Dr. Mark’s Ten Rules for Creating and delivering Transformational Presentations Using InsideOut Formula:

The greatest thing I’ve got going for me is my ability to believe in other people’s talents. I am a feedback mirror because I hear and see people doing things they can’t hear or see themselves doing. Every great communicator needs that kind of feedback or they will not be stimulated to change or grow.  Having confidence in yourself is important, but it helps to have someone who believes in you, too, whether it’s a spouse, a friend, a teacher, or even a coach. To be a great a presenter takes “Truth telling” which begins with courage and belief in yourself. So if you want to come across to your audience as authentic practice daily the actions listed in my “ten rules for presenting” they will speak volumes of who you really are and transform a speech into a transformation experience.

Dr. Mark’s Ten Rules for Creating and delivering Transformational Presentations Using InsideOut Formula:                                             

1. Be clear and concise, confident and compelling about your goals for the presentation.Don’t present anything you won’t want to sit through yourself

2. Learn that “Connecting with Others” is more about you than the audience. Do you believe in what you are presenting? Are you comfortable in presenting ideas and information to others?

3. Believe in your self—Know your strengths and use them. This will allow you the freedom to overcome nervousness and self-doubts.

4. Know nothing will bother or interfere with your performance and your ability to stay on message and in the moment.

5. Radiate and Resonate. Love what you are doing and your audience.—Be confident responsive and respectful. Your radiance is coming from the pure, utter joy of feeling alive–of being connected to your message and the audience.

6. Speak with passion–be energized and excited that you get the privilege of presenting  what you know that can help the audience members live a more fulfilling life.

7. Stay focused but flexible on audience interests, needs and engagement.

8. Be natural and authentic—Don’t try to hard to be someone you are not or say things you don’t believe.

9. Don’t worry about evaluations and results of the presentation. Stay in the moment observe, respond and focus on the process of conveying your message and connecting with the audience.

10. Seek feedback on how you are meeting expectations as you are presenting—use checkpoints

11. Close with a bang. Check for understanding. Wave the flag. Call for commitment, change and action

Extra Idea for getting ready to speak– Use “relaxation and release” tools to start in a great state of mind and energy…   be open to whatever arises.

Want to be a “Sticky” presenter focus on making your communication visible and tangible

We have reviewed and explained how to use the R.A.T.E.R. checklist  tool for more effective and “sticky” presentations in another blog on the Wick

R. Relevant to experience and daily lives of participants. Tap into their needs and wants. Meet their expectations to learn something they can use.

A. Assurance that your ideas have merit and basis in fact and experience–make your case evidence based with best practices woven in to emotional solutions.

T. Create a message that is Tangible ( concrete, specific and practical) not a high level theory. Keep message simple. appeals to sensory and visual needs of the audience. Let them discover the answers. Make the message tangible or concrete by using physical objects and specific fact-based evidence.

E. Focus on showing empathy and understanding of the audience POV by telling emotional and feeling stories. Meet expectations and tap into members experience through involvement and interaction.

R. Be responsive to audience questions, skepticism and challenges.  Use CPR technique (clarify mis-understandings, paraphrase and restate audience comments and input, reflect audience feelings and degree of support or disagreement) and active listening to connect with the audience. For example, when you are asked  for opinion deflect question to the group to stimulate discussion and generate ideas. Then summarize comments and agreements/disagreements  before giving your expert advise or opinions on the topic being discussed.

In the book Made to Stick, the Heath brothers argue that concreteness or tangibility “helps us understand– it helps us construct… insights on the building blocks of our existing knowledge and perceptions.” They suggest that tangible or concrete ideas “stick” better and are easier to remember and spreed to others. Nothing lends concreteness to ideas more obviously than the use of  physical objects or specific scientific-based  evidence.

A physical object is something tangible that the presenter brings forward to show and let them touch during the presentation—it can be a book, rock, picture or factual idea. The reason to use one is if its presence lends more concreteness and provides more interaction and discussion to your presentation. Does the physical object make something clear that is confusing? Does the a tangible provide and reinforce a visual explanation of something abstract? Does the physical model or fact  make your presentation more grounded in reality rather than theory? Use it only if you answered yes to those three questions. Don’t use a physical object or concrete fact in a casual way. Use it as a center piece of your presentation to connect and engage the audience.

