Friday, October 9, 2009

Leadership and communication

How is leadership related to making a heart connection? Not everyone is born a leader, just like not every campfire is started as an inferno. Most leaders are developed. Effective leaders must be visionary and continuously learn. Among the lessons needed to be learned are effective communication skills. In my first blog on Gary's Campfire, I wanted to focus on a specific communication skill.

My first leadership experience was when I took an active role in my son's Cub Scout Pack. Our Cubmaster was moving on with his son to Boy Scouts, and there was going to be a void. Not interested in the job at all, but concerned about continuity of our Pack, I asked what was going to happen. The response was not the one I was looking for... "Oh, you'd make a GREAT Cubmaster."

I took every training that was available. I watched the previous Cubmaster tell awesome stories during his Cubmaster minute at the end of the monthly Pack meetings. He always had a great deal of enthusiasm and the stories he told captured the hearts of the kids and the parents. I decided that if I had any chance at being as effective as he, I would have to learn to tell great stories (there are plenty such stories available from many Scouting websites).

Little did I know how my Scouting and business careers would continue to grow and put me up in front of many more people than just my son's Cub Scout Pack. The lesson on telling a compelling story paid dividends many times over. When you can capture the listener's emotions as you tell a story, their attention is heightened and their retention of the subject matter, or their buy-in to your message naturally follows their engagement. I would later learn to call this technique "making a heart connection".

Making a heart connection was the single, most important lesson I learned, and was then able to teach. We had an opportunity to raise money in an annual Scouting fundraiser called "Friends of Scouting", where the parents of the kids in the Packs, Troops and Crews contribute to help pay for about 40% of the Sam Houston Area Council's annual budget.

Our previous years goal was about $85,000 in our District and the new goal was set at about $90,000. When asked to lead that years campaign, I felt it was appropriate to shoot much higher. The program in the District was functioning at an all time high. Because of this, and the fact that our District was blessed with great demographics, I suggested a goal of $120,000.

In order to reach the goal, I was determined to teach the presenters to connect with their audience by telling a story that made a "heart connection". Once they do that, I felt the parents would get their checkbooks out and help us reach our goal. We trained presenters, which to my knowledge had not been a focus of previous year's campaigns. They told a story that made a heart connection and we raised over $120,000, just as we had hoped, shattering records and creating momentum that has lasted through each year's campaigns since.

Without the heart connection, the campaign would never have been as successful as it was. The next time you have a chance to speak to an audience, prepare your heart connecting story and watch how much more attention you get!