Communicationz

Leadership guru makes good use of story

Earlier this week, via the Leadership Development Centre, I attended a seminar by the leadership guru Ron Heifetz.  He was an interesting study as a presenter partly because he made very effective use of story and metaphor.  Any of us could adopt his approach just by putting in some work:

1. Heifetz showed he had done his homework before coming 'Down Under'. He discussed Winston Churchill as a leader.  Heifetz had a New Zealand version relating to the iconic events of Gallipoli, rather than choosing an aspect of Churchill's life less close to our hearts.
2. He used simple local anecdote - using a visit to a local cafe to develop a metaphor for routine technical leadership.  Plus he complimented us about NZ coffee at the same time!
3. An ancient story from Heifetz's Jewish background made another important point.  People said to me that they found the story intrinsically interesting, plus it gave Heifetz a chance to share something of himself with us.
4. A couple of current New Zealand metaphors showed he was up to date with things Kiwi. One of these metaphors, the Whale Rider story from the New Zealand film, took a central role in his development of his approach to leadership.
5. Heifetz also connected to us, 'parent to parent' by using events surrounding his son's bad skiing injury.

Okay, we may not all be Harvard University leadership gurus, but each of us could create valuable stories from our own and our audience's worlds.

Some handy tools for building your presence as a manager

By accident, this week I discovered a very useful website.  It contains a series of podcasts at a website called www.managertools.com.  From the site you can get weekly  podcasts on  manager tools and on career tools.

The two guys, Mark Horstman and Michael Auzenne, provide very interesting conversations about simple practical approaches to a set of work challenges.  The management tools podcasts include the use of one-on-one meetings with staff, and skills such as delegation and feedback.

As well as the podcasts, there's a blog and a range of other resources.

Have a listen. I am sure you will find their ideas useful and stimulating.

Be a strong starter

A client this week began rehearsing a presentation.  Within a minute he was churning out turn-off expressions such as: 'Today I'm going to tell you about...' 'I just want to cover...' 'Then I'm going to move on to...'

You often hear these deadly phrases at the beginnings of a presentation.  None of them captivate an audience;instead they destroy any energy and attraction.

Aim to create energy with the phrases you use: 'Our company is in a unique position....' It is important that we understand...' 'Of course there is another key aspect....'  You don't have to stray into too much hype.

These empowering phrases not only interest the audience more - they energise the speaker as well.

As a second simple step: Switch to the active voice.  With this change, you quickly move energy levels up another notch:

'Our company is in a unique position....' becomes: 'The addition of Jane Smith to our group puts our company in a unique position'

' It is important that we understand...'becomes: 'We must understand...'

There are some great and well-written ideas for the start of a presentation at the interesting brain blog: Create Passionate Users

Can public speaking make you rich and famous?

The life seems glamorous, the engagements pile up because of your fantastic book or your wonderful experience, but what is the real story?

Answer?  Don't give up your day job!  There's excellent coverage of the economics of public speaking in a recent post on Ben Casanocha's blog: So you want to get on the speaking circuit.

There is another plus of public speaking that Casanocha doesn't mention - public speaking can attract people to whatever you are doing in that day job - the courses you run, books you have written, great causes you espouse and so on.

By the way, my link to this post came from Tyler Cowan's blog: The Marginal Revolution. It has been described as the 'best economics blog in the universe'!

Analysis of Obama's election night speech

People are still discussing the Obama election night speech.  A surprising number of generally cynical Kiwis seem very impressed.  That's got to be some sort of sign of Obama's effectiveness!

Last week a guy on one of our courses told me about attending the speech.  He and a group of friends, decided to go from New York to Chicago to experience it for themselves.  He said that Obama's presence reached out across the massive bullet proof glass shield and seemed to speak to every single individual in Grant Park and the surrounding streets. 

No doubt the speech will be analysed right through future generations, but here is one analysis from Bert Decker and here is the hard copy of the speech, courtesy of the interesting presentation blog: Pivotal Speaking

Handy tip for asking questions in a difficult conversation

A friend told me of some very valuable recent advice she was given for handling her prickly daughter.  The suggestion was that if she needed to ask questions and the conversation was tense, set the context first and then ask the question.

For example:  'It's a big and complicated assignment.  How long do you think it will take you?'

She says it works very well and I have successfully experimented with it in other prickly conversations, even when the person isn't a daughter!

The technique fits with the NLP approach of creating a bridge into a difficult question.  I guess that the context gives the person time to adjust to the question topic before they have to answer.  Presumably the prickly person may feel less defensive as a result?

