day 5: Dealing with crises and building issue management networks
A crisis is any active and ongoing situation that threatens the integrity or reputation of your company, usually brought on by adverse or negative media attention.
These situations can be any kind of legal dispute, theft, accident, fire, flood or manmade disaster that could be attributed to your company.
It can also be a situation where in the eyes of the media or general public your company did not react to one of the above situations in the appropriate manner.
Crises are often ways of understanding how effective and dependable you are, and many companies have a formal regular process of crisis response training. This day is designed to provide a short, well prepared and concise exercise in crisis management and will provide valuable tools for crisis preparation, networks and process building in issue management.
Good issue management makes many crises look like a walk in the park!
Day 5: Dealing with crises and building issue management networks
The facilitator will introduce participants to several different aspects of business and political communications practices, including short group work projects on
- Truths, Impressions and Realities in Communications Practice
- Understanding when and what to communicate and why
- Role playing for media presentations
- Pressure testing of messages through a short crisis communications and management exercise
The crisis which will be announced as a sudden interruption by a telephone call through to the presentation room, and for which groups will be expected to form and immediately begin working in a crisis management and communications mode.
A short plan will be handed out to all groups. This will outline a generic, basic crisis communication plan, which will also allocate roles to each participant (CEO, Communications Manager etc..).
Groups will be expected to form a Crisis Communication Team from within each group, which will identify what actions should be taken. The team should include as a minimum the CEO, the head of Communications, the Senior manager from the division in charge of the area that was involved in the situation that has brought about the crisis, the safety and/or security officer, etc.
The job of the team is to develop a plan of action, deciding on a list of actions, including who the spokesperson should be.
The day will develop in an ad hoc manner, with calls being put through to the individual groups with new information about developments in the crisis, which will always call forth the need to make a decision on the reaction and the level at which the reaction should be implemented.
Crisis management professionals will be present on the day and will assist, advice and make notes of the ways in which the groups handled the crisis that they were given to work on.
The afternoon consists and closes with a final role play involving the groups and using the communications tools they have been developed on the previous course/day.
These tools will be pressure checked in real issue and crisis management scenarios to wrap up the crisis management exercise. This will be one of a series of possible situations that follow the crisis:
- a Parliamentary Enquiry featuring populist political representatives, NGOs and regulators
- a 20 minute political discussion presented as a political round table conversation
- a televised showdown with the principal detractors of the company and prosecutors of the company’s handling of the crisis in question
- a Balloon debate, with other groups as the audience
Lionel Stanbrook, Clement Write Right, February 2020
Clement Write Right Training, Coaching and Facilitation
ICEPICK
Improving Clarity and Enhancing Persuasive Impact with Creativity and Knowledge
CLEMENT WRITE RIGHT
00 44 (0)7734 970163
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