“It’s profoundly important that every single American child should leave school knowing how to cook 10 recipes that will save their lives.”

Jamie Oliver

As someone who loves to cook, my first reaction was to consider if I even had 10 recipes that fit the goal. As a message consultant, I was enthralled with dissecting the statement.  Known for Food Network appearances and several popular cookbooks, Jamie Oliver was at the podium for winning the 2010 TED prize for his grassroots campaign against obesity.

Several phrases in Jamie’s quote point to a much larger story about his mission to inspire people to change the way they eat. I decided to break down the sentence to see how Jamie made such an impact with just a few words:

• “profoundly important” – a declaration. It’s the set-up to the value of what’s to follow.
• “every single American child” – the target audience. He wants every parent or guardian to take heed of his words.
• “leave school”- timeliness.  The clock is ticking. Start counting the years to graduation and that’s the amount of time to learn those recipes.
• “how to cook 10 recipes” – specific call to action. Jamie proposes a task that demands attention.
• “save their lives” – emotional appeal. Jamie brings the sentence full circle to his heart-felt mission.

Every speaker strives to be memorable.  Packing a sentence with phrases that point to a more robust story is a good way to keep your listeners engaged.

… could be a blank sheet of paper. It can happen when you’re challenged with a dire business imperative but lack inspiration. Or perhaps you’re inspired to act by a charismatic chief executive but not sure where to bring all that energy back to the day’s work. Momentum comes to a screeching halt.

Going back to the drawing board, per se, is not such a bad idea. Get the right people in the room, ask the right questions, and see what happens.

There’s hope, yet. What about the first few words that tumble from your mouth when faced with that proverbial ice-breaker: “What do you do?” As Daniel Pink notes in his new book about motivation, it’s all about figuring out what’s driving you. He asks: WHAT’S YOUR SENTENCE? Well, that’s not so easy, you snort. Think again.

The way I see it, “What do you do?” is really three questions in one. Consider the answers to all three to help you build YOUR SENTENCE:

What do you do? Why do you do it? How does it make a difference?

I know I’ve botched this in the past. ”What do you do?” I’ve been asked at networking functions. ”I’m a communications consultant.” Pause. “Oh, so you fix phone systems?”  Oops.  Let’s take another look.

A CEO answers the question as part of a marketing presentation.

“We manage an artisanal brand that is ‘found’ by people who appreciate the quality of our product.” YES!

A stay-at-home mom chats with a stranger at a cocktail party.

“I’m raising the next generation.” BINGO!

When someone asks “What do you do?” take the opportunity to respond with a sentence that represents your passion and impact. Move like a kick-boxer. Sway and jab. Don’t just answer the question. Surprise them with a verbal punch that brings them back for more.

Footnote #1: Listed #5 in the 64 books on elevator pitches in amazon.com is one of my all-time faves: How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less. The book was written in 1990. We may have only 10 seconds or less to snare someone’s attention these days, but Milo Frank’s thinking is timeless.

Footnote#2: What do I do?  I help organizations get their story straight!

A handful of senior executives at a large professional services firm pondered the question recently during a quick interview to update marketing plans. Their responses carried a consistent theme:

“Help me articulate what our industry is all about in North America and what we are doing in a differentiated way.”

“Help me tell the consumer story and package our offerings both externally and for the sales force.”

“Marketing can help me refine our messages for a really good client presentation.”

“I need a basic toolkit — case studies, points of view, packaging of our offerings.”

This year’s volatile economy has thrown a lot of business plans into a tailspin. It’s likely your message – and what you’re selling – have shifted a bit. Getting back to basics is top of mind.  Now’s the time to step back and articulate who you are, what you do, what differentiates you. And to make sure everyone agrees before you take the message on the street.

These executives’ marketing wish list includes a tookit — a set of basic marketing communications materials. So far we’ve scoped out a customer presentation, point of view paper, and case studies. (And that presentation aims to feature an incredible shrinking story that hooks the customer at the onset.)

Every organization has different needs and preferences. I’m curious: What’s on your wish list for the ideal marketing and sales toolkit?

Bento box - Haruo Iida via Flickr.com

I questioned the relevance of the nutrition claim. And considered a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup – my favorite comfort foods – for lunch. My nostalgia for the brand was stronger than the potential benefits of a natural sodium booster.

What makes proof palatable? I vote for a variety of essential ingredients to make a compelling story. Let’s call it the Bento Box Effect.

Making a bento meal, imaginative food displays in sectioned boxes, goes back centuries in Japan.  National contests are held in the craft of creating a colorful box lunch in a container about the size of book. Deciding what colors, textures, flavors to feature must be a big part of the design challenge.

Kenya Hara, who designed the opening and closing ceremonies of the Nagano Winter Olympics, weighed in on the beauty behind bento box lunches.  While the Japanese are known for an aesthetic sense, Hara notes they also have an incapacity to see ugliness:

We have a special ability to focus fully on what’s right in front of our eyes. We tend to ignore what is not an integral part of our personal perspective.

We ignore that our cities are a chaotic mess, filled with ugly architecture and nasty signage. And so you have the situation where a Japanese worker will open a beautiful bento box in a stale conference room or on a horrendous, crowded sidewalk.