Make it Memorable

Now in order to be an idea virus or something audience members will want to go out and tell others about you must also make your message memorable, clear, concise and compelling. Demonstrations, physical object and startling facts can create some of the most dynamic, memorable moments in a presentation. Audiences are very likely to remember the prop you used, and what you did with it, so don’t stumble in your presentation or your risk will not be worth the benefit you were seeking. Ensure that your tangible object has a dynamic, unforgettable purpose in your presentation. If there’s a chance it’s going to be perceived as a gimmick or fall flat with the audience, or its purpose is not relevant enough to the topic at hand, don’t use it.

When presentations disappoint, one cause most likely starts with a failure to recognize that presentations are two-way communication processes and that boredom comes quickly when audience members get lost on too much information or you have not painted or provide reality based tangibles for the audience members to engage and interact with.

Consider ways a Tangible can strengthen and intensify your presentation. If you’re speaking about a device, it’s fitting to show the audience the device at the beginning of your pitch. If you’re reporting a statistic, it’s very effective to make the visual “stick” by bring out a tangible object. Be creative! Have fun with it. And take the risk to enhance your performance and message please share your stories with the rest of the Wick Community.

Want to Bring a Wow experience to your next Presentation? Be Passionate and Mentally Tough

” Concentration and mental toughness provide confidence and are the difference between a boring presentation and a WOW experience for the audience.” MW Hardwick, Presentation Coach

Design with Purpose and Deliver with Confidence.

What matters to you is shown by your passion. Your passion will draw others to your cause. Emotional words and message are more important in hooking people and generating a contagion. Meaningful purpose gathers extraordinary support. The right idea—framed in emotion—grows exponentially through social media and word of mouth advocacy. Checkout how, The Dragonfly Effect, encouraged a social media project 100k Cheeks, to raise awareness and increase the number of people enrolled in the International Bone Marrow Registry.

If you isolate one thing about high achievers that has put them at the pinnacle of success above anything and everything else, it is the ability to communicate and connect with confidence and openness to audience members. I call this constellation of factors the mental toughness factor.

Call it mental toughness, confidence, courage–it is the profound ability to stay
in connected and overcome obstacles in the face of taking risks, challenges, loss, and adversity.
This new knowledge will empower you to perform at the top of your game because relevant information + knowledge = confidence and power, because 90% of success as a presenter is belief in yourself and mental toughness.
That’s why you owe it to yourself to take the next step to build your confidence and character as a public speaker. Try out these techniques and I assure you that your next speech will not be boring.

Death by “boring” presentations and how to Eliminate them

“Speech is power. Speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.” Ralph Emerson

 When you have a captive audience take advantage of the opportunity, do not bore them to death. Presentations are critical in promoting your ideas and advancing your career. Presentations are a wonderful platform for capturing people’s attention, interest and changing their point of views. It is one of the few mediums that if used properly contain the human interaction  necessary for changing and promoting new ideas and behaviors. Yet with the innovation of PowerPoint and other presentation templates the opportunity to make a ” unique connection” is generally lost or squandered on uninteresting and boring lectures.  

Most presentations today could be finished in five minutes by simply handing out your deck of slides.  Most rules of “adult learning” are violated in boring presentations. For example, some speakers try to influence you by “telling and selling” rather than engaging and connecting with the audience needs and wants. These type of presentations end-up being speaker and content centered rather than audience-centered.

So the question becomes if presentations are so boring and unproductive, why do we continue to have meetings and presentations that are obviously a waste of time and resources?

