You can find Grant Ainsley on Twitter @AinsleyInc
The idea of facing down a news camera is, for many people, the stuff of nightmares. But like most other speaking scenarios, it doesn’t have to be a stressful ordeal. What’s more, developing solid media skills is a good strategy for anyone who is in or aspires to a leadership position. What makes someone a good speaker in front of a camera is often what makes them a good speaker away from the camera as well.
What makes someone a good speaker in front of a camera is often what makes them a good speaker away from the camera as well. https://youtu.be/YhWXT-sjXqg #business #leadership #communication Share on XTo talk about those media skills that can positively impact all parts of workplace communication, I’ve got Grant Ainsley as this week’s Talk Shop expert.
Watch the video below or click here to watch it directly on YouTube.
Prefer to read rather than watch? Scroll down for the full transcript.
SHOW LINKS:
- Click here to visit Grant online (and make sure you sign up for his newsletter – it’s great!)
- Grant’s article on Extra Words (aka: “garbage”)
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Lauren:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Talk Shop, the place where you get to learn from industry experts how to become a better, more persuasive, more effective communicator in work and in life. My name is Lauren and today I am delighted to bring you one of my own mentors, Grant Ainsley. Grant Ainsley spent many years as an award winning journalist, he has taken his extensive experience in print and broadcast and now works with politicians, business executives, association leaders and influencers across Canada to hone their communication skills both in front of and away from the news cameras. He is the author of the Honest Spin Doctor Navigating the Media base, a frank account of what people who deal with the media need to know. It clearly shows how anyone can be effective in media relations, and be honest at the same time. Welcome to Talk Shop, Grant! Thank you so much for being here with us. How are you doing today? You have a beautiful glow on your upper head.
Grant:
There is a glow behind me. That will change in the next few minutes because the sun is moving from my left to right and it’s going to go away from that window, so the glow is going to disappear, it doesn’t mean that I’m getting worse as an interview, it’s just that the glow is disappearing.
Lauren:
I think it gives you this lovely, sort of angelic, look. It looks very nice and it might belie just how incisive your insights and your commentary on how the state of media and communication in general is today. I’m a big fan of your blog, and in one of your recent posts –we’re going to start with something kind of fun here because it really caught my attention– you mentioned this trend in the media towards using random, anonymous social media comments as though they are these really meaty insights in terms of whatever topic the media is discussing in that one story. Have you seen any other sort of trends along this line developing within the media today?
Grant:
Yeah, thanks for the mention for the blog, it’s got a lot of interesting comments. The idea that I’m seeing is so much where television stations, in particular, are rerunning comments of anonymous people to sort of get a cross section of what the public is thinking about a particular issue, and you’re watching this and like, why do I care what the people I don’t even know are saying about certain things. I’m interested if you know something because you have an opinion and because I value your opinion because I know you, but for people I don’t know… Getting to the question that I thing what people need to understand is that the media is under more stress than ever in terms of trying to produce more content-
Lauren:
Yeah.
Grant:
And in the meantime having less manpower, to use the old term, to get it done with. In the days where I was in the media which was 25 years ago television stations didn’t have a five o’clock news cast their new news cast might have been an hour and a half, their … might have been two hours opposed to three hours. Radio stations were around — I had like 8 reporters in my radio station radio newsroom, and, now, they don’t even do news anymore. So the problem is the amount that they have to fill in terms of time has gone up a lot, and their man power has gone down. So, that’s the problem that they have to a large degree, and so they have more time to fill. Let alone trying to do social media feeds.
Lauren:
Yeah, and all of their online content seems like all of them also have the website content to go along with it.
Grant.
Well sure, if you were a television reporter 20 years ago, you would cover 10 a.m. news. First, you would go and get a couple of comments, maybe get ready to go do something live on the newscast, prepare something for your 6 o’clock evening cast, and you were gone. Now you have to start reporting even before the person starts speaking at a news conference. “Oh, hi. Here’s a shot of us on twitter. We’re here ready for the premier to make her announcement…” Or whatever, it would be. And then of course you needed to do something for your website. You need to do something for Facebook, something for twitter – and you haven’t even started to do your noon yet. So, it’s become much busier. One of the things that I do so, Lauren, is in sports, and when I look at the hour long highlight shows, I see a lot more panels. When every time you see a panel – hey, this is a great way for us to kill 3 and a half minutes of time. And I know it’s coming, “let’s go to the panel!” It’s like, “Okay! This is a good way for us to, you know, get some intelligent, thoughtful conversation going, but what they’re trying to do is kill three and a half minutes of time.
