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.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How to draw-in an audience of 40,000

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.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
Two skills you need to create human connection

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.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The VP Secret for preparing for critical ...

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)

Presentations

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How to get the audience to “open up”

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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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How to make stage fright go away

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I have seen innumerable methods for attempting to vanquish stage fright. 

Bianca addresses groups of 3,000 customers at a time.  She’s in sales.  Her way of coping with terror was to run out on a large stage with very loud music, seemingly all “pumped up” and yell at the crowd, “Hey!  How's everybody doing?”   It was about as far from her true personality as could be, and the second she started her presentation it was obvious she was tense nervous.

Peter found two people in the audience on either side of the room.   First, he talked to one, then he talked to the other.   They were the only 2 people he looked at. Anchoring on only 2 people didn’t handle his stage fright, but it kept him from totally losing it.

Risha is an engineer. She presents project updates to a skeptical and demanding senior leadership team.  Her solution was to avoid all eye contact because she didn’t want to see their disapproving looks, she forced herself to keep her eyes squarely fixed on her notes and her slides.

Lynette powered through her talks on pure nerves and adrenaline, and collapsed with exhaustion when they were over.

If any of these methods of handling stage fright worked, they wouldn't have it. 

What they’re all trying to do is drive their symptoms out of existence. The symptoms include every flavor and intensity of fear, from feeling slightly nervous and on edge to complete terror.

The reason these methods don't work is because they don't address the root cause of stage fright.  And most people have no idea what's causing it.

If you don't know what's causing it, how can you fix it?

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Do THIS to keep your audience on the edge of their seats

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Sam put them to sleep within the first 10 minutes of his 40-minute presentation.  He’s not alone in being able to do this.

The problem with corporate presentations is they’re lifeless.  Audiences slowly drown in a sea of droning boring corporate “they all look alike” PowerPoint presentations.

They all start with, “Today I’m going to talk to you a little bit about…”

Then they unroll a slowly moving parade of too many uninspired slides endlessly connected by unimaginative transitions of, “Now on my next slide you’ll see…”

If this is you, you’re gradually putting them to sleep. Your audience slowly, but politely, disengages. Their minds start drifting and they start covertly multitasking, their attention desperately seeing something to keep them awake. 

If they possibly can, your audience will start interrupting you.  I coached a VP last week who told me that when his people present to executives they always hear, “Okay, let’s stop here, stop presenting for a moment, just let me ask you some questions ….” and the execs just take over and drive the presentation into a ditch (as far as the presenter is concerned).

Here’s the thing to know about audiences: they only stay with you as long as they are learning from you, and what they’re learning must be new and interesting. 

I know, I know. The problem is you don’t have exciting content to work with.  You have, well, corporate presentation material. And, let’s face it, nobody’s ever made an action movie out of a corporate presentation. I understand your challenge.

But just because your material may seem boring, it does not mean that you have to be.

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When you hate seeing yourself on video

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“I hate seeing myself on video!  That person I see up there is not at all the person I want to be!!!”

I hear this all the time when I show my clients their first video at the start of their workshop.  It’s torture.

To see that person up there on the screen and feel powerless because it’s not who you want to be, and not even that person you know you are.

This is the struggle.  And it’s an incredibly important breakthrough when you are able to watch a video of yourself and love seeing yourself. 

Most people are not there.  What, and who, they are being is stiff, uncomfortable, disconnected.  And very unnatural. And they hate when they see themselves being this way.

By the same token, people don’t want to look the way many people look after they’ve done “speaker training”, like a speaker on steroids, overly pumped up, overly polished, over-rehearsed and scripted, performing not communicating.  That too is unnatural.

The worst part for people watching their first video is they don’t know what’s wrong.  They know there’s something wonderful trapped inside them, but when they get up to speak, it stays trapped.  This disturbs your confidence.  It disturbs your power. It disturbs your ability to be understood.

Being in a senior executive level position doesn’t alleviate this discomfort.  As a matter fact, it makes it worse, because there’s more “pressure to perform.” Your presentations are more visible and more widely critiqued.  Many senior executives dream of being free of presentation anxiety.

I’ve just described 80% of the people I see giving corporate presentations.  It’s so common, it passes for “normal”. 

But most people KNOW they’re capable of MUCH more.  Even if not one of them knows what’s wrong or how to get there.

