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The Internet world has gone content crazy. It is impossible to open a site, read a blog or ezine or join a discussion about the Internet without hearing about content. Content is King is the incessant refrain. With all due respect to the Antebellum South, where Cotton was King and not a trite cliche, I do not know that Content is King and I’m not even sure what content means. Little is said about King Content in traditional Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing (SEO/SEM) lore. The Search Engines supply guidelines but no understanding. SEO professionals make bold statements about content but provide little insight. Marketing professionals practically shout it out from the rooftops but scarcely even define it.

Defining Content

…Content is keyword enriched text, written to satisfy the insatiable needs of the search engine gods and their elusive algorithms…. We can’t say that, even though it might be true.

… Content is keyword enriched text …

Noone can argue with that but it’s not enough. … Content is readable, relevant, keyword enriched text …

That goes a little further and few can argue with that definition. Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess.

The 3 R’s of Content: Rich, Readable and Relevant

With apologies to the original 3 R’s (Actually an R, an A, and a W but we won’t argue), we can call it the 3 R’s of Content: Rich, Readable and Relevant.

Rich Content

Keyword rich, that is. Keywords all but define content. The Search Engine World revolves around the words (and phrases) that people type into the Search Engine text box. Users rarely use the words they write or speak with. They use a more limited set of words without structure, formalities, niceties, subtleties or allusions. These simple, natural words that people think in have come to be known as keywords. The Search Engines have placed extraordinarily high value on these key words. No other single factor is as important as keywords. Their importance cannot be overstated.

Research keywords (keyword phrases) intensively, choose carefully. Use them extensively, never excessively, throughout the text. Too few keywords and the site is ignored; too many and the search engine may punish the site and punishment can be severe. Place keywords strategically in and around the text. Use them in headings and subheadings. Use them in graphic and alternative text descriptions. Use them in links. Use them behind the scenes in the title and description meta tags. (And any other meta tags you choose to use.) Use them wherever and whenever you can. Repeat the keywords (and all their elegant variations) frequently without becoming repetitious. Use, don’t overuse.

Readable Content

Content must be readable. There are a billion users (readers) on the internet and a billion more coming on board in the next few years. English, the world’s de facto second language, is the primary language of the internet. Users in the industrialized nations are often fluent and literate in English. However, new users are coming primarily from the third world where most people can neither speak nor read English fluently and many are not even literate in their own language. Translation programs abound (many furnished by the search engines) but they remain awkward and unreliable.

Keep it short, simple and to the point. Make every word count. Use simple words; active verbs and nouns. Avoid adjectives and adverbs, they adorn but do not inform. Use simple sentences or simple sentence structures. Avoid long blocks of text. Keep it as simple as possible. (Don’t ever equate simple with stupid. Simple is elegant and effective, never pretentious and high sounding.) It not only reads better, it translates better. Though you are addressing millions, try to keep it personal and make it human. And don’t ever talk down to your readers.

Relevant Content

Last, but by no means least, content must be relevant. Keywords are not enough. Keywords are clues; content solves the mystery. Keywords must be used in the proper context for the content to make sense. It’s easy enough to give people what they say they are looking for, it’s harder to give them what they want; information. Use those keywords effectively and they will come. The website must provide good solid content in the proper context,utilizing keywords seamlessly.

Provide keyword rich content and the search engines will bring traffic. Provide quality content and visitors will stay. Make the content dynamic and they will return.

The Silent R

The search engines have added another R: Recent. In the lightning fast world of the internet, truth is no longer eternal; it must also be current. The explosive growth of Blogs and their constant intrusion into the top 10 rankings of the SERP show that the algorithms are weighted more to the now than the then.

The Fourth R

The fourth and most important R, rarely mentioned and mostly ignored, can never be forgotten: the Reader. The Reader comes first. Write good, strong, quality content for your readers and the search engines will follow. Search Engines use sophisticated software and complex algorithms to analyze and satisfy the needs of their users. Satisfy one and you’ll satisfy the other.

