Speaking and Communicating Podcast

If you just tell people, hey, this is the way it's going to be, they might support you, but they might not. In fact, the chances of them supporting you if you just tell them this is it are not very good. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host, Roberta Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.
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Communication and soft skills are crucial in your career growth and leadership development. Whether you're about to speak in public, make presentations at work, pitch to investors or an entrepreneur looking to showcase your innovation to a wider audience, you'd be glad you joined us. By the end of this episode, log on to Apple and Spotify.
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Leave us a rating and a review and what you'd like for us to discuss on this podcast. Let's get communicating.
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My guest today has had an illustrious career, which includes currently being the founder and principal of the Dilenschneider Group, which is a public relations and communications consulting firm. He is the author of many books, which includes the Ultimate Guide to Power and Influence. And that's the one we will be focusing mainly on today's episode. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Hi, Robert.
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Berna, it's just terrific to be on your program. Your program is highly regarded. People that listen to it benefit from it at every turn, and those who don't listen to it should. So we should find a way to get people on board to listen to it. I really appreciate that. Thank you, and I hope they do take your advice and listen to it more. Welcome to the show. I'm glad that you are here. Please introduce yourself. My name is Bob Dillons-Schneider. I've been...
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around for many, many years. I started my career in Columbus, Ohio. Before my dad was a newspaper man, and he came home from the newspaper one day at lunch, and we're sitting, I'm a very young man, and he slid across the table a ticket, a Trailways bus ticket to New York City. And I took the bus to New York City. I came out of the Port Authority, not knowing what to do. I went to see some people on Broadway. They quickly told me.
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You shouldn't be on Broadway, young man. You should go someplace else. So I did, and I ended up in the communications business. And I've been doing that for many, many years, advising companies all over the world, including many in Pittsburgh, where you're based, of course. But it's the advice goes from individuals to companies to shareholders and everybody in between. So that's what I do. And so far it's worked out reasonably well.
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And you are based in New York, so since that ticket, you never returned to Ohio. You go back from time to time, but no, I'm based in New York city. And, uh, it's an extraordinary place. It has tremendous challenges, but New York has had those challenges for years. And it's always overcome them and it will again, I'm sure. For sure. You've had an illustrious career as I've mentioned, please take us through just a summary of some of the companies you've.
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advised you've worked for some of the big names. Well, I started my business career a long time ago, with Marathon Oil, which is one of the great oil companies of the world. Based in Findlay, Ohio, I'd come from Columbus to New York. And they said, the first thing you have to do is go to Findlay. I said, I just came from Ohio, and you're sending me back. Yes, you have to go back. So I was with Marathon Oil advising them for three or four.
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months on virtually everything, from how the CEO should conduct themselves to what kind of events they should have, to how they should present themselves to shareholders, to employees and more. And from that, I moved on to work with many, many different companies. And I learned so much along the way. For example, I represented a company called WareHouser, a big forest products company. And one of my jobs was to close a WareHouser plant.
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in North Troy, Vermont. So I went there and I was in a blue suit and a white shirt, very nice tie. And I went to a church to close the plant. And in the church were all the plant workers. And they were all in t-shirts and underwear and they all had mother tattooed on their arm. And the head of the company said, Mr. Dillensteiner has come here from New York to tell us something, how would you come forward? So I had to walk up the nave of the church, past all these guys, all these men and women.
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were very basic women when I was in the blue suit. I learned that day I was dressed improperly for the event. We did close the plant. It worked out very well, but I learned a lot of lessons along the way. So I've worked with lots of companies in lots of different situations and learned lots of things like that. And it all comes together in this book, The Ultimate Guide to Power and Influence. People, I think, don't really totally understand power.
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why they don't understand influence. They think they do, but they really don't. And so what I try to do is define both in the book so that the reader walks away with a feeling of, I can influence things, and here's what I should do, and how I should do it, and here's the result I should look for. The reader should also look for the idea, I can have power, but I don't wanna flaunt my power and put it in people's faces, but I do wanna have power.
