Wolverhampton Wanderers and the language of motivation.

A hero of mine is the Second World War General: George Patton. “Blood and Guts” was a larger than life character, controversial and with a tendency to upset people. He delivered results. He was a motivator. Check out the opening scene in the Hollywood film Patton to get a feel. In the World Cup, the Algerian manager took a motivational leaf from his book before the England match.

When things go wrong powerful and persuasive language to motivate others can be a game-changer.

You see this every week in the Premier Football League. Managers come under pressure to give an account of themselves. Media and fans are just waiting for those quotes. Managers must hate the process and cringe at the interrogation.

The pity is that the interviews are not as well prepared and delivered as they ought. What is reported lies in the memory long after the game has been forgotten.

A recent interview by the local Express and Star with the Wolves manager, Mick McCarthy is a case in point. This was after the Villa match. Assuming the report was a fair representation of what was said, the reader was presented with this.

“I still feel we’ll get out of it, with whatever we’ve got and whatever we do, because I think we’ve got good players…. They keep going and they will get us out of it… There’s nothing more that could have gone wrong against Villa…. It has to turn because our lads worked dammed hard and they’re a great bunch…. We just need to play like we did on Saturday, but not give a penalty away, not get one sent off and not get one carried off…. I’ve signed everyone and there’s not one who would let me down intentionally…. They’ve all got a great work ethic. I believe in the same group of players and getting the best out of them, and that’s what myself and Terry Connor will carry on doing….. We might not have beaten Villa but if we get the level of performance we did on Saturday, that’s all I can ask. We’ve got more chance of winning if we play like that…. The way we played, not just against Villa, but against Arsenal, Bolton, Tottenham and Chelsea offers encouragement…. The biggest reason as to how I cope is that I don’t listen to the backdrop of what fans are saying….. I do not go around in a glass cabinet – I am fully aware of what is going on. If you listen to it, you would go off your head anyway. But I cannot question the performances at all….. I would not have done anything differently against Chelsea and Tottenham and I could not have done anything to make us any better….. I am not going to change anything – I’ve not got a magic wand.”

The cumulative impact of the words is a killer. Notice the high frequency of that magic word “Not”. “If”, “But” and “Can’t” add to the mood. These are killjoy words to close you down. Notice how the passive words are often the shortest.They are negative. Everyone involved is an observer hoping that something will turn up. In a difficult situation you can understand why they were uttered but they are not assertive.

Motivational language is about the right choice of words. It is about energy levels. It is about the creation of virtuous circles of optimism. Words are one part of the equation. Delivery and body language complete the threesome.

This professional sport spends millions on wages, fees, grounds and whatever. It seeks to buy instant success with the acquisition of a new player. What is needed is organic growth stemming from developing communication skills for motivation. Only then will physical, tactical and technical skills have a chance. This is a game where you have to use your voice and mind as well as the feet.

Leveson Inquiry and blogging.

The Leveson Inquiry has thrown up some interesting tit bits as celebrities, journalists and grieved parties come before it. A narrative of the state of our media for those with a genuine interest and an addition to the tapestry of day-time televison. The ultimate soap and an extra episode of “Have I got news…”

The blogosphere has received little coverage, at least until a day ago. Richard Wallace editor at the Daily Mirror came out with this gem when asked about bloggers. "The out and out cowboys – I don't see in the long term they can survive … people want information that is competent and true."

A confection of ideas to feed off here then. People want information that is competent and true but he seems to have side-stepped the irony that the whole point of Leveson is to question the mainstream journalists' application of this in the first place.

Blogs can be amateurish with poor prose, questionable logic and inaccuracies. The fact is that, collectively, they are the grain of sand in the oyster. The number of authors, readers and commentators is itself a set of checks and balances. Something the print media lost track of. The blogosphere has democratised the publication of facts, views and opinions when the mass media was doing the reverse.

What are town centres for? How will Wolverhampton respond to Mary Portas' report on retailing?

A visitor from Pluto would wonder what a British shopping centre was about and what it said of the Earthlings.

It would think that central to our lifestyle was: betting, buying things for a pound, addiction to coffee or swapping our old clothes. Empty shops with graphic designs outside, to give the impression of activity inside, would be an interesting concept to explain away.

Such is the context of Mary Portas’ report on the state of the high street. Low prices, convenience and easy access for shoppers and deliveries alike, enabled the retail park to slaughter its older relative. The town centre will never compete and so it has to find a new role.

There may be glimmers of optimism for a retro town centre. Retail parks do not breathe community spirit and their clonal architecture has all of the ambience of aircraft hangars. These are not places in which to dwell or develop relationships and a sense of belonging.

An opportunity awaits for the town centre if it could reconnect with some of the benign characteristics of earlier centuries. Street markets with their hustle and bustle have a vitality and sense of occasion missing from sanitised multiple chains. Now is the time to reclaim them.

We had a central market in Wolverhampton going back to medieval times. In the 1970s it was demolished and relocated to the fringes of the town centre to make way for council offices. Administrative towers do not have the vitality of a street market and other such decisions cumulatively knocked the heart out of a centre.