Lauren:
They’re padding the content.
Grant:
Sure, because they have to fill time. So, most of what we’re seeing in the media these days, when they do something a little bit different, it’s not being forced by technology, it’s not being forced by another of other factors, but it’s being forced by the fact that they have more time to fill, and fewer people to do it.
Lauren:
Right, and that’s an interesting insight, for those of us that don’t understand or who have never seen how it works behind the scene and the intense pressures that are on media people. This is part of the reason that the blog post just hit me so strongly, was that…I think that you called one of them “Soccer mom ’88’…”
Grant:
“Soccer mom” maybe for me, but something along those lines.
Lauren:
Something along those lines, but I sometimes think “50% of twitter are sock puppet-fake accounts, so is this really a true-person, on-the-street- insight?” But if the reporters are under that much pressure then it becomes more understandable why you would reach out to sources like that; it’s available, and it helps fill that need.
Grant:
I talked about years ago, when I run a news room, I sent people out to do streeters, and it’s really the same thing. I’d go down to the corner of Whyte Avenue and Calgary trail and they’d say, “Hey, do you have a moment? I’d like to get your comment on what City Council just did.” And, you know, they’d come back and they hated doing the streeters, but I knew that they sounded good on the air, and so really what it is is that streeters are becoming the modern day twitter comments from “Soccermom83″. The difference is having a news person stand in the studio and read the comments is not the same as someone standing on the street corner saying: ” I think those guys at council are CRAZY!” You know, that sort of thing. You lose the emotion, the tone, and somebody reading it in the studio just cannot replace that.
Lauren:
Yeah, and it’s that real person aspect. “I can see that this person is real, I can hear that this person is real.” It’s a very different experience, very much so. So, as you mentioned, you were in the media for a really long time. You transitioned out many years ago, but you have a very storied and exceptional media and communication background. What is the biggest communication lesson that you learned during your time in the media?
Grant:
To get to the story, and to get the story early. I still see stories today where the lead, as we call it, is buried somewhere in the 6th or 7th paragraph and everybody – especially these days in the 144 character world of twitter – has made this so much more prevalent, but even when I was in the business I learned to find the story and get there right away. “What’s happening?” And there’s nothing that frustrates me more than hearing somebody back into a story. Last week we told you to back in, and back in, and back in, and then they finally get to the news. One of my first radio jobs was at CHQT in Edmonton and I had the good fortune to work under a man named Ed Mason, who retired fairly recently, and Ed was a terrific writer, and a terrific news person; just an old-fashioned journalist who believed in digging to get to the stories and he believed in good writing.
He taught me to get to the news right away. “What’s the news here?” Find the story and put it at the top and then write the rest of it with the details after that, and in some cases I still don’t see that happening. You know it’s great when you’ve got newspapers space or you’ve got half an hour to get into the story, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. This is a typical “meat and potatoes” news that we hear every day. Find the story, find what interests people, and get to it right away.
Lauren:
And that’s so applicable across so much of communication: Get to the point. Get to the point that your audience needs, and that your audience cares about, and let them focus in on that.
Grant:
I work with some executives, and it’s one of the things that I try and teach them is that when somebody asks you a question – there’s a whole bunch of other things – but get to the answer and then get to the explanation. What happens is, when somebody asks you a question and the person is giving background, this somebody is thinking: “This person isn’t answering the question.” And then you finally get around to answering the question at the end. That’s a way of doing it, and that’s okay, but in some situations you may have a board member talking to a CEO or a senior manager and I think they’d prefer to hear the answer and then hear the explanation. I think sometimes when you don’t answer the question it conveys mistrust. So it’s better to give the answer and then give the explanation. As an example, doctors are trained to analyze, to research, and after a whole bunch of stuff, down at the bottom they get to the answer. “Well, we think, Lauren, that here’s what’s wrong and here’s what you should do.” Sometimes when they speak to the media, they try to do that as well. It doesn’t work very well. I try to train them to give their thought off the top because the media doesn’t have time to wait for 45 seconds of explanation. They need the answer immediately, and then they can explain.