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there are ways to do that. The guides for doing both those things are in the book. The original Guide to Power and Influence I published 40 years ago. It was a bestseller, very successful, but so much has changed in the last 40 years. The publisher said I should update it. So that's what I did and that's why the book is what it is. And what would you say is the relationship between power and influence? There's a very definite relationship.
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If you have power, you can have influence, but you have to know how to use the power to have influence. If you have influence, you might not have power. So you need to understand how to use your influence to have power. Both of them together are a very powerful statement for what you need to do to advance your interest in your life. And that's really what it's all about. People tend to say, well, I can influence things.
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You need to really understand that awful lot before you try to influence things, before you even start. You need to understand what the organization is you're trying to influence does or the people you're trying to influence do. You need to understand what is important to them, how you can relate what you do and what your message is to them. And then you can begin to influence them. But just to try to jump off the cliff and say...
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I'm now going to try to influence somebody, get more work. You've got to do a lot of homework in advance. That's very, very important. Same is true with power. If you come across to people you're talking to, and they see you as a powerful person, that's not good. They should see you as a regular person. And that will give you more power than if they see you as a powerful person. If they see you as a powerful person, they'll tend to ignore you and actually turn away from you. So they need to see you.
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as a strong person who's trying to help them. And that will give you power. Never talk about the fact you've got power. And never throw your power around as well. A big mistake. A lot of people have done that over the years and it doesn't work well at all. If you look at people in the current battle between Russia and the Ukraine, there are several people trying to exert power at several levels. Big mistake.
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they should try to be helpful in their country, whether it's Russia or Ukraine. And that will make a big difference in their lives, but not to exhibit power. Like I said, you've had a decades long career. How have you seen leadership evolve from, you just tell your employees what to do versus getting them engaged, as you mentioned in your book. Used to be many years ago that the CEO was somewhat imperious and you had to approach the CEO
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with some degree of care because he or she would slap you on the side of the head and tell you what they thought, all about things. Those days are gone. The days now are times when you really need to find ways to get lots of people on board. The CEO will listen to you, but lots of people will make a decision. So your points of trying to do outreach are very different from the way they were 20, 25 years ago. The CEO of 25 years ago...
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couldn't function and be successful today. CEO today can only be successful if he or she has many people out there supporting them. Because obviously the workplace has changed and we were talking about the last three years, that's why you had to update your book. What are some of the things did you notice that the last three years have done to the workplace to change it and how can people adapt to the new way of doing things?
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That's a great question. Obviously social media is very important and you need to know how to use social media, how to benefit from it. I think the biggest thing that people need to understand is how what they do can benefit other people rather than themselves. What can they do for other people? That will get other people on board and helping you. So rather than telling people how important you are and what you stand for, tell people they're important.
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and you want to help them stand for something, that makes a big difference in getting people off the dime and being willing to help you. I've noticed you mentioned a few examples of CEOs who turn companies around like Ford Motor Company, who turn companies around when they were at the verge of bankruptcy and they realized that the main thing they needed to do was to engage the employees in decision-making. How important is that? Ford Motor Company is a great example of that. There are...
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a fantastic company. Years ago, the Ford Motor Company was run by Henry Ford. He told people what to do. Today it's run by Bill Ford and he doesn't tell what people to do. He engages people in doing things and gets their support for doing it. So Ford frequently will ask its employees, how do they feel about doing something? How should it be adjusted? How should it be changed? The employees, anxious to have their views thought about.
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come forward and make a suggestion. And that's one of the things that's helped Ford enormously over the years. With a lot of companies that doesn't work, Daimler-Benz based in Germany still doesn't do that. They should because the Daimler car is a great car, but they don't do that. They tell the employee what to do. That's important to do, but you have to ask the employee at the outset, what do you think should be done? That makes a big difference. It includes them in the decision-making process.
