Tag Archives: Persuasive Communication

04-Managing a project team, creativity methods, feedback, stress-testing recommendations, team dynamics, team roles

4 Ways You Can Drive Seismic Performance

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As I reflected on Professor Noonan’s closing remarks last week, I thought about how can I make a difference to my team. How can I bring value not only to my department, but also to my employer. Professor Noonan emphasized that everyone has the potential to make a contribution, to think of some process or task that can help drive results and improve productivity.

I came across this article on Forbes that drove home this point for me, “4 Ways You can Drive Seismic Performance”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericschiffer/2014/08/13/3-ways-you-can-drive-seismic-performance/

The article suggests the following key takeaways:

1) Face Yourself On the Stand And Fire Away – Step back and reflect on what matters most to the company to elevate it. It can be as simple as automating a report.

2) Act to Kill – This sounds a little violent :), but it is just a sensational way that the article suggests that you should be deliberate and consistent in achieving your daily professional goals. Act!

3) Commit or Go Home – Commit and do not fear failure.

4) Rewire the Jet at 36000 feet – Keep progressing even in the face of hindrances.

In essence, “figure it out” and “get it done!”

06-Building a case, 07c-Telling stories

FILM CRITIC HULK: Screenwriting 101 (The Art of Story-Telling)

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FILM CRITIC HULK is a unique writer who uses all caps and “Hulk speak” to analyze movies, filmmaking and the way we consume movies. He allegedly works in the film industry with his real name, and he uses the comic book influenced pseudonym for all of his critical writing. He put together a book length treatise on the art of screenwriting that offers keen insight on story telling in general. Beware, getting past the CAPS LOCK WALL takes some practice.

Instead of giving a book report, recapping all of Hulk’s points, I’d like to highlight a few points that are clearly applicable to story-telling outside of the screenplay medium.  The full post has seven parts:

  1. What is a Story?
  2. Where to Find Inspiration?
  3. 6 General Stuffs You Need to Know Beforehand
  4. How to Tell a Story – Conceptually
  5. How to Tell a Story – Structurally
  6. How to Tell a Story – Screenplay-Specific Instruction
  7. Now Here Comes the Hard Part

Hulk points out that, ” A GOOD NARRATIVE IS COMPELLING TO THE AUDIENCE, ECONOMICALLY TOLD, FEELS REAL EITHER IN TERMS OF EMOTION, DETAIL, OR TEXTURE, AND SPEAKS TO SOME THEMATIC TRUTH THAT YOU RECOGNIZE IN YOURSELF OR THE WORLD AT LARGE.” In the business world, this translates to making sure your audience is engaged in your subject and explaining it in a way with which the audience can identify. We all need to make persuasive arguments in the office, often to diverse audiences. The narrative that wins over a colleague to your point of view may not speak to your boss in the same way.

Hulk also points out that the most important force in telling a story is empathy. This is especially true when making a persuasive argument to a coworker over who you have no direct authority. Framing an argument as a story that the other party can relate to goes a long way toward getting your point across.

Hulk repeatedly derides constrictive structural rules when telling a story. Professors Noonan and Smith have mentioned the same point in regards to presentations. We covered the basic structure that would make a successful slide deck, but it’s important to bend the guidelines if it adds to the story or presentation.

I highly recommend all of Hulk’s writing, although it can get pretty long winded. Now I’ll just leave this right here:

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07b-Using good information design, charts & graphs, PowerPoint resources, slide-craft, story-boarding, tables

Being Intentional with your Data and Giving your Graphics a Voice!

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I have a particular interest in evaluation in the workplace– the evaluation of employees, work output, employers, etc. In the types of programs I’ve been in, I have found in very useful. However, I’m sure that most companies don’t have the time to thoroughly evaluate their work in a systematic and organized way. I have always worked in the research/higher education end of business, and so I don’t personally have experience with how evaluation works in the corporate setting.  How does evaluation look like in your industry or company?

A few years ago, I came across this site and I have been a fan ever since. The group is called Evergreen Data and they focus on intentional reporting and data visualization. I work in public health/higher education, and the public health industry is very data-heavy. Data in public health is used for analysis, program planning, grant opportunities, research, etc. and so I have seen the benefits of its use in my industry. What does your company do with its evaluation data?

This particular site had a checklist on how you should layout your evaluation reports which I’ve found super helpful! The purpose of the checklist is to help identify what parts of an evaluation report can be enhanced through the use of graphics.

