Tag Archives: Business Communication

03Jun 2013

5 Reasons Introverts Can Make Great Communicators

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Introverts aren’t always the shy quiet type or the shrinking violet. They are often quite confident and possess traits that put them well ahead of their extroverted counterparts.

1. A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something. – Plato

Introverts are more likely to think before they speak. In a world full of meaningless chatter, a well thought out and reasoned comment, can have a huge impact.

2. Hold the small talk thanks

Sometimes mistaken for aloofness or arrogance, many introverts just don’t go in for superficial chit-chat much preferring meaningful conversations. They will often ask great questions and be more likely to genuinely listen to the answers.

3. Playing It Cool

In a heated situation or a crisis, an introvert will often provide a much needed level head and calm confidence.

4. Preparation is the key

Introverts are less likely to wing their way through a meeting or presentation, preparing much more thoroughly beforehand.

5. Down time

When introverts honour their natural need for time alone, this time is often when they produce their best work. A little time-out provides clarity of thought and enhances creativity.

 


07May 2013

Introvert At Work. Hold That Thought.

Imagine you’re a marathon runner and you’re just getting into that zone where you’ve settled into a comfortable rhythm. It’s taken a few miles to settle into that rhythm but now everything is working well and you’re really making good progress. All of a sudden someone you know beside the road calls your name and steps out in front of you waving their arms.

You feel obliged to stop running and ask “What’s wrong?”

They say “Oh, nothing. I just saw you running along there and haven’t seen you for ages so I just wanted to say “Hi!”"

What?

You resist your desire to to choke them, politely say “Hi” and get back to your running. Except now you’ve lost your rhythm and it takes a while to get back into it again. Unbelievably, just as you are getting back into your zone, it happens again! And of course, once again, you have to start over and try to re-focus on the task at hand.

Outwardly you try to be polite but underneath you are absolutely seething. Isn’t it obvious you are busy with something? By the time it’s happened another eight or nine times you are ready to explode with rage. Your head is spinning and your body is so tense that it’s impossible to think about anything – let alone what you were doing in the first place. In the end you either don’t finish the race or it takes about ten times longer than it should.

Hands up if this scenario reminds you of a typical day at the office?

Every time you get into your ‘zone’ you feel someone hovering at the door, the phone rings, or someone just barges in. Every time it happens you feel your stress levels rising.

The odds are that you are probably an introvert and you aren’t alone.

Even though roughly 50 percent of the population are introverts, it is one of the dilemmas of modern life that workplaces are very much designed to suit extroverts.

If allowed, we introverts can get deep inside our own minds to a place that is extremely productive. The problem is that things like open plan offices, technology on tap, and the idea that being a ‘team player’ means always being available, are all barriers to getting to and staying in, that place. Once interrupted it can take a long time to get back to where we were.

It’s not that we aren’t sociable – introversion and shyness are different things and we’re quite happy for a chat during morning tea and lunch – it’s just that we need space to let our minds work without our thoughts being interrupted. That’s where technology has the potential to be good: if only people would not ring wanting to know if we saw their email just because we didn’t reply within 30 seconds.

Susan Cain, author of the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (affiliate link) points out in a recent article in the New York Times, that solitude seems to have become unpopular in our schools, workplaces and other institutions. She says lone geniuses are on the outer in favour of collaboration, open plan offices and so-called ‘people skills’ (what some perceive as people skills is really just noise – not effective communication).

The New Groupthink has overtaken our workplaces, our schools and our religious institutions. Anyone who has ever needed noise-canceling headphones in her own office or marked an online calendar with a fake meeting in order to escape yet another real one knows what I’m talking about. Virtually all American workers now spend time on teams and some 70 percent inhabit open-plan offices, in which no one has “a room of one’s own.”

I would suggest that much the same applies here in Australia.

Of course we cannot exist in our own little vacuum. In fact, many introverts are great presenters and can make very insightful contributions to any group. However, not having the personal space to think through the issues before publicising our thoughts can be frustrating at best, and a risk to mental and physical health at worst. To quote Susan Cain again;

it’s one thing to associate with a group in which each member works autonomously on his piece of the puzzle; it’s another to be corralled into endless meetings or conference calls conducted in offices that afford no respite from the noise and gaze of co-workers. Studies show that open-plan offices make workers hostile, insecure and distracted. They’re also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress, the flu and exhaustion.

Introverts don’t need to be rescued, they just need space.