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If I'm the CEO, is there a part of me that feels like a lot of time gets wasted when we could be more productive? Because how practical is it to include everybody before eventually making the decision on what needs to be done? Great question. And I think, again, the CEO needs to find a way, if he or she possibly can, to involve as many people as they can in the decision-making process. If you're in a company of 10,000 employees,
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It's very difficult to involve 10,000 people. So identify people who are leaders, who other people in the company see as first rate people who are leaders in the organization, and then ask those people how they feel about things that will filter down to other people in the organization. They will say, here's what Sally told me. Here's what John told me. And it will work very effectively. So you've got to identify leadership in an organization. Let's say 10,000 people.
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might be able to identify 15 or 20. Those are the people that really drive the company. If you listen to them and talk to them and get their ideas, those 15 or 20 will talk to 15 or 20 more and then 15 or 20 more and then eventually you will have the company on site. That's really the way to do it. You can't talk to everybody all the time, just can't do it. Right and would you say then that builds a chain of influence that those 15 influence?
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the others to buy into what is being done. Chain of influence is absolutely important. The ability of an individual to say, I was part of that, I helped make that happen is extremely important. The ability of the individual to not say that and say, well, here's what they told me to do. It's important, but it's not as important as I was part of that and played a role in that. I made a contribution. That's really what you want people to say and think and do.
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as they go forward. Now, let's talk about the different generations. And in your book, you were talking about how, if you, for instance, coming from the older generation, you manage Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, how do you merge and create a workplace culture where these different generations that speak a different language, basically, all feel like part of this one team?
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very very difficult all different kinds of ages and organizations and parts of the world. So how do you do that? You have to find common themes that they relate to. Generally in any organization no matter how big it is you'll be able to come up with two or three or four themes no more that people can say I relate to that I understand that I can do something about that and if you find those themes then you'll be successful.
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One of the themes that generally works is excellence. You want people to be excellent in what they do. And if they feel like they're excellent and they do excellent work, congratulate them on doing excellent work and use that word over and over and over again. It'll make a big difference because people want to feel excellent. There are three or four other things like that that would be very helpful. You talked about how
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Mr. Dan Sifter mentioned the power of self-awareness and that it was one of the four pillars of emotional intelligence. Please share your thoughts on that. We all have problems and we all have difficulties. None of us really want to understand or bring those problems or difficulties. But the fact is we should understand them. Everybody's got a problem. Understand it, recognize it, see what you can do about it.
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and then find a way to overcome it in a positive way that brings to your workplace a positive view. We had a man one time on the West Coast, his name was Don. Don told us exactly what he had in mind. And if we didn't like it, well, we were in trouble. Eventually we went to Don and said, you know, Don, life would be a lot better if you were not so direct and so imposing. And you actually asked our advice.
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on things. He said, well, I don't need your advice. We said, yeah, you do need our advice, because if you don't take our advice, we're not going to help you. Well, I realized that and after a while, he did ask for advice. We found a way to make everybody inclusive and the result was terrific. Had Don continued on, I think he would have been fired. What is it about self-awareness is so challenging for most people, especially in the workplace?
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because you have so many personalities and characters coming into this one place to achieve a common goal. And obviously there might be conflict, which happens in families too, and they love each other. But what is it about self-awareness is so challenging that when you bring something forward to someone that's first, that's pushback? The truth can be very painful, but it has to be something that you are able to focus on, bring to the fore and talk about.
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But the truth, oftentimes, if somebody's overweight, or if somebody has a problem saying things, or if somebody has a problem with the other sex, those things have to be brought out, and they have to be dealt with in a positive and constructive way. So you have to admit that you have a problem. Once you've admitted it, then try to deal with it. If you do that in a public environment, people will see that, they'll understand it. They'll also say to themselves,
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You know, I need to do that for myself too. And when they do that, you've got everybody walking to the same drum, which is telling the truth about themselves and getting positive information out there. Very important to do. And hopefully it leads to positive changes. During the pandemic, it was estimated that about 40 million people left their jobs. And you talked in your book about loyalty, employee loyalty.
