Outflanked.....no just know what to do...

A week ago, (last Tuesday) we celebrated the 97th anniversary of the historic charge by the Australian 4th and 12th Light Horse at Beersheba. Beersheba was a heavily fortified town 43 km from the Turkish bastion of Gaza. The significance of Beersheba was that it anchored the right end of a defensive line that stretched all the way from Gaza on the Mediterranean coast. It also was the site of important water supplies the Australians and British troops needed to continue their middle eastern campaigns.

After two failed attempts to attack Gaza frontally, the British 20 Corps had made little headway toward the town and its vital wells. To break the impasse Brigadier William Grant responded by ordering light horseman of the 4th and 12th Regiments to charge at the unwired Turkish trenches.

Employing their bayonets as "swords" the momentum of the surprise attack carried them through the Turkish defences wreaking havoc and confusion. The water supplies, and enemy trenches were commandeered, and countless Turkish prisoners were taken, and a great legend of Australian World War battlefield history was born. The fall of Beersheba opened the way for a general outflanking of the Gaza-Beersheba Line giving the allies a much-needed respite to a very arduous campaign. The resolve of the light horse and combined tenacity of the campaign caused Turkish forces to abandon Gaza on the 6th November and began their withdrawal into Palestine.

I watched a Beersheba style charge so to speak, his momentum of surprise, of a business man who I find I am in awe of at times, because of his skill in making a complicated issue very simple. It was as if he had summoned the spirit of the Light Horse to deliver a stirring and inspired speech to shareholders of a company. It took me a week to work out whether he had drawn a bayonet to them, or how he had employed other methods to get the right result. It took me time, but I distilled it down to a few things that work for him every time. By the way he had mentioned to me he had had a great uncle who had been part of the 4th Regiment that had been in the charge on Beersheba and had survived to talk about it.

I find when he talks he always find ways to make it matter to his audience -Whenever he is trying to explain a complicated topic to someone, he shows what's in it for them. He always takes the time to listen to them and understand their emotional trigger points. He then appeals to their egocentric side. The tactic is never to be overt in making that move. He’s like a good angler and keeps fishing until he hooks you on what matters most and starts to reel you in - slowly and in the soft unemotional tones of his delivery of the message.

He enjoys explaining thoughts using details his audience already knows. The idea of connecting ideas to what someone already knows has been a common teaching technique since ancient Greece, but it works because it's one of the best ways to explain ideas.  That's sounds incredibly simplistic, but he always gets his point across. The more he can pull from information people already have in their heads and analogies they understand, the more cut through he gets – they’re able to understand the core concepts he’s showing them.

He is great at less is more, and knows what details to leave out. No not white lies or deceptive behaviour. The opposite. He understands a lot of concepts (he’s a super smart person) and it would be easy for him to think of every detail as important, but he’s shown on many occasions when you're trying to explain a complicated concept to someone else, don’t get verbal diarrhoea.

It’s better to leave certain details out. He has often said that some things just aren't as important as they seem when you're trying to deliver the information in a clear and straightforward way. He has often said you can always come back to those details later and he demonstrates it over and over. At the core of it is his skill through that lens to keep a conversation going and disarm the other party.

His main objective is to always get a point across and help someone understand a difficult concept. Yes, sounds strange, but to him the strange terminology, interesting names, or specific processes rarely matter. Don’t be fooled, he can turn it on, but he says if they don't have direct bearing to the person's life or the idea you're explaining, skip over it.

I have noticed how he lets people learn by doing ‘complicated stuff’ whenever possible. Teaching someone is hard enough, but if you've ever tried to teach someone anything you know it's tough to just sit back while they fumble through it. He is one of the most patient people I have met. He has got me to watch and understand that you really must let some do it themselves to make a point or get a notion to stick. I watched him explain a financial concept to someone once and I was going to scream as the person had that glazed donut look in their eyes. He patiently gave them the white board marker and let them draw all over the board like a six-year-old, till they came up with the answer.

He smiled and congratulated them. He could see my slight frustration, so he squared the ledger off by asking me to do another equation on the board. I think I was about a nine year old with my hieroglyphics on the board that day, but I got there. It taught me a quick (refresher of a) lesson, but it was also uplifting allowing me to write on ’his’ board. He is so across it, and 'it' can be whatever, you don’t see it happening. So, I now resist the urge to grab the texta and take over or even give a deep sigh in frustration. I take a deep breath and do what he does, explain it for the tenth time. The same goes for just about anything else -- from using a computer to fixing a car – he sits back and lets them figure it out on their own and helps when necessary.

The real trick he has taught me is with explaining complicated concepts to people, find what works for them and build from there. Each of the above techniques are just that, techniques, and they won't work for everyone in every situation. Depending on what you're explaining and who you're explaining it to: you'll need to resort to different tactics at times.Listening properly, will get you started down the right track.

Lastly -In the meeting he was presenting at (I was sitting waiting to go next), the same day as the celebration of Beersheba, he mentioned the details of the charge and the significance of the campaign to the room. He drew the analogy that a similar charge was needed to get the job done in the future.

To my surprise, one of the audience members suddenly piped up and said they too had had a relative in Beersheba. A great grandfather. He had also survived the charge. The speaker beamed when he heard it. ‘The 4th or the 12th?’ he asked. ‘The 12th’, the person in the audience responded. ‘How about that’, he replied and he held a magnetic smile between them a moment. ‘Son of a gun’, I thought to myself. He’s done it again!