When you see an introvert deep in thought, please be assured that they don’t need to be cheered up or rescued. In fact they are probably deliriously happy being alone with their own thoughts. If you have a thought that you feel must be shared straight away or you will absolutely die, please try to find another extrovert who may appreciate it. Once the introvert has accomplished what they need to, they would probably love to hear about it as well.

 

23Jan 2013

Impact Your Audience: No PowerPoint Required

Why can you easily recall details from a movie you saw, or a book you read months or even years ago, yet you can’t remember a thing about that presentation you saw last week?

Simple. Because our brains remember stories which tend to flow seamlessly through from beginning to end – particularly stories with emotional appeal.

On the other hand , when someone puts their entire presentation on PowerPoint, what usually happens is that they just keep adding chunks of data until they either think they’ve included everything there is to know about the subject (information overload) or they’ve filled the time allotted (otherwise known as ‘I just want to get through this’).

Computers like their information in neat chunks of data. Humans on the other hand just get bored.

In the previous post I covered how to use Powerpoint the right way, but what are some alternatives to PowerPoint for adding impact to your presentation?

It depends largely on your subject and situation as to what will be appropriate. Honestly, sometimes well thought out slides will be your best option. However, here are some other choices you might want to consider.

WARNING: Most of these were around and working well before technology started taking us down another path. They aren’t as ‘sexy’, but they are effective.

Props

Instead of describing that new product on a slide, physically bring it in and pass it around. Let people see and feel it first hand.

Flip Chart

Old fashioned yes, but even if you are bad at drawing there is something about visuals being created as you speak, flowing directly from your brain down your arm and out of a magic marker, that is far more engaging than something that has been pre-prepared on a slide.

One of the most popular TED Talks is “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” by Simon Sinek where he uses nothing but a good old flip chart to illustrate his ideas. This presentation wasn’t even done at one of the main TED events, it was at a small TEDx in Washington State. Despite being at a small event and just using a flip chart for visuals, the popularity and impact of this presentation is massive.

Audience Involvement

Instead of letting them be observers, get the audience to participate. Ask them questions, get them to share their examples, get them to do quick exercises and activities. Trainers and teachers do it constantly and there’s no reason why the same techniques can’t be applied to other presentations as well.

Stories and analogies

A lot of the time a quick example that demonstrates our point and explains it in a way people can relate to, will do the job perfectly. Another popular speech is Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. On this particular day he mainly read his speech from notes; there was nothing remarkable about his delivery at all. But the powerful stories he used that day have resulted in millions of people viewing videos of the speech on YouTube.

I hope that you have enjoyed this series of posts on PowerPoint and it’s cousins and they have given you something to think about when approaching your presentations.

Here’s the catch…

In some business environments it will take courage to do something different from the norm and actually have an impact – especially considering it will take some practise to get it right. That’s why most people take the safe path and just do what’s expected, get through it, and everyone moves on with what they were doing without having changed anything. But at least they feel like they did something.

It’s up to you but I will finish with this:

If you have an important message to share, then you owe it to your audience to get this right and connect with them rather than just blend into the noise.

 

About the Author

David Wise is a communication coach and professional MC based in Queensland, Australia. www.dwise.com.au

17Jan 2013

The Right Way To Use PowerPoint

Anyone who has been following my blog for a while will know that I’m not a great fan of PowerPoint or any of its cousins. Not because they aren’t useful tools, they absolutely can be, but because of the way they are misused by so many speakers.

There is good news though. Slides when done well can add impact to your presentation rather than causing your audience to zone out which happens more often than not.

So what is the right way to use PowerPoint?

Short answer: the way the designers of the software intended. That’s why they put “Notes” in it, so the audience wouldn’t have to see the lists of points you are using as a guide for your presentation.

Longer answer:

Leading U.S communications expert Dr Nick Morgan often draws an analogy between presentations and stage musicals. When more than mere words are needed in a musical, a character will break into song. The songs mark the high points of the story and the same principle should apply to images used in presentations.

So if you are talking about a person, place or a product, a good image can bring them into the room. Even better is a powerful video rather than static images. The late Steve Jobs used to do this well when doing a presentation to launch his latest creation.

If you are talking about a subject that involves emotion, an appropriate image displayed at the right time will really help you hit the mark. I once saw a speech by a lady campaigning against the testing of cosmetics on animals. The presenter did a PowerPoint presentation loaded with bullet points of facts and figures and there was absolutely no emotional response from the audience. Would the outcome have been different had she used some dramatic images of affected animals? Almost definitely.

