Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
Holiday Family Survival Guide

The reason I’m writing about this is because of the holidays.  I’m the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants and we celebrate Lithuanian as well as American holidays. So we always get a double dose of celebrations throughout the year.

From my earliest memory, there was never a holiday dinner where someone did not get up from the table, possibly in tears or wounded silence, storm out of the room and slam the door loudly. Never.  It was not always the same person, we would rotate.

We got offended easily, and the way we handled it only made it worse.

Even so, I challenge you to find a family that loves each other more than we do.  If ever anyone said anything bad about any one of us, they were in trouble.

That’s how it used to be.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The one thing that can transform every ...

Gregor had made an overnight change, both at work and at home. The results were so powerful, it turned his world inside out.

It was during the Causative Communication workshop that Gregor came to realize he only “half listened to anyone”. His mind was always moving on to “what’s next”. He was mentally halfway out of this meeting and heading to the next one no matter where he was.

At the end of the 3rd day of the workshop, Gregor made a life-changing decision. He said, “I’m going to stay fully present in every conversation. I’m going to give 100% of my focus, really listen and really understand. No shortcuts.”

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How to change people without saying a word

Thanksgiving has inspired this article because Thanksgiving always reminds me how wonderful, even magical, affinity is.

Affinity is a feeling. It’s what you’re feeling about the other person, your emotional response to them. And very specifically, it’s how much you like them in that moment.

Affinity can fluctuate, even within one conversation. You can start out with low affinity and end up with high affinity. Or start high and go low.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How to completely change the way people listen ...

“I’m now walking into meetings and making what I want happen. The first thing I noticed was that everyone started listening to me differently. Even my boss. Now people go quiet when I speak and genuinely listen, even my superiors. I hadn’t realized there are different kinds of listening. This is REALLY different. After that, it’s not hard.”

This broke all the rules considering where Agoston was on the corporate ladder. He was young, early in career and had no authority. But he spoke up at meetings, in hallways and conversations. His influence was growing daily. It wasn’t long before he was promoted and began rapidly moving up the organization.

Before he did the Causative Communication workshop, no one listened to him.

What made the difference for Agoston was mastering the skill of…

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
Instead of persuading, try this...

The question, “What do I need to say to get the outcome I want?”  is a good question. Knowing the answer to it is essential to being causative.

The reason people experience difficulties when they’re looking at a situation through this lens is because they don’t realize that they’re skipping steps.

Presentations

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The end of "flat" presentations

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George was droning on. And no matter how hard he tried, his sounded like every other flat corporate presentation.

Not only was it boring, it made George boring. There was nothing of value in his work or in George. Nothing to pay attention to.

Never having had a real mentor, George was following in the footsteps of the thousands of other tiring corporate presenters he’d seen, all stamped from the same mold.

His presentations had devolved into a stream of words with no meaning.

But George always had the feeling that he was capable of more.

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The one thing that can free you from fear of any audience

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“I get stage fright so bad, my mind freezes up and my ears start to burn.” So said Matt.

Janet, our Lead Trainer, and I were coaching Matt, preparing him for an upcoming in-person presentation he will be giving to 500 leaders from his company, gathered together for a quarterly meeting in a large convention center. Matt is a Senior Vice President, responsible for $6.2 billion worth of annual revenue. He knows his stuff, he’s a good man. Yet terrified of public speaking.

Put Matt in front of 500 people, his expertness, confidence, talent and intelligence drain right out of him.

“I feel all alone up there, completely disconnected. Even when I know what I want to say, it all leaves me.”

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Seeing people transform into powerful beings

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We’re still delivering an abundance of virtual coaching, and we also recently opened up our office for in-person training for the first time in 2 ½ years. It’s been thrilling. It’s for small groups of no more than six, so it’s also very personal.

Having the whole person in front of us for the whole day, several days at a time, seeing them laugh and smile in all dimensions, has been rich.

Even more remarkable have been the incredible transformations in their presentation skills.

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How to tell the truth...and why it matters

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Walter is a very high-level engineer who works on new product development, critical products that generate billions in annual revenue for the corporation. He presents quarterly to the CEO and executive leadership team who rely heavily on Walter’s technical expertise.

Walter is a really nice guy with a great sense of humor. I liked him right away. But when he started the presentation that he wanted to practice during our Executive Coaching Session, all the life in him drained away.

I asked him, “Walter, you don’t look like you’re enjoying this very much. What’s happening?”

He said, “I really hate giving this presentation.”

Me: “Why?”

Walter: “Last quarter, without talking to me or my team, the CEO promised Wall Street we would have a new product release in January. A brand new product that’s really complicated to develop. The CEO was feeling pressured because our competition is ahead of us on it.

“In our last presentation I tried to tell him that we’re not ready, that it will take us at least a year and I tried to explain why.

“He cut me off and told me that he had already publicly promised Wall Street and we had to do it. He said that since the competition had done it, he didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t do it. He said it was my problem to figure out, and just to go solve it.

“I went back to my team and we’ve all been running around in complete confusion for the past quarter. We’ve gotten nothing done and now I have to present our quarterly results and we don’t have any. I have to make it look like we’re working on it and moving forward when we’re not, and you’re right - I’m most definitely NOT enjoying this at all.”