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Your Presentation Mojo

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I’ve been delivering tons of virtual and in-person presentation skills workshops and coaching.  Extraordinary executives, brilliant engineers, top sales professionals, fascinating attorneys, individual contributors, early in career, the complete spectrum of corporate life.

They’re dynamic, charming, funny, warm, open, personable …. that is, until the workshop starts.

Then they each take turns giving their 1st presentation, before any coaching.

Suddenly life, personality and charisma drains out of them, they become very corporate.  Very businesslike, deadpan.   Dry data, cautiously stated conclusions, serious, matter-of-fact, completely restrained and inhibited self-expression.  Conservative. Suddenly it’s SERIOUS.

I remember a student I had a couple years ago who, when I asked her to tell me her goals for the workshop said, "I want to get my Mojo back. I used to have Mojo and somehow I lost it." Such a good goal!!!

When your Mojo’s working, you’re feeling GOOD.  And the audience can’t help but feel good too, and absolutely love you.

It has nothing to do with content.  Nothing at all to do with WHAT you’re talking about.

It has everything to do with YOU.

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Why "trendy terminology" destroys communication

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I was watching a video of a live presentation by Mark, the CEO of a major corporation with more than 40,000 employees.  Mark was visibly and painfully uncomfortable.  Worse yet, he was making a fool of himself.

Mark had heard about me and reached out with a request that I coach him on his presentation skills.  He had his Chief of Staff send me a couple of his recent videos to watch in advance “to see what he’s doing wrong”. 

Mark knew something was clearly wrong.  In our initial conversation, Mark told me, “The more feedback I get, the worse I’m getting.  I need someone to straighten this out for me.  I may not be the best public speaker in the world, but there’s no reason I need to be the worst.”

I started our first coaching session wanting to understand what was going on in his mind. I asked Mark, “What were you trying to do up there?”

Mark answered, “I’ve been given feedback that as a CEO I need to be vulnerable, and that I also need to be more passionate. That’s what I was trying to do.” 

I asked, “What does that mean?  Vulnerable and passionate?”

Mark looked at me, and with great pain in his eyes said, “I have no idea.”

Well, there you go.  Mark was trying really hard to execute something that was completely incomprehensible and confusing.

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Activating your power to inspire

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Alan has been giving “All-Hands” presentations to the 1500 people that report to him. His organization has over 80,000 people. They’re currently getting hammered in the news. The company has been struggling, trying to recover from mistakes made by the then-CEO five years ago.  Unfortunately, they’ve just had to announce layoffs.  There’s a tremendous amount of re-organization and re-shuffling happening. Where people will land is up in the air.  The future of the organization is uncertain and morale is at an all-time low.

Alan’s group has been the only one that’s been inspired. Why are they inspired? In the midst of all this, there is one reason only:  Alan is inspiring them.

This wasn’t always the case.

When Alan came to me for coaching, his desperate “pep talks” had been falling flat.  Alan said, “If I don’t inspire them, I’ve lost them. I need them inspired, aligned, engaged, and enthusiastic. I know it’s impossible, but I need them to stop listening to the news, to tune out what’s happening in the rest of the organization and focus on what we need to be doing.  I haven’t been able to get them to see it, but I know we can make a difference.”

That’s a difficult assignment when the only conversation in the halls is the latest trash in the news, who got laid off, who’s afraid of getting laid off, how all the “good people” are leaving, the shattered trust in management and loss of faith in the vision.

Alan wanted to be MORE than just understood.  That wasn’t enough.  He wanted to inspire. Many people who come to me for coaching want that.

It’s an important ability for a leader to have, at any time.

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How to be the authority, even if the CEO is in the room

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Sam was about to enter the room to give his 3rd quarterly presentation to the Board of Directors of a $50 billion multinational corporation.

The presenter before him had 45 minutes and came in with 79 slides. No surprise, they ran over their time.  By the time Sam walked in they said, “Hurry up, come on in, we’re running late, let’s get started.”

Sam walked in thinking he’d find the same room he’d experienced in his two previous Board meeting presentations.  He was completely unprepared to find four times as many people in the room.

The person ushering Sam in was trying to move him to his seat very quickly. Sam started to ask a question, someone cut him off and said, “Let’s just get started, we’re running late.”