The laws of the search engines are clear: less content, lower rankings

Any discussion of content could and should go much further. Content must be clear and compelling, interesting and informative but that is more about the quality of the writing itself and we’ll save that discussion for another day. The 3 R’s are a good starting point.

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The Bradford Magistrates’ Court has fined health and safety consultant Richard Atterby £1,000 and asked him to pay costs of £700, after he pleaded guilty under Section 36(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The consultant was charged after he made a wrong judgment, when he failed to report that it was unsafe for the staff to be exposed to respirable crystalline silica, arising from sandstone processing in a quarry.

George Farrar (Quarries) Ltd. had hired Richard Atterby as a consultant to provide health and safety services to the company over three years ago. His task was to review whether the workplace was safe for the employees and to report any unsafe substances present in the quarry that may cause health problems.

However, when the HSE did a site examination, they found the harmful substance and brought it to the attention of the court. The court held Mr. Atterby liable for failing to ensure worker safety and reprimanded the employer for negligence.

In light of this incident, HSE has asked all companies to be very cautious when taking on health and safety consultants. HSE Principal Inspector, Keith King, explained that all companies should be careful about how much they rely on their advisor. He asked the employers to outsource such a critical part of their work only when absolutely necessary, and warned them that just by offloading the work they are not relieved of their responsibility to provide a safe working environment to their employees. Making sure staff and managers have appropriate training is also an effective way of reducing the risk of accidents in the workplace and improving a company’s health and safety culture, click here for more info on the iosh managing safely certificate course.

Mr King also asked the companies to make sure that whoever they select to outsource this work to is proficient and has adequate data and know-how on the subject, in order to conclude correctly about safety.

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Buying real estate in a foreign country for the first time can defiantly be an overwhelming assignment. There are numerous reasons why individuals from the UK are investing in apartments in an overseas country and if you are still uncertain about whether you should take the decision and invest, here are a small number of reasons why you ought to go for it.

1st, foreign property has been an amazing financial performer for past couple years & shows no hints of slowing down. These days there are now a lot of new rising marketplaces that have good investment opportunities to be taken advantage off.

An additional reason is that a holiday apartment or second house can be a tremendous idea for you and your kids; It’s very normal for real estate investors to get second villas in countries easily reached within in not many hours journey of Britain airfields.

3rdly, more and more individuals are growing disillusioned with Britain and are erecting new lives in another country. It is not purely older retirees obtaining real estate in a foreign country and emigrating abroad; currently younger people are also going in ever greater numbers for employment or for personal causes. Enjoy your retirement by buying a property investment overseas today.

With foreign countries today enjoying better connections and cheaper flights the prospect to lease real estate in a foreign country as a means of generating further revenue is another key reason for investing.

For most people owning foreign real estate is a daydream come true. It can offer a much improved quality of life and an excellent escape whether you are in your 20s or your mid 50s.

Acquiring a property in an unfamiliar country exposes you to new ways of life & different outlooks to life. It’s breathtaking & enlightening & without doubt opens up a completely new place to see.

With certified information It is easier than ever to investment in property overseas. Many overseas property specialist offer help on location, developments, legal topics, mortgage facilities, as well as everything you will need to know when acquiring your dream overseas property.

