When you give driving directions to other people, you belong in one of the three following camps:
The Left/Right Camp
The North/South/East/West Camp
The Combo Camp
Which camp you belong to indicates something about your communication effectiveness.
1. The Left/Right Camp
The Left/Right campers communicate primarily from a "self-experience" bias. Giving directions with the perception-based language of left and right is good if you are giving directions to yourself as you are driving, but bad if you are giving directions to others. You don't know from which direction they are approaching turns, thus each correct turn could be left or right.
To say it another way, consider two guys standing on either side of a street looking at each other and a car drives by. If these two gentlemen are Left/Right campers and you asked them which way the car was traveling, one would say left, one would say right. Even though they seemingly have totally opposing viewpoints, they actually agree on which way the car was traveling. They are simply communicating from a "self-experience" bias.
In the real world, this type of communicating can and does cause real problems. It is too self-focused. It doesn't take into account how the information will be perceived by other people with different experiences. If you find yourself wondering why people can't get on-board with your ideas, why others don't seem to see your point of view, or why people don't pay enough attention to what you have to say, you could very well be a Left/Right camper.
2. The North/South/East/West Camp
This camp is full of people who communicate in a more concrete, visual and simple manner. They use North/South/East/West when they give driving directions because of two reasons:
N/S/E/W is a universally accepted standard that everyone understands and has used all of their life. Understandably, some people have difficulty finding them from time to time, but they are findable.
N/S/E/W is unchanging. No matter which direction you are headed, North is always North, South is always South, etc. Therefore, the language is not "self-experience" based, but rather "everyone-experience" based.
To apply the North/South/East/West driving directions dynamic to your everyday life as a communicator, you must locate common-ground very quickly with people. You must form a frame-of-reference from which everyone can communicate. It is very similar to how members of the Armed Forces communicate. No matter where you go, the language and the corresponding action protocol is exactly the same from every Armed Forces soldier everywhere. This sameness allows them to work more efficiently and quickly and avoid the confusion and misdirection that ambiguity and "self-experience" language creates. You need to do the same.
3. The Combo Camp
The Combo Camp's positive inclusion of concrete N/S/E/W language is negatively offset by giving too much information. Direction givers in the Combo Camp think the quality of their directions goes up as the quantity goes up. This results in the problem of information overload.
But Combo campers know it, so they say it. This is the same dynamic that happens in the real world. People typically give too much information when communicating ideas. A perfect example is PowerPoint slides. The typical PowerPoint presentation includes too many slides and too much content on each slide (the most effective PowerPoint presentations are visually-based, not text-based.) Great communicators filter out the unimportant and only give the absolutely vital.
Your task as a communicator is to be concrete, simple and visual like the North/South/East/West campers, to avoid the "self-experience" curse of the Left/Right campers and to avoid the information overload that plagues the Combo campers.
[Thanks to David Graham for the "two guys across the street" analogy.]
Monday, August 20, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Putting the Power Back Into PowerPoint Presentations
Chances are good you give PowerPoint presentations. Chances are even better you are doing it wrong. You are not to blame though. Your peers offer poor examples of how to leverage the power of PowerPoint. This article is about how to help you put the power back in PowerPoint.
As a Professional Speaker and Executive Presentation Coach, I have seen PowerPoint used for good and for bad. When used effectively, it is visually stimulating, communicates only the most important points, and makes complicated ideas more digestible. When used poorly, PowerPoint is a distracting crutch that actually diminishes the audience’s retention of your ideas and concepts. Poor PowerPoint is information heavy and wordy.
The changes you need to make will take the focus off the screen and place it on the connection between you and your audience. All presentations are emotional at some level. Therefore, your goal as a presenter is to transfer emotion. Even highly technical presentations aren’t about the numbers alone. They are about either how you feel about the numbers and/or what you are or aren’t going to do about the numbers.
Make your PowerPoint presentations more interesting, more informative (less is more), and more powerful by following these strategies…
PowerPoint should be used only when you need to add visual support (pictures, graphs, videos, etc.) to your presentation.
If you are going to give out copies of your PowerPoint slides to the audience, wait until the end of your presentation.
Go to http://www.istockphoto.com and http://www.canstockphoto.com to purchase engaging images as cheap as $1 per image.
Fonts should be at least 30 point and never more than 20 words per slide.
No more than 15 slides. Ever!
Use dark backgrounds and light text (or vice-versa) and never use red or yellow text.
