An Arriva train journey from Birmingham to Wolverhampton. A choice of words and motivation.

Taking a rail journey with Arriva from Birmingham International to Wolverhampton recently, I noticed a guy emptying trash bins and generally tidying the carriage up.

It took me back forty years to when I had a succession of student summer jobs cleaning out trains for the then British Rail. This was the university of life and one certainly knew ones place, as your mop and brush signalled your cleaner status to the public. Never have I felt so lowly. So what you might ask?

Well, this 2012 guy seemed to take pride in what he was doing, going about it with purpose. His body language spoke volumes. Energy and motivation were there to be seen. We got into conversation. We shared some brief anecdotes of our mutual experience separated by the decades.

We said our goodbyes and as we walked away, I noticed some words printed on the back of his working fleece. They read “Train Presentation Team".

Funny how a few words can deliver a different perception of what a job is about. I went through the motions of the job with no thought of why it was being done and for whom. Not much commitment then.

For him the word “presentation” gave a different take on the job compared with my lowly “cleaner” description. The word “ team” would never have crossed my mind. Arriva deserve a pat on the back.

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.

Capello says he only needs 100 words to communicate to his players - some of them are taking steps to do much better.

After working with a Buddhist monk, a candidate at the General Election and a company that had a share in building Dubai’s airport, one never quite knows who the next client will be.

Query solved, as a professional from one of the Premier League football clubs comes forward. An interesting guy planning his exit strategy from the beautiful game once his legs tire. A beacon where the normal imperatives are short-termism, taking a game at a time and conspicuous consumption.

Each profession has its distinctive culture and work regime, but few are literally played out before us under the gaze of Match of the Day. This is as precarious an occupation as it gets. Form, injury and a pool of colleagues waiting to fill your shoes make an unsettling context.

Getting to grips with the world of agents, bonuses, contracts, sponsorship, the media circus and the flamboyance of management is a challenge. Not surprising many go under.

Many professionals have difficulty adjusting to a world where they are not the focus of adulation and celebrity. Not many of us see our lives reported on the back page of the local rag. It can be a distortion. This is a world where decisions are in the hands of others and life ritualised by the club. Makes it difficult to step out and be yourself.

Credit to this professional as he looks at a world after playing, whether it be management, punditry or promotion work. This is a guy whose communication skills will be way beyond the clichés of “being sick as a parrot” or “over the moon”. When some famous names are shouting obscenities at the cameras, there are others crafting more professional presentation skills.

Ever wondered why some people are better than others when speaking in public? It could be that they are saying nothing.

Whether it be a small meeting or at a larger more formal venue, speaking in front of others can be an ordeal. Steven Spielberg allegedly commented, that public speaking was in the top three phobias, after a fear of snakes and spiders. Drowning completed the trio.

There are plenty of business and management self-improvement books to buy at the airport departure lounge. Working on your voice is one of them. Accent, volume, diction, tone, intonation, resonance, pitch and variability are all in the toolbox. They come readily to mind as they involve activity. And yet, the most potent skill of all is ignored, because it involves doing nothing – we are talking of the “pause”.

In normal conversation, we speak at about 175 words a minute. A conversation is two people waiting impatiently to interrupt each other. The pause does not get a look in, and if used, can be disconcerting. Has something gone wrong?

Compare this with a presentation which is a one-sided interaction: the performer and the audience. Not getting any feedback from the second, it is easy for the presentation to become one-dimensional.

The pause introduces drama, variability and a sense of anticipation. It enables less to be said and the audience has time to reflect. The presenter has more time to think and be in control of events. Nerves can be handled. Pausing enables rhetorical devices such as rules of three to be optimised. Mastering the pause implies an awareness of timing which opens up the use of wit and anecdote.

Several years ago, I came across one of the BBC’s Natural History producers. We were discussing what made a good programme. Obviously, a stimulating script and visuals were must-haves. Almost as an aside, he noted that the use of pause and phrasing by the voice-over artist could make or break the final edit. Get the wrong narrator and everything is wasted.

There are some voices you just listen to. Think of Paul Vaughan and his voice-overs for the Horizon series and the early Orange adverts: "The future's bright...."

Blair, Obama, Bill Clinton and possibly Hague have it, but what about the rest of our current crop of public figures? Pausing and phrasing can illuminate the football results and a shipping forecast. Saying less, more slowly and with plenty of pauses can be the technique you need to get over that phobia. It worked for George V1!