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Dash Dashing by Lee Ravitz might be a good book, but busy lifestyles can make getting time difficult to achieve. Extended journeys to the office and day to day activities might eat up enormous portions of time everyday. A job, caring for kids or housework all cut back the free time available for your interests. If you really enjoy reading and are finding it challenging to find time, commuting may be a chance to enjoy an audiobook. Thanks to downloads, it’s simple to savor Eflexx Empowerment Meditation by Mike Angulo for sale from Download Audio Book Online, or audio books brought to life by John Le Carre without even lifting the book. Multitasking has become a way of life in the modern world. Audiobooks like Gullible’s Travels: The Adventures of a Bad Taste Tourist by Cash Peters by Download Audio Book Online make the best use of of the wasted hours everyday, it may be waiting at the physician’s office or grocery shopping. Audiobooks are obtainable to download as audio data files suited for your PC, laptops and ipods for instance Body To Die For by Kate White, so if you have an iPod or another mp3 player you have the opportunity to hear a thriller or a great novel, for instance audio titles by Christo Botes without hauling cumbersome books around. The many benefits of audio books include hiring or purchasing the title of your choice then listening to it in your own time. How about studying Turkish? Why not try out audio-books? Possibly new sales techniques matter to you, or you can enjoy studying current thoughts in religious belief.

For in depth hints, you are advised to take a gander at this exceptional site for www.audiofrombooks.com products…

Audio books exist in a myriad of titles and literary genres. It really doesn’t matter if you’re a history devotee, or if you are crazy about science fiction and fantasy or interested in health and fitness, most can be downloaded straightaway. Many plans are available; you can easily take a subscription to a rental plan or purchase the title outright.

Reading devotees will invariably find a way to read, however audio-books offer a great alternative. A narrator can enhance the enjoyment of many novels. Reading a title isn’t quite the same experience as savoring audio books narrated by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, with the additional refinements of an real performance. Your enjoyment of the title can be heightened by listening to audio-books such as Cry Destiny by Michel Russell and in many cases will mean a great deal more to you than the words on a page.

Don’t forget about audiobooks next time you consider buying a book, they are a tremendous means to fit all the books you desire into your busy life.

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The Most Economical Way to Advertise online is to Submit Articles online for Redistribution. One of the Main Benefits of submitting Articles is one way Back Links to your Web Page. Google, Yahoo and MSN the big 3 in Online Search account for well over 80% of all Searches use Links to you and Fresh Relevant content as arguably the two most Important factors in determining your Page rank.

Everyone has at Least one Article in them just waiting to Bust out. (Actually if you believe Robert Allen the best Selling Real Estate Author he claims everyone has a Book in them). Now that you know that article is in you, let’s get it out.

My Wise Grandfather use to say If making the First Million is the Hardest I’ll Just assume I already made my First Million and now I’m working on my 2nd Million. Just assume you already wrote an article and work on your 2nd article, then this should be easy.

The 7 Key Elements to writing that Article

1 – Find a Topic

Everyone is an expert at something (according to John Childers one of my Mentors if you know more then me on a subject your an expert). Actually if you can answer any of the following questions you will have at least one topic to write an Article about.

• What are you good at?
• What have you had success at?
• What is your Passion?
• What advice do people always come to you for?
• What are your Hobbies

2 – Write Your Headline

Go to an Article Site and Read the Headlines. Go to the Supermarket and buy a copy of one of those “Gossip” Papers Look over the Headlines and see what Power words they use. Things like:

• How To …
• 6 Tips …
• 3 Simple Methods …
• A simple Guide …
• Do you Commit these 7 Fatal Mistakes in Your…
• How a Dumb Country Boy …..

For more power Words (http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/cw-power-phrases.html)

3 – The opening Paragraph.

If all else Fails Just write 3 or 4 sentences about your article. Tell them what you will tell them. Grab There attention use some keywords.

4 – The Meat and Potatoes

Write 3 or 4 paragraphs about your topic. Take some time look over what others have done. Use the Internet as a research tool. Don’t steal someone else article just the information. How did I know that Yahoo, Google and MSN account for over 80% of Searches, I read it on a web Page. How did I know that Back links and Content are Important for your Page Rank, I read it on the internet.

5 – The Closing Paragraph

Just review the key points from your article and explain how the reader can benefit from it.

6 – Edit and Proof Read Your Article.

Rework some sentences. Add some Keywords. Maybe add a little Pithy, You know those thing about my Grandfather, Robert Allen and John Childers. Proof read it 3 or 4 times.