Daily Quote and Reflection: Greatest Gift

Daily Quote: ” I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood and touched by them. The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is done, I feel contact has been made “–Virginia Satir

Reflection: Now it is your turn to absorb, focus and capture your own reflection. You can’t hope to become an effective leader without self-awareness and looking at how words and experiences effect your daily interactions. Learning to learn how to reflect on experiences and the lessons life offers will enhance your ability to relate, communicate and develop as a fully functioning leader and congruent person. So give it a try by reflecting on what it means in your life to truly connect with others. Share your ideas with the rest of our community at the wick. 

New Science of Teamwork–Power of Team results is how they communicate

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

I am a big believer in Social Science research and not just fly by opinions. For many years, I have been studying and working with teams and was always trying to figure-out what made the difference between poor , average and superior work teams. Now comes some strong support that what makes a difference in separating superior teams from others is how they communicate not what they communicate.

HBR’s April Spotlight on teams describes in detail the ” new science of building great teams. We can summarize those points here. The data in this research provides evidence that great teams:

• “Communicate frequently. In a typical project team a dozen or so communication exchanges per working hour may turn out to be optimum; but more or less than that and team performance can decline.
• Talk and listen in equal measure, equally among members. Lower performing teams have dominant members, teams within teams, and members who talk or listen but don’t do both.
• The Coffee Break factor spend time in frequent informal communication. The best teams spend about half their time communicating outside of formal meetings or as “asides” during team meetings, and increasing opportunities for informal communication tends to increase team performance.
• Explore for ideas and information outside the group. The best teams periodically connect with many different outside sources and bring what they learn back to the team.

You’ll notice that none of the factors outlined above concern the content or messages of a team’s communication. The study was design to capture only how people communicate — tone of voice, gestures, how one faces others in the group, and how much people talk and listen. The researchers did not capture what people communicate.

This is purposeful. From the beginning, I suspected that the ineffable buzz of high-performing teams was more about the how of communication than the what. My hypothesis was that the ancient biological patterns of signaling that humans developed in the millennia before we developed language — which is a relatively recent development — still dominate our communication. We all know how powerful non-verbal communication can be between humans.

According to their data: How we communicate turns out to be the most important predictor of team success, and as important as all other factors combined, including intelligence, personality, skill, and content of discussions. The old adage that it’s not what you say, but how you say it, turns out to be mathematically correct.

Just how powerful these patterns of communication are can be surprising. For example, we can predict with precision whether a team will perform well or not, and we can predict with a high rate of success whether or not team members will report they’ve had a “productive” or “creative” day based solely on the data from the sociometric badges. If this seems like a statistical parlor trick, it’s not. By adjusting group behavior based on this data, we’ve documented improved teamwork.

Many people are uncomfortable with this. It suggests that a kind of biological determinism, that people who naturally display the good communication patterns will “win” and anyone not blessed with this innate talent will drag a team down. In fact, that’s not the case at all. In our work we’ve found that these patterns of communication are highly trainable, and that personality traits we usually chalk up to the “it” factor — personal charisma, for example — are actually teachable skills. Data is an amazingly powerful tool for objectifying what would normally seem subjective. Time and again I’ve seen data become an incontrovertible ally to team members who may otherwise be afraid to voice their feelings about the group dynamics. They can finally say “I’m not being heard” and they have the data to back them up.”

People should feel empowered by the idea of a science of team building, The idea that we can transmute the guess-work of putting a team together into a rigorous methodology, and then continuously improve teams is exciting. Nothing will be more powerful, I believe, in eventually changing how organizations work.

Anyone interested in the full article can go the HBR article located in the Insight Center. After that you can tune-in to other  blog posts about the power of visualization of the data, and where the technology and science are headed. If that isn’t enough information you can learn more by joining the author, Alex “Sandy” Pentland, who is the director of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program.

Source:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/the_new_science_of_building_gr.html

To Win from Within–Start with Straight Thinking and Straight Talking

INTRODUCTION: THE BIG IDEA –Redefining the Inner Game                                      

Approximately 40 years ago, Tim Gallwey developed a powerful self-development model called: the Inner Game. His principles and methods over the years inspired and continue to ring true for many people. His principles have been the foundation for people to improve their performance and self-confidence inside and outside the sports world. The exciting thing now is how neuroscience research on the brain says that the joy of feeling good is a conscious state of mind, rooted in the neocortex, the region of the brain responsible for thinking, planning, and decision–making: You ace you opponent in tennis or get a standing ovation after a speech and think, “I really feel good.”

