This may seem obvious, but it takes a great deal of energy on the part of the person finding the patterns among scattered bits of story, asides, nonverbal “tells,” sarcastic comments.  People do not tell their “story” in a linear fashion.  If they are being openly expressive, bits and pieces of who they are as it relates to their difficulty come out in starts and spurts.

So the coach must listen and watch intently and intensely.  It is an unknown tapestry until the threads of the tapestry–color, form, design, texture–are captured and slowly put into place.  Insightful questioning, pursuing seemingly unimportant aspects of their “story,” delving deeper into the “Why” of the comment all must be used to pattern of the tapestry.

In my final posting on Coaching to Transformation, I will discuss why the word “Why” may be the most important word in bringing some final understanding to the problem, difficulty, obstruction people want to get past.  Barriers can fall when the question “Why” is used appropriately and judiciously and wisely. 

One of the first culture aspects of Rackspace that I experienced was “Strengths”.

There are a number of sources that you can research to learn more about the topic, but I would recommend you start with the book StrengthFinder 2.0.

You can also read two posts from our very own Kathy Kersten.  She shares some great insights that will get you thinking about the topic!

What Were You Made to Do?

What To Do About A Weakness

Without bringing you through my entire history with Strengths, I will tell you that the topic made a profound impact on my life – professionally and personally.

Taking the evaluation and studying how StrengthsFinder works, teaches us that we each have a set of natural talents.  Once identified, we are better able to target training and development that will help us move a talent through the process towards becoming a Strength.

So, for instance, one of my top Strengths is Communication.  In StrengthsFinder 2.0, this is part of the definition:

“You like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, and to write.  This is your Communication theme at work.  Ideas are a dry beginning.  Events are static.  You feel a need to bring them to life, to energize them, to make them exciting and vivid.”

This is very true of my nature.  I’ve always enjoyed telling stories, explaining ideas and speaking in front of groups.  Engaging in the act puts me under, what feels like, a kind of spell.

Stand and Deliver – Rackspace University

One of the keys to Strengths is pursuing education and training that compliments what we are naturally talented at.

Last week, I signed up for and attended a two-day course on delivering presentations, public speaking and overall delivery methods – it was fantastic!

Mary Rauch led the training and brought us through a number of exercises to improve our performance.  We were even videotaped and went through the process of critiquing as a group – a little nerve racking, but well worth it.

It felt great to know that I was investing my time in learning about a topic that I can actually do something with – training which takes full advantage of a trait that comes naturally to me.

I think we grow used to focusing on our shortcomings at the price of developing in the areas we have the highest likelihood to succeed.

Rackspace University offers a variety of classes for Rackers.  Everything from certification training to speech classes – it’s a wide range and it just keeps growing.

The moral of this story is simple…

You were given a set of traits that are incredibly unique to you.  Provided with the appropriate training, you can become world class in those areas and really move to the next level.

So, instead of investing all of your education dollars in compensating for a weak area, I challenge you to consider spending your time, energy and money on training that makes you stronger.

Dedicate to what you are naturally gifted at.  Do everything in your power to move your natural gifts from talents to Strengths.  Not only will you be fulfilled, the world will benefit from your efforts.

Another principle is listening for people’s “under story”–the driving emotion that carries that person’s narrative about the conflict, disruption, anger that brought them into your space in the first place.

It can obviously be fear, insecurity, anxiety, frustration, confusion, bitterness.  The list of emotions is endless.  They may not even understand the emotion underlying the action or conversation that was inappropriate or destructive.

As we listen to their “story,’ listening with our eyes AND our ears and heart, we can discern, if we are astute listeners, the underlying emotion which provoked the action, email, or conversation.

Only then can we begin to address the actions and understanding that will bring them to an understanding of the context, consequences, and feelings that they must address in order to transform themselves to be what they want to be.

And if they don’t want to be different–This is the way I am.  Let others deal with it!–then we cannot force change.  Forcing people to go to AA does no good.

The final posting on Coaching will be on “listening for patterns,” listening for the threads that pull all the story, feelings, and decisions together to a cohesive pattern of understanding.

It IS possible to prepare and practice your question and answer session.  This is what seasoned public speakers do to get ready for a question-and-answer session.

• Have a brainstorming session with a trusted colleague, friend, or advisor on potentially difficult or embarrassing questions and plan how you will answer.  Remember:  Anything you don’t want asked, will be asked in the Q&A session!  Be ready with your answers.
• Put yourself in the shoes of a member of your audience, and ask yourself the questions they would have for you.  (It helps to think about the troublemakers and argumentative folks who will be in the audience if you really want to be prepared for your Q&A session).
• Strategize on how to transition to major selling points without appearing glib, disingenuous, or downright deceitful.  (This is where politicians typically get into trouble.
• Maintain your presentation posture during Q&A, even if you are seated at a table.  This is especially true if you are participating on a panel.

