Let me share some snippets of my expertise with you. I hope you find them useful and if you would like to chat more, just…
In your next meeting give people more choice. Lace your language with choice making: ‘Is it possible that…?’ ‘Could it be…?’ ‘I wonder if…?’ instead of making a judgement. Maybe you’ll decide to watch this video to learn more…or you could decide not to!
Take 3 MINUTES to learn the rule of 3 and your next presentation will be THE BEST YET! It focuses your answer, helps you to understand exactly what you’re going to say and most importantly makes the audience remember what you said. And not only does it work for presentations, you can use it for wedding toasts, speaking to a stranger in an elevator, talking to your kids…
Watch this video and give it a try. Let me know what you think.
How much jargon has slipped into your day to day work and even your presentations? ADR, JAHCO, NQF, PAYOR MIX, HIPAA, RAPPS, TIPS, CHIRP, MOB, HOPD...
Great presenters simplify and illuminate as not everyone in the audience knows what all those letters are! So, consider this: spell it out, say the words, explain in lay terms what the term is and what it means. What is its importance for this presentation? For THIS presentation!
In most cases, the audience doesn't know the most important part of your presentation which is ‘your take’ on the topic, the data, the 'thing' that they came to hear about. They all have a number of boxes in their heads and your content (or jargon!) is ready to go into one of those boxes with a self-assured “Oh, I know what that means!” Make sure that your take on things has no prepared box. Be different enough so they have to roam from box to box and they cannot dismiss what you say with “Oh I know that!” Instead they have to respond with “Uh, I never heard it presented that way before!”
I learned a lot from the time I spent with a group of Saudi Arabian doctors, nurses and administrators at the American College of Healthcare Executives Global Executive Program. My main take away was how specific and detailed the feedback they gave was. WOW! It almost made me tearful. It reminded me that I should be more specific about what I liked, learned and appreciated about interactions with people, whether at work, at home…in the airport! Try it this week and let me know how you get on!
Here’s an idea for your next networking lunch or dinner to help people get to meet one another and to harvest some of the wisdom that’s in these people. It’s called a French Salon, and when I did it at the Ritz Carlton for some of my clients, it was amazing. People still talk about it! Watch the video to find out more!
STOP reading from your slides when presenting! If you do, the audience will wish they could get that hour of their lives back again. Simplify your slide deck using the archive technique described in this video, then TEACH the slides, don’t read the slides!
One of my clients mentioned to me this past month that in their coursework they were striving not only for information, not only for behavior change, but also for ‘performance based’ courses. This may not be new to you but to me it represented an important word shift…knowledge, behavior, and performance.
My graduate students read to understand, we demonstrate to isolate useful behaviors, and we practice to get so good that our performance is second nature. Actors call it ‘muscle memory.’
Can you think of a time when you said the right thing at the right time, in the right way…and even you were surprised with the outcome!? Perhaps that went beyond what you knew, beyond how you behaved, and the ‘performance’ was the integration of it all. Behavior change is certainly good. Performance, well that may be something different and better altogether.
Here’s an idea to take your presentations to the next level. I call it, ‘The Larry King’! Try interviewing a person of prominence in the audience. Their ‘prominence’ is simply because they are the one being interviewed, not that they are a bigwig! Spend 15 minutes asking unrehearsed questions about their career, then let the audience get involved and ask their burning questions too! The answers are always fascinating (especially if you ask what they wanted to be when they were a little kid!) Meanwhile there is actually something else, something powerful, going on in the minds of the audience as well. Watch the video to find out what! Give it go…what’s the worst that could happen!
Steve and Jayne Lowell introduced me to three very useful words: Mission-Moment-Mess. I sometimes use them for personal reflection, sometimes to frame a speech or a coaching call, often as a set of choices for someone taking my presentation skills class, and always as a reminder that words provoke the story.
Can you imagine giving a presentation on any of those three words and not launch into a story, an example, a person, an interaction? Even in ordinary conversation we can probe gently with “What do you think drives your efforts (mission)?” or “What was that moment like for you?” or “That sounds like it was quite a mess! How’d you get out of it? (or better “What did you learn from that?”)
As I reflect on my previous day I’ve found it helpful to just briefly, always non-judgmentally, and honestly ask…”How did I act on my mission, what was that special moment, and whew, how’d I get out of that mess (or what did I learn if I’m not out yet!”) Of course at the same time thankful for people like Steve and Jayne who remind me with their words.
Make your weekly team meetings more effective by having everyone come together to solve each other’s problems. No more updates, no more reports, just real team working. Learn more in this video!
“Remember, solving a problem does not have to be the ultimate solution, it means we’re on the right track.”
There is a classic “Family Guy” episode where the talking baby, Stewie, is looking at his mom Lois lying on the bed and repeats over and over again, “Lois, Lois, Lois, mom, mom, mom, mummy, mama...” He goes on and on! In the end Lois does acknowledge with irritation and Stewie runs off as if this was great fun. Anyone with children knows this scenario all too well!
