I grew up in the muscle car era of the 1960’s and early 1970’s, where there was enough time to still influence me before the gas crisis of $1 per gallon gas. These teen years left a lasting impression from that point on where a car must have big V8, loud rumbling exhaust, and big tires, otherwise it did not get a second glance. It was the power hungry performance cars from Detroit’s Big Three. The Mustang, the Camaro, the Firebird as well as the Chevelles, and Chargers to just name a few that you could hear coming a mile before they arrived. They got my attention! Over the years as I’ve traveled around to car shows my appreciation for the automobile expanded. The common thread that intrigued me about all of the car owners was, the pride they took in their vehicle, but what was I missing? Many of these cars did not meet my criteria of a big V8, loud rumbling exhaust, and big tires, so what’s the big deal? The intent of this article is to open your mind and recognize the elegance, grace, and styling of cars before you were born, to the present.
It seems that many automotive enthusiasts have at one time encountered a similar dilemma. There are the Mustang specific clubs, the Ford Model A clubs, even the Orange Colored Car club. Everyone has they primary interests, but if you look beyond this, you can see the elegance, style, and beauty that was finely crafted by the automotive artists. Imagine looking through the viewfinder on a camera as you focus on composing the perfect image. With your naked eye, many of the details may not initially jump out. However, when you see the image as the camera does, you notice the shadows, the lighting, and the elements of the vehicle that appear to be magnified and stand out. This focusing forces you to not only look complete vehicle, but down to the individual details that make it up. These details are the core elements of that the artist creates. Like each stroke of the brush, each curve in the chrome makes up the masterpiece.
You do not have to look far to see what I am talking about. Look at a 1958 Chevrolet Belair with its massive grille, large amounts of chrome and the intricacy of the trim accent pieces all flowing together like a sculpture. Unless you pay attention to even the most minuet areas you will not see the entire masterpiece. A person once told me that when he didn’t win people choice awards, his wife would say, “Did A Red Car Win?” This statement has some truth. I have seen that if there were two almost identical cars, the red or brightly colored one usually faired better even if it was not in as good of condition. The point I am trying to make is first impression is exactly that, first impression. Whereas, a seasoned judge, goes to the next level looking at the quality of the paint, and in concours judging down to the finish on the bolts. Within this spectrum is where the real artistic nature is.
I recently did some photography and show board work on a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 that I initially seen at a local car show. When I first seen this car what stood out was its massive size, and the glistening shine of the perfect black paint. This was my first impression as it caught my attention. After talking with the owner, Joe, and learning more about his car, the real beauty of this classic vehicle was evident. You could almost see the air flowing along the sleek and graceful body lines as the 30 spokes of each wheel reflected like mirrors. It was obvious that he was focused on a perfect display, ensuring that there was a blinding shine on the chrome and paint, and every component, even the underside was perfect. One could only imagine the many hours and years spent getting to this level of perfection.
The next time you see one of these classics driving down the road, or at a car show try to vision what the automobile artists has in mind. To get a jump start on seeing these classics there is a nice selection of pictures showing exactly what I have talked about at www.PalmieriConcepts.com. The information and pictures on this site will give you many examples of these classics as well as alternative ways of composing your pictures into works of art. Palmieri Concepts focuses on transforming your everyday pictures into custom art, and as a result, attention to detail is key.
Anthony Palmieri founded Palmieri Concepts after 20 years of creating custom art work for his own pleasure and enjoyment. This business grew out of a love for motor vehicles and was started to share with others what started out as a hobby. After taking how his own pride and joys (yes this really started with family pictures and not cars) and combining them with creativity, it became obvious that many others would like to showcase their trophies as he has done. He has also written numerous articles on automotive art and collector car photography.
PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com
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Summary: The author asserts that presentations and speeches are the least effective means of leadership communication. There is a much more effective way: the Leadership Talk. In this three part series, he describes underlying principles of the Leadership Talk and ways to help develop and deliver it.
Turbo Charge Your Career With The Most Powerful Leadership Tool Of All: The Leadership Talk. (Part Three) by Brent Filson
To develop and deliver a great Leadership Talk, you must understand that every Talk has three important parts. (1) Audience Needs. (2) Strong Belief. (3) Action.
