Transcripts

Dianna Booher:
Information is not the same as communication and people think how there's communication everywhere. There's a cell phone in every hand, there's a computer on every desk, there's paper piled high and so people are puzzled when they hear that complaint, "There's just no communication around here!"

Dianna Booher, author of the book The Voice of Authority, says the way you format your communication makes all the difference in the world.

Generally, when you're trying to get someone to buy into what you want to do, you make the bottom line your opening line and that is people tend to start in a backward way. I don't know if it's the training that they got back in grade school when they were doing the oral book report, but they started off by saying, "I've got a great idea, but wait a minute before I give you that idea, let me give you a little background." Then they get to the punch line but people get lost in all of that background detail discussion. People never understand all of that background until you give them the punch line.

Think of a prosecutor making his case to the jury...

When he starts off or she starts off in the jury trial they say, "This guy is guilty, this women is guilty. We've got the evidence the witnesses are going to tell you this, here's the situation, they had a motive, they had…" They go through the whole thing and then they lay out the case - that is the most persuasive arrangement of information.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.