If you are presenting as part of a team, look alert and interested in your teammates’ answers.  All of the delivery techniques, such as eye contact, voice, posture, gesture, are important here, as well.

Most importantly, plan a second conclusion that mirrors your first conclusion, and deliver your second conclusion at the close of the Q&A session.

For Q&A sessions, don’t ever lose your cool.   You might lose your cool your car, or in a private space, but not in your public space when you are in The Zone.   The Zone does not allow for loss of control, no matter what happens.

The Q&A session is your final chance to really impress your audience with your competence, authority, polish, and professionalism.  Don’t waste it.

Direct your audience and focus your subject so your listeners are with you every step of the way.  As you move toward your central idea, create a road map for your audience to follow.

There are three strategies you can use to orient your audience. These strategies can be used alone or in conjunction with each other, depending on the audience’s previous knowledge of your subject:

Preview your major points. State your central idea and the major points that will support it.  If appropriate, be blunt about your objectives and goals (e.g.,” I hope to convince you today that…“ or, “I want to leave you with one, overriding thought…”).   This preview strategy indicates you are not going to waste your audience’s time.

Give background information.  Here you can define your terms, explain the situation, head off objections by indicating the boundaries of your subject, and clarify your position.

Stress the importance of the topic.  This strategy allows you to offer a fresh approach, establish your credentials, and/or acknowledge the experience of your audience members.  For example, “Every one of you recognizes the critical nature of this “ or, “This is too important a subject on which to remain ignorant.”

Getting your audience on board with you from the beginning or your presentation means they will be and psychologically engaged in your presentation. What more could a speaker ask for?

Today, I will discuss a third component, drawn from Cesar Milan’s concept of “leader of the pack” dog/people training:  maintaining a certain kind of energy while in the presence of the person I am coaching–what he calls “calm, assertive energy.”  This involves monitoring posture (relaxed yet energized), tone of voice (neutral without being disengaged), eye contact (intense but not intimidating), and facial expression (interested without protraying unnecessary reactions or excessive expressiveness.)

Some people can maintain a “calm, assertive energy”  instintively; for others it is a learnable skill.  For others, particularly for those with very high energy levels, it is almost impossible to achieve.  But it is a worthy goal, whether working with people……OR dogs…..cats are another matter.

Next time, I will discuss the ability to “find the story beneath the story,” one of the most important coaching skills we can acquire.

This question was harder to answer than I thought because I do so much of it intuitively.  But it was good to be asked the question and force myself to consciously think through the principles guiding my ability to coach people to self realization and self transformation.

What follows is Part I of my answer to him.  The answer seemed both so obvious and so complex.  Here are some of my intuitive abilities translated into conscious principles.

• Make no assumptions.  Well, DUH!  But some of the biggest “duhs” in life are the hardest to abide by.  Usually managers will send me a summary of what needs to be “fixed.”  It would be easy to assume the manager is correct in her/his assumptions; after all, they are the manager.

But these perceptions (and they are, after all, perceptions, even though they are managers) must be held in the back of my mind, not the front.  I think of them as background, context, parts of the entire puzzle which I must then piece together by discovering all the parts.

The manager’s perceptions may prove to be entirely correct, mostly accurate, slanted, or misguided.  People’s roles in the company do affect my perception (yes, I have perceptions, too) of other people’s views of what people have wrong or right about them, but they are not the guiding force behind my interaction.

• Armed with perceptions, feedback, and facts from others, now I must listen with my ears, eyes, intuition, heart, and gut to find the patterns in the conversation which will help me find the most reliable, accurate picture of the puzzle.  What words, phrases, references are used often enough to form a pattern creating a point of view (military language?  nurturing language? passive vs. active use of verbs? reference to parents’ expectations?–(even middle aged people still carry around those parental “voices” in their heads/psyches)–indirect language?, defensive language and posture?  listening skills?

Coaching is more than a skill; it is an art, perhaps an innate one.  It is what Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, calls the ability to ”surrender.” A really good coach surrenders to the person across from her without remaining disengaged or becoming ego centric.

Part II, which will address the “calm, assertive energy” (again, Cesar Milan) needed to create an atmosphere wherein change can occur will be next in my Executive Coaching blog entry.

