Life After PowerPoint!

A speech is like a house. And building a house is a lot like building a speech.

• A builder starts with a design.
  A speaker begins with a strategy. Why are you speaking? What is the purpose of your presentation? What is your goal? What do you want to accomplish? Who is the audience and what do you want them to do with the information you’re presenting? What’s the lay of the land — the event, the schedule, the room set-up?
• A builder pours a foundation.
  A speaker builds on an idea. What is your central idea, policy, or proposal? Is it a good idea? Is it sturdy enough to build a speech on? Is it clear? (Can you sum it up in one sentence?) Is it coherent? Is it logical? Is it supported by the evidence?
• A builder creates a structure.
  So does a speaker. Does the introduction create interest in the idea you’re going to develop and provide an overview of how you’re going to talk about it? Does the body of your speech flow logically from one main point to the next? Does the conclusion sum everything up and give your listeners a reason to take action?
• A builder adds support material.
  So does a speaker. What evidence supports your idea? How can you illustrate it? What images, stories, demonstrations let your audience see — either with their eyes or with their imaginations — what you’re talking about? What words, phrases, and sentences best give your idea form?
• And finally a builder paints the house.
  A speaker polishes his/her delivery. Where do you stand to have the most impact? How do you integrate your body language and vocal modulation and pitch with your message? Do you use pauses effectively? Do you convey a sense of confidence and command?

What do you think? Does my analogy make sense? What would you add to it?

Photo thanks to MVI at Flickr.

They say, “Experience is the best teacher.” But it ain’t so.

Experience, in and by itself, doesn’t teach anything. Experience is an opportunity for learning.

The experience of being a parent, for example, does not necessarily give people special insight or wisdom. It doesn’t inevitably make them more loving, patient, or understanding. Sadly, all too many parents are self-absorbed, negligent, or abusive. Being a parent doesn’t, on its own, teach people anything; it puts them in a situation, which has its own demands and rewards, where they can learn — or not learn – how to be a person worthy of being called a mother or a father.

The same is true about learning how to speak.

On the one hand, you have to get up and give speeches. There’s nothing like the experience of being in front of an audience and giving it your best shot. (That’s one reason why I often recommend that people look into Toastmasters.)

On the other hand, giving speeches — even lots of them — doesn’t necessarily make you a good speaker. I listen to experienced speakers all the time who are disorganized, confusing, and boring. Maybe you do, too.

So how do you learn from your experience?

First, observe other speakers. And get critical. By critical, I don’t mean “inclined to find fault or to judge with severity.” I mean “using skillful judgment to determine something’s value or worth.”

Pay special attention to good speakers. And notice what they’re doing. If they lose you or confuse you, ask yourself what happened. Don’t blame yourself. Try to figure out why you got lost or what they said that didn’t make sense to you. And when you get caught up in what they’re saying, take a step back and analyze what they’re doing. How are they relating to the audience? Do they tell stories? Do they use humor? If so, what kind? And pay attention to speakers who aren’t so good.

For example, there’s a speaker I hear rather often. She’s prepared and she has good things to say. But I’m almost always bored. It’s as if she’s lulling me to sleep. One day I decided that since I had to listen to her anyway, I would use the time to figure out what she was doing that I found so sleep-inducing. And I noticed two things. First, she was reading her speech word for word. It’s hard to project energy and vitality when you’re reading a speech. Some people can do it. Most can’t. And second, she had written her speech for the eyes, not for the ears. She used long, complex sentences. They would be fine if you were reading them in a book or a journal, but not fine if you were listening to them. (Okay, I’ll confess it: I’m a fanatic. I can’t simply say someone’s sentences are too long. I had to count how many words were in each sentence. So for three or four minutes, I counted. And I found that her sentences were 45 to 50 words long. And she used, on average, five phrases per sentence!)

So observe good speakers and less riveting speakers. And pay attention to what they’re doing, to what works and what doesn’t work. Ask yourself how you can apply the lessons you’ve learned from them. (I’m not suggesting, by the way, that you imitate them.)

