Alistair came to me for coaching because his evaluations were filled with words like “Dry”, “Dull”, and “Not inspiring”. They thought Alistair was a smart technical geek with no leadership ability. The “Loyalty” scores in his division hit the bottom.
It was very quickly clear to me that Alistair had tremendous leadership ability and was an exceptional strategist. He was tripping up on his ability to communicate, and so the outside world never saw it.
When you trip up on communication, you will trip up on leadership. They go hand in hand.
I coached Alistair on many skills. The continuing monthly evaluations from his All-Hands told us whether he was winning.
Watching Arjun’s initial presentation, I could see he was rational, professional, very corporate. But it was not compelling. You might walk away liking Arjun, but not much moved or influenced by him.
Virtual presentations had always thrown Arjun off, especially with people that he didn’t work closely with and didn’t see that often.
We worked on many skills. I’m going to talk about two that really made a big difference. They both have to do with your state of mind.
A well-loved and successful Vice President recently came to an in-person Causative Communications class we were delivering for their company to talk to the students about how she utilizes the skills she gained from our classes to create real success in her daily life and her career.
The students loved her talk. She was supposed to talk for about 20 minutes, but they were so enthralled it went on for about an hour and a half, with question after question, each followed by her giving them practical advice that inspired them. Their faces were glowing listening to her.
One question she was asked was, “How do you prepare for a challenging meeting or big presentation?” This was a particularly good question for her because she goes into many very difficult negotiations and conversations, as well as gives many important presentations. Her answer will surprise you … (read more)
Tuesday was the first day of the Causative Communication course. Prasant had just learned about affinity and the difference it makes to communication. He learned that he actually needed to feel it if he wanted to be successful, and that finding something to like about the other person was the key to feeling it.
That sounded “great in theory”, but Prasant said it was “impossible” for him to find anything to like about Martin. However, Prasant knew only too well that what he was doing wasn’t working. He’d reached the point of being willing to try anything.
A number of years ago, my father called and told me he was going to be in San Francisco giving a talk. He said, “Let’s have dinner afterward!” I was thrilled, and said I’d love to also see his talk. I’d never seen my father give a presentation. He was a trial attorney who won a lot of cases, including one in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. I knew he did a lot of public speaking, but I’d only ever seen him be a father.
Following signs in the hotel lobby leading to his talk, I walked into the glittering ballroom in the Mark Hopkins, a grand 5-star hotel high atop ritzy Nob Hill, and found my father speaking … to hundreds of attorneys who packed the room to listen to him.
What?????? This was my father??????
Latisha showed up for Transforming Your Presentation Skills in quite a state. She was very self-conscious. No matter what I said, she kept asking me to coach her on her hand gestures and her words.
“Do you think this hand gesture is better than this one? Do I have more presence if I put my hand on my hip like this?”
On and on. It took Latisha all morning to realize I wasn’t going to coach her on any of that.
It’s a common mistake - I’m always coaching people on this point.
Most people have a lot of attention on themselves, what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling, what they want, what they’re going to say, etc. etc. etc. etc. It’s a deeply trained-in self-consciousness that makes the most important question in their mind when they’re giving a presentation the absolutely wrong question and that is, “How am I coming across?”
It’s a common mistake - I’m always coaching people on this point.
Let’s begin our New Year by talking about Vision.
Vision is all about seeing. The kind of vision that I’m talking about isn’t seeing what’s on the surface. It’s about seeing PAST.
On Day #1 of Transforming Your Presentation Skills, we usually film our students.
As we watch the first video together, we see very different things, the students and I. They usually hate themselves. This has everything to do with vision. What I do differently is….
Some people think you have to be “born with” the skills and charisma that make a really great public speaker. Not true. Let me tell you the story of Henry.
I was invited to give a two-hour talk on presentation skills at a technical conference for a highly specialized professional association.
At the banquet the night before my presentation, I told the President of the association, Steve, that I wanted to line up a volunteer to coach during my talk. He asked what qualities I was looking for and I said, “Someone who really needs to improve in their presentation skills.”
Steve enthusiastically told me Henry would be perfect and I said, “Let’s go meet him.” Well, meet him I did. Henry hardly took his eyes off the floor while we were talking, and for the brief moments they did come off the floor, they went straight to the ceiling or the wall on our right. Turns out, Steve interpreted my request as, “Who is the absolute worst communicator in this group?”
Henry didn’t look like someone who liked to be told what to do. I told Henry, “You know, I’m going to be coaching you in front of 300 people.” He glared at me for a brief moment and said, “What does THAT mean?” I said, “I’m going to be telling you what to do and you’re going to have to do it. Are you okay with that?” He mulled it over a little (looking at the ceiling) and then said, “I guess that’s okay.” Neither one of us was sure that it was, but with these words we locked in our next day’s destiny.
After Henry left, Steve said, “I hope you’re going to coach him on looking at people!” And then laughed for 2 minutes straight.
Tamara was nervous. In two days, she had to give a presentation to 400. Her first really big one.
It was Day 1 of Mastering Virtual Presentations and it was difficult for Tamara to practice without her teeth chattering.
The problem with being nervous is it makes you lose touch with everything good about you. Sometimes to the point where you can’t see anything good about yourself. The things you tell yourself at these moments tend to be dreadful.
Tamara was doubting whether she could speak without forgetting what to say, without everyone seeing how nervous she was.
There was a lot riding on how well Tamara did. If the Salespeople got excited about the new product, the revenue it would generate would be tremendous. But they had so many other products that they were selling, one new one often didn’t register. Tamara was one of many speakers throughout the day that would all turn into a blur.
As one doubt piled on top of another, Tamara doubted even her own ability to speak coherently.
She was a nervous wreck.
It was a truly exciting product she was going to present. If only the Salespeople understood what it did.
In Tamara’s case, it was not a matter of adding anything to her presentation. It was a matter of subtracting.
I was watching Jed give a sales presentation. The faces of his audience were attentive and respectful. They were also unsold. Unmoved.
In other words, Jed’s ideas weren’t landing the way he wanted.
They were politely waiting for Jed to come to the end. They had probably already mentally formulated a polite way of telling him, “Thank you, we’ll consider it” as they gently ushered him out the door.
Jed had no idea why he was losing it, and he kept going. As Jed talked, he got visibly more and more enthusiastic as a way to pump energy into the meeting, which did nothing for his audience.
Jed knew something was wrong, but had no idea what it was.
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