Put yourself in the position of the reader. Make sure it is something that you would enjoy reading about. If you don’t like it why would your reader

Now Put yourself in the Position of those Page ranking Bots throw in those Keywords where they work well but don’t over do it. Remember it still needs to appeal to the reader.

The Last thing you do is a Spell and Grammar check.

7 – Resource Box

Don’t forget your resource box. 2 or 3 Lines about yourself with links to your Web Pages (remember I did Promise you those back Links)

Now that you have finished you first article you will want to submit it to the Article Directories. The Below Web site lists over 70 Article Directories. You don’t need to use all of them but be sure and use EZine Articles and Go Articles 2 of my favorites (http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/articles/article-submit.html)

By Mike Makler

Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001. Subscribe to Mike’s Newsletter here http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/list-sign-up.html

Get some useful Free Downloads Here: http://trafficninja.com,

Some more Articles from Mike: http://weeklytipsandtricks.blogspot.com/

Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler :: all rights reserved.

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You can make a Blue Ribbon presentation each and every time if you follow these 14 rules.

1. “Fire In The Belly”
Remember the key word to successful communications is ENERGY. Speak with conviction. Choose topics about which you are passionately involved. If you will have “fire in your belly”
for the subject, success is almost guaranteed.

2. Focus
Focus on your content and presentation with laser-like aim. Capture the audience’s attention with a startling fact, a powerful question, an arresting quote, or a compelling story. Speak in specifics. Include both facts and feelings. Content is critical and must be clearly outlined and thought through. Presentation skills, however, are what make a presenter effective.

3. Performance
Every time you speak, whether one-on-one or to hundreds, you are performing. Make the performance powerful! Put your whole self into the presentation. If the performance suffers, the content is of little value.

4. Voice Color
Use voice color. We call it vocal variety. What we don’t want is a black and white, bland, monotonous presentation. What we do want is the antithesis of monotony. Learn to whisper and to shout. Speed up and slow down. Pause. Pause some more. Use your entire vocal scale. Think of your voice as a fine violin, oboe or clarinet. Make the tones alive and colorful.

5. Eyes
Use your eyes. Eyes are one of our most powerful means of communication. If your belly is on fire for your subject, your eyes can tell the story. Make eye-to-eye contact with your
audience. As you look at one person, finish a sentence or a thought, then look at another. Let your focus linger one to three seconds. Talk to one person at a time. This creates intimacy.
You will be far more personal and effective than if your eyes scan the crowd.

6. Face
Use your face. The greatest bank account we have in human relations is free. It’s a smile. Add your smile to penetrating eyes and expressive brows. With eyes on fire and an intense face
you will capture the attention of the most callous. Your face is like a television set. People will watch it with more interest if there is color and energy in the picture.

7. Body Parts
Add the power of your body. After your eyes and face come the all-important carrier of the message… your body. Stand tall. Use gestures. Over-emphasize them when you practice. Make bold rather than timid gestures, broad rather than small! Great stage performers have learned how to take advantage of their body, face, eyes, and space.

8. Balance
Maintain physical balance. There’s a subtle difference in the respect awarded those who stand tall and speak with their weight equally balanced on both feet. You lose none of your warmth and appeal by standing tall. You gain stature and a sense of power. It is fine to move, but do so with a purpose. Do not wander aimlessly, pacing and creating a cadence of movement. This becomes monotonous, wears down your audience, and renders the presenter far less effective.

9. Involvement
Involve the audience. Be sensitive to the audience’s needs. Get to know them before you speak. Find out what their individual interests are. Weave that into your presentation. Balance
your emphasis between content and relationships, facts and feelings. We, as presenters, must strive to answer the multiple needs of an audience. Create a balance of information and
entertainment.

