Do you want to speak like Barack Obama?

The recent Kraft Cadbury merger took me back to my early days in selling. Kraft gave me my first sales job. I loved it... and with rapid promotion quickly followed by a "fast tracking" secondment to Head Office I soon became a Kraftman.  I so much wanted to be like the "special ones." The guys who really had been fast tracked...to Chicago Head Office!  Instantly recognisable with their purposeful stride, short hair cuts... and affected mid-Atlantic language and accents. Often spoken in amusing blends of Bronx-London or Chicago-Scouse...the accent was always delivered with those exaggerated deep tones that Americans cultivate so well.

It was these guys that came to mind when I read an article in escience on work undertaken by Sarah Wolff and David Puts of the Department of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University.
In a series of studies they examined the relationship between a deep masculine voice and male group dominance. And the practical conclusion from this particular research would seem to be. Yes...you are unlikely to power your way through a debate talking like Tiny Tim (remember him)...but trying to affect the bass tones of Bryn Terfel is not really going to make that much difference.
And the same can be said about affected language. The special ones loved all that...the jargonise...but we were amused rather than impressed...because it was so affected. And we found a satisfactory and satisfying way to deal with it that was based on the Honeywell Buzz word chart that was used back in the 70's to debunk computer jargon.
Here's how it works. When hit with jargon.... respond with a statement or question that randomly selects a word across each of these columns:
          Customer               Sensitive               Analysis
          Value                     Monetized             Campaign 
          Socially                  Reversed              Strategy 
          Real-time               Empowered          Model 
          Transparency        Centric                  Concept 
          Diversity                Integrated            Supposition
          Metrics                  Optimized             Mindset 
          Collateral               Aligned                 Threat 
          Supply                    Leveraged            Opportunity 
          Demand                 Segmented            Protocol 
          Organically            Embedded             Paradigm

 For example "we've approached this as a demand leveraged opportunity!"  "whilst working hard to satisfy a socially embedded protocol!"  Or.
"That's impressive but there are several organically aligned threats in that assumption aren't there!"
Then just shut up and watch the faces.
Cruel maybe...but a worthwhile lesson that effective not affected communication is what we want and that means being yourself and keeping it simple


For more tips and advice on persuasive comunication visit http://www.persuadability.co.uk/ and browse the Resource Centre