(1) Audience needs: The first step in putting together a Leadership Talk is to understand the needs of your audience. As I explained in Part Two, they cannot be ordered to be your cause leaders. Their commitment is one of free choice. They will not make that choice unless they believe that their being your cause leaders will in some way help solve the problems of their (not your) needs.
All needs are problems. All problems are crying out for solutions. When you are helping them with those solutions, you are a long way down the road of motivating them to make the choice to be your cause leaders.
When you answer these questions, you have a good idea what their needs are. (1) What is changing for them? (2) Who would they rather have leading them besides you? (3) What action do they want to take? (4) What do they feel? (5) What do they fear? (6) What’s their major problem? (7) What makes them angry? (8) What do they dream?
(2) Strong belief: Knowing your audience’s needs is important, but it’s only the first step in developing a Leadership Talk. The next step involves strong belief, not just your belief but theirs. Clearly, you must believe in the cause. But your belief is irrelevant. After all, if you didn’t believe in the cause, you shouldn’t be leading it. The key question is can you transfer your belief to them so that they believe in it as strongly as you do and will commit to becoming your cause leaders?
As I explained in Part Two, you are asking people to take leadership for your cause. Taking leadership is a special undertaking, calling for a special commitment. People will not undertake leadership lightly. It is not your choice for them to take leadership. It is their choice. And to weigh the pros and cons of that choice, they want to know two things: who you are and why you are there.
You must tell them or they will tell you. And if they tell you, you may not like what they say.
As to who you are: In their eyes, who you are involves your knowledge/skills as to meeting the challenges of the cause and your commitment to that cause. If they perceive that you have weak knowledge/skills and/or weak commitment, they’ll peg you as unworthy and maybe worse, untrustworthy.
As to you why you are there. There is only one answer to why you are there: They must know that you are there to help them solve the problems of their needs.
Without communicating strong belief on both counts, who you are and why you are there, you cannot give a Leadership Talk to motivate them to be your cause leader.
(3) Action. It’s not so much what you say that’s important when giving a Leadership Talk, it’s what the audience does after you have had your say. The function of The Leadership Talk is to have people take action that gets results — and more results than simply average results, more results faster, and “more faster” on a continual basis.
Once you begin to see your leadership interactions in terms of physical action, you’ll see your leadership, and the way you get results, in fresh ways. Challenge your cause leaders to take physical action by asking them, ‘What three or four leadership actions, PHYSICAL ACTIONS, will you take to achieve the results we need?’
Having people move from simply saying they will do things to actually taking the physical action to do them will dramatically increase the effectiveness of your Talk.
I’ve been teaching the Leadership Talk to thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 21 years. Many of them have found that the difference between the Leadership Talk and presentations/speeches is the difference between typewriters and wordprocessors. I remember using a typewriter. I was happy using it. I had no idea that I needed a wordprocessor. But when I bought a wordprocessor and went through the trouble of learning how to use it, I saw how badly I had needed it all along. I saw that it was a quantum leap in terms of speed, efficiency, and productivity over a typewriter. So it is with the Leadership Talk and presentations/speeches. Once you go through the trouble of learning how to use Leadership Talks then applying them consistently on a daily basis, you will find they can transform your leadership effectiveness and boost your career in ways presentations and speeches could never do.
Such transformations won’t happen immediately. It will take you awhile to learn the processes and be comfortable using them. Since you’re not in one of my seminars, where the participants learn tested processes to create and deliver Leadership Talks in a relatively short period of time, you’ll have to rely on putting them together piecemeal.
But in these initial stages of developing and delivering Leadership Talks, putting them together piecemeal is an effective way of beating the learning curve. After all, leadership is long and careers are short. You are not learning to give Leadership Talks as a short term endeavor. It should be a career-endeavor. Step by step, be constantly aware of the three triggers, Need, Belief, Action. Speak from and to those triggers. You may discover that giving Leadership Talks consistently is the best thing that ever happened to your career.
2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.