Never read what is on the slide (unless it is a very short phrase).
Type “Really Bad PowerPoint Seth Godin” into Google to access a free PDF with more tips on improving your PowerPoint use.
Continue to visit this blog to access more useful presentation strategies. Call us at YourNextSpeaker and let us put the power back into all your presentations. 405.216.5050.
Monday, July 30, 2007
How to Build a Compelling Story
From one of the 40 blogs I read on a daily basis, Angela Booth's Writing Blog...
I'm a fan of "one minute" fiction. These are short stories of around a thousand words or less.
These short fiction pieces make a great change of pace for your journal. If you're new to fiction, here's a fast way to structure a story. This works for short stories of course, but you can also use it in an extended form (keep adding complications) for a novel.
Here’s the Quick Story Structure:
• Introduction
• Complication
• Consequence
• Relevance
The Introduction is the setup, the "engine" that sets the story in motion. A static situation changes, as when a man wins the lottery, or when a wife discovers that her husband is having an affair, or when someone is fired, or whatever.
The Complication makes a bad situation worse. If the man wins the lottery, he can’t find the winning ticket. Cluster or free write 20 complications. Force yourself to think of 20, and don’t stop until you've reached that number.
The Consequence is what happens as a result of the conflict that's created from the Introduction and the Complication.
Your story must have Relevance. It's the theme, whether it's love conquers all, do as you would be done by, don't take anything for granted, etc. You should know what your story's theme is, but you don’t need to state it explicitly.
A prompt for your one minute fiction
I give my writing students short prompts to kick start their one minute fiction. Here's a prompt students enjoy:
You're on a crowded commuter flight. You're on your way to give a presentation to tender for a contract. If your company doesn’t get the contract, it will be forced into bankruptcy. The person next to you is a talker. You need to work. You...
Write around 500 words, telling us what happens next.
I'm a fan of "one minute" fiction. These are short stories of around a thousand words or less.
These short fiction pieces make a great change of pace for your journal. If you're new to fiction, here's a fast way to structure a story. This works for short stories of course, but you can also use it in an extended form (keep adding complications) for a novel.
Here’s the Quick Story Structure:
• Introduction
• Complication
• Consequence
• Relevance
The Introduction is the setup, the "engine" that sets the story in motion. A static situation changes, as when a man wins the lottery, or when a wife discovers that her husband is having an affair, or when someone is fired, or whatever.
The Complication makes a bad situation worse. If the man wins the lottery, he can’t find the winning ticket. Cluster or free write 20 complications. Force yourself to think of 20, and don’t stop until you've reached that number.
The Consequence is what happens as a result of the conflict that's created from the Introduction and the Complication.
Your story must have Relevance. It's the theme, whether it's love conquers all, do as you would be done by, don't take anything for granted, etc. You should know what your story's theme is, but you don’t need to state it explicitly.
A prompt for your one minute fiction
I give my writing students short prompts to kick start their one minute fiction. Here's a prompt students enjoy:
You're on a crowded commuter flight. You're on your way to give a presentation to tender for a contract. If your company doesn’t get the contract, it will be forced into bankruptcy. The person next to you is a talker. You need to work. You...
Write around 500 words, telling us what happens next.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Your Role Determines Your Effectiveness
From my Personal Leadership Insight blog...
My business partner, Jonathan Smith - Professional Speaker, Author, and interview coach for hundreds of successful communicators (including the last two Miss Americas), has identified three primary roles people choose when they open their mouth to speak in front of a group.
1. The Speaker - Their focus is the performance. Over time this focus demands perfection. This need for consistency and perfection too often kills authenticity and blocks their credibility.
2. The Educator - Their focus is the information. The information is king. This need for quantity of information creates attention fatigue and disconnects the emotional side of the exchange.
3. The Communicator - Their focus is the transfer. The goal is simply to take what is in the communicator's heart and transfer it to each audience member's mind. Seth Godin says that all communication is a transfer of emotion. Whatever it is you need to accomplish, don't let your need for perfection or a bad case of information overload prevent you from being effective!
My business partner, Jonathan Smith - Professional Speaker, Author, and interview coach for hundreds of successful communicators (including the last two Miss Americas), has identified three primary roles people choose when they open their mouth to speak in front of a group.
1. The Speaker - Their focus is the performance. Over time this focus demands perfection. This need for consistency and perfection too often kills authenticity and blocks their credibility.
