Yes, today every leader needs to be an AIDA leader. What does that mean?
The attention span of people is going down due to so many distractions and stress. A leader needs people’s attention and focus if he/she has to inspire or lead. For seeking attention of stakeholders who are into multiple meetings per day or busy with multiple projects/tasks, I see leaders adopt the AIDA model in their communication.
AIDA acronym stands for Attention-Interest-Desire-Action! It simply means that you start your communication so unconventionally and so creatively that people’s attention is immediately with you. That raises their interest and desire in your message and finally they take the action you want them to take. It’s a sales principle, which is applicable to any and every type of communication.
You can use AIDA at any stage of your communication, especially in the beginning. You can start with a story, an example, a personal experience or someone else’s experience, an analogy, a question, a quote, an incident, any news update, wit, humor, shocking statement, drama, exaggeration, animation, audio visual aid, activity or anything you believe will excite and engage people. You can also use it to make interesting subject lines for your mails. If you can close with AIDA too and thus create a loop/connect between the beginning of your communication and the end, it leaves a long-term impact on your audience.
Almost every profession needs AIDA. Some industries like marketing, advertisement, designing and many others survive on AIDA.
I recently witnessed a leader who was addressing participants during a training session. He beautifully compared himself to Orkut and the participants to ChatGPT. That analogy made the message interesting and easy to grasp for the participants.
Steve Ballmer energetically repeated the word ‘Developers’ for about 30 minutes on the stage, at an annual gathering of Microsoft employees. That was a brilliant use of AIDA. What a speech could not have achieved was achieved by this chanting of one word for 30 minutes. People were moved at the end of it.
AIDA helps you stay concise in communication. You get faster buy-in, respect, awe, appreciation from the audience/receivers of your communication. So, what’s your AIDA going to be in your next communication?