10. Practice! Practice! Practice!
This is the most important rule of all. Practice – Practice – Practice. Never take a speaking engagement lightly. If you are to do your best, you must practice. Some presenters fall into the
trap of winging it. The danger is that sometimes “wingers” do a great job. So, they assume they are most effective with no practice. Ask Jack Nicklaus, Michael Jordan, Billy Graham,
Tiger Woods, Liddy Dole, Colin Powell, Jerry Seinfeld, or any star salesperson you know — the greats practice! No exceptions.

11. Get Rid of Your Need to be Perfect
Perfection is an impossible objective. Replace “perfect” with “be my very best.” Being perfect is impossibledon’t attempt it!

12. Rehearse Q & A
When a question and answer period is appropriate, rehearse the Q&A session just as diligently as you do your talk. If there is the possibility of controversy or tough questions, identify the five toughest questions you could be asked and prepare a rehearsed answer for each.

13. No Booze – No racy material – No obscene language
Booze will not make you sharper. It is a very treacherous friend. Off-color material and 4-letter words are not necessary. They will offend someone in every audience. There are too many good words in the English language that will represent you well. Don’t resort to cheap laughs and uneasy applause.

14. Practice . . . some more
. . . and confidence will travel with you.

You can do it!

Ty Boyd, CEO of Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, is in the Broadcast Hall of Fame and the Speakers Hall of Fame. He has taught presentation skills to Fortune 1000 executives in more than 34 countries. His Excellence In Speaking Institute celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2005.

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Getting started with your leaflet distribution services are one of the easiest means to get real advantage over your contenders. How exactly? Letterbox and door drops is the solution. By using a nonstop leaflet distribution advertisment you can attain maximal
exposure via the letterbox. Its a very over looked advertising strategy which works very well, that is ofcourse is using letterbox distribution

If your merchandise is made to appeal to a large market and you want to concentrate on a very limited field, door to door campaigning is a great, cut-price way of hitting your target market.

But particular in the formulation of your leaflet distribution efforts as this is fundamental if you are to make the most of your investment.

Leaflet distribution allows you to return particular response from directed groups of customers. It’s a especially
useful instrument for small businesses because it allows you to focus finite resources where they are most likely to produce result and quantify the success of promotions accurately by taking apart answers. But remember that the results of leaflet distributoin aren’t guaranteed. A poorly projected or targeted promotion will be a waste of cash

There are a number of new methods in which leaflet distribution has been misused in a semipolitical way. Many of these causes are as follows. One of the most everyday uses of brochure distribution is to supply individuals with data to return information that has been delivered by the opponent. The booklets can also be utilised to threaten people with an assault. This is especially likely in conflicts in which ground forces can inform foe troops that they will occupy if no activity is taken. The leaflets in war situations are often used to encourage the opposition to surrender and if how to go about surrendering without facilitating a retaliation.

If you have determined that a leaflet distribution will be a effective form of advertisement in order to bring in some much needed future clientele, then you need to set about the chore of picking out the most flushed business to carry out the distribution for you.

On That Poin there are many factors to be taken when doing this, these are strategic in getting the strongest results from your promotion.

You need to consider where you are going to aim your booklets and the coverage and incursion that you want to attain. If you are just thinking of a conservative distribution in the local area, it may be provident to choose a small local company who just manage the smaller promotions in one area. They are quite likely to be cost effective, and have lower lead times. Accountability may be a problem if matters do not go according to plan, so this needs to be counted against the number of financial spending.

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There is little doubt that America is riding the wave. She is at the peak of her power and at the top of her game. Trying to get her attention would be a lot like trying to stop a train with a handkerchief. Every similarity to previous world powers notwithstanding our collective national behavior is so close to ancient Rome that all that is missing is the togas. The land of the mighty Caesars made a noise heard round the world for a season then died alone in a protracted whimpering that went largely unnoticed as the world entered the modern era. What can we learn from this? Leaving this question unanswered might normally imply that the answer is understood, however, it is apparent that for Americans nothing at all is understood.