A wonderful presentation role model at nine years old

On the blog Speak Schmeak, Lisa Braithwaite has a video of a nine year old presenting to the UK Dragon's Den.

The boy is a wonderfully poised and very real speaker.  He handles several props extremely well, copes with rejection by three Dragons and in a calm way persists with his belief in his product. We adults could learn a great deal from this young man. 

We see some great shots of audience involvement in the Dragons' body language.  You can see the power of this speaker in their reactions.

If you think this boy is unusual, the Royal Society's Genesis Energy Realise the Dream programme, held in early December each year, provides some equally inspiring examples of school student New Zealand presenters.  One aspect of their presenting skills compared to many adults, is that the students come very well prepared and rehearsed!

Pause in your PowerPoint presentation

The human brain doesn't cope well with working on two closely related activities at once.  To experience this, try singing two easy songs at once.  You will find that you have to switch back and forth between the two. 

This challenge is quite similar to what we expect people to do duriing a PowerPoint presentation.  As Rich Allen said at the recent NZATD conference: If you bring up a new slide, you must pause while people read it.  If you continue to talk, the audience can either listen to you or read, but they can't do both very well. After he made that comment, I noticed the frustration of this conflict in all the subsequent conference workshops and keynote speeches.  Every speaker broke that rule of thumb and it definitely made it hard to absorb information.

The brain's need for a pause is another reason for keeping your slides simple. The more you have on the slide, the longer it will take to read it.  Keeping slide information to the minimum enables your audience to focus on you and your message.

You can turn the necessity of that slide pause into a real plus.  To get the real benefit, as you pause, look around the audience and tune into where they are at.  You could also focus on the impact you want to create with your next point.

For some other good advice on pause, look at Bert Decker's blog:www.bertdecker.com

But what on earth do I wear.....?

What the presenter wears makes a huge difference to the impression they create.  Here are five simple rules for making a good impression on an audience:

1. Dress slightly more formally than the audience.  If they wear shirts and ties, you should wear a jacket. If they are in open neck shirts, wear a long sleeve shirt and no jacket.  So be appropriate, but be careful. 
2. If it wrinkles, clings or exposes, wrap your food in it.  Don't wear an outfit made of fabric that wrinkles.  Make sure your clothing fits well and yet is easy to move in.  Despite Trinny and Suzannah's positive attitude to women's cleavage, don't wear your low neckline when you are presenting... unless you want to distract the audience.
3. Sock it to them with dark clothing.  Dark colours project better and build an air of authority.  Even if the dress code is casual, dark casual makes more impact than those same clothes in light colours. Women should wear makeup including a fairly strong coloured lipstick. Eye contact is crucial for a presenter, so emphasise your eyes, make sure your fringe is above your eyes and choose non-reflecting lenses for your glasses- so we can see you looking at us.
4. Remember your mother was right.  The audience has plenty of time to look at you and notice that a button is loose or that you need a haircut.  Before you leave for the presentation, look at yourself carefully in a full length mirror. For you blokes - check that your tie touches your belt and that the bottom of your trousers falls slightly on to your shoe.  If you want reinforcement for the importance of this, next time you walk down the street notice how many men wear trousers that are slightly too short.  See how BAD they look.  Both men and women should make sure their sleeves still reveal the lower part of the wrist - your hands and gesture will look better.
5. Fake it till you make it.  Cover up those shaking knees by wearing reasonably loose trousers and a skirt that covers your knees. Don't wear dangly earrings or any other distracting jewellery.  You will become hyper-aware of any slightly uncomfortable clothing, so don't wear the scratchy necklace and pin back that hair that normally falls nonchalantly over your face. Remove everything from your bulging pockets so you can't fiddle with the contents.

Remember that these tips cover work dress generally, give or take a bit for varying levels of dress codes.  For more detail there is good information on the ECG site: for women and men. 

Tell someone who cares

For a long time we have pushed the idea that when presenting you must tell the audience why your message matters. Having brought up teenagers, I have always sold this message as "Tell someone who cares, Mum' , or as the 'So what' principle.

Recently via the blog publicspeaking success, I found a more complete and really practical approach to this at Bencivenga Bullets. Bencivenga quotes from Richard Borden's 1935 book 'Public Speaking as Listeners Like It' .  Borden imagines standing in front of a large and very emotional audience that shouts four demands at him:

1. At the beginning a very bored: Ho hum!!
2. As you start into the body of your speech an irritated: Well, why bring that up?
3. When you make your point, a sceptical: For instance?
4. At the end: Well so what?  (Whaddya want me to do about it?)

Prepare your speech so it responds well to those outbursts and you've got them engaged.