Sam felt off kilter, but started anyway, rushing, going a little too fast, talking too much, trying to get it all in, looking around, trying to find faces he knew to connect with in the crowd, feeling totally off.

A CEO of a major corporation, new on the Board, interrupted Sam and said, “I want to challenge one of the points you just made.” and asked Sam a somewhat hostile question.  Sam knew the answer, but he stumbled and was awkward. The CEO said, “That’s not a good enough answer, I need more specifics.”  Sam recovered somewhat and answered with more specifics. The CEO didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look satisfied either.

A week later Sam showed up for Executive Coaching with me and asked, “How should I have handled this? It was dreadful!”

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Your power to create deep human connection

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Sally: “I can’t!”

Kevin: “It’s really hard!”

Mark: “I feel totally uncomfortable doing it.”

Mary: “I’m afraid people are going to think I’m weird.”

Phillip: “I don’t want to make people uncomfortable.”

I’m only giving you five examples, but I have hundreds, and probably 30 from just this week alone.

What terrible thing have I asked these people to do?

Lately, I’ve been coaching a lot of executives, leaders and people in leadership development programs. These are competent, capable, strong, courageous professionals with proven track records.

And they struggle with this.

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The secret to creating an aura of success

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Kendra was giving a sales presentation to VIP prospects. She was explaining why her company would outperform the competition and why they were a better choice as a partner, even though they were newer and not as well-known. The message was powerful. She was saying things like, “We’re best at … We have the highest record of … No one can match our…”

Her words were well crafted and she was beautifully dressed. But her overall body language was unmistakably expressing a suppressed anxiety, a “I hope you believe me, I hope this works. Are you getting what I’m saying? Do you believe me?”  It was a bit tense, with a very slight nervousness.

The prospects were sitting there listening, no expressions on their faces. Kendra became progressively deflated as she went along, and then ended weakly with, “Well that about sums it up. Those are all of our strengths as a partner and we hope to do business with you.  Let me know if you have any questions.”

They chose the competitor.

When Kendra showed up for the Transforming Your Presentation Skills workshop, she explained to me that her company actually IS the best in the industry and why. It was clear she has a compelling story, and I mean really compelling.

Her delivery, on the other hand, inspired sympathy, not success.

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The day I helped an engineer perform a miracle

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I was part of the audience watching Louis present. The audience was listening, but unmoved. Louis could feel that and was suffering.

Until recently, his career had been focused on the engineering technology that was the core of his company’s success in the high-tech industry. He had now been promoted two levels up and his presentations were no longer to other engineers. They were now business presentations, not technical presentations. All the details that had made Louis an expert within the engineering community were uninteresting to his new audience of executives. Louis felt like a fish out of water. The senior executives he was presenting to looked and felt like a panel of cold, unresponsive strangers.

Louis had two goals when he began the Transforming Your Presentation Skills workshop, two skills he wanted to learn: how to keep his audience engaged and how to be persuasive. Louis felt both were impossible for him to ever achieve.

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You had me BEFORE “Hello”

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We've all heard the expression, “You had me at ‘Hello’.”  That sounds pretty good.  But when it comes to giving presentations, for a real winner that's way too late.  The really GREAT communicators will have you before they say “Hello”.

You see them standing there and, well BEFORE they ever say anything, you can SEE there's something different about them. 

Their poise, their dignity, their self-assuredness, their utter calm, make them stand out.

They don’t look like “normal” people.  They have presence.  They own the room.

It takes you in the audience only a split second to see all that.  Enough that you're intrigued, captivated, leaning forward a little to catch their words.

They have you well before, “Hello.”

This is the hallmark of a great communicator.

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Living the magical life of an expert communicator

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Jesse is used to doing the impossible. He just applied for a position that everyone told him he couldn’t get.  He’s been told many times that “usually” people need to “prove” themselves for several years before they’re considered for these higher levels. 

 Jesse long ago decided that “usually” was not for him.

 He applied for the position … and got it.  Right away too, I might add.

 Jesse has gotten every position he’s applied for in the last 5 years, and there have been a good number.  Many more than “usual”.  His career is on the fast track.

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Communicating "up" without feeling intimidated

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“I want to promote him, but I can’t.”

I heard three different executives say this last week. They were talking about three very different people that report to each of them, that they want me to coach, people who – by total coincidence – have the exact same problem holding them back.