King George V1th and Mary Portas, Queen of Shops. Two takes on reaching an audience.

Last week the coincidental showing of an item on television and another at the cinema, made for an interesting comparative take on communication skills - or rather the lack of them.

The King's Speech, with Colin Firth depicting George V1th's stammering, was a rare foray of the silver screen into speech impediment. Here was a man who could not communicate with his subjects, and yet desperately wanted to do so.

Contrast this with the opening episode of Mary Portas' new ITV series: Mary Queen of Shops, where shop assistants had another issue; an ability to communicate when they could, but through poor training chose not to. Welcome to the world of woeful customer-care.

In the challenging business conditions of 2011, there are few levers that a manager can readily pull to make a quick difference to the bottom line. Customer relationship skills is one.

People tend to buy from people they like and yet a basic rule of three: smile, speak and service seems to have departed from the shopping malls. The cause is a debate of its own. One wonders how things may have been different, if George's coach had been let loose in Mary's world.

Sure as little apples how we pronounce H will provide a field day for how we read each other.

The recent BBC-reported and British Library-inspired discussion about whether we use “atch” or “haych” in our linguistic repertoire will be stimulating heated discussions all over the country. Language changes, the issue is whether it is evolutionary or otherwise.

Perhaps the sustained showing of television soaps, with their emphasis on vowels rather than consonants has brought about a fundamental change in our language. It brings into focus many of the prejudices and stereotypes we have about class, education and status. Sociolinguistics, schools, families and employers will have a field day over this confection.

In an increasingly competitive world for jobs, contracts, sales or votes, how we speak can have a disproportionate impact on success or otherwise. How many of us like our taped voice? When 93% of our first impressions are gained from how we look and how we use our voice, more attention should be paid to how we speak. When Shakespeare noted that “the apparel oft proclaims the man”, he should have added verbal dexterity.

I am working with three corporate business clients at the moment. It is interesting to see that in each case, much more attention is being paid to the presentational skills of their employees as they pitch, bid and tender. Schools and colleges don’t seem to give you a qualification in how you speak, but if they did, future applicants for jobs would certainly have the edge over the competition.

Politicians need to talk like the rest of us.

The political classes have a poor image and it is not just expenses that got us in this pickle - it could be how they converse. Imagine this scene. You have won your political seat at national or local level and then have to face the scrutiny of awkward questions, either from the electorate, press or television interview. You are under pressure to deliver honest answers and yet not embarrass colleagues, tell lies or be evasive. You don’t want to be misinterpreted and yet you want to give yourself wriggle room for the future. You want to display integrity, and candour and give an opinion on a situation which you may not fully comprehend. How do you defend a position publicly, which away from the crowds and glare of the cameras, you know to be wrong or indefensible? You want to keep your gesture clusters, leakages and tells under wraps. How do you keep all of these balls in the air at the same time?

The political class has developed a different genre of conversation to the rest of us. Yes, we know about the politician’s answer rephrasing a question to the one that enables an easier answer. And what about straw man thinking, giving your opponent a position he/she may not have adopted in the first place and then knocking the stuffing out of it? How does one develop the skills to practice these arts in the first place? Is it ingrained in the character and personality or is it learned by watching others and learning on the job?

Does our political representative sit down with pen and paper and create a flow chart to work out the myriad of question and answer permutations? Do our interviewees play mental chess games in their beds at night, anticipating the interviewer's opening gambit and then working out appropriate counter moves? Do they rehearse their answers so that the oratory and rhetoric seem convincing?

Not answering a question, rephrasing the question or dissembling are part and parcel of human discourse. What makes the political conversation interesting is that it is done in the public gaze. Talking "off the record" is a symptom of the dilemma.

Not surprisingly, the electorate can sniff out an answer that does not accord with common-sense. It is embarrassing and irritating to observe a political representative defending the indefensible. What a shock it would be to hear “ I don’t know” or “I haven’t thought about that.” or “I got that one wrong.” proffered as answers. We have heard it since the election but it would have been nice to have heard it before.

That is how the rest of us talk and if the Westminster bubble talked in the same manner then the cynicism the electorate displays for our representatives might be tempered. Coalition politics and a rebirth of the opposition provide opportunities not only for changed policy and personalities but, more importantly, how we conduct our conversations and interviews in the first place.

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