2. The Educator - Their focus is the information. The information is king. This need for quantity of information creates attention fatigue and disconnects the emotional side of the exchange.
3. The Communicator - Their focus is the transfer. The goal is simply to take what is in the communicator's heart and transfer it to each audience member's mind. Seth Godin says that all communication is a transfer of emotion. Whatever it is you need to accomplish, don't let your need for perfection or a bad case of information overload prevent you from being effective!
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Del.icio.us Masterful Communication Links
On my leadership blog (http://pliblog.yournextspeaker.com) I have links to my almost 300 Del.icio.us links. They are organized by the ten Personal Leadership Insight Essentials (Vision, Integrity, Innovative, etc.) The group that is the largest is the Masterful Communication group. Go to this link to directly access these 65 links dealing with every aspect of how to communicate better...
Rhett's Masterful Communication Del.icio.us Links
Rhett's Masterful Communication Del.icio.us Links
Friday, June 29, 2007
Keeping an Audience's Attention
Here are six tips on keeping an audience's attention in a workshop environment...
(The format is "Challenge" - "Solution")
1. Volume - Obviously having microphones will take care of this one. However, even without microphones, you can create "triggers" to focus their attention: "when I say Cheerio clap three times and look this way", "repeat after me", etc.
2. Round Tables - This configuration is great for having to do a ton of writing, but it absolutely kills a trainers ability to maintain order, attention and focus. That is why I use the technique of packing the audience up to the front of the room (or the back) with just their chairs and their books. It gets everyone close together. It gets every one's chair and thus their attention focused one direction. It removes the energy gaps between the people. It takes away everything on the tables that could distract the audience.
3. Listening Fatigue - I stick to the 7-minute rule. The audience needs to change the way they input information every 7-minutes or so. The different techniques you can use are: talk to them, have them talk to each other, have one of them talk to the group, have a group discussion, have them read something, have them think/reflect, have them listen to music/audio, have them watch/listen to a video, have them do demonstrations for each other, do an activity, or do a demonstration. By sticking close to this time rule, you create a pace to your workshop that doesn't allow for the audience to lose attention.
4. Information Overload - Especially in long-days or long-sessions format, this concept is critical. Information overload kills attention span. The best formula is to take the very top one, two or three concepts or ideas or questions or training points and go deeper into those few. This formula trumps the "cover 10-15 points" formula every time because after one of two hours the audience's information receiving pipeline is full and they start shutting down. They are getting way too much information to handle and ultimately they learn less even though more content is given.
5. Hearing the Same 'Ole Stuff - As soon as your audience starts to hear something being covered that they have heard before, their natural response is to shut down their listening. Our task as presenters is to say the same 'ole stuff, but to say it and debrief it and "activity" it in new ways using new unique language and new unique labels.
6. Lack of Rapport With Presenter - A few rapport-building techniques: humor, mingling with the audience, learning their names, having high expectations of them, laughing at yourself, making your content fun, putting a competitive drive into your content. The primary reason why I get high remarks from audiences is because I connect with them on an emotional level. It just so happens that the emotion I spark in them is primarily humor. Different styles call for different emotional connections. Every style has an emotional connection that can be brought to the table, it is just a matter of figuring out where that sweet spot is for you. Great presenting is about transferring emotion. And by tapping into that vein with people, they almost can't help but stay attentive and focused because they are drawn to you and the emotions you are stirring in them.
(The format is "Challenge" - "Solution")
1. Volume - Obviously having microphones will take care of this one. However, even without microphones, you can create "triggers" to focus their attention: "when I say Cheerio clap three times and look this way", "repeat after me", etc.
2. Round Tables - This configuration is great for having to do a ton of writing, but it absolutely kills a trainers ability to maintain order, attention and focus. That is why I use the technique of packing the audience up to the front of the room (or the back) with just their chairs and their books. It gets everyone close together. It gets every one's chair and thus their attention focused one direction. It removes the energy gaps between the people. It takes away everything on the tables that could distract the audience.
3. Listening Fatigue - I stick to the 7-minute rule. The audience needs to change the way they input information every 7-minutes or so. The different techniques you can use are: talk to them, have them talk to each other, have one of them talk to the group, have a group discussion, have them read something, have them think/reflect, have them listen to music/audio, have them watch/listen to a video, have them do demonstrations for each other, do an activity, or do a demonstration. By sticking close to this time rule, you create a pace to your workshop that doesn't allow for the audience to lose attention.
