The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership (8 page)

THE NO-SPEECH SPEECH

So you can – and should – heed all this wise advice, or you can also consider adopting an approach that I find very helpful when it comes to making speeches to large audiences: I don’t do it any more! Well, maybe that’s not strictly true, I do have to make formal speeches every once in a while, but before accepting any speaking engagements I will always try and get them to switch the format to a question and answer session.

Not only do I feel a lot more relaxed and comfortable with a Q&A format but I also believe that the audience gets a lot more out of it. With a standard twenty-five-minute speech, you might sometimes manage to fit in a few questions from the floor at the end, but it’s usually rushed and seldom very productive. With a well-orchestrated Q&A format, however, the audience gets to lead the dialogue (or at least thinks it does) and so I always find myself covering a much wider range of topics than I could ever jam into a prepared address. At the same time, if there is some topic I especially want to discuss, then a pre-planted question or two can always discreetly accommodate such things!

Interestingly, since I have adopted this non-speech approach to ‘speaking engagements’, I have become (so I am told) one of the world’s more highly paid ‘speakers’ and as a result have been raising around $10 million per year for charity.

Have you ever noticed how after any formal speech the audience often spends more time discussing all the things that were
not
covered by the speaker than those that were? ‘I wish she’d taken some time to explain XYZ’ or worse still ‘And did you notice how he studiously avoided mentioning XYZ, which is what I really wanted to hear about.’ Even with a good Q&A session you obviously don’t always get to discuss everything you or your audience might like to cover, but at least they have an opportunity to become participants rather than just listeners.

And the number one question that I still get asked by audiences almost every time I take part in a Q&A is that old favourite: ‘Richard, can you please tell us how you came up with the name Virgin?’ I suppose I should be grateful, though – they could be asking a lot more difficult ones!

WORDS AND PHRASES BEST AVOIDED

Whether you are making a formal speech in an amphitheatre, a Q&A in a ballroom or talking with a group of twenty staff in the boardroom, you should work hard to maximise on your audience’s attention level while minimising the chance of any ambiguity and subsequent (potentially damaging) misunderstandings. To this end here are a few popular words and phrases (and sounds) that, in my experience, are best avoided:

Uhmms, ahhs, ‘you know’ and ‘like’

Nervous public speakers tend to be even more terrified of public silence. As a result they rush to fill in every blank that should be a pause (remember what Mark Twain had to say on this) with all kinds of uhmms, ahhs, grunts and filler words. My generation used to favour sprinkling ‘you know’ into every other sentence, while today’s favourite (English language) filler word is ‘like’. Some Generation-Yers can get like more ‘likes’ into every like sentence than like all the other like words combined. But whatever your predilection, any and all such verbal fillers are best avoided – all they do is drag out the speaking time while adding zero value.

I learned a painful lesson on this subject after my first-ever radio interview when, but for the good graces of the late Anthony Howard, I could have made a bit of a fool of myself. Howard was an esteemed journalist, broadcaster and writer when, for BBC Radio 4, he conducted a pre-recorded interview of a very young and very nervous me talking about the nascent
Student
magazine. After the taping I felt the interview had gone surprisingly well, if maybe a tad on the long side. Anyway, before the show aired Mr Howard was kind enough to send me two different tapes of my performance. The first tape I listened to was the ten minutes that would be aired, and I recall smugly thinking how polished, confident and to-the-point I sounded. Then I listened to the second tape and came down to earth with a major bump. To my horror it consisted of nothing except all the ‘uhmms’, ‘ahs’ and ‘you knows’ and throat clearings that had been edited out of the full interview. And what really depressed me was that the outtake tape was by far the longer of the two!

‘That’s not a bad idea’

Any use of double negatives such as this is an open invitation to mass confusion within the audience. Add the word ‘maybe’ and it gets even more problematic. The take-away from anyone hearing the CEO saying such a thing can vary from, ‘He loves it – let’s push ahead with the project’ to a diametrically opposed ‘He hates it – he specifically avoided saying it was a good idea.’ So, be definitive. If you approve or disapprove of something be assertive and make your position absolutely clear, making sure you explain why.