For those more practical occasions when you have to illustrate data, of course a graph or chart can demonstrate a relationship between figures more readily than words alone. However most people fall into the trap of putting all their data on the screen. A good graphic only shows what is important – not the entire data set just because you have it.

As a speaker it’s your job to tell a convincing story and slides are one tool that you can use to do that; but don’t use them as agenda place holders, notes, or exhaustive lists of things you couldn’t be bothered to narrow down to the most important. Don’t make the audience work hard by drowning them in data, bullet points, and other information.

Keep that in mind next time you sit down to prepare a presentation. Next week I will do a post on other ways you can add impact without even going near a data projector.

15Jan 2013

A Simple Formula For Introducing A Speaker

Whether you are an MC, chairing a meeting, or simply hosting some type of event where a speaker has been invited, if you can introduce a speaker properly then you will be well ahead of the field.

Except by good MC’s this is often something that is botched or just doesn’t happen.

The introduction should create a bridge between the speaker and the audience. It should sell the topic and the speaker so they are in favour with the audience from the start (of course if they go on to bore the audience to tears that is their issue not yours).

Here’s an easy formula taught many years ago by Dale Carnegie but which is just as effective today. It’s called TIS.

T – Topic

What is the topic of the speech?

I – Importance

This is where you connect the the topic and the audience by showing them why it is relevant to them.

S -Speaker

Why is this speaker qualified to speak on this topic?

The very last thing you should say is the speaker’s first and last name ie. “Would you please welcome Bill Smith”.

You can be creative and humorous within this framework if you want to but don’t say anything that devalues the topic or the speaker. Keep the introduction to about a minute, maybe 1 & 1/2 minutes. Definitely no more than 2 unless there is a really good reason such as the speaker has supplied you with something they want you to read before they start.

It’s that easy but will get your speaker off to great start.

05Nov 2012

Six Symptoms Of Ineffective Customer Satisfaction Surveys

How often do you receive a letter or email saying something like this?

“Thank you for buying from / staying at / flying with / visting [insert business name]. We love hearing from our customers and would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to provide us with your valuable feedback by completing this brief survey.”

I’m not sure exactly how many I have at the moment, but I would hazard a guess that I have at least a dozen of those emails in my inbox and four letters in my tray, none of which I have any intention of completing. Why?

The relatively simple concept of ‘customer service’ has become some kind of weird pseudo-science.

The customer satisfaction survey is often a sure sign that my individual opinion is irrelevant. That’s because most surveys are designed for data to be aggregated and give management something to talk about in meetings – not follow up with an individual customer.

Companies and other organisations have become obsessed with with all sorts of ratings, scores, formulas and statistics that help convince them they are doing a great job. Ultimately these figures which rely heavily on data from surveys, never really impact on the actual customer experience at the front line.

So most customer surveys are little more than a means to an end and as a result are poorly designed. Here are six symptoms of surveys that are guilty of this crime against effective customer feedback:

1. They just take too long.

Despite their promise of being brief, it’s not unusual to find yourself barely half way through a survey after ten minutes. If customers were certain that it really would only take a couple of minutes not 15 or 20, they might be tempted to do the survey.

2. The questions are irrelevant.

Often customers who are happy or unhappy will take a survey with the intention of letting the business know their thoughts only to find that none of the questions are relevant to their individual experience or area of concern. What the actual customer is concerned about is apparently not what the business is concerned about, so next time the customer decides not to bother.

3. Participants have to be bribed

“Get 10% off your next purchase” or “Go in the draw for something fantastic if you fill out our survey”. There are only two real reasons why people are motivated to tell you about your service. Because they hate it or they are extremely impressed. If you have to bribe them to fill out your survey then you already have your answer. Your service is neither here nor there. It’s run-of-the-mill.

4. Lack of follow through

In the event that someone is able to express their opinion about an area of concern to them, it is rare for it to be followed up on. Many organisations have a black-hole type void called “Good Intentions” that never seems to be given the time and planning required to be transformed into something tangible for their customers.

5. Ulterior motives

Some surveys are little more than a thinly veiled attempt to sell more products or services which casts serious doubt over how authentic the desire to get valued feedback really is.

6. Lack of empowerment

Related to symptom #4, most of the time the person administering the survey or receiving the information has no authority to act on any concerns or recommendations that you might offer. The issue then gets passed into the chain of command, only to be lost in the void of good intentions.

What’s a better solution for getting meaningful customer feedback?

There are really only two questions that count:

“What are we doing well?”

