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An article from the Times Online, January 14th 2009 How to get the message across Pity the poor management speaker. Years spent traipsing from conference centre to conference centre, trying to get often tedious topics across to executives who have heard it all before. Nights languishing in nondescript hotels waiting for the second day of seminars on the magic of motivation. Is it any wonder that some have resorted to bizarre ways of attracting attention, whether it be via weird catchphrases – “swallow the frog”, for example, whatever that means – or the use of strange props.
Not that you could confuse David Brent with Helen Pointer. One is a horribly authentic caricature of a boss, whose attempt at motivational speaking was as gruesome as pretty much everything else he did. The other is a nurse-turned-caricaturist, whose modus operandi might be seen as a gimmick by some – people who would, perhaps, be missing the point, since it is a communication tool forged through dealing with NHS consultants, some of the toughest and most independently minded of audiences. Ms Pointer spent more than 20 years working in the NHS. As a trouble-shooter in ophthalmology, her job was to help hospitals to run more efficient clinics. “I’d walk in and they would look me up and down, all the way to my fancy shoes, and think: ‘Someone else coming in here to tells us what to do.’ But I just wouldn’t do that, I would suggest it through humour.” The NHS matron found that the use of caricatures and humour were an effective way of getting surgeons to understand the absurdity of some of the ways they treated patients. She would conduct a mock consultation, assigning a surgeon as a patient and herself as the doctor. Sitting so that the audience could see her drawing, she would explain that her paper and clipboard were her imaginary consultation notes – the surgeons often said they felt isolated when the audience reacted to the emerging caricature , which they couldn’t see. “They’d say: ‘Can I look?’ And I’d say: ‘Do you show your notes to your patients?’” Another technique was to make an ophthalmology surgeon lie under a green operating drape and start up a drill – they invariably wriggled and flinched, something that patients were criticised for. Her reputation for getting messages across using drawing and humour snowballed and she began presenting and drawing at medical conferences worldwide. Furthermore, her ability to get her message across was helped undoubtedly by her authenticity as “one of them” – she supported her humorous work with hard-hitting clinical evidence and examples that she had collected in practice. Ms Pointer’s big break came about ten years ago at a school fête, where she was drawing children’s portraits. She was spotted by a parent who was an entertainment agent. The meeting led to engagements drawing guests at Kate Moss’s 30th birthday party and attendees at Buckingham Palace parties. Eighteen months ago she quit her NHS job to concentrate on her speaking career. Since then she has juggled conferences, after-dinner speaking and party work. Her toughest engagement so far, she says, has been for 500 actuaries. “I always try to engage people in conversation, but at the end of a three-hour gig I still didn’t know what an actuary did.” Other business groups engage more enthusiastically, fortunately. The caricatures are “superficial and first impressions”, but then so is much about business – job interviews and office politics. A popular activity at after-dinner events is a game in which colleagues cast each other for a film – picking the good guy, the villain, etc. “There is a lot of laughter but also a lot of discussion, which I exploit immediately.” It remains to be seen whether business people will want to pay for the services of a caricaturist in these straitened times, but Ms Pointer believes that her medical past will help. She cites communication skills honed with patients and her ophthalmology training which has given her the ability to look “straight in people’s faces”. She plans to use these skills to advise business audiences on everything from interview skills to conflict resolution. Ms Pointer is entering an already overcrowded market, but she may do better than many speakers, who do little more than talk about themselves, interesting though they may be. “I’ve got my audience’s attention because I stand up and turn the whole thing around.It is about them.” A simple idea, but it seems to work. Helped by a rather clever gimmick, of course. |
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Then along comes The Office . .