The dangers are ignored, the warnings go unheeded, and the party goes on. Contrasts of our lifestyle and that of other nations make us all the more pompous and less willing to question our own indulgence. We have been all to willing to conclude that there must be something wrong with those guys over there. The prophet, bard and poet must now curb their urgency and put out a more entertaining message in keeping with the tone of the party spirit. We are only one step away from jailing, hurting or killing the messengers who provide us with a call to conscience. Or have we already taken our first few baby steps in that direction.

Like a mangy little dog scampering behind us and nipping at our heals comes the ACLU standing up for the rights of Gays and Lesbians while beating down manger scenes at Christmas and Ten Commandment plaques in public buildings. It makes me wonder if even common heroism has fallen victim to perversion. Are these acts heroic, are they really protecting our freedoms?

In Pennsylvania a law was recently rammed through the legislature that makes it illegal for a minister of the gospel to quote passages of the Bible from the pulpit that cite homosexual behavior as a sin. That law has been challenged by people with a bit of common sense still left to them in that state.

In Iraq and Afghanistan we are kept from entering and searching mosques that are known centers for Islamic jihad groups or where weapons are stockpiled and cached. They are considered cultural centers and thus are placed off limits. Contrast this to the latest effort to keep military chaplains from praying in the name of Jesus Christ with those who they are sheparding. Chaplains are guarding the spiritual welfare of our own soldier citizens, is that any less important than the cultural traditions of foreigners?

On a recent ride through a rural district of Arkansas I noticed that there was a church building about every one and a half miles on the road I was on. There were Pentecostal, Full Gospel, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Nazarene, Catholic and some unheard of varieties of churches stretched out in profusion for well over two hundred miles. As I drove I was thinking of an old adage spoken by one of our most well known missionary pioneers who said…”why should anyone hear the gospel twice when there are so many people in the world who have not even heard it once” I wondered if this profusion of churches laid out to us like a grand spiritual buffet is just taken for granted. No, I’m sure that it is.

After retuning home I saw a picture on the internet that I couldn’t help but contrast to the highway of churches I had just encountered. On a news site online was a picture of three Indonesian policemen standing behind three seated women they were guarding. The policemen were in full dress complete with strapped gun holsters, uniforms with arrays of badges and medals and a stern look of duty etched across each sullen face. In front of them were seated three average looking Indonesian women garbed in light blue prison jumpers. Three middle aged elementary school teachers who had just been sentenced to three years each for teaching their young students about Jesus Christ in their predominantly Muslim school sat stunned as sentence was pronounced. Save that Mosque but waste the lives of three harmless but dedicated educators, now that’s good thinking.

So over here it may not seem so bad…yet. Hollywood would have to make stumbling wimpy idiots of most gospel ministers; it goes with the territory and may seem even a bit tolerable after all. If you’re going to pump out a secular world view full of profanity and degenerate living you don’t want gospel preaching ministers to be taken too seriously. It would be too hard to sell a product if the naysayer’s were allowed a soap box from which to stand and proclaim that the product was trash within the very medium the product was sold through.

Should a dedicated Christian happen to slip through the cracks with the gospel on their lips and a life to back it up, they too would be relegated to the class of the disdained. It seems acceptable to make fun of the born againers and bible thumpers in media and in society in general. No one cares if you strip half naked, paint your face and act like a frenzied baboon on a psychedelic drug at a football game…those are fans are they not? But those who get even nominally excited about God are always labeled…fanatics. It is unlikely that Americans notice such double standards, since we are so bent on disregarding any standards at all.