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What can you do as the head of a company to retain your employees, make them loyal instead of moving around and looking for better offers all the time? You've got to tell people how important they are. And if you do that, you've got something work that would be very, very, very positive. If you don't involve people and tell them they're important and make them truly feel they're important and are having a decision that is contributing to the overall whole, they'll walk away.
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that's not good. You don't want people just putting in the motions. You want people actually doing something. And researchers shown that those who leave at the exit interviews pay is not the number one reason. Because we usually think people live for more money, which is great, but money is not the number one reason anymore. Why do you think that is? People want to be part of something. They
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what they do from nine to five or 10 to six makes a difference. They wanna see a result as a result of what they do. Is money important? Sure it is. But the smart person realizes that money will come if they do the other things. And generally that's what happens. So if you're not involving people, they are gonna leave. If you're not saying to people, give me your opinion, they are gonna leave. If you're not saying to people,
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talk about influence, they will leave. So that's extremely important to get them on board. Can you give people money and get them to stay? Sure. Yes, it can work. Only to a point. No matter how much money people make, at the end of the day, they might say, not enough, I need more, not more money. They need more views of how they're actually going to be part of something. That makes a huge difference. That's right.
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And then we talk about relationships. So as I said, in this podcast, we focus mostly on communication skills. In your book, you mentioned Frank Benek who said, when it comes to relationship, it's not who you know, it's how you know them and how they know you. Please explain that to us more. Frank Benek who was a brilliant man who really helped build the Hearst organization, newspapers and media properties all over the world.
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was really fantastic and he said, you need to really understand how people know you and what they can do. And that really requires sitting down with them and talking with them. That's a big factor. We had a huge problem with one time and Frank sat down and everybody felt he was taking too much time to deal with things. Well, he wasn't. What he was doing was understanding the nature of the problem and how people.
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could actually deal with it. Knowing that he solved the problem. Without knowing that it would have been a big problem. Frank Bennett was terrific. So when it comes to us individually, what is the one thing we should do in order to build those relationships? Because relationship building, especially in business, it counts. Like he said, it's not who you know, but
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when it comes to networking, when it comes to long-term business relationships so that the next time there's a collaboration and they're gonna call you and say, I like working with this person because this has been my experience with them in the past. How can we cultivate those relationships effectively? Listen to people, hear what they have to say. They won't like everything they have to say, but you might like a little bit. And when they say something that you like, agree with them.
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say, hey, that's pretty smart. That's pretty good. I like that idea. That'll begin to get people on board. If you don't do that, if you just tell people, hey, this is the way it's gonna be, they might support you, but they might not. In fact, the chances of them supporting you, if you just tell them this is it, are not very good. But if you listen to them and say, I understand this, tell me more, let's talk about this, that begins to get them on board. If you then actually implement something that they've suggested,
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that really gets so on board. That's influence. That's the true nature of influence. So influence also comes through how you relate to others. Always. And then there's a beautiful analogy from Tom Wolf about deposit and withdrawal when it comes to your network. Please explain that to us more. Tom Wolf talks about the favorite. And it's extremely important. He talks about depositing
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things in the favor bank, things people say, things people do, and not doing anything about it, but just having them in the favor bank at the right time, withdrawing from the favor bank. This happened three years ago. This happened 10 minutes ago. Here's how it applies to what we're doing, and the difference it makes. People love to hear that they've made a contribution. And that's really what Wolf was saying. Put their contribution in the favor bank, and at the right time, withdraw it from the favor bank.