‘You’re not going to like this but . . . ’

Avoid any such negativity whenever possible. Rather than immediately sowing a seed of doubt with the audience it’s far better to say something like, ‘This may be a tough nut to crack but I’m sure we’ll get it done.’

‘That’s certainly different!’

A statement such as this could be anything from a ringing endorsement to a stinging condemnation or even an admission of ‘I have no idea what the heck this is all about’. Differences, like ‘change’, can be good or bad and for every company that differentiates itself by its excellence there’s at least one other that achieves it by mediocrity.

‘We’ve had better years’

This kind of negative half-statement is yet another often-heard cop-out of a comment. People want the truth, not some sugar-coated version of it. ‘Unfortunately last year was a bad one’ followed by an honest explanation as to what is going to be done to learn from it and ensure next year will be better is a much more positive approach.

‘Let me get back to you on that’

When you truly don’t know the answer to a question, rather than making something up and possibly looking foolish in the process, this is absolutely the correct response,
but
only if you take a note of the question and then make certain that you do indeed get back to them with an answer in a timely manner. Even better, make a commitment that, ‘I will get back to you by X date.’

‘That said . . . ’

Put at the front of just about any sentence, these two little words form what is quite possibly one of the most destructive phrases in the English language. I am constantly amazed at how people can unwittingly shoot down everything they have been saying by using these two words. To most people’s ears, ‘that said’ immediately invalidates everything that has gone before and can breed instant resentment in the listener who may have been buying into the subject matter before ‘that’ was ‘said’. As a verbal bridge from the pros to the cons, try using something like, ‘Of course, we shouldn’t overlook . . . ’

‘No comment’

I know everyone knows this, but it’s still surprising how often this sure-fire PR disaster phrase seems to slip out! Even if you find yourself in the unenviable position where your legal advisors have said, ‘We can’t tell them [the press] anything at this time’, please avoid the ‘no comment’ at all costs. ‘I’m really sorry but until we gather all the facts we are not in a position to issue a statement’ will play much more favourably on YouTube and or the evening news! A stark ‘No comment’, on the other hand, tends to come across like, ‘We’re guilty as hell and don’t want to talk about it until our lawyers have come up with a plausible alibi.’

‘Okay’

Apparently this is the most universally recognised word on the planet next to Coca-Cola and yet it is one of the most ambiguous. The original meaning is rumoured to have come from ‘Oll Korrect’ but in popular usage it can mean a wide range of things. One person’s ‘okay’
might
mean ‘good’, another’s ‘it’s adequate’ and to yet another’s ‘barely acceptable’. It is a word that is also used in a dismissive manner when you really mean to say, ‘Okay – just don’t bother me now.’ Avoid it! Don’t be lazy: if you mean ‘This is an excellent idea’ then say so. If you think the idea sucks then tell them (nicely) that ‘I don’t like it’ and give them a few reasons why so they can learn from it.

And lastly, one that may surprise you, but it is a word that can cause as much trouble for Americans visiting the UK as it can for Brits in the USA: the word is
‘quite’.
To an American, ‘quite good’ means ‘very good’ whereas to a British ear it can mean anything from ‘reasonably good’ to ‘barely acceptable’. If in doubt it’s best to avoid it on both sides of the Atlantic as – using the American connotation – the results can be
quite
dangerous!

LITTLE WORDS THAT GO A LONG WAY

So having listed some of the words and phrases I recommend are best avoided, here are a few everyday words and phrases that I strongly suggest using as often as possible. The first consists of seven little words that I sincerely believe might constitute one of the most powerful sentences a business leader can utter:
‘I’m not sure – what do you think?’

The upsides to popping this question every once in a while are almost innumerable. First of all, if you truly aren’t sure of your answer, admitting it will usually spare the other party from a lot of Sir Humphrey-like blather – or ‘blether’, as the Scots like to call it. I only know that because my wife Joan has on more than a few occasions said, ‘Oh come on, Richard, spare us the blether, will you.’ And when this comes from my lovely wife I usually do – quickly!