This research on the brain is shedding light on how the inner game is tied to the neocortex synapses and neurotransmitters. The brain works to influence and propel our outer world behavior. The critical cornerstone of Galleway’s model and the Inner Game principles is the distinction between different internal voices called Self 1 and Self 2.  For definitional purposes Self 1 is the voice characterized by critical and doubting internal self-talk that evaluates and provides obstacles for performance improvement, and Self 2, gives voice to the natural source of your talent, confidence and capabilities to be the best you can be.  Self 1 is the unproductive thinking driven by fear and self-doubt that interferes with your ability to reach your true potential. Self 2 is the voice that emerges naturally from your own deepest experiences, convictions, values and mental wiring.  Many of the difficulties in succeeding in business are related to the ability to be an effective communicator, whether speaking one-on-one  or 1 to thousand in a big ballroom.

New Presentation Playbook for “Winning from Within”

“Knowing yourself and being present and sensitive to expectations and needs of others is the beginning of “learning how to learn.” Mark W. Hardwick, Ph.D. 

In a world where communication effectiveness is the critical key to success for team and interpersonal interactions–many of us do not spend enough time on improving our people skills. In essence, my vision is to change the world of presentation one performance and one person at a time. The way I teach it varies from engagement to engagement and person to person. Some of my teaching is one on one coaching, sometimes in small groups and some times to large audience trying to model and demonstrate effective engagement and connection strategies and tactics.I like to thoroughly understand who I am talking with and identifying what they want to accomplish to become better communicators.

The Presenter’s Playbook for Winning from Within. Includes but is not limited to the following principles:

1. Embrace the challenge of the presentation and opportunity to show your best.

2. Trust and believe in your message and ability to deliver it in a memorable way.

3. Get out of worrying about acceptance and results and into the process of connecting with the audience

4. Be audience-centered and focused not self-centered and arrogant.

5. Be prepared to accept surprises and be confident that nothing will upset you on the platform.

6.  Learn to be flexible and open and ready to change at any moment by reading your audience and listening for non-verbal feedback

7. Don’t just “wing it”  learn to love planning, design and deliberative practice.

8.. Love your message and audience–don’t effort or try so hard be authentic. Learn to be in the moment and play to your natural strengths

9. Respect audience attention span and learning capacity.–Don’t over load them with facts , figures and information

10. Remember — Perfection is a killer to spontaneity so be  present in the moment and  have fun doing it. Be your own best friend.

 

 

 

The Presenter’s Voice–Overcoming 7 Errors of ineffective Communication

” Communication between leader and constituent is at the heart of everything.” John Gardner

Process with Structure key elements: Process and principles trump techniques every time

• Deliberative Practice
• Curse of Knowledge
• Delivery and design Principles–Unique Connection

Seven fatal errors of communication– The biggest flaw with communicators is assuming that they have connected, their message has taken place. and people will know how to execute it.

1. People are listening and with listening the message has been internalized

2. People understand what was communicated–check to see if they get it.

3. People care what was communicated–Show people what is needed to be more selfless

4. People agree with was communicated–Communicator must over come cynicism and doubts

5. People are inspired and motivated take action on new ideas–Create support systems and models for change

6. People are willing to change their ways without evidence that it is the right thing to do–Provide facts and emotional reasons for change that overcome the fears of changing 

7. People are able to push pass uncertainty and doubt with only limited exposure to a message.–Need for continuous and frequent reinforcement of message by communicator

Daily Quote and Reflection:Sticky Presentations –Nail the Close

Daily Quote:  Winston Churchill once said: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