Lauren:
And from an audience perspective, too, what I’ve found, and this goes along with what you’re saying, is when the answer is given first it then allows people to put together with the explanation within the context of the answer. They can how the lines are being tied from explanation. “Oh, that makes sense because…” and then this is the explanation, going on, that makes sense because this is the thing that’s going on. Whereas, if you go about it backwards, as I see an explanation first, people have no unifying thought to hang that explanation on. So by the time you get to the answer, they’ve forgotten the whole explanation anyway, and it still doesn’t make any damn sense.
Grant:
That’s very true. That’s 100% correct.
Lauren:
So, when you are working in terms of media training, of course, you don’t just train in media, you also train in communication. How is dealing with the media comparable to dealing with employees or peers or stakeholders around a board room table?
Grant:
It really is much the same, and that’s what surprised me over the last couple of years. As you know, I’ve started working with executives with what I call “executive communication”. I had a number of executives come to me at media writing sessions and say to me: “Grant, this is really great, but I don’t speak to the media a whole lot, but I can use these tips and tricks to speak to my board of directors or to answer questions for my board of directors, to speak to other members of my management team, to speak staff or outside vendors who we have a problem. ” And so it really isn’t a whole lot different. Obviously, with the news media, you want to be a little bit more measured with your responses and makes sure that what you say is really what you mean because it is going to be recorded, and it’s going to be in front of, potentially, millions of people, and you want to make sure that that message is done correctly.
You can, obviously, be a little bit more loose with your employees and so on, and so forth, but the same principles apply: How to prepare for a discussion, whether it is with staff, whether it is with an outside vendor. The same rules of preparation apply to make sure that you’re ready to go. The biggest mistake that a lot of people, I think, make is when it comes to communication. They don’t think before they talk, and they don’t think what they’re going to say before they say it, and that’s what causes the biggest problems. When you know what you’re going to say before you say it, chances are that you are going to say it better, and you will hesitate less, and you will sound more confident. It’s really important that you know what you are going to say before you say it.
Lauren:
That’s a fantastic lead-in to the next question, and I think you might have answer the next question, and the next question is: How do these media skills translate into the hornets nest that most of us deal with, which isn’t media at all, it’s social media. Most of us are dealing with that monster on a regular basis on our own choice. What would you say is the best media lesson for that?
Grant:
I learned a long time ago that if you’re okay with something appearing on the front page of the news, and obviously if you’re speaking to the media, you would be, then go ahead and say it, if you weren’t, don’t. And it’s the same thing with social media. I tell people on social media that if you’re okay with that on the front page of the Edmonton Journal or the Calgary Herald or whatever it might be tomorrow morning, go ahead and hit send. If you’re not, don’t do it. And I think one of the problems that organizations have for their employees including executives, is that they don’t have policies. They don’t have a social media policy. They don’t have a communications policy, who’s going to speak to the media and who the backups are, how they speak to the media, and all the rest of it.
But the one that is really going to catch on, and has caught a lot of organizations, is not having a social media policy. So the people who do social media for your organization, what rules do they have to follow? In most cases, it’s: “Hey, Lauren, you’re here. Why don’t you handle our social media: Facebook, twitter, YouTube, and make us look good.” Something goes wrong, and, well, “Why did you post that? That’s embarrassing!”
Lauren:
“What were you thinking?!”
Grant:
Yeah, and then there’s no rules to follow. Another thing that starts to get a little bit dicey is what people are saying about their organization on social media, or people want their people to be social media ambassadors for them, and that’s great, but they need rules to follow as well. And the other thing that we’re seeing more and more often, as well, is people are doing their social media on their own time, away from their organization, whether it’s politicians, people working for politicians, the corporate world, or whatever it is. It’s pretty easy, and we see this almost on a daily basis, of somebody messing up in the media. Social media getting into traditional media, then it going viral and you have a real problem.
