We are often asked to kick-off meetings.  What’s the best way to get everyone focused on the task at hand, and demonstrate our own capacity for effective leadership?

1. Start on time.  Or, if you must delay, acknowledge those who are present and inform them you would like to wait for a few minutes.
2. Begin your opening remarks by looking at the big picture.  Reframe what has happened in the recent past, or will happen in the immediate future, that makes this meeting necessary.
3. Define the particular challenges, problems, issues, or questions that the group needs to address.
4. Speak about the consequences of the unsolved problems, or the opportunities that exist if the group succeeds.
5. Then do your house-keeping and your laying of the ground-rules.  Typical items include time to end, objectives, items on the agenda, times for each item, and methods to be used to accomplish the goals.
6. Be brief, energetic, and connected eye-to-eye with those seated at the table with you.

The tone is set by the leader.  This is true of companies, football teams, schools and meetings.  You can do it well, and the more you do it with mindful attention to the above, the better you will be.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

“Every word uttered evokes the idea of its opposite. “  –Goethe

In other words, when you assert your opinion, your listeners will reflexively search their own minds for a thought that could prove your idea flawed.  

To take the wind out of their sails, and to demonstrate that you have considered other perspectives, speak their thoughts for them, and explain why your idea is superior.

In this way, your talk takes the form of a dialogue between your proposal and reasonable objections to it.

You will be seen as credible and balanced, and your listeners will be more likely to agree.

The arts of music, poetry, literature, and drama have been around so long that each of them has templates.  To dismiss templates is to ignore the wisdom of the ages.

To name a few, music has verses and choruses, poetry has sonnets and haiku, literature has novels and short stories, and drama has setting, character, plot, and resolution.

Templates exist for speeches and presentations too.  Past to present to future is one.  Cause and effect is another.  Thesis, antithesis, synthesis is yet a third. But by far the most useful in the business world is the situation, problem, solution template.

 In business, define the problem first, then argue for your solution.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

First of all, don’t overdo it.  If it’s dry, it’s dry.  I heard someone link his call to action to survival, which was a bit of an overstatement.  Modesty in all things!

Nevertheless, since I often find myself urging clients to include emotional arguments as well as fact-based, here are a few tips.

1. Reason makes us think.  Emotions make us act.  You need both.
2. Begin with the problem that your audience faces.
3. If they don’t face a problem, begin with the opportunity they have.
4. Then talk about the consequences if they fail to take advantage of the opportunity.
5. Personalize your message.  Speak about your own experience.  Disclose something about yourself.  Confess your own struggle in regards to the issue, or a similar issue.
6. Tell stories that are about life-changing experiences.  Make sure your stories have a character, conflict, and dialogue.
7. Stories about people they know, or famous people, living or dead, are most effective.
8. Use emotional words.  I once sat through 16 people delivering the exact same presentation, and the only person I could remember when it was over was the one who said, “I love my job.”
9. Look your audience in the eye, one person at a time.
10. Smile when appropriate.  Visibly enjoy yourself.
11. Don’t talk about how dry the topic is.  Ignore the dryness, and find a way to make it moist.

The mother of the great American poet John Berryman told him, “Ever to admit you’re bored means you have no inner resources.”

Don’t let your topic bore you, or you’ll bore your audience.  Find a way to fall in love with it.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Things come in threes.  

First Representative Williams of South Carolina yelled, “You lie!” at the President during his speech on health care reform.

Then Serena Williams went off on a line judge at the U.S. Open.

Then Kanye West lost it at the Grammy Awards Ceremony.

The Serena thing is understandable—she’s out there fighting for her life and is all pumped up.  John McEnroe did much worse and is now a distinguished elder statesman of tennis.  Let’s give Serena a break.

But the other two guys stepped way over the line.  Screaming at the President and hijacking a microphone at a public ceremony are disruptive and rude behaviors.