Reflection: We all could learn from this advice. Strong opening that hooks and captures the audience members curosity and a strong closing that inspires them to action. In my coaching I have seen presenters hurriedly do a summary, ask for questions while packing and other closes that flop or plop. The flop is a close that doesn’t impact the audience or reinforce your message like a quote that is not relevant to the message you want the audience to remember. The flop could be as bad as saying–”well folks that’s all I have to say.”  The “plop” is a remark that goes out to the audience but doesn’t get a positive response. It is important to close your speech with as much energy as when you open the speech. This is a time to have a powerful story that reinforces your message or request that is so powerful to move people to action or change their thinking.  This lack of nailing the close is an opportunity missed. For example,I recently saw a doctor when presenting keep looking at his watch and flying through complex slides just to get to the finish line on time. He ended is speech by saying, well I guess that’s all the slides I have. Thanks. WOW what a let downer and terrible closing that was. In fact, your last remarks when presenting are valued all out of proportion to the total amount of effort you put into the presentation. This powerful factor of audiences remembering the last thing they have seen or heard been studied by communication experts and linguist and is called the Recency Effect.

Action Activity: For your next presentation work on fine tuning your final message by practicing it in front of some colleagues and getting feedback on how it grabbed them or in what way it needs improvement. Some expert presenters memorize their closing and use the story format or quote to reinforce their message. Don’t missed an opportunity for your message to be experienced as inspirational, memorable and energizing. Remember your closing will be how your performance in the main is judged . Good Luck.

Daily Quote and Reflection: Oh shit–What a blooper. What to do?

Quote: ”The team that makes the most mistakes will win”- Coach John Wooden, UCLA Basketball

” When you make a mistake, turn your attention to what comes next. Focus on doing well, with full mind and heart. Look ahead, not back.” Patrica Ryan Madson    

Reflection: The ability to edit yourself and refocus is important when you make a mistake in any performing art. I hear a speaker the other day talk about the way to handle mistakes. He said we have two directions to go–

1. Shrink inwardly and focus on the error. Saying negative things like I really “blew that”  ”Oh, boy am I stupid” and other negative self-talk.

2. Find a way to stay in the moment,  self-correct and move-on.

I guess most of us would like to follow the second path. But how do you regain your footing and pull yourself together to go on. Most speakers use what I call “fillers” at this point-um, ahs, you knows etc. to get by.  The temporary pause can be embarrassing and confusing for anyone.

From over thirty years of studying and coaching I would recommend a device that Patrica Ryan Madson recommends in her little but powerful book called Improv Wisdom. She relates how to shake the tendency of self-blame and withdrawal when a blooper happens by thinking about the “blooper” as a wake-up call–to re-energize yourself and become more alert by taking this mistake seeing what you can make of it. I agree because nothing in live can be done perfectly.  My solution has always been to pause, take a deep breath and correct your mistake. Audiences are forgiving because they have experienced similar situations. The mistake shows that you are a “fallible human being”. The key to getting through this rough patch is to show flexibility and a sense of humor by accepting what just happened and continue to create the best outcome that you can.

Action Activity: The next time something doesn’t go well in your life–you get a flat on the way to the airport, the dog leaves a puddle on the rug, the birthday party was a bomb, best planned vacation was a disaster, you got slammed by your evaluations for an important presentation what is your reaction? Stop observe what you did and said and reflect how could you do better to handle your disappointment.

Daily Quote and Reflection: Fake it until you make it–Use “smart-steps” process

Quote: “Sometimes you have to try out a “new you” to discover what’s real and authentic. We can engage in pretending not out of fear or accommodation, but out of the courage to get off automatic pilot and try out new behaviors.”

Reflection: After an education and skills training session many of my participants have reported the difficulty of executing their new skills back home or in the work place. I often tell them to be patient and gentle on themselves. What I mean is that personal change and substituting new behaviors takes hours of practicing the new behavior, soliciting feedback on how you are doing and time to replace and unlearn old behaviors. The “smart step approach is what I recommend. See the wick blog on “smart steps” 

Secret to “Sticky” Presentation Opening: Capture the Audience in first 8 seconds

 On August 22nd, 2o11  I blogged about the critical importance of building rapport with the audience in order to connect and keep their attention and focus. I used a the following quote to open the blog “…the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships”. – Deborah Tannen. Ph.D. 

