Maxwell's 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication is TOPS, a 10+

 

“The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication” by John Maxwell should be a required college communications or speech textbook. He has spoken 13,000 times. He’s won awards, been to the Oval, had his photo six stories high on a building to promote a speech. He has spoken on the beach, in a leper colony, at the top of Mount Miguel and the dungeon where Jesus was held in Jerusalem before crucifixion. Also on an aircraft carrier and a boat in a pond in India and on a plane at the Mayan ruins. Of course, stadiums and small studios. He has signed nearly a million books over 40 years of writing.

He says: be competent. Believe in yourself. Confident but not arrogant. What do you want the people to see, know, feel, do? Practice determines the level of play, just like John Wooden said. Everyone has a change the world speech in them.  A transformational leader says things others do not say. Live the message. Speeches have to touch heart, help, make people laugh and inspire hope.

I love his system of reading books. On the inside cover he puts the page number and the quote he wants to save for future notes and speeches. He has staff that can transcribe and file that. He never stops looking for information and doesn’t waste time finding it. He will say his current book is his best when asked because he is constantly learning and growing.

If content is king, then communication is queen. They rule together and cannot be separated.  What value does content have if it’s not communicated to anyone? We hear thousands of messages a day.  When preparing, think about what is on your puzzle box top?  Include all the pieces. Extra ones detract and confuse.

He has eight subjects he knows well. Communication, leadership, equipping, attitude, relationships, success, significance and faith. Five things he knows about people: everybody wants to be somebody, nobody was created to be a nobody, everybody can help anybody become somebody, anybody who helps somebody becomes a somebody, God loves everybody and makes each of us somebody.

Create runways in your speech. If it can’t take off, it never flies with the audience. If you can’t land it, then it will crash at the end. Good takeoffs include a question (audience must know the answer though), quote, prediction, current event, historical reference, promise of improvement, heart connection and an appeal to audience self-interest. He puts four of these in the first five minutes. You can run out of fuel and you can have touch and goes. A transition is like a trapeze because it moves slowly from one idea to another to grab the next idea.  In 45 minutes, he navigates four to six of these. You can use facial expressions, change rhythm and stand up and sit down.

His dad required him to add value to someone and give a report at dinner once when he was grounded. You are not the main attraction. Your goal should be to close the distance between you and the audience. You want your words to be portable, remembered and repeated. His company says that we are people of value who value people and add value to people. Make people feel warm and comfortable, accepted, noticed, important and special. Warmth creates connection. He said values are his foundation. He stands on them and stands up for them. At the venue, he will sit in a seat someone in the audience will occupy to get the feel before starting.

In the Experience Economy, there is a process based on whether people absorb experiences passively or actively. Once the brain learns that nothing calamitous happens at the mic, it stops signaling to the body to take flight.

The four experience realms are entertainment (reading a book – passive), educational (engaged in mind and body—a classroom or learning soccer), escapist (immersive and active—theme parks, casinos, computer games), and esthetic (immersive but passive, leaving a physical effect on their environment like the Grand Canyon or an art exhibit. To be there). The richest experiences encompass all four. That’s the sweet spot.

Maxwell failed once and still cringes. He’s had diarrhea during a speech (assigned an activity). Being in the zone is important. His top five strengths are strategic, maximizer, woo, activator and achiever. You want the audience to see their possibilities, feel empowered, apply and multiply. To act. His five skills are communication, leadership, equipping, attitude and relationships.

Anticipation is one of his favorite words. His anticipation faucet is always in the on position. Be a fountain, not a drain. You have experienced this: birthdays, first dates, vacations, Christmas. You can name famous fountains--Trevi. Crown. Banpo Rainbow. Jet d’Eau. Magic. People’s Friendship. King Fahd. I looked up their images. You can’t name any famous drains because there are none!

If you want to communicate at the highest level, your language needs to be on the bottom shelf where it’s accessible to everyone. Winston Churchill said that. The Lord’s Prayer contains only 56 words. Gettysburg, 268. 1,322 in the Declaration of Independence. President Washington’s inaugural was 135. The Challenger speech was only 650. You can find the top best speeches at www.americanrhetoric.com.  Even movie and 9/11 speeches. Learning this alone is worth the price I spent for five books. You can read and watch them.