Second, get feedback from people you trust about your own speaking.

I give that piece of advice with some trepidation. Much of the feedback I’ve received over the years and have heard other people receive has been counterproductive. People — even well-meaning, intelligent people — can give some stupid advice about speaking.

Here’s what I do. When people say something nice or not so nice about a speech I’ve given, I ask them to be specific. What did I do or say that they liked or disliked. Where in my speech did I grab their attention or turn them off? What was I doing at that moment? How did they perceive it? How did it make them feel? And I listen real carefully. Then, they go on to tell me how I could fix it, and I listen less carefully. All too often people give advice about how they would do something. They don’t have the ability or the insight to help me do what I do better.

Listen to people’s advice and analyze it. Try it out if it makes sense.

Finally, take responsibility for your own learning. (That’s the theme that runs through my first two pieces of advice.) Observe others, analyze what they do, seek advice, listen, reflect, experiment. Let your experience be the classroom. But be your own teacher.

What about you? How do you learn best to be a good speaker?

A great post from the people at CreativityWorks about metaphors and their misuse got me thinking. It is truly worth reading. (I’m using some of its insights and going off on my own tangent, so don’t blame them fo what you read here.)

Metaphors would seem to be the antidote to business buzz words, which are often abstract and imprecise.

Take ROI as example. “Return on Investment” once had a very precise meaning in financial services. It meant — and still means — according to Investopedia: “A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.” There’s even a formula you can use to calculate the ROI.

Now days ROI has lost its specificity and people in all different fields use it simply to mean “making more money (from your investment, your project or program, your effort, your time) than you put into it.” It has become, in other words, corporate speak.

You would think that metaphors, which are by their very nature concrete and specific, would be more effective and powerful. But they’re not. At least, not the ones that are so commonly used in business.

A good metaphor compares one thing — an unknown or ill-defined or abstract thing — to something else — something the listeners know, something that is concrete and specific. A good metaphor doesn’t need to be explained, since its very purpose is to explain or illustrate something else.

Which brings me to the metaphors that business people love. They all conjure up images, which is the idea of a metaphor, but they all too often fail to add insight. Their meaning isn’t immediately apparent. Here’s my rule: If you need to explain it, it’s not a good metaphor.

The 800 Hundred Pound Gorilla

My list of poor, overused, or trite business metaphors includes (in alphabetic order):

• 800 pound gorilla
• best of breed
• blue sky thinking
• boots on the ground
• bring our ‘a’ game
• carrot and stick
• down in the weeds
• drink the kool aid
• eat what you kill
• gone off the reservation
• level the playing field
• low-hanging fruit
• move the needle
• on the same page
• push the envelop
• raise the bar
• rubber hits the road
• step up to the plate
• stick to your knitting
• stir the pot
• take it to the next level
• tear down the silos
• the bleeding edge
• the learning curve
• think outside the box
• throw under the bus
• under the radar
• who moved my cheese?

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree that metaphors shouldn’t have to be explained? Do you take exception with any metaphor on my list? What metaphor would you add?

Photo courtesy of Weiter Winkel at Flickr.

I’m a big fan of Dan Roam’s book, The Back of the Napkin. (I’ll do a review of it later.) It’s all about visual learning, not the usual mindless approach that’s used to justify projecting lots of words on a PowerPoint slide. It’s about explaining what you mean by using simple drawings.

Here he is explaining his approach in his own words.
 

Here are two of my favorite quotes from the interview:

• “The essential element of communication is trying to get what’s in my head into your head in the fastest and the most efficient and most believable way possible…”
• “…there’s absolutely no more powerful way to communicate the idea that’s in my head into your head than by talking about it and drawing a simple picture of what I’m talking about it at the same time.”

Check out his blog, where he demonstrates what he’s talking about.

I always enjoy John Maxwell’s books. I’ve especially enjoyed reading and rereading The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and 25 Ways to Win with People.