Each compartment of a bento box presents a different taste sensation. Collectively, the compartments add up to an alluring and satisfying diversion. A story with the right ingredients has the same appeal for routine business dialogues.

What if you packed a bento box of proof to enliven today’s conversations?  Here are three ingredients sure to bring a richer dimension to an otherwise mundane communication:

• A dose of humanity — Tell a story from the point of view of a real person who matters to your company’s success.

• Genuine differentiation — Share the truth about one thing you’re doing better than your closest competitors.

• Winning practices and principles — Your company is strong. Describe a company practice that makes you proud.

Too often we rely on statistics alone to support marketing and sales messages. Numbers make an impact but they’re difficult to digest quickly. Try packing a bento box of proof that’s real, true and strong. Add the points to your next presentation, conversation or collateral draft. That’s enough to make anyone pause right in the middle of their tuna sandwich.

Early in my consulting career I became a fan of Edward deBono and his six thinking hats.  It made sense, I thought, that we should shape our decisions from multiple perspectives.  And it seemed only smart to switch seats and doff someone else’s hat to encourage our brains to see the world through their eyes.

De Bono’s theory holds that a decision-making process will be made stronger when formed by the perspectives of an entire team. The hitch is team members must take turns wearing each of six hats:

1.    The White Hat is straight-forward.  It calls for information known or needed.
2.    The Red Hat is more emotional.  It signifies feelings, hunches and intuition.
3.    The Black Hat is stands firm in judgment.  It’s the devil’s advocate, always eager to note why something may not work.
4.    The Yellow Hat is cheerful, beaming with optimism.
5.    The Green Hat thrives on possibilities.  It’s the creative one, ready to explore new ideas.
6.    The Blue Hat is used to manage the thinking process.

Thankfully, Mr. DeBono understood that most of us want to wear all six hats.  We are in shades both optimistic and judgmental.  We can be both creative, yet accountable.  Simply by switching hats we can quickly change how we’re perceived.   Our contributions become richer and perhaps more accessible to a wider range of people.

brown for adventure!

Lately I’ve become enamored with the idea of wearing a hat when I write — something to inspire the adventurer in me.  My choice is a plaid hat with fake fur flaps the same color as my hair, causing most passersby to think my hair has been whacked off and subjected to electric shock.  It’s an odd take on a lumberjack theme with a touch of hip.  And when I’m wearing my fuzzy plaid hat I reminisce about the idyllic island where it was purchased.

I think Mr. DeBono would smile at the potential — a Brown Hat for Adventure.  Who knew?

Ha! Good luck, you may think. Well, with my antennae up for a plausible approach, I’m inspired by people who’ve “been there, done that” in this mission of creating the incredible shrinking story.

An executive from Levi Strauss once shared a parable at the national conference of Business for Social Responsibility, now known as BSR.  Still early in its development, BSR was struggling to define its itself. Though the organization had a singular focus on making the world a better place through sustainable business practices, the needs of its constituency ranged widely. The little guys didn’t necessarily have the same agenda as the big corporations. Hearing a parable about a king who persists in having his messenger cut his life’s story in half, over and over, until it fits on one page was a worthy lesson for the task before the membership. (Years later, it’s interesting to see that BSR references itself only by its acronym — that’s taking shrinking to the extreme!)

And then I found a soulmate in Josh Silverman, President of Skype. He shared his career path in the New York Times article, “Learning in Business by Following the Heart.” Silverman’s first  job on Capitol Hill taught him a lesson or two in leadership communication:

In Washington, no matter how complex the issue, you have to boil it down to one page. That’s an invaluable skill for a leader.

The process of distillation isn’t easy. I recall one CEO telling me to “cut it in half” after presenting a positioning statement that was already half the length of every previous articulation of the company’s value proposition.

Done.  Two sentences. Now, back to those three pages I mentioned earlier.

Information design firm XPLANE sums it up handily in this video. Recently updated, “Did You Know 4.0″ is chock-full of stats and facts to make your head swim.  The pause button will come in handy!

Not because the writer disparaged the entire industry in the second sentence. And not because he plugged his own book in the sixth sentence.

What turned me off came next: Examples of missteps at Levi Strauss and AT&T prior to 1994. A string of bullet points from a book published 11 years ago.  A nod to a Peter Drucker book dating to 1993. Implications that work completed more than a decade ago was the downfall of two prominent brands. Without fresh data I wasn’t convinced.

I scanned the entire post – all 3,043 words! In 60 seconds I went from being lured by the headline to being aggravated by stale information. With all that text looming on the screen my brain went into sorting mode. Where were timely references? The synapses failed to fire upon information I found insufficient to support the headline.

When faced with information overload, our brain struggles to find meaning. The diagram here shows one way I conquer information overload. Everything gets sorted into categories to establish their relevance to my personal preferences. I tend to think like a journalist:

• Logistics (what is happening)
• Benefits (how will this help me)
• $$$ (how much does it cost)
• Timing (when is/was this happening)
• Sources (what makes this credible)
• Values (why does this matter to me)

Sorting is the only way I can begin to digest the two daily newspapers, weekly and monthly magazines and countless blogs I monitor to stay on top of issues important to my clients and my business. If a story contains a nugget or two within those categories, I’m far more likely to retain the intended messages.

I’m curious to learn how others boost their message recall.  What categories of information hold your interest?