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And those people will say, you know, you listen to me and it's important. And since you listen to me, I'm going to really now do something that's helpful to them, that it works over and over and over again. Which means you don't just mention the things people do wrong or only have conversations with them when something needs to be done properly and they haven't done it the right way. You also highlight the positives that they've contributed. That's so important. And I think the idea of saying to people.
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you've done the wrong thing or smashing them on the side of the head and saying, you really need to do this differently is a huge mistake. People will take that if it happens, but they won't do it again and they won't really work for you. So saying to somebody, look, there's something we can add to what you've done here, or there's a slight modification we can make that'll make a difference in what you suggested makes a big difference. I fully accept, you know, constructive criticism.
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suggestions, room for improvement, but is it practical to just constantly saying, you're doing a great job, you're doing a great job for a leader and a hundred people to constantly tell them you're doing a great job? A leader has to constantly say, look, here's the objective. How are we all gonna reach it together? You've done something that is really important in terms of making it happen, but now we need to do more. Let's reason together with how we can do more.
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get to the ultimate objective. That's what a leader needs to do. He needs to recognize or she needs to recognize that it's not just one person saying, this is the way it's going to be. It's many, many people saying, this is going to be the way it's going to be and fitting all that together. Person who does that has power. And if they do that correctly, they'll get a good result. That's awesome. Julia Dworkoff.
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Deloitte Australia talked about the six signature traits of an inclusive culture. And there's so much talk around diversity, equity, inclusion. Would you like to mention some of the things she talked about where she says these are some of the traits that should be in the workplace to be inclusive? Well, inclusion is really critical. That's number one, because if you include people, they'll recognize it and they'll sort of themselves.
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My opinion counts. That will get them really active. Diversity is important. It used to be an all male society. Women were not looked on positively. Now that's changed. So having a diverse environment is very important. It used to be that gays were looked on unfavorably in the workplace. There's no reason that gays need to be looked at unfavorably. They're able to make as big a contribution as anybody else. So being diverse.
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and putting is extremely important. And that's what she was saying. And her six ideas really make a lot of sense. And also, would you say that a diverse work environment also brings in more diverse views of potential customers? I think if you ask somebody who is 50 years old how to do something and you ask somebody who is 25 years old how to do something, you will get a very different point of view.
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If you ask a woman who is very active in the workplace to do something, and you ask a woman who is not active in the workplace, but just come to the workplace, you'll get a very different point of view. Your ability to understand those points of view and to bring them together in a whole makes a difference. So yes, it's huge to get back to the basic fundamental point of power and influence, which is to listen. If you listen to people...
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You'll learn a lot. If you don't listen to people, you might get a lot done, but not as much as you could if you listen to people. That's true. They say the stuff that comes out of your mouth, you already know. So it's better to listen and learn more. That's for sure. Yes, Robert, any last words before we close today's episode? What do you think you would have liked to share with us that I haven't asked you? You've done a complete and total interview. That's one of the reasons this program is so successful.
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Thank you for doing that. I think the one thing I'd like to say to your listeners is pay attention to this program. Next time, it's gonna be even better. So that's my suggestion to the people that you're talking to. Thank you so much, Robert, for your kind words. Words of wisdom from Robert Dilenschneider, who is based in New York. He's the founder and principal of the Dilenschneider Group, a PR and communications consulting firm.
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and has authored many books, one of which is his latest bestseller, The Ultimate Guide to Power and Influence. Thank you, Robert, for being here. I appreciate taking time out of your busy schedule to be on our show today. Great to be with somebody from South Africa. Take care. Thank you so much. Don't forget to subscribe. Yes. Thank you, Robert. Thank you for joining the Speaking and Communicating podcast once again.
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If you have a guest that you think would be a great fit for the show, please email me and my contact details are on the show notes. The Speaking and Communicating podcast is part of the Be Podcast Network, where there are many other podcasts that support you in being a better leader and becoming the change you want to see. To learn more about the Be Podcast Network, go to bepodcastnetwork.com.
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