Walter was faced with the dilemma of: How do you present something that violates your integrity? (READ MORE…)

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Earning the audience’s attention

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“I can feel it. People’s minds get very quiet when I start to talk. They’re totally quiet until I’m completely finished. They’re really listening to me.”

Mateo, a recent graduate of Mastering Virtual Presentations, wrote that to me last week.

Why are they quiet? Because they turned off all thinking.

When do audiences do that?

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The end of dull corporate presentations...forever

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“Can I send you the feedback from my last presentation?”

Only a week earlier, Lukas had completed the Mastering Virtual Presentations workshop.

It was supposed to be “just another normal corporate presentation”.

When you see those two words together, corporate presentation, what do they conjure up for you. Something thrilling? Gripping?

Very few people find them exciting.

Lukas was asked to give a “quarterly update,” which is the same low level of thrilling as a “corporate presentation”.

Except that Lukas surprised them all. And he was amazed by the response. He’d never gotten feedback like this before. No one had.

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Body language and other ways to ruin Executive Presence

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“What are you doing?”

I was asking Alessandro this at the beginning of the Mastering Virtual Presentations workshop. Alessandro was giving his first presentation and I was trying to make sense of his sudden stone-faced glare and forceful hand gestures.

“I was told I need executive presence so I’m trying to come across with gravitas.”

The problem was that he was trying to do it with his body.

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The art of knowing without seeing

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Alisa had an important presentation before our second Mastering Virtual Presentation Skills coaching session. She decided to try what she learned instead of her normal routine which is to look at her notes or her slides.

Afterward, Alisa made a brilliant observation, “The results exceeded expectations. Looking into the camera made me tune into their voices, how their voices sounded.”

I asked her, “What did the voices tell you?”

Alisa said, “I could tell they were warm, receptive, interested and engaged. I didn’t need to see their faces.”

Alisa is right. Human voices, when you really tune in, tell you everything.

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Managing 12 people in a heated debate

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Teams from three companies, different time zones, were coming together to discuss supplier issues. All three anticipating an unpleasant, contentious, argumentative, blaming, confrontational series of disagreements, punctuated by complete resistance on three sides.

Valerie, the vice president I’m coaching, was one of 12 people attending.

Valerie arrived to the meeting early. And did something no one had ever done before in their previous meetings: She turned on her camera.

As each person joined one by one, Valerie greeted them warmly and used the new skills we practiced in her coaching.

One by one, they all turn their cameras on and the next thing you know they were all talking warmly with each other. Like friends, actually.

And the meeting transformed into a collaboration.

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This never happens …

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Linda was given work that was beneath her capability. When she spoke up, she was dismissed. They gave a project that belonged to her to someone less qualified. No one would talk with her and her boss kept canceling their one-on-one meetings.

Everything about her was dark. She came across like doom and gloom combined with fear, resentment and blame.

Linda decided to find out what she was doing wrong that was causing her to fail, and to discover what she could do about it.

She transformed during the coaching. Every video showed dramatic progress. New strategies. New abilities. Real personal growth. She learned how to handle not just that situation, but any conversation, any communication challenge.

After using what she learned in our one-on-one coaching program, she became radiant and compelling. The people she works with changed from cold and hostile to warm and greatly appreciative.

They pushed her into a leadership position because they wanted her there. This never happens, ever.

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Painting 2022 with your palette of dreams

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This week right now is for dreaming your 2022 into being.

2021 was all about What do I need to do to survive?

2022 does not have to be more of 2021. 2022 can go way beyond a survival endurance contest.

2022 can be about dreams that come true. Don’t look to the world for permission. There is no “Dream-Come-True Licensing Entity” that’s ever been any good.

You are your own licensing entity. You are the one who gives yourself a license to dream and to paint those dreams into reality, to make them come true. Or not.

Don’t limit your dreams by what other people dream.

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The tortured life of Senior Leadership

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Senior executives spend their days listening to endless proposals and briefings. They sit through so MANY presentations, it TORTURES them to listen to presenters who don’t get right to the point.

I’m sure you watch YouTube videos. Have you ever watched one that took a long time to get to the point? You know that feeling you got? Did you ever fast-forward hoping they would get to something good? Did you ever skip out before the end?

Senior executives LIVE with that feeling.

It’s torture. There’s no other word for it.

I’m sure they would wish for a remote control that could fast-forward. And they would use it liberally.

This is how to stand out from this crowd in your executive presentations:

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Executive presence doesn't work with training wheels

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Many executives who come to me for executive coaching come prepared with their word-for-word script.

What’s the problem with speaking from a script when you’re giving a presentation?

Well…what does a script say about your mindset? About your thoughts and feelings about yourself? Your feelings about the audience? About your true power?

Having a script sends out a lot of messaging about you that you might not want to be sending.

Daniel's "crash course" for impressing senior leadership

What Daniel ran into is what all human beings run into: the more you try to impress others, the more you move away from your true self. You get tangled up in knots. The more you do it, the less impressive you become.

People are not impressed by someone who is trying to impress them. It’s a road that leads to anxiety and defeat.

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