We live in little boxes in the suburbs, but in the centre there are no boxes at all. The residential population has been squeezed out and there is no-one to support local convenience shops and cafes. The continental café culture is largely-based on a residential central population living in flats above offices and shops. Now is the time to reconfigure these blighted brown field sites.

Even today, there can be a sense of occasion when visiting a town centre with a wide base of cultural and entertainment attractions. Even better, if shops are encouraged that meet niche markets. Basically, we need to make town centres interesting and accessible.

Now is the time to reassess the benign features of earlier town centres where business, retail, culture and residence supported each other. We need public transportation systems that work and parking policies which do not discourage visitors. Above all, we want a regulatory and planning climate so that entrepreneurs can try out their startup businesses with a reasonable chance of success.

Quite simply, the critical question for councils and government is a basic one. What are town centres for?

Inward investment into Wolverhampton is just what is needed. Now's the time for applicants to sharpen the CV.

CVs have become clichéd and arid productions telling us little about the applicant. Quite simply, they just don't do you any favours. An opportunity to get that job is wasted.

A client came to me yesterday seeking a makeover for her CV. These are hard times, recession, rejection and redundancy making the application process more stressful than usual.

If ever there was a time for one to raise your game it is now. The reality is that the CV has become sterile and predictable. A format full of business management-speak. Something to glaze the eye. We have created surreal CVs where there is a disconnection between overstated terminology and the reality of the person described.

Where does it go wrong? The introductory “profile” sets the tone. The applicant is described in the third person. This is passive writing at its worst. The CV describes the applicant in a distanced manner. It conjures up a style that makes estate agent prose and a MOT report interesting.

Conscientious, enthusiastic, lively, energetic, ambitious, team-player, self-starter, motivation and time-management are just a few of the well-worn terms lifted from a computerised CV word bank. Nothing to give a flavour of the person described: nothing to give an idea of personality and character then.

The CV before me has been produced by a government-funded agency and it is CV writing by tick box. The anodyne tone continues as we move on to sections describing key skills, capabilities and achievements.

What we need is a format, layout and content which emphasises the person. How about, “What I am like, what I am looking for and what I can offer”? It can still be two pages with key facts and experiences woven in to provide a framework for interview.

The skill comes in planting sufficient seeds in the CV so that the reader sees an interesting person. Stereotyped CVs tend to kill this. CVs seem to have forgotten that they are about real people.

Rick Perry's gaffe. We all do it so why was there no plan for when things went wrong?

Republican candidate Rick Perry’s recent lapse of memory in the US Republican Primary debate will join the annals of inept political communication. Endless replays of his gaffe will be played back to aspiring future politicians seeking to hone their own presentation skills. Something to go alongside Nixon and Kennedy or Quayle and Bentsen.

We should stand back a bit and be more measured.

53 seconds of embarrassment may have been the result of tiredness and nerves. Sometimes you just run out of track.

More likely, it is a mixture of over and under-preparation, under-preparation, in the sense of his reported avoidance of interview. He had insulated himself from media and voter scrutiny. Glad-handing and kissing babies are not enough. He had little practice in dealing with real-time questions and what can be thrown up. He delivered the same speech and a monologue at endless stage-managed conversations. He should not have been surprised when confronted with the tighter inquisition in the so-called “televised debates” which are nothing of the sort. Equally, If oratory and rhetoric have disappeared from Parliament in the UK, it is because of the demise of hustings.

Funnily enough, Perry might have come out well if he had adopted the debating strategy seen in the fictional debate in the last series of the West Wing. Candidates threw out the “guidelines” and emerged from behind their lecterns. A fiction but perhaps what the new politics ought to be about.

Perry was probably over-prepared. Candidates use their policy wonks to shape lines of argument and rebuttal. They rehearse detailed responses but the casualties are the sacrifice of spontaneity and character. In their preparations, Perry and his aids forgot to deal with normal human situations when stuff happens: like what to do when you fluff a line.

Who let the cat in? A blinder of a strap line from Wolverhampton City Council celebrating investment from Jaguar Land Rover.

In the competitive advertising and marketing world you really need a splash to catch the eye. Most ads just pass over you.

The private sector has the finance and time to buy in the consultancy necessary.

Councils tend to have a back seat when it comes to the creation of interesting copy for marketing their activities. Not so here.

Came across a startling item in the street today which caught the eye. An in-house creation from Wolverhampton City Council, celebrating the investment of Jaguar Land Rover in its new engine plant on the M54.

This is a city looking for all the good news it can get and the council have come up with a blinder here. "Who let the cat in?" is simple, succinct and savvy.

What makes it good? The initial question-answer device followed by the allusion to the Mafia offer for starters. Company logo and the courage not to use all of the space add a further dynamic.

Finally, the bracketing of the whole ad with the puzzle-solution rhetorical device highlighted in yellow is simplicity itself. This is an ad which really works and someone should be putting it up for an award.