It’s interesting that it got them both a lot of attention. I suspect that was Kanye’s motive.  I think Representative Williams is just a guy who is used to speaking his mind and lost the gyroscope on his social skills.

And that’s what can happen to us as presenters. 

I know one guy who was questioned about his marketing plan by an executive committee.  They wanted to know how he came up with his forecast number.  He told them and they said it didn’t seem right.

After a lot of going back and forth on his methodologies for determining the forecast, he got impatient and said, with his hands on his hips, “Well, if you don’t like the number, what do you want the number to be?”

You can imagine the silence in the room.  The President of the company took a breath and said, “Randy, why don’t we figure that out later.  Thank you for your time.”

Randy did not get sent to Siberia, but almost.  It took him years to earn his way back into the good graces of the executive committee.

Think two or three times before you let your temper get the best of you when you’re in the public eye.  Staying calm under pressure demonstrates maturity and leadership. 

More than communicating information and ideas, presenting is also a demonstration of character. 

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Here’s the scenario. A bio-tech company will fly to Paris to convince influential French physicians to use their compound-in-development in clinical trials. The company has invited the French doctors to a nice meeting room in a nice hotel and plans to tell the doctors all about the compound.

When asked, “What is the purpose of the presentation?” they say, “To tell them about the drug.” I say I see it differently. I say it’s to help the French doctors come to the conclusion that the bio-tech company would be a great company to partner with, and that the drug is a versatile powerhouse that will almost certainly make it to market and get their names in the best peer-reviewed journals in the world.

When I lay out this plan, they say it is not scientific enough. I am sensitive to that. I like and respect the traditions of science. But I say, “This is not a scientific presentation. This is a business presentation. Science plays a part, but the goal is a business goal. You need these people to believe in your company and your compound. Our job is to induce belief in them, and raise that belief to the level of action.”

We take the scientific and corporate information they already have and restructure it to make a strong argument for partnership. There is some resistance holding out in the recesses of their scientific hearts.

I persist. This is a “decisional” presentation, I say. The French doctors will say, “Yes, No or Maybe.” There are risks for them. They could miss out on a good thing if they say no. They could miss out on better opportunities if they say yes. There are rational calculations to make, including the fact that they have practices to run, assistants to pay, and time to manage.

There are also non-rational issues. They would love to get their names on an important study. They would hate to work for years on a trial of a compound that never gets to market. Should they say no? Should they say yes?

In reality, I would guess their decision will hinge on what the most influential physician in the group decides.

This was a lesson in knowing the audience–in targeting their rational and non-rational needs. The bio-tech firm was relying on the science to do the job. It seemed to me the calculation was broader than that. For the doctors, the decision would be psychological as well as scientific.

Stay tuned.

Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematical genius who spelled out the laws of probability more clearly than anyone before him.  This was a watershed moment, because for the first time humanity had a systematic way of thinking about the future.

Pascal was both a gambler and a religious zealot.  He wanted to know if God really exists, which is knowledge not easily acquired.  So the next question was, “Should I act as if God exists, or should I act as if He does not exist?”

Suppose, said Pascal, that we lead a life of virtue and self-restraint, and when the day of reckoning comes, we discover there is no God.  Well, life was not too bad being good.  Maybe  life could have been a little more fun, but … this is a consequence that most people could accept.

Suppose however,  we bet that God does not exist, and lead a life of lust, violence, and depravity, only to discover that God really does exist.  Suddenly we’re looking at some serious time in the furnace of the underworld.  Pascal was not willing to take this chance.

Pascal’s wager is helpful for speakers.  When recommending a course of action to an audience that seeks GOG (greed, opportunity, and glory) a speaker should spend time exploring the possible downsides.  Risk is always present, no matter how close the goal appears.

For instance, hedge fund managers often make a huge bet, and then borrow even more money to put down on the bet to increase their potential earnings.  They do this because their data tells them that it’s practically a sure thing.  The problem arises when their data, which is about the past, does not apply to the future.  And if they have borrowed more money than they can easily pay back, their creditors close them down, and their clients lose their money.