What typically happens is that most organizations have no policy to fall back on. There have been court cases already where judges have said: “You did not tell that person that that behaviour was unacceptable.” Lawyers understand that, and I’ve talked not too long ago, at a session where somebody went on social media to complain about his company, and they fired him, and the lawyer told the CEO of the company: “I think you should pay this guy what he wants because he applied a claim for wrongful dismissal. There’s no judge that would allow this to go through. You didn’t tell him that that behaviour was unacceptable.” I think every organization should have a social media policy.
Lauren:
Yeah, and it’s so important, too, for people to understand that that line between our social media lives and our professional lives is easily blurred now, so it’s also incumbent of the individual to think: “How is this going to trickle into other areas of my life?” Not should this trickle in, but how will it trickle in because it’s inevitable that it will. I see this a lot on twitter profiles, in particular, where they say: “The opinions expressed in this feed will not be opinions of the company.” Yes, that’s a bit of a disclaimer, but I don’t know whether or not it’s enough, or whether it gives you license to say whatever you want about your own company or on behalf of your organization that’s a bit up in the air.
Grant:
Yeah, I think that you should save your time typing that, myself. It might make you feel better and it might make your boss feel better, but if you are – especially if you are – somebody that has a bit of a profile for an organization that you report to, whether it is an association or not, it really doesn’t matter. If you say something stupid or embarrassing, you’re going to have a discussion with your board of directors, your boss, whoever it might be, and they’re really not going to care that your twitter profile says that the opinions are not your own. It just doesn’t work that way, so save your breath.
Lauren:
Now there’s some media training terms that you use in your blog and that I’ve seen in your book, as well, quite a bit that I love. I’m going to toss them your way, and I’d like you to tell our viewers and our listeners what they mean and why they need to understand them. So the first one is “bridge”.
Grant:
“Bridge” is a term that I use that is basically a set of words, a phrase to get the reporters to get where you want to go. You do need to answer the question. Some people doing media training, I’ve heard over the years have said: “Give the answer you want to the question.” Well, you cant really do that in most cases, but there are some bridges that work really well, like when the media is trying to get you to speculate what caused an accident, and you don’t want to talk about that or speculate. It’s not your job to speculate, it’s only your job to talk about facts. A great bridge in that would be: “Well, we’re not sure at this point, but we’re focused on…” and then you can talk about the work that you’re doing to try to get to the bottom of it, or whatever that might be. “But we’re focused on” takes you over to what you want to talk about and not necessarily what the media wants to be talking about. I think what your viewers need to know is that you need to talk about what you want to talk about.
This works really well with kids, too, and you have young kids. “It’s not you I don’t love, it’s your behaviour I don’t love.” And then mom goes back to talking about that behaviour. Bridges can be really, really affective in allowing that person to control the conversation. Recognizing that you understand the question – sometimes the reporters can give opinions. “Well, that might be their opinion, but when we’ve talked to our residents.” That might be your bridge to talk about what you want to talk about.
Lauren:
Excellent. So, the next one I’ve got is “soundbite.”
Grant:
Soundbites are really important. About 95-97% of the words people say during an interview – is just some math that I did a couple of years ago – the most typical interview typically goes about 4 minutes, and this one’s obviously going much longer, but most ones that you might do with the media might go about 4 minutes. Soundbite’s are going to take about 5 seconds. Maybe about 10 seconds. They’ll take a couple soundbites of what you’re saying. They’re looking for the soundbite. They’re looking for a short phrase or set of words that is kind of a summary of what you’re thinking. They’re looking for something bright, something colorful, something with passion. You could sit and talk about the stats and the history and everything that you want to be talking about, and the media is only going to be looking for something to put on the air that is going to be short and capture 4 or 5 seconds that’s going to capture everything , and it’s something that is really colourful; something that people are going to remember.
Lauren:
Excellent. Next one is “statement”. What’s a statement? We all think we know.
Grant:
People don’t necessarily understand that when they do an interview with a reporter that it is a conversation, but it’s a very different conversation. They need to think of the reporters questions as setting up their answer, and it becomes really easy to say “yes” and “no” and “yeah”, which is something that I hear a lot of the time. “Yeah” is a word that I’m hearing a lot, especially with media people. “So, John, you always play a really good game.” “Yeah, I sure did!” And it’s very conversational, I understand, but try to think of it as not necessarily a conversation. Another thing I talk about is “garbage.” I find that the lips move quicker than the brain, in a lot of cases, you feel obligated to speak, then the microphone goes into your face and you’ve got a feeling you have to start talking.