There is a reason all TED Talks are asked to be 18 minutes or fewer. If you’ve got a thought that’s happy, boil it down. Make it short and crisp and snappy--boil it down. Take out every surplus letter; the fewer syllables the better. Skim it well, then skim the skimmings. Listening to great communication should be like having a great dining experience. Great chefs use only the best ingredients and they concentrate their flavors. Each element of the dish is distinct. Nothing essential has been left out. Nothing extraneous has been added. Less is more. Clarity is power. Say what’s important over and over again. Say it simply, say it slowly, say it with a smile. Clare Luce said the height of sophistication is simplicity. The Celtics only had seven plays and Bill Russell touches the ball in all of them. The fourth most popular TED is How Great Leaders inspire by Simon Sinek. Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator by Tim Urban is third. Do Schools Kill Creativity? by Sir Ken Robinson is top. Need to watch them all.

Maxwell went to a storytelling event. Stories can be sad, happy, funny, sentimental, historical, fictitious and mythical. They have enthusiasm, animation and audience participation. Sing, clap, repeat phrases, mimic gestures. They can be told by memory or immediacy in first person. Every story has a hero, goal, conflict, resolution. Hero is the Little Engine, the goal is to make it over the hill, the conflict is the difficulty of that, the resolution is makes it and delivers toys. In Jack and Jill falling down, the listener likely he has fallen down, so can understand.

Share a story effectively: Show, Help, Amplify, Relate, Enjoy. Remove everything that has no relevance. Playwright Anton Chekhov said if you say in the first chapter there is a rifle on the wall, it must go off in another chapter. Disney’s dream materialized into a mouse that talked, an elephant that flew, a cricket that danced. There’s the story about the first 20 years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. The next 40, we slave in the sun to support our family. The next 10, we do monkey tricks to entertain grandchildren and the last 10 we sit on the porch and bark at everyone.

He focuses on what he sees, says and shows. He wakes up with anticipation about what he will tell the audience. He says he will share something he never has before. He tells them to look at the person next to them and say they are going to learn something today. It could be life-changing. He’ll say: In a few minutes, I’m going to share a life-changing principle with you. Then works in:  I’m about to give you that principle.  Are you ready to learn the principle? I don’t think you’re ready. You’re almost ready. He talks about Salt Bae as a showman. He uses salt like an artist.

No matter your audience, they want to be engaged. Farmers, parents, entrepreneurs, technicians, voters, artists or students.

One activity is to lay out a difficult situation. The other person says, “All you have to do is…” Maxwell thinks of how people can never un-see things. Have a conversation with them they will recall. Communicate means to impart, share or make common. To connect, we need to establish commonality. Also, to know the road ahead, ask those coming back.

President Woodrow Wilson said we should use all the brains we have and all that we can borrow. Think about the Wisdom of Crowds.  Nobody when asked to write it down guessed the exact weight of a dressed ox at a fair event. There was a statistical analysis of the 787 slips of paper examined and it was 1,198 pounds. The average of all guesses was 1,197. One pound different.

Don’t lose your crowd. You are like a tour guide. You never want your audience to be finished before you are. The moment your audience is finished, you are finished. Make sure they want to know what happens next. What you say can be enduring, meaningful, noteworthy, significant, memorable. While free speech is guaranteed, listeners are not.

Feedback is important. It shows how others see him and helps remove blind spots. Maxwell values his team. They help him learn, adjust and improve.

Initially a theologian, he said Jesus valued everyone--people not valued by others. The cheating tax collector, the woman caught in adultery, outcasts, the thief next to him on the cross. Jesus wrote them into his story.

Millennials commit once they feel understood. They want a purpose. They want coaches. They want ongoing conversations. Maxwell assumes every person is a 10 when he meets him.

Don’t let anyone be like Charlie Brown, beaten down by Lucy. She called him a foul ball in the line drive of life. The shadow of his own goal posts. A miscue. Three putts on the 18^th green. A 7-10 split in the last frame. A love set. She told him he dropped a rod and reel in the lake of life, was a missed free throw and a third strike.