“What do we need to improve on?”

That’s it.

In theory you could send out a survey with those questions on if you wanted, but all you really have to do is make it easy for your customers to give you feedback. Have an email address and/or a 1800 number specifically for customer feedback. Use social media to get honest unedited opinions. Give them a comment card with a return addressed envelope. Just a few ideas.

Also, make sure the people receiving this information are empowered to act on it, or at least have immediate access to someone who is, so that unhappy customers are followed up with quickly and those who wish to compliment you are thanked for taking the time to do so.

What a great way to build trust and rapport with your customers!

 

 

David Wise is a professional MC, speaker, freelance writer, and communication coach from Queensland, Australia.
www.dwise.com.au
 

 

22May 2012

NOW RECRUITING: Ninjas, Gurus, and Rock Stars. Must Have Passion.

No longer is it enough to be skilled at your job and be reasonably easy to get along with. That continuous fountain of corporate speak, gobbledegook and general dribble - the recruitment industry – has been at it again. Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that job listings in the U.S seeking people who are “ninjas”, “jedis”, “gurus” and “rock stars” have increased significantly over the past six years. While still relatively low in prevalence, there is a distinct trend towards the use of such terms.

Of course, noone could blame him for contemplating a career change after Chinese Democracy, but I don’t think Axl Rose would be that well suited to a job in I.T. Likewise if Ghandi were still alive, I don’t think he would be too keen on working his way through those accounts payable.

Since whatever happens in the U.S generally flows to Australia, I decided to check and see how much demand there was for ninjas, jedis, rock stars and gurus  here. On job site SEEK.com.au today there are a total of 141,920 jobs in Australia. Thankfully only 15 require you to have been a covert mercenary in 16th century Japan and just 2 require someone from the Galactic Republic who has ”The Force” with them. If those illegal music downloads have dried up your record company royalties and you’ve run out of ideas for some new stuff, there are 58 opportunities for you. There is a stronger demand for gurus though with 550 employers seeking people who can provide divine revelations on everything from mobility equipment to data entry.

What about some of those other terms we love so much?

You’ll be pleased to know that 961 employers don’t simply want you to turn up for work but rather, go on a “journey”.

But when it comes to over-used words, the big one is “PASSION”. I will put my hand up now and confess to guilt when it comes to saying that I am passionate about certain things in my life when in retrospect it is probably not an appropriate term to use. But I am certainly not alone and it seems recruiters have taken the use of the word “passion” to a new level.

It’s not enough to enjoy or be interested in your work and be competent at it anymore. You have to be passionate about it these days. In some careers I understand that a strong feeling of purpose drives people, but let’s be honest, there are jobs that people do for the money and for the security that comes with steady employment. That’s it. To tell them they should be passionate about it is an insult to their intelligence.

Nonetheless as of today there are 13473 jobs on SEEK that require “passion” as a prerequisite and 10943 that require you to be “passionate” about anything from selling bathroom and kitchen fittings to fitting tyres. By the way if those things really do arouse strong feelings in you, then it’s not too late to get your CV in.

While ”passion” has come to describe any type of strong feeling, as executive communication coach Brett Rutledge points out in a recent article, the two true meanings of the word are 1) a strong sexual desire and 2) Christ’s suffering on the cross. If either of those things describe a typical day at the office for you, it might be an idea to get a lawyer pronto (unless you have your eye on a political or football career in which case just go for it - you can always shed a few tears and apologise later).

So if you are a ninja, jedi, rock star or guru and you thought your skills weren’t relevant in the modern business world, then take heart. It certainly appears that demand is on the rise. All you need is some passion and you could soon be starting a new journey.

 

 

 

 

24Nov 2011

What Was He Thinking?

Have you ever known someone who just seemed to have no idea how to act in certain situations? It can certainly be very uncomfortable and embarassing if you happen to be their friend or colleague. If they are someone you’ve just met or you are an impartial observer, you might  find their behaviour either offensive or hilarious.

Likewise, good public speaking involves being aware of the audience and the circumstances, and managing your performance accordingly. I think most people understand this but now and then you still encounter a speech that is totally inappropriate for the audience and circumstances.

If you haven’t seen the Phil Davison video yet, it is below for your enjoyment. Watch what happens when someone shows just a little bit too much passion in relation to the circumstances (among other issues). Enjoy and have great weekend.

 

 

 

David Wise is a professional MC, speaker and communication specialist from Bargara near Bundaberg in Queensland, Australia.