4. Information Overload - Especially in long-days or long-sessions format, this concept is critical. Information overload kills attention span. The best formula is to take the very top one, two or three concepts or ideas or questions or training points and go deeper into those few. This formula trumps the "cover 10-15 points" formula every time because after one of two hours the audience's information receiving pipeline is full and they start shutting down. They are getting way too much information to handle and ultimately they learn less even though more content is given.
5. Hearing the Same 'Ole Stuff - As soon as your audience starts to hear something being covered that they have heard before, their natural response is to shut down their listening. Our task as presenters is to say the same 'ole stuff, but to say it and debrief it and "activity" it in new ways using new unique language and new unique labels.
6. Lack of Rapport With Presenter - A few rapport-building techniques: humor, mingling with the audience, learning their names, having high expectations of them, laughing at yourself, making your content fun, putting a competitive drive into your content. The primary reason why I get high remarks from audiences is because I connect with them on an emotional level. It just so happens that the emotion I spark in them is primarily humor. Different styles call for different emotional connections. Every style has an emotional connection that can be brought to the table, it is just a matter of figuring out where that sweet spot is for you. Great presenting is about transferring emotion. And by tapping into that vein with people, they almost can't help but stay attentive and focused because they are drawn to you and the emotions you are stirring in them.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
5 Questions to Ask During Presentation Development
Click over to my Personal Leadership Insight Blog to get this post...
Monday, June 18, 2007
Congratulations Miss Oklahoma 2007!
Congratulations to Makenna Smith, Miss Oklahoma 2007. Makenna is one of our presentation and pageant coaching clients. My business partner Jonathan Smith (http://www.jedwardsmith.com/) is now shooting for Miss America number three (the current Miss America, Lauren Nelson, and last year's Miss America, Jennifer Berry, were both clients of Jonathan).
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Warm Them Up Before You Start
Icebreakers are a very yesterday tool. Facilitators who use icebreakers operate from a flawed theory of presenting. They think they need to use the first few minutes of their time building rapport and getting the folks in the room "warmed-up" to each other, the content and the presenter. This doesn't work.
A better theory is based on the fact that we have about 30-seconds to get buy-in from an audience member. This means that the "warming-up" needs to happen even before we officially begin - to maximize the power and effectiveness of those first, critical 30-seconds. In the classroom, this is called "bell work." This means you have something for the students to do from the moment they walk into the classroom, even before the bell rings and class officially starts. Here are a few techniques I use in my programs to get the audience members started even before I start...
Have music playing
Arrange the seating so they are forced to sit next to someone
Have an engaging question on a PowerPoint or easel pad
Have a set of engaging questions in a PowerPoint show (have the slides change every 5-10 seconds)
Get in the audience members' zone - roam the room, ask questions, listen
Give the audience an actual task to perform before the workshop starts - and make sure it is something that "laters" can do as they slowly stroll in
Most importantly, be in control of what the room feels like, looks like, and acts like even before you officially start!
A better theory is based on the fact that we have about 30-seconds to get buy-in from an audience member. This means that the "warming-up" needs to happen even before we officially begin - to maximize the power and effectiveness of those first, critical 30-seconds. In the classroom, this is called "bell work." This means you have something for the students to do from the moment they walk into the classroom, even before the bell rings and class officially starts. Here are a few techniques I use in my programs to get the audience members started even before I start...
Have music playing
Arrange the seating so they are forced to sit next to someone
Have an engaging question on a PowerPoint or easel pad
Have a set of engaging questions in a PowerPoint show (have the slides change every 5-10 seconds)
Get in the audience members' zone - roam the room, ask questions, listen
Give the audience an actual task to perform before the workshop starts - and make sure it is something that "laters" can do as they slowly stroll in
Most importantly, be in control of what the room feels like, looks like, and acts like even before you officially start!
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Great E-Book for Professional Speakers
Scott Ginsberg is the Name Tag Guy. He has a number of valuable, relevant and straight-to-the-point E-Books and articles on his web site. His "234 Things I've Learned About Writing, Delivering and Marketing Speeches" is a great book for the professional speaker and a good one for any speaker.
Here is the link to the E-Book - http://www.hellomynameisscott.com/speak234.pdf
Here is the link to his website - http://www.hellomynameisscott.com
Enjoy!
Here is the link to the E-Book - http://www.hellomynameisscott.com/speak234.pdf
Here is the link to his website - http://www.hellomynameisscott.com
Enjoy!
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