Power Play

Message power

at a glance

• Message power derives from designing messages to move your audience into action, and making your audience's identity central to your message.
• Message mastery has three stages: shift identifies what you want your audience to do differently, craft sharpens and condenses your message to its essence; test/do puts your message out.
• While message mastery may sound like work for a talented copy writer, it is an essential skill for power players.
• At the pinnacle of message mastery, your message can morph into a meme.
• Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, exemplifies message mastery in her popularisation of the concept of ‘leaning in' for women as a solution to overcoming the challenges of balancing work and family.

Focus	Impact
Content	Connect
Attitude	Action
Persuade	Identity

Chapter 8 Message power … become the master of your message

‘Sitting is the new cancer,' Apple CEO Tim Cook declared when speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco in February 2015. The context was his Apple watch, which buzzes gently to remind him to get up and move.

Here Cook crafted a message that would grab our attention, stick in our memory and persuade us to change our behaviour. When I find myself sitting for long periods a thought bubble containing those words pops up in my head, reminding me to get moving. The power of a well-crafted message.

Message mastery

Although the dangers of a sedentary life is hardly a new ...