I have been working with a high flyer in the financial world recently, following an important presentation to the board. Because it was potentially career enhancing, she took the traditional view that to been seen to do her job properly should mean late nights, lots of stress resulting in lots of figures on PowerPoint.  On the day of the meeting, half way through, she realised that they weren’t really listening. It was obvious that they had ‘tuned out’. Didn’t they realise the amount of work and personal time that had been put in?

Presentations like this are an increasingly important part of her role and if she didn’t make them effective she wouldn’t progress.

One of her colleagues kindly recommended she call me, so we met to discuss what she could do.

The first of my five guiding principles is always ‘Be The Audience’ – and in this case not doing that was where it started to go wrong. Instead of ‘this is what I need to tell them’, get into the habit of thinking  ‘if I were them what would they like to know?’.

What did those board members really want from that presentation? 

The simple answer is that in the ‘big picture’ they didn’t need a detailed presentation in order to do their jobs – they just needed the simple facts that would enable them to make a decision.

During our subsequent coaching sessions we have talked about what makes a presentation effective, how to develop the habits of great presenters and areas to avoid. I’m pleased to say that in the last week she received a note from the Chairman complementing her on her style and passion – Result!!

 jon@jon-hammond.com

Gadgets, Gismo's and Getting Ahead

 Why our most important skill could be overshadowed

This morning I was waiting for a train and in the fifteen minutes before it arrived I downloaded and answered my e-mail, listened to messages, made a couple of phone calls and checked my diary, all with one clever little gadget.

A fleeting thought went through my mind, that it wasn’t very long ago that to achieve only part of what I’d just done would mean finding a phone box that worked, making lots of calls, and as for email, well it was a scientific leap yet to be invented. You just wrote a letter and waited several days for a reply.

However, for most people especially new generations the ability to communicate instantly and easily is totally taken for granted. This has certainly helped in our success as a developed nation.

However when it comes to communication, there is a downside - in the unfounded expectation that everything will now be done for us so we won’t have to bother. Technology should be able to do it all – or should it?

So a new hidden disease is creeping slowly but inexorably across the UK and beyond which I call ‘subliminal responsibility apathy’. You don’t have to look too far for examples. In the workplace, colleagues who sit within feet of each other will send an email enquiring if they would ‘fancy a coffee’ – and reply by email as well. They will pick up the phone and call someone in the next office to arrange a meeting rather walk the four or five metres to have what could turn into a really interesting conversation. For many people it’s easier to communicate through a machine than it is face to face. The hugely popular Internet with sites like Bebo and Facebook mean that people can create their own world, so why have the emotional pressures of the real one?

I don’t in any way blame the technology for this but I do sometimes question whether the balance is tipping and what the implications and challenges could mean for business leaders.

Smile - You've Just Been Stereotyped!

 And probably without

knowing it

I work with many different organisations in different parts of the world. Each has it's own challenges to overcome but the hardest of all tend to be the hidden ones. You wouldn't think that Police Officers and Footballers have much in common but they both tend to stick within a very close circle of people who do the same job. When it comes to appearing on the media or presenting to a group of people they use the same phrases and expressions that they grew up with. So ‘sick as a parrot’, ‘it’s a game of two halves’, ‘not over till the fat lady sings’ and ‘I was proceeding in a north westerly direction’ are still regular features.

I don’t blame anybody for this. We are all victims of wanting to keep warm under our comfort blankets and use language that our peers have always used.

It’s a sort of language stereotyping.

In the business world it can be just the same. Aiming for the ‘win-win value added position’ by ‘plucking the low hanging fruit’ and ‘aiding step change by keeping in the loop’ can be comfort language of choice. We all want to fit in.

However does all this jargon achieve what we want it to?

At the end of the day (oops couldn’t resist!) we just want to clearly communicate our ideas to influence and persuade our audience, and we can often do it better than our predecessors by using simple easy to understand language.

By way of example, keep a mental note in your next six meetings watch out for the number of times these ‘in’ expressions are used. Then see if they have clarified or confused the situation.

My fourth guiding principle (Empathy Explanation Example) calls for clear explanation at all time. Is this one of the areas you can raise your bar?