Erickson Teresa - The Master Communicators Handbook

Ive seen Teresa and Tims techniques at work with my leadership team, with transformational results. Theyve helped us cut through the jargon and communicate with clarity, purpose and vision.

President Donald Kaberuka, President Emeritus, Africa Development Bank

I worked with Tim and Teresa early on in my career with notable results and Ive made many a return visit. They scrubbed me of acronyms and schooled me to making everything more relevant and real to my audience. Weve now engaged them in training our leaders in a Master Communicators program and Ive seen a watershed difference in bringing our work to life.

President Carter Roberts, President and CEO, World Wildlife Fund

Tim and Teresa have mastered the art and science of effective communication. For two years now, I have repeatedly called on their amazing skills to help me prepare for important public statements, presentations or complex sessions with high level counterparts or media. The results are systematically impressive. It works every time!

Hela Cheikhrouhou, Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund

The power of Tim and Teresas work is that it gave me the confidence to approach public communications without fear and in fact enjoy it! It has allowed me to convey evidence about development to the general public, including I hope the poor people whose lives we are trying to improve.

Shantayanan Devarajan, Chief Economist, Middle East and North Africa Region, World Bank

Ive watched Teresa and Tim at work for the past 20 years, teaching over 3000 utility professionals from 152 countries how to answer questions effectively and communicate with clarity and authority. I have seen them transform people who were nervous (to say the least) in front of the press into confident professionals. They are the best I have seen and their approach is easy to grasp and effective.

Dr Mark A. Jamison, Director, Public Utility Research Center, University of Florida

I have watched Tim and Teresa coach dozens of young scientists on how to talk to the media and give presentations their work was truly inspiring. So much so that I participated in their training too! I can honestly say that my confidence in handling the misinformed, false and damaging, and other difficult questions from the media is due to their mentoring. Beyond handling reporters, thanks to their help, I am a better communicator in all my interactions with groups big and small.

Dr Alan Thornhill, Director, Office of Science Quality and Integrity, US Geological Survey; Former Executive Director, Society for Conservation Biology

Teresa and Tim are genuine masters. They have helped me enormously over the years and I am certain that there is no professional speaker working today who would not benefit from reading their book.

Wade Davis, BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk, University of British Columbia

First published by Changemakers Books, 2015

Changemakers Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach,

Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

www.johnhuntpublishing.com

www.changemakers-books.com

For distributor details and how to order please visit the Ordering section on our website.

Text copyright: Teresa Erickson and Tim Ward 2014

ISBN: 978 1 78535 153 2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015939708

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Teresa Erickson and Tim Ward as authors have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

We operate a distinctive and ethical publishing philosophy in all areas of our business, from our global network of authors to production and worldwide distribution.

This book is for people who want to change the world. Heres the challenge: its impossible to change the world all by yourself. To have an impact, you need to communicate.

In these pages, we will share with you what we have each learned over 30 years as professional communicators as writers, speakers, broadcasters, reporters, teachers and advisors to leaders of global organizations. We have distilled the essence of this knowledge into useful techniques and models that we teach in our communications courses all around the world. To this we add our insights from our intensive study of neuroscience. In the past two decades neuroscience has revealed much new information about how the brain processes information. Surprisingly little has been written about how to turn the theoretical insights of neuroscience into practical methods of effective communication. We believe we are the first communications professionals to put this together in one book.

You will find our focus on transformation quite different from others. This is because we have specialized in organizations dedicated to making the world a better place. Our clients include UN and government agencies, multilateral development banks, think-and-do tanks, universities, environmental groups such as WWF, and scientific bodies like the Society of Conservation Biology. These organizations dont exist to make money. They exist to create transformation. Whether taking action on Climate Change, helping to create jobs in poverty-stricken nations, changing policies that discriminate against women or explaining a recent breakthrough in fighting cancer, our clients take on big challenges. To succeed, they know they must communicate powerfully. They also know that credibility is their currency, so they have to be honest, transparent and authentic. For this reason our approach to communications is based on clarity, leadership and impact.

With each person we work with, our goal is to move him or her towards excellence, and in these pages we want to move you towards being the most effective and powerful communicator you can be. Why does this matter? You can have the finances, the human capital, the need and the logistics all in place. But if you fail to communicate why your work is important, you wont get buy-in, you wont get action and you wont create the change you desire.

When it comes to communication, most professionals go wrong by focusing mostly on output and not much on impact. They think only about what they have to say or write, and very little about how their words will change their audiences minds. For example, we work with many research report authors who spend a year gathering data and compiling a myriad of facts into a 200-page document. Then they come to us to help prepare for dissemination. Typically, they allot a half-day for learning how to deliver their message. With a few exceptions, they mostly consider their job done when the report is approved and finalized. Going on a worldwide media tour seems like an afterthought. We wonder how these brilliant people believe their work is going to make any difference if they dont dedicate themselves to promoting it and articulating their ideas on the world stage.

We like to let the quality of our work speak for itself, they tell us. Its not easy for many experts and authors to accept our response: Your work does