WOMBAT
WDALYIC
TTFN
FOMCL
PRW
AYTMTB
@TEOTD

(Answers listed below)

These text messaging symbols are second nature to what I call the “opposable thumb” generation—that generation that grew up using their thumbs to play video games, dial cell phone numbers, and text message their friends.

Every generation has its own language, whether Millennials (1980- 2002—Sometimes called Generation Y), or Generation X (1960-1980), my generation (The Boomers: 1943-1960), or The Veterans, as some demographers call them (1922-1943). These different generations also have different ways of communicating, listening, interacting, interpreting, and responding to the way a presentation is delivered.

First The Big Picture:

The Internet, CNN, YouTube, USA Today (check out the 1986 front page of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal if you doubt me) have changed everything—the way we buy our Xmas presents, the legibility of cursive penmanship, even the way religious leaders communicate with their congregations.

For instance, some new generation rabbis in Israel are communicating with their followers via text messages. They receive as many as 3,000 messages a month, with such words as “faith,” “doubt,” and “sin” typed in requesting a theological reply.

An Internet story this week discussed parents who obsess with their mobile messaging and ignore their children. Mental health professionals say the intrusion of mobile email gadgets into family life is a growing topic of discussion in therapy.

And don’t even bring up cell phone rudeness. Everyone has a horror story.

How does all this relate to giving business presentations? It means we need to rethink how we present, adapt to our audience’s needs with more precision, and strategize our message not only for its purpose— but also for the generation receiving it.

Here are some practical Do’s and Don’t’s for the different generations. For simplicity’s sake, I have divided the generations into 3 basic technical categories: Young and Savvy (under 40), Middle-aged and Capable (between 40 and 60); Older and Trying (over 60). There will be many inherent generalities stated here, but most observations will be on target.

1. First, we ALL hate to be read to, but the Younger generation hates it even more. So do NOT have Power Point slides filled with words and sentences, as if you were writing a novel on a Power Point. And most importantly, do NOT read them off the slide.

If this is your style, just hand out the slide copies at the door, go stand in a corner, let people read your slides at their pace (it will be quick, I promise you), and see if they have any questions (they won’t).

2. For all generations use the old IBM Power Point rule of thumb: 5 x 5: No more than 5 bullets per page and no more than 5 words per bullet. It is essential to include pictures to capture the essence of the point. The bullets are nothing more than “brain prompts” for you. They are not the presentation.

3. Which brings us to our third point: YOU are the interpreter of the message, not the reader of the message.  You may have a handout or leave-behind—to be given at the close of the program—which contains all the verbal elaboration and additional graphs, etc., but this is not on the Power Point slide.

4. The Older Generation (of which I am a part) can tolerate more words on the slide, and we are more comfortable “reading” along with you, IF the text is animated so that only one main point appears at a time, not all five. Otherwise, we skip to point #5 while you are giving your powerful analysis of point #1.

Boomers and Veterans have a low tolerance for Flashy Power Points. Remember, Special Effects are an option—not a requirement. Choose wisely.

5. For all generations: Know your equipment! Have it all set up long before the audience arrives. Can you imagine still having the stage crew setting up the props in a stage play during Act 1? Keep your “stage” clear: no laptop bags, no sloppy wires, no purses, no bottled water.

6. For all generations: “OWN” your equipment (even if it’s rented!). Never—even if you are the President of the company—have a secretary or “secondary” person in the company pressing the laptop forward button for you. For the younger generations, it looks extremely autocratic and removed. And having to say “Next” 52 times is awkward and distracting for any generation.

7. Make sure you use a remote. Even if your company has one, I can promise you it will be “missing” when you need it, so buy your own. For all generations, but particularly the younger ones, presenter credibility is immediately built up when the presenter seems “with it”—prepared, comfortable with all the equipment, including the remote (do not aim the remote at the screen and point and click and then look amazed when it actually works!)

8. We all have shorter attention spans now, but the younger audiences have even shorter ones. Prepare your presentations carefully and make them focused, clear, and engaging. Younger generations do not like to be lectured “at,” resenting it even more than their older counterparts.

Why? Because they have been on interactive video games since they were 18 months old; they are used to being in control of how quickly their information flows and what information they choose to take in. Capture them with engaging material and an engaged and conversational presenter.

Here, then, are the most important points about presenting to different generations:

1. No one likes to be bored.
2. We all want to feel respected by the speaker.
3. We all enjoy an energetic, passionate, engaged speaker, even if the subject is technical
4. We all want the session to begin and end on time
5. We all want to feel the presenter is prepared and in control of the technical equipment

Yes, there are many differences among the generations, but we have much more in common than we have differences. And, yes, it makes our job as presenter even more of a challenge because we have another strategy to consider: what is the best way to present this message to this audience?