It’s not an inability to do good work or a lack of their boss’s support.

Vikram, Martin and Sharni are all doing great work. Their bosses absolutely want to promote them and are going to bat for them as best they can. They want to make Vikram a Vice President, and Martin and Sharni each a Director.

However, the bosses are getting stopped by pushback from their peers and their own bosses – all for the exact same reason:

Vikram, Martin and Sharni are not seen as “good communicators”.

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How to sound authentic

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Victor says, “I want to sound authentic.”

What a funny request. I started laughing before I caught his serious look and stopped myself.

I asked him, “Are you saying you’re not authentic, but you want to sound like you are?”

Victor: “No, that’s not it. I think I’m authentic.”

But he didn’t sound sure.

Me: “Then what’s the problem?”

Victor: “I just don’t think I sound it. And I don’t know why.”

In a flash, I took in everything about Victor, and I understood.

It started when Victor was little and in school.

Authentic means being who you are, being genuine, true, in opposition to that which is false, fictitious or counterfeit, in other words “put on” to create an appearance.

When Victor was little, I’m sure he had no trouble being authentic. No 2-year old does.

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How to present in a very large room

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The room overwhelmed Alan the moment he stepped in and his eyes touched the endless space around him. Unfamiliarity with the enormous size crushed his confidence and sense of importance, leaving him feeling small, nervous and terribly self-conscious. His walk to the stage was uncomfortable, an awkward expression of embarrassment. Should he walk fast? Slow? He walked like he wasn’t sure.

Alan would be speaking to almost 1,000 of his organization’s leaders in this very room.

He already dreaded the moment the room would be filled with their faces, turned toward him, silently waiting for his first words.

Long before that moment arrived, Alan had already lost the battle to save his dignity and present with confidence.

It was an honor to be invited to join the senior leadership ranks, but Alan was far from feeling the grandeur he experienced when he watched the other senior execs present.

He simply felt small.

Anticipating the event had him drowning in a sea of misery and anxiety.

But Alan wasn’t ready to give in.

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How to Maintain Executive Presence When You Have to Use Slides

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Steve was nervous. New to the executive ranks, he was preparing for his first major presentation to 250 senior leaders of a $30 billion corporation. Let me tell you what was making him uneasy. This is what he told me:

“I’m putting the finishing touches on my slides and I’m nervous. I wish I didn’t have to use them, but I have slides that MUST be shown. I want to be able to engage the audience, and engage them like NO OTHER PERSON EVER HAS, but I’m worried I’m not going to come through because of all the slides I have to show them.”

I understand the problem.

The most important factor in a truly successful presentation is the deep, powerful, human connection a great presenter makes with every person in the room. Slides can easily BREAK your connection with the audience.

Without that connection, your words are weak. They hit the surface of the audience’s mind and bounce off. There’s no impact.

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The Stepping Stone to Executive Presence

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I was coaching Jon, a senior executive located in bustling New York City’s mid-Manhattan.

Jon wants to develop Executive Presence.

We began with presence.

Executive presence is a particular type of presence. It’s an advanced type of presence.

You need to possess tremendous presence before you can develop Executive presence.

A key factor in presence is the ability to stay in the moment.

I taught Jon the robust theory behind presence, and now he was practicing the first exercise he had to master. Jon had his eyes closed so he wouldn’t be visually distracted. He was simply sitting there, being in the moment, learning how to control his attention and awareness and simply stay in the moment.

It was difficult for Jon in the beginning. As he sat there with his eyes closed, he was struggling with a traffic jam of thoughts in his head. Worries about an upcoming meeting, snatches of yesterday’s conversations, sudden rememberings of something he’d promised. A mad rush of thoughts whirled around, colliding in his mind, distracting him from the present moment. Creating chronic anxiety.

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The secret to keeping your audience on the edge of their seats

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Here’s the thing to know about audiences: they will only stay with you as long as they are learning.

I know, I know. The problem is you don’t have exciting content to work with. You have, well, corporate presentation material. And, let’s face it, nobody’s ever made an action movie out of a corporate presentation. I know your challenge. I get it.

But just because the material may seem boring, does not mean that you have to be.

This is something you can do with your own presentations to keep your audience on the edge of their seats. I’m going to tell you how a professional keeps their audience engaged.

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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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