At the airport last month, the scene repeated all the way through TSA, with the mother finally and exasperatedly saying, “What!?” The little boy after a pause said, “I forgot.”
Have you ever tried to get someone’s attention, perhaps not quite as Stewie did, but over and over again you are ignored? Especially on a job search this happens far too often. We hear, “Yes, send me your stuff!” And then, nothing! We send a polite reminder and…nothing. I wonder if maybe sometimes we are not showing enough interest in their stuff. To them it may be that Stewie has returned! Perhaps it can all begin with a devoted interest in them as we are pitching ourselves. Get them talking about their career, their choices, their challenges. That will be a memorable conversation which is exactly what we want…to be in their memory.
It was wonderful to meet Reyouf Al Azmi at the American College of Healthcare Executives Global Executive Program this week. She attended my session on Healthcare Possibility Thinking in Complex Environments. She is from Saudi Arabia, as were her 18 colleagues, coming to Chicago for the past two weeks. Great fun!
She is holding Speak Up! one of my books that I co-wrote with the very creative Cyndi Maxey, CSP on presenting and facilitating...this one especially for women executives written at the request of our female editor at St. Martin's (Macmillan) in New York.
Our other book Present Like a Pro teaches how to solicit useful feedback; deal with hecklers; evoke the power of your own life in your talk; and much more!
Fearless Facilitation shows how to make any learning environment come alive! It outlines proven guidelines any trainer can use to unify groups, inspire creativity, and get audiences, teams, and colleagues to speak up, talk back, participate, and engage in meetings.
If you want to learn more about presenting like a pro or facilitating fearlessly, you can order one of my books or let's get in touch with a virtual coffee...my treat!
The Heart Surgeon, Dr. Paul Massimiano MD from Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center in Maryland said, “Patients are nervous before open heart surgery…pretty understandable. I tell them the important thing is that I’m not nervous!”
Your job interviewer understands your nervousness, but really wants to see your confidence. Your boss also when you are newly promoted. You're nervous for sure, but remember why you were promoted. You are good at this. As they say, “YOU GOT THIS”!
Nervous can equal excited if seen properly. As Dr. Massimaiano said after a successful surgery, “Every day is a new day, exciting. I’ve never been bored a single day in my entire career. It is a pleasure and an honor to operate on patients and to be entrusted with their care.” This is what each of us can say when we understand that our work is our mission, regardless of our role.
I was at a hotel last month where every worker seemed to know that their job as cleaner, wait staff, valet, hotel manager, and Starbucks server was secondary to their real job…to make my visit memorable! Their mission was achieved!
One of my bosses (I’m a consultant so at any given time I have about 60 of them!) told his staff yesterday how to best communicate with him. Interesting!
Working Today?
How do you like and not like how to be communicated with…and do your people know?
Family Time Today?
How do you manage quiet time at your home, for you and for each person?
On Your Own Today?
How do those closest to you want you to show them? If you want…you could ask!
In July I was at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville for the National Speakers Association Convention. True to the Gaylord name, it is a maze of trails and connecting ramps encompassing you in vegetation, people, music, and ‘something else’ just around the next corner.
At first, especially in search for coffee, it reminds you just how addicted you have become to a ‘normal hotel’...as well as to coffee! It is a delight however and over time I was able to feel fairly confident that I could get from here to there!
It reminded me of the times I was with my son, Corbb, who is blind, as he would accompany me to these conventions. Our first order to business was “O&M” - orientation and mobility. For those who are blind, O&M is not only a course to learn how to independently get around, it is also an ongoing task of seeing their way to and through the ”Gaylords” of the world.
Once properly oriented the mobility comes more naturally. It is a discovery process and I notice it among my sighted friends as well. New airport? Where am I? New neighborhood? Who am I? New role? What am I? For those who are blind O&M is a necessity…for those of us sighted, we do the same thing whether through the jungles of the Gaylord or the traffic before us.
I wonder too if there is a metaphor here for us as leaders. Perhaps our next meeting could use some O&M to help explain what is it really that we are all about. Perhaps we could use some O&M to speak to our history of our family. Or we could remind ourselves that what we know the other might not yet know. O&M!
Recently, I was teaching an international class and using a common American expression. I said something to the effect of “I had a monkey on my back” meaning that I was burdened, had an annoyance hounding me, that I was upset. An African in the group looked puzzled by the analogy and I recognized I made the error of assuming that everyone used this expression. We spoke a bit as I explained the meaning. His eyes lit up and then he said, “Oh, your cow fell in the river!” With that common expression from his village, I felt completely understood. Empathy across cultures! Not the skill, but the experience. “Yea, my cow fell in the river!” (I imagine the entire village needing to help with that one!)
Working Today?
How do you recover when your cow gets stuck in the river. Ask for help? Do it yourself? What is your first impulse?
Family Time Today?
You might tell the little ones this story and have them draw it! For the older ones perhaps have everyone recall a time when they felt misunderstood.
On Your Own Today?