Now I have to revise and extent my remarks and viewpoint because of new information from the field of cognitive psychology. Recent studies by cognitive psychologists report that the key to keep a persons attention is only  8 seconds not 60 as reported in the past research. In researching the idea I discovered that the length of time the average human can concentrate on something and not lose focus is as little as 8 seconds. OMG just Eight seconds!  Sixity seconds, then, was way too long for getting attention for your presentation. You know how you hear something in a conversation and you lean in because you want to hear the rest of it? That’s what you want from your audience in the first 8 seconds of your speech.

If you accomplish that in those 8 seconds, they’ll give you the next 5 minuets  to drive your message home with no bull. It’s not establishing your credentials or reviewing the agenda.  It’s about what’s in it for the audience members to go listening to your message.

Connecting with the audience is one of the most challenging elements of creating a climate for an interaction and engagement :

• You must be ready to start with high energy and hit your marks perfectively so to keep the audience engaged and curious about your topic
• Connecting is all about observation and building rapport and empathy. To do this you nee to show interest and understanding about your audience needs and problems.
• You need to know how to effectively open-up conversations. The skill of improvising and be attuned to audience feelings and distractions help you to  customize your presentation as you go.
• You must find ways to engage and connect emotionally not just presenting facts, bullet point slides and logic.
• Having the audience answer why they are attending or interested in the presentation needs to be ask at least three times so as to uncover the members “unique” objective or goal for the session.

Barriers to Communication Skills Development?– Learners Willingness or Abilities?

” The greatest problems with…older learners occur with meaningless learning, complex learning, and the learning of new things that require reassessment of old learning. “ Merriam, S. & Caffarella, R. Learning in Adulthood.(1991)

Communication skills are often addressed in relation to abilities – the ability to listen, to accurately convey information, select the appropriate channel and to speak to others with clarity, respect and dignity.  As a presentation and communication coach I know at times their is a need for improvement in skills, but more often than not, the issue is not ability; it is willingness (attitude) to be open to feedback and to try new things .  At other times, it is true that adult learners must sometimes “unlearn” practices and habits they have been using for years. This factor is called the “curse of knowledge” by by adult learning experts such as Chris Argyris  Yet in the final analysis, people often have the skills or ability to listen, ask effective questions and share information; they simply choose not to be open to change (attitude). 

What are your ideas about facilitating learning and change with Adult Learners?

Daily Question and Reflection:: In Public Speaking–What’s more important: content or delivery skills?

What is more important content or delivery style?

Reflection. Of course they are both important elements of influencing others.  Yet I would say that content is more important because it is providing the audience with value in exchange for their precious time. If you don’t have anything meaning to say don’t waste their time. On the other hand brilliant content only gets traction because of an engaging and inspiring speaker. Poor delivery = bored and disinterested audience.. Some of the greatest ideas are obscured and not brought to light because the presenter did not connect to the audience or lacked credibility during delivery. It’s much rarer to hear about a great content-free delivery. Style and charisma alone can get you far, but will eventually lead to little motivation to change points of view and action taken in support of the cause or idea.

 

Keys to Presentation Mastery: Ability to Read and Observe Self and Others

“You can observe a lot by watching.”  Yogi Berra

Check your level of competence in engaging audience members:

1. Do you have the ability to note your audience needs and expectations?

2. Ability to red verbal and non-verbal behaviors in the audience and use these observations to clarify and challenge audience members in a productive way?

3. Ability to mirror non-verbal behaviors of audience members like body positions eye contact patterns of facial expressions and vocal qualities that reinforce positive message you are trying to deliver?

4. Ability to read and note discrepancies between your self and the audience and then adapt on your feet to re-connect with the audience?

After reviewing the checklist evaluate your competence by scoring yourself from 1 poor to 10 excellent ability in performing these behaviors. The ones you are able to do keep doing and the ones where you score below 3 or lower can become improvement goals for your next presentation. You will find that through awareness, repetition and practice your connection with the audience and your ability to influence their points of view and action will soar.