We have gone from a state of utter dependence on God as we did during our pioneer days and then on to seeking the presence of God in our formative years as a nation. But now we are entering that place where we don’t even like to retain the knowledge of God at all in our thinking or living. What will be the result of all this and what can we expect next? I will let the Bible answer that.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Romans 1:28

Rev Bresciani has written many articles over the past thirty years in such periodicals as Guideposts and Catholic Digest. He is the author of two books available on Amazon.com, Alibris, Barnes and Noble and many other places. Rev Bresciani wrote “Hook Line and Sinker or what has Your Church Been Teaching You,” publisher, PublishAmerica of Baltimore MD. He also wrote a book published by Xulon Press entitled “An American Prophet and His Message, Questions and Answers on the Second Coming of Christ.” His book is now being heralded as the clearest book on the subject of the second coming of Christ since Hal Lindsey’s “Late Great Planet Earth” Rev Bresciani’s website is,

http://americanprophet.org

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Irritating speech habits destroy our professional credibility. Examples of irritating speech habits are sentences that end with dangling prepositions (Where did you hang your coat at?) and conversations peppered with “ums,” “uhs,” “like,” and other space-filler noises. We’ll be focusing here on another speech habitone that sends a subtle message to listeners that it’s okay to abdicate responsibility.

How can a mere speech habit keep us from reflecting professionalism while causing us to abdicate responsibility? Let me demonstrate by example. In seminars I conduct around the country, I often ask a question of my clients: What physical manifestations do you personally experience when you find yourself in a tense situation? Generally, the answer to this question is phrased in the following ways:

“You get a tight throat.”

“Your palms get sweaty.”

“Your heart starts to race.”

Now, notice the answers and how they are phrased versus the way the question was asked. In the question I asked for what you personally experience. But the people answering my question have shifted the response away from being about themselves (thus, abdicating responsibility for their feelings) by choosing to use the pronoun “you” in place of “I.” This shift of focus conveys a sense of shifting responsibility because it indicates a refusal to accept what they are experiencing. In this situation, the respondents are essentially suggesting that they are speaking for me and what I experience in these situations rather than speaking for themselves.

In these situations, I realize that the respondents are not intentionally or deliberately saying they are speaking for me. But the subtle shift in pronoun usage shifts the focus away from themselves and on to someone else. And any time we abdicate responsibility for something we’re experiencing, we’re damaging our professional credibility. We may unintentionally be implying to our listeners that we are refusing to accept responsibility for our actions and responses.

Yikes. You mean accepting or abdicating responsibility is that subtle? Yes, that subtle and that damaging to our credibility.

As professionals, we should be interested in how we represent ourselves in every communication situation. A slight lapse of conscious effort on our part to communicate clearly and responsibly indicates to our partners in communication that we are shifting responsibility away from ourselves.

How damaging can this truly be? Consider this: we tend to model the behaviors and patterns of those we communicate with and who we respect. We hear clearly the words they use, and we watch their body language to see if it matches the message (but that’s a different article). Those who are in communication with us do the same thing.

When asked a pointed questionsuch as, What physical manifestations do you personally experience when you find yourself in a tense situation?the response we give conveys whether we’re willing to accept responsibility for our behavior and responses. If our subordinates sense that we are abdicating responsibility, they in turn may take it as acceptable behavior when they are asked challenging questions. Likewise, we never want to unintentionally send a message to our supervisors that we are attempting to avoid responsibility.

The consequences of an unguarded communication moment are enormous. Professionals who have attained high-level positions in their organizations rarely abdicate responsibility. When they do, they incur severe consequences for their actions. When we keep the larger pictureand the more costly consequencesin mind, it becomes easier to see that we can never let our guards down when it comes to communicating professionally. We must constantly be aware of how each word we choose reflects our beliefs about ourselves and our responsibility in the matters at hand.

Ensuring that we are accepting responsibility with our words as well as with our actions will help us protect our professional credibility. And there’s another advantage: we’ll be modeling the behavior we want from others, encouraging them to accept responsibility for themselves.

Copyright © 2003 Tracy Peterson Turner, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

About The Author

Dr. Tracy Peterson Turner works with organizations that want to turn their managers into leaders and with leaders who want to get their messages heard. She is an expert in both written and verbal communication and conducts presentations and workshops to help individuals and corporations meet their communication goals.

Tracy@Mgr-Impact.com

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