There is a Japanese psychologist who has a three-sided triangular piece on his table. One side says, “Poor Me!...the second side says, “Those bad people.” And the third has the quote, “So what am I going to do now?” When his clients come in, he hands them the triangle and says, “So what are we going to talk about today?”
“Turn to your neighbor” is an often-used technique presenters rely on for “audience involvement.” Personally, especially today, I think it has passed its prime. Instead, how about, “When I give you the signal, I want you to get up and find two other people you don’t know and form a group of three away from the tables. Ready? Go!” Yes, this chaotic madness is noisy, disorganized for a few moments, but terribly fun.
Next interaction can be “new groups of two” and then “take your group of two and join another group of two to become a group of four” and so on. Get people together to meet, get them away from the tables (I never use any tables…they just get in the way) and let them talk to one another.
Yes, what you have to say is important, but just not that important. Consider being a presenter/facilitator vs. a main presenter. Consider ‘lecturettes’ instead of a 90-mintue talk. Speak for 8-12 minutes then get them talking to one another! They may have initially come to hear you; they will remember having been able to talk and meet one another. Yes your expertise is valuable and so is the experience they had that you allowed.
I spent a weekend a few years ago at a blogger’s conference in Boise, Idaho. A 28-year-old mom of two made $1M last year blogging…about blogging! Another mom of three is on target to make $200,000 blogging about succulent plants (she is going to spin off cactus since she wants to further specialize…two years ago she didn’t know what succulent meant!); and yet another nets over $85,000 teaching other moms how to take pictures of their children!
The accomplished author Seth Godin was there but the really impressive people were the new bloggers, stars in their eyes not for money but for what Godin called their mission “to amplify and connect” with their audience. Each of them, the successful and the brand new (one that I met said she started 8 weeks ago and already made $500…and she said it as if it were $500,000!) Each of them had an area to teach and every single person I spoke to emphasized trust as the foundation of their success, their blog, and their reason for being. Their job was to engender trust with and for and to their own personal ‘community” of bloggers, succulent-ers, and moms.
Working Today?
How do you “amplify and connect” with others online or in person? How much are you aware that you are doing so, or do you wait for it to come naturally? These bloggers don’t wait.
Family Time Today?
Try picture time as if you were at a studio with a professional and let the kids even the little ones take some too.
On Your Own Today?
Speaking of blogging…one blogger specializes in restoring old trailers…like the kind you travel and live in. She’s been a devoted rehabber since her late teens, is admittedly a bit obsessive (!), and makes money doing this since there are apparently other people who do this too or at least like reading about someone who does. What is one of your quirks? There are more like you out there!?
At the American College of Healthcare Executives meeting in Chicago last year, I had great fun teaching presentation skills to graduate students in healthcare. Imagine yourself giving a spontaneous three-minute presentation in front of 300 fellow comrades who were most happy it was you and not them! What would you do?
Well, this time it was a bit different. From three possibilities the ‘selected one’ was able to choose a topic and as they were ready to speak, we asked the audience what they wanted to hear about regarding the topic. "Who else was involved?" "When did it happen?" "What effect did it have on you?" "Can you describe the scene so we can ‘see’ it?" As the audience gave their suggestions, it was fun to see they eyes of the presenter light up with what seemed like, “Oh yes, I can do that, that too, and that too!”
So often we forget to ask the audience thinking, only thinking of what we want to present. Do you have a difficult audience or a ‘Dr. Evil’ in the group? …ask them for sure! When they see that you want to involve them, you will have life-long friends or at least friends for a long as you are speaking!
Even if you have only a few minutes, greet people as they enter and ask a simple question: “What would you most like to learn today?” By golly you could even get them into groups of three immediately and ask the same question! Then ask them not what they said, but what they learned from the other two. My hunch is that whatever you prepared is going to be presented anyway. With their comments lingering in your mind however, you’ll have a friendly audience, an involved audience, and you can even quote them throughout your talk! Always ask even when you ‘think’ you know the answer!
One of my physician groups is now beginning procedures with:
On a scale of 1-10 (10 best) how do you feel today and why? (Only say 'why' if you want). The leader goes first and I tell them not be “10” all the time. After the leader has listened to their team's answers, they say something along the lines of “Thank you…I appreciate knowing how you are today because we are here today for Mrs/Mr _____ and I want to make sure that as a team we bring our best selves to them. Knowing how you feel will help us all be aware.”
Working Today?
How do you know how your team is doing…beyond the usual “How are you?” or “Are we good?” or simply not asking at all. When we greet each other, look into the eyes, the “windows of the soul” as Shakespeare put it. When we are emotionally aware of ourselves and of others, without judgment, we are in a better position to know the important self that others bring to work that can help or hinder.
Family Time Today?
This might be fun depending on the age of your children…ask: "what animal you are feeling like today?" and get them to impersonate the animal. What does that tell you about how they are feeling? Brave like a lion? Strong as an ox? Wise like an owl?
On Your Own Today?
And you knew this was coming…1-10 for you? And why? And just for fun, what animal do you feel like? Self-awareness is a very good thing!
