Thanks for the Heads Up!

My dad walked us outside. 5 kids, ages 7-15.   

“Look up.”

It was 10:00 p.m. on July 20, 1969. 

We looked up into the sky.

“There’s a man walking on the moon.”

My brother John said, “I know, I can see him.”

“No you can’t!” I said.

Of course that just spurred him on. 

“He’s right there. Yeah I see him. Cool spacesuit. Says N-E I-L on the front.”

“Stop it, John! You can’t see him. You’re lying. Dad tell him to stop lying!”

“Ooooh look he’s running now. See him running? I can see him running. Whoa, he fell! ”

“Sto-o-o-o-o-p! Why would you be able to see him and not me?

“Because I’m taller.”

John received 49 detentions in the first of the two high schools he attended.

July 20, 2019 marks 50 years since the astronauts of Apollo 11 walked on the moon. A world looked up. What would the discoveries of space exploration - things like communication satellites - bring the planet below?

Ironically, a world looking down.

Gravity has been replaced by the iphone as the greatest force on Earth. It is a field of influence pulling heads down from all directions. And a field of coincidence that Newton’s law of gravity involved an apple.

The generations now entering the workforce have grown up with phone in hand, many finding it perfectly acceptable to sit around a table, feet from each other, saying nothing while scrolling through the phone.

How do you make people look up and listen to your message? That’s the challenge for the next 50 years, and where The Headliners provide our unique communications strategy to leaders every day.

The best way to make them look up? Humor.

Since we’re talking about the skies, think about what happens when you get on a plane. The flight attendant gives a speech about what will happen if the plane crashes. They don’t use that phrase, “plane crash”. They say, “in the event of a water landing…” Lunar command modules splash down in water. Commercial airliners do not.

So the speech begins on this possibility of a Hudson style landing. As it moves to the tedious details of how to breathe and inflate your own life jacket, everyone’s head is down. People are working, most on a phone, younger ones taking pucker selfies for Snapchat. 

Then the flight attendant starts using humor. Many have seen this on Southwest Airlines, a company that embraced the power of humor in the workplace.

What happens? Everyone looks up and listens. Humor gets the message through. It lets us see the genuine person behind the employee. It builds trust. 

Use humor. When it’s not expected.

One small step that lifts. One giant leap for your communications strategy.

 #communicationtraining #leadership