John teaches both life and leadership lessons that he’s learned from his decades of church ministry and from his work with Fortune 500 companies. I find his books to be brimming over with pithy advice, real-life examples, and encouragement.

So I was happy to come up on his latest book: Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently.

It’s hardback, 262 pages, with a table of contents and endnotes (but no index). Chapters are 20 to 30 pages long, and they always conclude with specific suggestions for applying the lessons of the chapter in three different ways: 1) connecting one-on-one, 2) connecting in a group, and 3) connecting with an audience. Something is new in the book — at least I don’t remember seeing in his other books — Maxwell includes stories and insights from people who read parts of the book on his blog. Their comments keep the book well grounded in the day-to-day world of work. There are, as always, lots of questions for self-reflection and lots of great quotes.

Maxwell defines connecting as “the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them.”

The book is divided into two sections:

1. Connecting Principles
   Connecting Increases Your Influence in Every Situation
   Connecting Is All About Others
   Connecting Goes Beyond Words
   Connecting Always Requires Energy
   Connecting Is More Skill Than Natural Talent, and
2. Connecting Practices
   Connectors Connect on Common Ground
   Connectors Do the Difficult Work of Keeping It Simple
   Connectors Create an Experience Everyone Enjoys
   Connectors Inspire People
   Connectors Live What They Communicate

There’s so much to ponder in this book. I couldn’t possibly list all of the things I like about it. So, instead, let me just comment on part of one chapter, “Connectors Connect on Common Ground,” that I found so insightful. After listing four barriers to finding common ground (making assumptions, arrogance, indifference, and control), Maxwell then reflects on ways to cultivate what he calls a “common ground mind-set.”

He describes eight of those mind-sets: making yourself available, listening, asking questions, being thoughtful, being open, being liable, being humble, and being adaptable. (It’s like Maxwell to list twice as many positives — eight connecting mind-sets — as negatives — four barriers.)

The three pages he devotes to humility are, themselves, worth the price of the book. He disputes the common assumption that humility means thinking poorly of yourself. He quotes Alan Ross’s definition in its place: “Humility means knowing and using your strength for the benefit of others, on behalf of a higher purpose.” He then tells of a time when he was speaking at a conference where other speakers bombarded the audiences with their own success stories. (Professional speakers are all too apt to do that, unfortunately.) He decided, instead, to share his failures and blunders as a leader. And by doing so he forged common ground with his audience and, I’m sure, gave them much more to think about than all the other speakers did. He concludes the brief section with four pieces of advice for putting his ideas about humility into action.

That section is representative of the rest of the book: clear and specific advice, real-life examples, and practical applications.

I highly recommend Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Jon Steward of The Daily Show expands here on the NYT article I referenced in last week’s posting. He embellishes on the article in his own inimical fashion and then extends it to speeches from the movies Patton, Star Wars, and Braveheart. Check it out.

Last week I listed some of my least favorite words and phrases – words to avoid. And a number of people added their own.

But there are two phrases I hear all too often that rank at the top of any list I could compile of phrases to be avoided, derided, deplored.

It’s a toss up, in my mind, which phrase is worse. You decide.

1. “You probably can’t read this, but…”
Which means: “I’ve lifted a graphic or a spread sheet from some other program. I haven’t taken the time or the care to change it in any way before importing it directly into PowerPoint. It looked fine on my monitor. I mean, I could read it and everything. I didn’t think that an audience might not be able to read it when it was projected onto a screen in a large, well-lit auditorium. Oh well, too bad. I’m going to talk about it anyway.”

2. “Next slide.”
Which means: “I haven’t thought about how all the information I’m talking about ties together. I’m treating my presentation like a series of free-standing, independent slides. I simply talk about the information that’s on one. And then I talk about the information that’s on the next one. And so on and so on. I don’t sum things up. I don’t give an overview. Why bother explaining how the information is related or how one point connects to another? The important thing is that I communicate as much information as possible, right? Let the audience figure it out, if they can.”

