When we make promises to do something differently, start something new, or stick with a plan, what we’re really attempting is behavior change. It takes 21 days to change a habit, according to Dr. Maxwell Maltz and his book Psycho-Cybernetics. I’ve certainly seen this to be true when coaching and changing communication behavior (give or take a week or two!). By the way, that’s 21 consecutive days, not a couple days this week, a couple next week..

So, while most of us likely made personal resolutions to eat better, volunteer more, what-have-you, it’s not too late to make (or revive) a resolution for your professional life. Here are some to get you thinking:

• Hold meetings without smart phones or laptops to keep the participants on task and move the meetings faster.
• Use Skype or video conferencing to have “face-to-face” conversations with team mates in other offices or clients to build more connection.
• Video tape yourself when preparing for high-stakes presentations and then watch it back — look for your posture, what you’re doing with your hands, and if you’re smiling.
• Voice record your conference calls and listen back to see if you can improve on vocal variety (avoid the monotone!) or cut down on non-words like um, uh, so, and..
• Make it a habit to put down the smart phone and disengage from the laptop screen when someone is speaking with you. Instead, make eye contact and connect.
• Quickly and efficiently flesh out an agenda before you lead a meeting or conference call instead of winging it. You’ll come across more focused, prepared, and your participants will respect you for it.
• Start meetings, calls, presentations, etc., on time and end them on time. Period.
• Volunteer to present at the team meeting or join a speaking group like Toastmasters to keep up the practice.

Today could be day one of your 21-ish day journey, so what are you going to do? Please share  your ideas or previous resolutions in the comments!

Soft skills have a bad rep – they’re a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have. Things like time management, team work, problem solving, ability to take criticism, and of course, communications. Training for them is the first to get slashed from the budget, to get pushed back in the calendar, and if you ever manage to actually attend a training, you think can multitask your “real” job during the class.

Seems logical that people with a job focused on “hard skills” like mathematical analysis, statistical modeling, and engineering would have training solely focused on it. After all, these people are getting paid for their awesome technical knowledge. And, they just communicate with machines anyway, right? All they need to do is talk about protocols, bits and bytes, and things like leveraging shared capabilities that are self-healing to maximize network efficiency.

What our partners at F5, Brocade, Cisco, Informatica, and others have realized is that technical competency is a fantastic and necessary foundation, but great communications is the tipping point to closing the deal, launching a new initiative, or leading change in their organizations. They’re the ones investing in their Engineers, Programmers, Analysts (whether or not they are customer-facing) to become more effective communicators. Unfortunately, even PhDs in Physics, Computer Science, and Statistics can leave their great team/life/company/world-changing ideas on the table if they can’t engage their listeners and motivate them to do something.

So, what happens when these “hard skill” masters come to Decker? Here’s an excerpt from a blog post written as a result of our most recent work at F5 Networks. Click here to read Steve’s entire post.

Here’s a shout out to all the engineers (and our clients who are footing the bill) who take two days to raise their game. Thanks for being so engaged, for challenging yourself and each other, and for making a difference the very next day. And a big shout out to Steve for sharing his experience and showing that it’s not just about the hard stuff.

What’s your best “soft skills” experience? What kinds of programs should be moved from the “nice-to-have” category to  the “need-to-have” list?

But today, I’m talking about taking risks in your own communication. Take a look!

The Harris Interactive Poll came out on Monday measuring how Americans view some of the world’s largest companies. The poll revealed companies’ reputations based on six categories, suggesting that a firm’s brand identity is closely tied to how they come across with their communication.

HuffingtonPost.com did a Top 10 Most Disliked Companies in America piece yesterday, and CFO.com focused on financial comparisons, but I cover some of the Top Best from a critical communication perspective.

Here’s a quick video blog discussing why companies like Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, SC Johnson, Google, and others have great reputations.

I love gnocchi. Love. Gnocchi. In my humble opinion, it’s one of the most delicious, perfect things to eat. My favorite Italian restaurant Incontro has the best I’ve ever had.

The amazing thing is that gnocchi is crazy simple. It’s mind boggling that potatoes, flour and eggs can combine to make a fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth pillow of pure goodness.

But here’s the problem: Simple ain’t easy. I asked Incontro’s owner, Gianni Bartoletti, how they do it. You’ve got to do the right things with the potatoes, flour, and eggs to make it come together in the right way. Use the wrong kind of potato, not enough flour, too much mixing and you’ll end up with a gummy mess.

Creating a simple message isn’t easy either. We want to cram so much information, riddled with jargon, to make our point. And it’s not as if we are trying to be difficult, it’s just that we have a whole lot to say to prove our company, our products, services and ourselves. We over add and over mix our message, and the core – the most important single idea – gets lost.

Here are a couple of my favorite resources on Simplicity:

1. Dan Heath has an excellent Made to Stick video series on www.openforum.com. Here he is talking about the first “S” (Simple!) in the SUCCESs framework.
2. Common Craft: the dynamic duo of Lee and Sachi LeFever have made an art of explanation – to the point that you breathe a sigh of relief after watching one of their videos. They take subjects ranging from borrowing money to cloud computing and break it down into 3 minute videos in “plain English.” Here’s their explanation of Twitter.

So, keep it simple – please. For your next message – think potatoes, flour, and eggs, and mix them up just right to create a memorable experience.

Remember, I also want to give you feedback! Video tape yourself at a meeting or giving a presentation and send it to me. Getting feedback is the most essential way to take your communication to the next level.

In the meantime, here’s some more off-the-cuff 1×1 feedback, this time for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in a touchy interview on CBS5 last week.

Enjoy – and send your videos to me at blog@decker.com!

PS – Tune in early next week for more 1×1 feedback! According to the marketing department, I’ll be talking about Tiger Woods’ upcoming press conference (if it ever happens!). Can’t wait to see how he presents his point of view.

I also want to give you feedback! Send me a video of you giving a presentation, doing Q&A, or rehearsing a speech (less than 10 mins please) and I’ll choose one to post about each week or so. Don’t worry – I’ll be very nice, but also honest so that my feedback can help.

In the video below, I’m giving some off-the-cuff 1×1 feedback for Carrie Prejean’s recent (and somewhat hostile) interview on the Today Show (1×1 feedback is a modified version of Decker’s 3×3 keepers and improvements because the video clip is so short.)

Enjoy – and send your videos to blog@decker.com!