Here are some of the items they had in their checklist:

  • Text font and size (sans serif and size 9-11)
  • Text uniformity
  • Line spacing (between 11-13 points)
  • Headers/callouts
  • The number of different types of fonts that you should use (no more than three!)
  • Don’t make too “strong” or “bold” of bullet points
  • Alignment (be consistent!)
  • Make sure that items in page that are grouped together are related
  • Utilize white/empty space!
  • Use of pictures/graphics – individuals learn differently from one another
  • Use color changes for a purpose (are you being intentional by choosing to change the color of a font or header?)

Evergreen also has an additional checklist that’s used for data visualization. It’s specific to making your graphs speak for themselves! This is a great resource as well.

What are some of the tips you have when creating reports (not exclusive to evaluation reports)? What steps do you take to have your data share a “story” or a “point”? Are you intentional in your decisions in terms of report layouts, font, graphics, etc.? Do you find that you have to pay more attention to this? 

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07b-Using good information design, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, charts & graphs, creativity methods, PowerPoint resources, slide-craft, story-boarding, storyline structure, tables

Alternatives to PowerPoint

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PowerPoint Alternatives: Will PowerPoint Ever be Obsolete?

Will PowerPoint ever be replaced?  It has become commonly accepted in the business world that ‘PowerPoint’ is synonymous with ‘Presentation’. However, when is the last time that you (or me, or anyone for that matter) questioned the validity of that accepted standard, or even gave fleeting consideration to using a different presentation platform or software program?

So, that leads to the question of whether or not PowerPoint will ever become obsolete, outdated, or replaced by something newer and shinier. In researching thoughts on this topic by folks smarter than myself (such as Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, in this article), I discovered a few things.

First of all, there are already many of alternatives to PowerPoint, and while they might not be household names, they can arguably match the functionality of PowerPoint, and perhaps even be more targeted towards your audience depending on the nature of the presentation. Some of the more popular alternatives to PowerPoint include Apple’s Keynote (which Steve Jobs popularized by using when rolling out new products), Google docs (free, ‘quick and dirty”), SlideRocket (great for folks in a sales environment), and perhaps most notably, Prezi (Intuitive, sophisticated, puts ‘slides in motion’, great for storytelling).

I am personally considering giving Prezi a try based on the positive reviews and feedback that I have read and would love to hear from anyone in our class who has tried the software first-hand. It does seem that one day PowerPoint might be replaced as the gold standard for delivering presentations, but that day is likely not going to come anytime soon, and we are likely better off improving our delivery method rather than changing the platform all-together.

So, what are your thoughts??

 

Articles for Reference:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2012/09/07/jeff-bezos-and-the-end-of-powerpoint-as-we-know-it/

http://lifehacker.com/5888189/five-best-powerpoint-alternatives

http://www.customshow.com/best-powerpoint-alternatives-presentation-programs/

http://www.powtoon.com/blog/10-best-powerpoint-alternatives/

 

 

07b-Using good information design, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, clearing slides, PowerPoint resources, slide-craft

What Not To Do

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What Not To Do (When Giving a Presentation):

While most of us know what we “should” be doing when it comes to giving presentations, we oftentimes forget what we should NOT be doing. I have realized over time that what we should vs. should not do are not inherently mutually exclusive. You can be doing everything that you are “supposed to” (i.e. following best practices), but simultaneously be making common errors that can limit the effectiveness of your delivery.

I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to checking the boxes for everything that a strong presentation should have, but I’ve started to realize that by diagnosing errors that I am more inclined to make, many of the recommended strategies subsequently fall in line naturally.

To frame this as a metaphor, I’m talking about targeting the disease, not making the anecdote stronger. I’ve found that this starts with getting back to the basics and building from there. So, what are some of the more common pitfalls in presentation delivery? After vetting several resources I’ve consolidated a list of quick anecdotes that I have found to be helpful to keep in mind:

  • Avoid reliance on slides. Slides are there to compliment your presentation and provide a framework, not the other way around.
  • Overload: Less is more. Too much talking and/or too much text will easily disinterest any audience, no matter how rich the content.
  • Avoid Apologies: If something goes wrong, there is a typo, you say something incorrectly, etc… JUST GO WITH IT. Odds are that no one else noticed and by drawing attention to it you are just calling out yourself (and your credibility).
  • Avoid filler words: This is public speaking 101, it sounds easy and we’ve heard it thousands of times, but it is absolutely critical. Unfilled airtime between sentences and ideas is okay. Specifically avoid “um”, “so”, “right”, and “you know” are very common and very distracting!
  • Going over your allotted time: Once you start to go long you begin to lose your audience. And once you even begin to lose your audience, it’s too late. This can cause the audience to miss your “big finish” and really tear down everything you’ve worked so hard to build.