I’m sure there are other phrases that rank right up there (or down there) with these two phrases. What are your least favorite phrases?

I always love lists of overused, trite, important-sounding words. The list from Lake Superior State University (found here) holds these words (rightly) up to ridicule:

1. Shovel-Ready
2. Transparent/Transparency
3. Czar
4. Tweet
5. App
6. Friend as a verb
7. Teachable moment
8. In these economic times….
9. Stimulus
10. Toxic assets
11. Too big to fail
12. Bromance
13. Chillaxin’
14. Obama-prefix or roots

My least favorite phrase — it’s been around a long time — is “to make a long story short.” I appreciate the concept, but in my experience people who use the phrase are merely pausing in the middle of a boring recitation to catch their breaths. They then continue making a long story longer.

What phrase or word irks, irritates, or rankles you?

Rowan Gibson is a global business strategist, author of Innovation to the Core and Rethinking The Future. In an interview here, he said something about developing new insights that I found well worth passing along:

The fact is that in order to discover new ideas and opportunities of any real value, people need to stretch their thinking beyond the conventional. They need to develop fresh perspectives. So the “Four Lenses” represent four specific types of perspectives, or ways of looking at the world, that innovators typically use to come to their breakthrough discoveries. They are
(1) Challenging orthodoxies,
(2) Harnessing trends,
(3) Leveraging resources in new ways, and
(4) Understanding unmet needs.

By using these lenses, or these particular angles of view, it’s possible to systematically look through the familiar and spot the unseen. That’s how you discover those deep insights that others have overlooked or ignored.

Blogging Innovation: Part 1 of 3 - Building a Systemic Innovation Capability - Innovation blog articles, videos, and insights.

Gibson is talking about building a culture of innovation into organizations. But I think speakers and presenters can benefit from using his approach — the four lenses — as they are developing their programs.

What do you think?

March is Listening Awareness Month according to the International Listening Association, and since I believe listening is by far the most important part of communicating I offer these comments…

Speakers and presenters do most of the talking during a program. Sometimes — during keynote addresses to huge audiences, for example — they may do all of the talking. But, if you’re a masterful speaker, you actually do an equal amount of listening. Maybe even more.

First, you listen before you speak. It’s called research or speech preparation. You speak to the meeting planner. You reach out to prospective audience members. And you ask questions. Then you listen, not to confirm what you already believe but to uncover something new and to begin forging a bond with some of the people you’ll be addressing. (That’s what listening does — at least in part: it exposes you to the thoughts and feelings of others, and in the process it creates a relationship.)

Second, you listen as you’re speaking. This is difficult to do when you’re just starting out. Usually, you’re so nervous that you spend most of your energy focusing on yourself. You’re trying to avoid panic, to remember what you’re going to say next, and to slow down. You can’t imagine what it might mean to listen to your audience as you’re speaking. But if you get beyond all that and tune in to what your audience is saying to you — what they’re telling you in a thousand different ways through their body language, through the way they’re looking at you, through the quality and nature of their silence — you’ll become a much more powerful speaker.

Third, you listen during the Q&A portions of your talk, if you’re taking questions. (With a few exceptions, you should always, in my not so humble opinion, take questions.) The ability to understand what people are really asking and to respond in an appropriate way is what sets great speakers apart from all the rest. Listen on as many levels as possible: listen for the factual basis of the question, for the emotions underneath the question, and for the intent of the question. And then decide which level to respond to.

Finally, you listen after you’ve spoken. Listen to what people say about what you’ve said. Don’t just listen for praise or criticism. Listen to find out how people understood your presentation. Did they get the main point? If someone says, “I really liked your speech,” don’t go fishing for more compliments. Ask, “What’s the main thing that you remember about it?” Don’t try to correct them. (You’ll often be surprised — I know I am — when they attach to some relatively minor point you made, and loved it.) Just listen.

(You might want to take the listening quiz I created and posted here.)

Are there other times or ways you listen, as a speaker or presenter?

Photo courtesy of Ky Olsen at Flickr.