Preaching to people outside the choir

I'm going to the show. The big dance. I'm about to do something that I've wanted to do my entire career: I'm going to speak to a roomful of executives, company leaders and managers about the power of employee communication.

Now, I've spoken to executives before. I've done executive interviews as part of an audit, and I've presented the results of a communication audit to company leaders.
But this is different. For this presentation, I get one hour to convince the executives of a major health-care company to embrace the power of communication as the organization goes through some massive changes.

I'm so used to preaching to the choir in my seminars. Telling communicators how powerful communications is like telling fat people how good food is. (I can write that without it being offensive because I'm fat. Just like how black rap stars can use the 'N' word).

This is different. The communicators at this company were in my Strategic Employee Communication Vehicles seminar in Chicago last month, so they're already on board. Now they want me to convince the executives—including the CEO, who will be in the audience.

Nervous? Well, sure. Scared? Yes indeedy. I figure one of two things will happen. The scales will come off their eyes as they see what some of the best communicators in the world are doing to change behavior at their organizations. Or they'll use my hour of the agenda to catch up on their e-mail via their blackberry thingies. Let's hope it's the former.

Check this space on Thursday for a write-up of how it all goes.