But isn’t this, after all, the question we should ask ourselves as we prepare a presentation for every generation?

SIDEBAR—Just for Fun

Text Chat Emotions
:-X Kiss on the lips
“-# Kiss with Braces
{:-) Toupee Smile
I—0 Yawn
:——-) Long Nose (Liar!)
: - )~ I’m Drooling

Answers to opening quiz:
Waste of Money, Brains and Time
Who died and Left You In Charge
Ta Ta For Now
Falling Off My Chair Laughing
Parents Are Watching
And You’re Telling Me this Because…
At The End Of The Day

The Q&A section can make or break a presentation; it can elicit that final YES or NO response.   Unfortunately, people seldom devote time to Q&A preparation and rehearsal.

Why you need a solid Q&A session
A good, well rehearsed, and strategized question-and-answer session will enhance your presentation and your message.  It will:

• CLARIFY.  The Q&A fills in gaps and offers further ¬convincing details.
• CONTINUE your theme and message in an even more personal, conversational way.
• CONNECT you with your audience. It lets them know who you really are
• UNCOVER DISAGREEMENT, hidden agendas, unstated preferences, and discontent, and allows you to handle these in a direct, non-damaging way.
• BRIDGE to your presentation’s core messages

How to ask for questions and MEAN it
When asking for questions, don’t say “Any questions?”    Instead, say,  “What questions do you have for me?”  Assume there will be some, and assume good will, unless you have evidence to the contrary.  Create an environment of friendly eagerness to share information with your request for questions and practice this transitional line, even if you know your audience is hostile.  A hostile audience makes it even more critical that you be perceived as being “in charge.”

Bridging
Let your question and answer session reinforce your already established major points.  Highlight these points and themes as you answer, and return to them when questions are irrelevant or startling.  This is called “bridging” and helps you feel more in control and less vulnerable during Q&A.

The best examples of “bridging” can be heard during interviews with elected officials, who, when pushed, always return to their theme:  “Compassionate conservatism, “positive campaign,” “my agenda,” “the message of hope,” “experience vs. change,” etc.  Listen and learn (but don’t manipulate the technique to confuse or lie to your audience).

Just remember:  Anything you don’t want asked, will be asked. Be ready with your answers.

A lot of care and time must be devoted to your conclusion.  It is the last chance you have to impress your audience.   Just as you had a “hook” to gain the audience’s attention, you need a “clincher” to drive home a memorable, final point.

What your clincher needs to include
Conclusions should do several important things, including summarizing material and motivating an audience to act.  You can deliver an effective clincher by doing several things:

• Slow down the pace of your voice
• Emphasize key words in your closing sentences
• Increase the dramatic force of your gestures.

“Coming full circle” happens when the speaker picks up a thread of an idea mentioned in the introduction and weaves it into the conclusion.  An audience appreciates this technique because it indicates a thoughtful, purposeful speaker who has complete control of the material.

Here are some suggestions for developing your full circle effect.

• Give a statistic. Population figures relating to your audience, such as age, ethnic background, and profession are all available on the Internet at the U.S. Census Bureau website. Labor figures are available on U.S. Department of Labor website.
• Tell a story.   Your story must relate to the subject, purpose, and audience.  For example, if your presentation is about goal setting, you could say, “I was approached by a panhandler and asked if I could spare $100.  I replied, ‘Geez, I’ve been asked for a quarter, a dollar, even $5, but $100!  What gives you the gall to ask for $100?’  To which the panhandler replied, ‘Hey, I believe in setting my goals high.’”
• Use a quotation.  “The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit.  Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There is far less competition.”—Dwight Morrow
• Ask a question.   Suggest a plan of action for when your audience leaves and then dramatically ask:  “What are you going to take from today’s speech and use in your life?”
• Express your thanks.   Let your audience know you enjoy being with them. For example, “Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to express my concerns.  I look forward to the workshops this afternoon, when I can address more specific issues. Again, I salute your hard work and enthusiasm”.
• Refer to subsequent events. For example, “When Bill Clinton was inaugurated as president of the United States, there were five web sites.  Today there are ten million.  This afternoon’s workshop will help you learn how to build your own web site…and then there will be ten million and one.”

You delivered a really good clincher at the end of your presentation,  But it’s not over yet.  In my next blog, I’m going to talk about an incredibly importantpart of your presentation:  the question and answer session.