So, what happens is that you might get someone saying something like: “Well, yeah, our board of directors decided something and we decided…” Why don’t you pause and start with: “Our board of directors reviewed this issue and we decided…” What happens is, we feel the obligation to, when we get the microphone in our face, to start talking. We’re not ready to talk. We haven’t gotten our thoughts ready and we don’t know where we’re going to go with our answer, and so I tell people: “Pause, cut out the garbage, and give a statement.” So, opposed to saying: “Yeah, right, you’re right, you know, because, uhm… Our board of directors…” Take it from there. Cut out the garbage and go, after the pause: “Our board of directors reviewed the matter. We decided…” Much stronger. Much more effective, and it shows much more confidence on your part.
Lauren:
For sure, and that actually covered the fourth term that we were going to look at which is garbage: all of the stuff that comes out of your mouth when you don’t know what to say. I love that.
Grant:
That’s just my version of your retrig, I guess, but I probably have done it a lot in this interview, too, but it’s interesting how many words come out of peoples mouths especially of the top. “So.” A lot of people will start their sentences with the word “so.” I understand that it is conversational, but it really becomes a bit of a crutch for a person to say: “So, uhm…” and then they start the question that they want to start, or they start the statement. I say you can be much more effective by taking the garbage out, and it typically comes off the top. There’s times where we’ll throw words and phrases in there that are really not necessary. Small words, and this is really not a big deal, but small words are constantly being thrown into our vocabulary when there was really no reason to use it. I see this example in sports where they say: “All game. This has happened all game long,” or “All season long.” The words “long” is not needed. It is not necessary. We hear that all the time. “The right lane was blocked off.” = “The right lane was blocked.” I could give you a million of these things that I hear them and it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. I say take as much of the garbage out as possible to be effective.
Lauren:
I’m going to put a request to you, personally, Grant. I would like to see an upcoming blog post, and you can take me up on this or not, a list of your top garbage words. “Long.” “Blocked off.”
Grant:
I think I did already. I think I did it sometime last summer, last July, and it’s not a full list because I could keep adding to the list.
Lauren:
I say keep a running list and see how long that sucker can get.
Grant:
Yeah, keep a tab. I heard somebody talk about: “Yeah, this game has had a real ebb and flow, up and down.” I thought: “That’s kind of what an ebb and flow is, isn’t it? “An ebb and flow, up and down, like a rollercoaster.” Well, that’s kind of what a rollercoaster does, too.
Lauren:
That’s beautifully redundant.
Grant:
“Up and down rollercoaster,” I think they said.
Lauren:
So, looking in terms of the communications side of what you teach. Of course, you work extensively with executives and leaders. High-profile, high power individuals. What are some of the communication stumbling blocks that you see among high powered individuals?
Grant:
One of the things that I see is that they don’t listen enough and they don’t ask enough questions. By being a better listener and asking questions, it does a couple of things:
Number 1: Questions control conversations. It’s not who’s doing the talking.
Lauren:
That’s powerful.
Grant:
It is, and it’s the person asking the questions, as you well know. So, questions will help you control the conversation because you can get the other person talking about what they want to talk about. The other thing questions do is it allows the other person to speak and gives respect to you when you want to speak. “He asked me my opinion, and I sure now want to hear what he has to say because he asked me for my opinion. We know people in life who all they want to do is talk about themselves: it’s the Facebook generation. So, you go to work and say: “I got into a car accident on the way here, and my car is destroy and I have to go to the hospital,” and you get somebody who goes: “Yeah, I was in a car accident a few years ago!” All of a sudden they’re talking about themselves, and then, wait a minute, this conversation is about what happened to me!
Lauren:
They just hijacked it!
Grant:
Exactly, and for executives, because they’re trained that they have to speak – yes, they make decisions, but asking other people to speak it does a couple of things: It gives respect for when you want to say something, it does for anybody for that matter, and it allows that other person to feel like a part of the team. “He or she didn’t make the decision that I would make, but at least they listened to what I had to say.” So, I would say that if any executive, or anybody for that matter, wants to be a better communicator, increase your listening skills and ask questions of other people.
