Every now and then I meet someone and think, I must interview them for Cutting Through, my occasional communication podcast.

Russell King, whom I met recently via an online course, fits that bill.

I wanted to learn from him, and I thought you might like to as well so I wanted to share some highlights from the episode.

Asking people to pay for things that were previously free isn’t easy!

And yet, Russell successfully persuaded New South Wales public transport users to start paying, with barely a peep of resistance.

Not only that, he laid the groundwork for one of London’s busiest underground commuter systems, the Northern Line.

He brought decades of public policy experience to this, honed by being an elected official in the UK.

In our conversation, Russell shared several things that I think you will find useful while throwing in a few cricket terms too. He discussed …

• How to gain stakeholder buy-in well before you pitch anything. He calls this ‘rolling the pitch’. Imagine getting the field ready before a game.
• How to navigate decade-long-term projects that could fail at any point should community support dissipate.
• The importance of verifying and explaining thoroughly. Assumptions about understanding and positions can be very damaging.
• Why you must prepare for performance dips after any initial implementation goes live.

You can listen to the episode on any of your favourite podcast players or YouTube, or visit the podcast page on my website, where you can also find the show notes.

I hope to see you there.
Davina

Today’s fun fact

As far as inventions go, the semicolon has stood the test of time, but along with typewriters, it is now officially outdated.

The semicolon first appeared in 1496 in the work of an Italian scholar (says Wikipedia) and was used extensively by writers like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.
But these days, it’s largely vanished.

Apparently its use in English books has plunged by almost half in the last 20 years, from 1 in every 205 words in 2000 to 1 in 390 today (so the Guardian apparently reported).

Strangely enough, this week I saw a client use one for the first time in what feels like ages.

Elevate, the book – helps leaders set their teams up to set up a new dynamic across their team that will elevate everyone’s skills, helping the team get better, faster decisions.

Engage, the book – helps individual contributors prepare papers and presentations that leaders can approve without reworking.

Engage, the self-paced course  – supports both individuals and leaders prepare more insightful papers and presentations for senior leaders and boards.

Extreme Clarity, the 2-hour workshop – introduces techniques for structuring your messaging.

Board Paper Bootcamp, the 2-week program – helps you clarify and convey complex ideas to senior leaders and boards.

WANT TO LISTEN?

1. Risk Management = Change Management
2. Richard Medcalf – Making Time for Strategy
3. Baking Learning & Growth into BAU
4. Helping Leaders ‘shift testing left' to derisk projects
5. A Case Study in Digitial Transformation
6. How to help a senior leader come back from a misstep
7. How to hit the ground running in a big new role
8. How to communicate during great change
9. How to turbo charge your transformation

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