I googled this story he mentioned. Chuck Swindoll said nobody is an island. Nobody is a whole chain. Each one is a link. But take away one link and the chain is broken. Nobody is a whole team. Each one is a player. But take away one player and the game is forfeited. Nobody is a whole orchestra. Each one is a musician. But take away one musician and the symphony is incomplete. Nobody is a whole play. Each one is an actor. But take away one actor and the performance suffers. Nobody is a whole hospital. Each one is a part of the staff. But take away one person and it isn't long before the patient can tell. Cars are composed of numerous parts. Each one is connected to and dependent upon the other. Even if a tiny screw comes loose and falls out of the carburetor, it can bring the whole vehicle to a stop. We need each other. You need someone and someone needs you. Isolated islands we're not. To make this thing called life work, we gotta lean and support. And relate and respond. And give and take. And confess and forgive. And reach out and embrace. And release and rely. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. When God's people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality. Because each one of us is worth it. Even when we don't act like it or feel like it or deserve it. Since none of us is a whole, independent, self-sufficient, super capable, all-powerful hotshot, let's quit acting like we are. Life's lonely enough without our playing that silly role. The game's over. Let's link up.

You have to get over yourself and give yourself to the audience.

Another google: in a fable mentioned, animals organized a school to help their children deal with the problems of the new world. And to make it easier to administer the curriculum of running, climbing, swimming and flying, they decided that all their children would take all the subjects. This produced some interesting issues. The duck was excellent in swimming but relatively poor in running, so he devoted himself to improving his running through extra practice. Eventually, his webbed feet got so badly worn that he dropped to only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in this school so nobody worried about that, except the duck. The rabbit had a nervous breakdown because the other animals said she looked like a rat when she jumped in the water for swimming class and all her hair got matted down. In the climbing class, the eagle beat all the others to the top of the tree, but kept insisting on using his own method of getting there. This was unacceptable, so the eagle was severely disciplined. And then the fish came home from school and said, “Mom, Dad, I hate school. Swimming is great. Flying is fun if they let me start in the water. But running and climbing? I don’t have any legs; and I can’t breathe out of the water.” The fish’s parents made an appointment for her with the principal who took one look at her progress reports and decreed, “You are so far ahead of the rest of the class in swimming that we’re going to let you skip swimming classes and give you private tutoring in running and climbing.” The fish was last seen heading for Canada to request political asylum. The moral of this story is: Let the fish swim. Let the rabbits run. Let the eagles fly. We don’t want a school of average ducks. Or, play to people’s strengths.

As Maxwell gets older, he wants to be known as available rather than a hard worker, compassionate more than competent, gentle over powerful, thoughtful more than gifted. In a survey, 75 percent of people had more regrets for the actions they had not taken than for the ones they had.

There’s advice for writers: if your words are filled with hope and help, readers will seek out your advice and keep turning the pages.

I liked these lines: We have uphill hopes but downhill habits. The Ritz-Carlton’s founding member said the motto was we are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

In “Tipping Point,” there is mention of a Yale professor convincing students to take a tetanus shot. He produced a high fear version and simple information handout. Only 3 percent took the shot. When he included a campus map of the health center, the result was 28 percent. Sometimes you have to put the bridge right in front of people. Show them the first step. Joe Sabah says you don’t have to be great to start. But you do have to start to be great. Tiptoe if you must but take a step, said Naeem Calloway, CEO of Get Out The Box. Dale Carnegie says inaction breeds doubt and fear, while action breeds confidence and courage. If you can get people to take any first step of action, they will begin to experience the power of confidence building in their lives. The greatest success in communication is action. That is the Law of Results. When you speak you want something to happen. Maxwell wants you to know you are amazing and can do it. He is a possibility coordinator. And his fans turn into friends.

Michelle May has the When-Then lie. When something happens then I’ll do, feel, be something different. Overcome that. Examples: when I lose weight, then I'll be happy. When my kids start school, then I'll start exercising. When we go on vacation, I'll have time to reconnect with my partner.

Since the Friday Zoom, here are additional notes: You can't have a possessiveness attitude, a me-attitude. Walk your thought out to the people. He had people read a chapter of his book before publishing to make it better. He has an outer and inner circle. In the Q and A, he was asked who he would like to speak to. He said it depends on the topic. For world history, Doris Kearns Goodwin. For world affairs, Henry Kissinger. For opinions on leaders, Queen Elizabeth because she met so many.
A quote on the handout was "It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone." Andrew Carnegie
The Art of Collaboration is important! A participant said it's like going from a microscope to a wide-angle lens.