Lauren:
Now do you have a piece of professional advice about communication that you would specifically direct at up and coming or aspiring leaders?
Grant:
That’s an interesting question. I think sometimes that they have to be careful sometimes with what they say. I think sometimes they get into situations where they say things that they shouldn’t. I think they should understand that what could really help them is preparation, and understanding of, when they’re having a discussion with another member or their boss, how to prepare for that conversation. If it’s an important conversation, they should think about what they are going to say, and they should think about the barriers. “Somebody else does something worse than me, why are you talking to me?” So, they have got to find ways that they can keep the conversation focused on the other person. They’ve got to find ways that they can make sure the conversation is wrapped up in a positive way. All these things happen because of preparation, and if there’s one mistake that I see people make before they speak to the media or before they have conversations in the workplace, it’s that there’s not enough preparation.
If it’s like: “Hey, Joe. We’ve got to talk we have a problem here,” and you haven’t had time to think what you’re going to say or how you’re going to say it or how you’re going to counter barriers or how you’re going to wrap up the conversation. You’ve got to talk to Joe because he’s really going to write you off. So, I think it’s really important for you to prep for that conversation and go through some steps, and even to take 15 minutes to figure out how you are going to start and how you’re going to keep it professional and how you’re going to be personal about the other person. How are we going to make this about moving our company or putting our organization forward? How are we going to make sure he understands when he walks through that door what he has to do, and what the outcome of that is and how we’re going to follow up. I think it’s really important to prepare for those kinds of things before you have the conversations.
Lauren:
That’s a wonderful, wonderful, whole package of advice there that, I’m sure, many of our listeners will be able to put into practice at work, and I’m also certain that many of our listeners would like to find more of you, and more of your knowledge, your writing, possibly even look to bringing you into their organizations to help them out. Where can people find you online, Grant?
Grant:
You’re very kind, first of all.
Lauren:
You are very generous.
Grant:
Most of what people can find is on my website: grantainsley.com. I do a weekly blog, which you’ve already mentioned, thank you very much for that, and that comes out every Wednesday, so you can sign up for that. Everybody who does sign up receives a copy of my book: Bulletproof Your Brand: What Every Media Spokesperson Needs To Know. In that book, I’ve sort of kept a list of the questions that get answered the most when they deal with people from the media, and so I’ve kind of answered those questions. There’s about 20 answers in there. That’s where people can find me the most. Most of my information you can find on my website. My Youtube channel is on my website. My book’s on the website: The Honest Spin Doctor, and that’s available under the resources section on grantainsley.com. There it is!
Lauren:
There it is! Everyone, this is a great book. It is a quick read, but it is chalk full of some practical information that you can use, again, in your regular communication at work at home, not just in front of the media cameras. Pick up a copy of this; I believe there is only a few left, and, believe me, you don’t want to miss out on what is inside that book.
Grant:
Well, I still got a couple hundred in my garage. I did start with 1500 back a couple years ago. I don’t know if we’ll get to a second printing, but we’ll find out. I’m sure a lot of people, and I know you just went through with getting a book there, Lauren, but you’ll look at them and say: “Aw, that’s a lot of books that I now have to get rid of.” Let’s just say that there’s more space in my garage than there was a few years ago.
Lauren:
I am sure that they will all be snapped up. It’s very much worth the read. See, there’s some garbage coming out of my mouth, now. Now I’m self conscious, “oh, what will Grant think?”
Grant:
You’re the communication expert, so it happens to everyone.
Lauren:
Happens to the best of us. So, that is going to wrap up today with the wonderful Grant Ainsley. Please, check out his website, grantainsley.com. I will have the links in the description below as well as in the podcast show notes. Be sure to sign up for his news letter. Now thank you for watching and listening with us today. Be sure to like and subscribe to this video if you’re a watcher. Please like if you’re a listener; it will help keep this show going. While you’re at it, head on over to laurensergy.com and sign up for my newsletter for more great interviews, information, and tips that I only share with my subscribers. I look forward to seeing you on the next Talk Shop! Take care, everybody.