A persuasive speaker, when advocating for a course of action, will ask the question, “How will we deal with surprises?  What are the consequences if we are wrong in our assumptions? “  Risk is the eternal possibility of being wrong–not always in an adverse direction.  Sometimes you’re wrong and things turn out better than expected.

When recommending a decision to an audience, it is wise to explore the consequences of your being wrong.   Sometimes the consequences are trivial (lead a good life but get no prize in Heaven), and sometimes they are not (lead a bad life and cook slowly forever.)

Rather than let the audience try to poke holes in your argument, you should do it yourself.  Give your presentation a pressure test, and see if it holds up.

Effective persuasion starts with the recognition that any forecast can be wrong, then weighs the consequences of being wrong.   Even if success will lead to fame, wealth and glory, you will be more credible if you surface the negative possibilities, and can honestly dismiss them as trivial.

On June 20th in the Wall Street Journal, in response to the media coverage of Tim Russert’s untimely death, Peggy Noonan wrote in her Declarations column, “When somebody dies we tell his story and try to define and isolate what was special about it–what it was he brought to the party, how he enhanced life by showing up. In this way we educate ourselves about what really matters.”

“In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn’t. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn’t, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. [...] That’s what we talk about in eulogies, because that’s what’s important.”

Reading this, it struck me that we could say the same thing about public speaking. We make a show of admiring speakers who are clever, rich with data slides, equipped with approved platform behaviors and polished texts. But in the end, what we really like in speakers is character.

Character traits that appeal to audiences are varied, but certainly confidence is one, tempered, we hope, with humility. Genuine interest in the audience is another, or at least an empathetic understanding of their needs and concerns.

Finally, I myself like speakers who appear to be authentic, true to themselves, not working too hard to please me, but are nevertheless skilled at holding my attention.

Think about this. When a speech or presentation is over, which do you remember the longest: what the speaker said, or the impression the speaker created?

Decision makers rarely undertake an important project without first hearing the project leader explain it to them. They are listening for two things–grasp of the material, and the requisite character needed to overcome the inevitable obstacles any large project will encounter.

When a presentation is over, and listeners gather to discuss it and pass judgment, the speaker’s expertise is the dimension they consider overtly. But deep down, their decisions are informed by their perceptions of the speaker’s character.

I just returned from an engagement during which I was asked to give partners in a professional service firm 10 minutes to pitch the firm to a brand new prospect, played by another partner sitting across the table.

Most partner/presenters were tentative at the start. They began by asking the prospects what they wanted to get out of the meeting. Since the exercise was only ten minutes long, the prospects gave a 30-second overview of their needs and asked the sales person to, “Give us your pitch,” or said, “We use a lot of firms like yours. What makes you different.”

And that’s when the difficulty began. Few presenters were prepared with a brief, interesting headline focused on customer benefits. Most of them hemmed and hawed, drilled down into one particular feature of their services, or provided a summary statement that was fact-based and feature-based, not emotionally strong and benefit-driven.

For instance, the firm is proud of their process, their results, and their willingness to measure and publish those results. But all of those are internal and ambiguous to the prospect. Clients care most about results, and are more than likely indifferent to the process, as long as it gets the job done without too much disruption to their own work flow.

Furthermore, in this case, while my client firm could report their own success metrics, they could not report those of their competitors, so the information was meaningless.

And when they did mention their success metrics, they often quoted a number–”82% of our engagements are successfully completed,”–leaving the prospect to wonder if that number is good or bad, what happens with the other 18% of engagements, what does success mean, and what is the likelihood that I will be one of the 18% who get screwed?

The best guy in the whole exercise opened with three crisp points: we have a transparent process, we complete more assignments than our competitors, and we complete them faster. But he failed to stick to that outline during the subsequent role-play.