There will, of course, be some bombastic ‘I’m in charge and I’ll make the decisions around here’ types that will see any admission of uncertainty on their part as an utterly unacceptable sign of weakness in front of their ‘underlings’. As far as I’m concerned, however, quite the opposite applies. When a leader displays the self-confidence to effectively say, ‘Hey, I can’t be expected to have all the answers, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject’, it not only has a very humanising effect, but it also tells the employees that their opinions are respected and considered to be of value. Even without the ‘I don’t know’, frequently asking simple little questions like, ‘So what do you think?’ or ‘Are we missing anything here?’ will yield all kinds of highly positive rewards. At school we always knew which teachers made a habit of asking questions and which would just drone on and on and on without asking one question per term. The same applies in the office – if your people know that their opinions may be sought at any moment they will pay much closer attention and also have to have an opinion at the ready.

SPEAK AS YOU WOULD BE SPOKEN TO – PLEASE

Now what I am about to say may not be something you’ve heard from anyone since your parents used to say it to you when you were growing up. Many of you did actually listen and learn from them and so this is not directed at you, but at the same time I’ll bet you’ll be the first to concur with my position here. I apologise if this comes across in any way as condescending but there are two tiny but hugely important words that tend to be grossly underused by a lot of people, and quite often the higher up the totem pole you go, the less you tend to hear the words ‘
please
’ and
‘thank you’
spoken.

We were all brought up to say please and thank you. My mum and dad’s rule was a very simple, ‘No please, no get.’ So why do so many people seem to grow out of the habit? I don’t know if it’s some kind of a misbegotten status thing or if it’s just sheer bad manners, but I am frequently saddened at how many people just don’t seem to use these words any more. Perhaps today’s kids just aren’t being taught the social value of such things but as far as I’m concerned, whether in emails or face-to-face, you simply cannot overuse these two words. It’s not just a question of politeness, it’s about recognition and respect for your colleagues at every level. Just consider what a difference it makes leading off a conversation with, ‘Thank you so much for all your hard work on this report and . . . ’ as opposed to, ‘I got your report and . . . ’ In the same way a simple ‘please’ can make a world of difference. ‘I need this by Monday’ is much less likely to get you there than, ‘Can you please try and get this to me by Monday.’

If you listen to experts like McKinsey & Co. on the subject of motivation and ‘employee recognition’, they are generally in agreement that, contrary to popular perceptions, money is seldom the prime motivator. In a report titled ‘Insights into Organization’ McKinsey agreed that while being fairly compensated is important, so are a lot of other more subtle factors, one of which is pride in one’s work. People take a lot of satisfaction from knowing that they’re doing a good job, and that their efforts are appreciated – and the simplest way to stoke this passion is for leaders to use ample doses of gratitude. A simple ‘thank you’ when coming from a senior person can go a long way, particularly if they have made a trip to the employee’s desk to express it. And if there is an opportunity to extend the thank you into something a little more meaningful then that will make an even more lasting impression.

In addition to the frightening reduction in face-to-face conversations, another casualty in the wake of emails and texts is the handwritten thank you letter. Given their rarity nowadays, however, a well-crafted, handwritten thank you note – which in case you’ve forgotten involves the use of paper, pen and ink and sent in an envelope – is something that really stands out. I send them several times a month to say thank you for something special, offer condolences, congratulations on a newborn baby or sometimes even to try and sway a business deal that looks to be getting away from us. I remember dropping a line to Mick Jagger in 1991 when we were pursuing the Rolling Stones for Virgin Records, but perhaps the oddest one I have ever sent was when we were trying to sign the Stereophonics to the V2 label. I was told the deal was slipping away, so on a whim I sent a handwritten note to the mother of the band’s singer Kelly Jones. I had been told that Kelly still lived at home, so I implored his mum to have her son make ‘the right choice’ – which he did; they signed the deal a few weeks later. As Kelly told me later, ‘It’s quite amazing what a handwritten note from “that nice Mr Branson” can do!’