I liked what he was trying to do. He made three bold points, or claims, at the start, and he was going to describe how and why those claims were true. But he got derailed by the back and forth, and lost control of the meeting.

He would have done better if his points had been benefit statements–if they had been about what the client gets, rather than about his firm’s attributes. His message was seller-centric (all about him!) instead of customer-centric (all about them!)

Moving to a listener-centric message would have required that he understand why his clients buy services such as his, what they like about such services, and what they dislike.

I asked the group if they had any market research, or any well-founded opinions, that could guide us in the exercise. They did, and we were able to suggest another set of headlines that, if used broadly throughout the firm’s selling efforts, could provide new language, and a greater return on new client interactions.

The bottom line is this: language shapes reality! Some cognitive scientists say that language creates reality for us–that it is generative. Effective presentation of intangible professional services depends on a highly-skilled use of language capable of inducing clarity and trust in the prospect.

It’s worth the time to find the right combination of words that resonate with the target audience.

What makes smart people dumb?

Elizabeth Newton, a psychologist, conducted an experiment on the curse of knowledge while working on her doctorate at Stanford in 1990. She gave one set of people, called “tappers,” a list of commonly known songs from which to choose. Their task was to rap their knuckles on a tabletop to the rhythm of the chosen tune as they thought about it in their heads. A second set of people, called “listeners,” were asked to name the songs.

Before the experiment began, the tappers were asked how often they believed that the listeners would name the songs correctly. On average, the tappers expected listeners to get it right about half the time. In the end, however, listeners guessed only 3 of 120 songs tapped out, or 2.5 percent.

The tappers were astounded. The song was so clear in their minds; how could the listeners not “hear” it in their taps?

That’s a common reaction when experts set out to share their ideas in the business world, too, says Chip Heath, who with his brother, Dan, was a co-author of the 2007 book “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” It’s why engineers design products ultimately useful only to other engineers. It’s why managers have trouble convincing the rank and file to adopt new processes. It’s why the advertising world struggles to convey commercial messages to consumers. And it’s why many presenters struggle to plant their ideas deeply in the soil of the listeners’ mind.

Part of the problem for expert speakers is their expert language, the terms that their specialized disciplines develop to speak in short hand. These highly specialized languages confer an identity on the speaker, and many of them are reluctant to relinquish this hard-won identity when speaking to the uninitiated.

Another problem is simple over-familiarity with the terrain. Researchers have been over and over their data and their findings in preparing for publication. It’s hard for them to see it through the eyes of a child, or the eyes of someone new to the terrain.

A parallel from my own experience: I find it difficult to give new friends directions to my home, even though I’ve lived there for 15 years. I’m on automatic pilot everyday as I drive away from and then back toward my house. I don’t pay attention to the names of little roads, or make note of landmarks. I know where I am, but my knowledge is tacit–I struggle to make it explicit.

I often ask scientists I’m working with to prepare a talk explaining their work to 5th Graders. It’s a difficult exercise for them–they make so many assumptions, the most obvious being, “Why are you studying the P54 and why does it have that name?”

They forget they have to start at the beginning. I.e., “Once upon a time, there was a Daddy who got very, very sick. He went to the doctor and….”

And suddenly they’re following the Golden Rule: “Speak to the audience, in the language of the audience, about what’s most important to the audience.”

What could have been an incomprehensible talk in a foreign language has become a story about a heroic effort to save somebody’s Daddy.

Everybody can understand that!

And while this may seem overly simple for expert speakers addressing sophisticated adults, the core truth remains valid. An audience needs to know why they should care about the information they are about to hear–they need to have their emotions (or at least their curiosity) engaged in order to listen.

And then they need clear outlines and headers as they’re led through the material. They need all extraneous information eliminated. And they need a good story line, as the speaker brings drama and suspense to the struggle to overcome obstacles and capitalize on the opportunity.