While there are many more, these are just some of the most common problems that can hold you back from delivering the most effective presentation possible. We never get to a point where we are too advanced to worry about the basics. While one of these points are anything that you haven’t heard before, hopefully you will find some of these to be helpful reminders.

 

Helpful Resources:
http://www.inc.com/eric-v-holtzclaw/big-presentation-5-rookie-mistakes-to-avoid.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNG0etmnwuk
http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/12/avoid-these-five-mistakes-in-y/

 

07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation

Making Stories Soar

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One area that I want to improve is my ability to tell good stories. I tend to rely heavily on my ability to connect with the audience by using numbers/figures but do not spend enough time preparing simple stories that effectively relate my points. Here are a couple pointers to improve your story-telling. Here are 2 simple rules that I found from the executive coaching sit: Essential Communications. Please see below for the link to the website. Stories soar when you follow two rules:

  1. Tell us details of what people did, said and felt. Don’t hover over the forest telling us about the landscape; bring us down onto the forest floor so we can enter the landscape. Give us the leaves and roots and dirt. Details of what people did, said and felt pull us into the story.
  2. Connect the details to other details. The details of what people did, said and felt must connect to and influence other details of what people did, said, and felt. The details you tell us need to feel important. In order words, the details you include must affect the outcome of the story.

Other Tips:

  • If the details don’t connect to other details, cut’em out.
  • Does everything in the story have to be true? The answer is no. But everything in the story has to feel true. The details what people did, said and felt have to create a truth that feels authentic.

http://www.essentialcomm.com/tips/execcoachtips/making-stories-soar-030311.html

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, 07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 99-Applying business intelligence, team dynamics, team roles

Are you a Leader or a Manager?

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I took a class in undergrad about “Servant Leadership” by Robert Greenleaf. I started questioning the difference between a manager and a leader, and have been intrigued by the concept ever since. As I was interviewing for my current position, I was questioned as to what type of leader I would be in the organization.

I pondered, and proceeded to explain the type of manager I would be and the skills that I would bring to the table. I described that I did not feel that someone could place me in the role of “leader”. It was a position that others saw me as based on how they felt about my abilities. They would make the decision to follow, I could not decide that for them.

I stumbled upon this article in the Wall Street Journal regarding this very topic. It discusses the importance of differentiating between a manager and a leader as the concept of the knowledge worker becomes more profound in our society.

“The leader originates, the leader challenges, the leader is an individual, the leader focuses on people.”

Take a look at the article and see how your natural characteristics fall into the spectrum. I believe that leadership is a way of life. It’s a characteristic that exudes from you, both in the professional world and your personal life. Leaders are the people that I select as mentors. The fact that I have placed them in that position in my life re-iterates how I feel about their ability to lead and challenge me.

My father is a mouthy, Italian businessman with salt and pepper hair. He has drowned me in the business world from a very young age. Along the way, I have gathered a few Tony-isms from him about this matter:

“You can promote people and make them managers, but you cannot make them leaders. That trait is who you are. When it comes out, people will know.”

“The person who knows how and why will always have a leg up on the person who only knows how or why.”

He’s a deep fellow.

Decide the type of position you want to hold in the lives of your co-workers, and work towards being looked at in that light. These abilities will alter the way you present, the way you communicate, and the way you analyze situations.

I leave you with one final Tony-ism: “Be cautious not to take too much advice.”

Christine

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07b-Using good information design, charts & graphs, creativity methods, deliverables, PowerPoint resources, storyline structure, tables

Data Visualization – Tableau

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For starters, check out this video

I sometimes struggle with conveying my analysis (say, in Excel) into a presentation (say, in PowerPoint). The best way to capture the attention of your audience and to deliver an effective presentation is through data visualization. No matter how sound and detailed your analysis, if it is not communicated well to your audience then all of your hard work in performing that analysis was wasted.

Presenting data in a visual format can often be the quickest and most effective ways to convey results of your analysis and capture the attention of your audience. This can communicate a message that may have taken hours to develop in a matter of seconds if done correctly.

One of my favorite new data visualization resources that I am learning to use is called Tableau. Tableau is a software company that was founded in 2003 and does nothing other than data visualization. The company had sales of $34.2 Million in 2010 which grew to an astonishing $232.44 Million in 2013 and the company went public. It is now traded on the NYSE (ticker: DATA). It is extremely intuitive and the product looks amazing. Here is a great video that gives you an overview of the capabilities of Tableau (also linked above).

There are some really revolutionary and interesting methods to communicate data visually that are becoming more and more accepted in business and is thought by many as a way for companies to distinguish themselves among their peers. Often times my company might be similarly positioned to perform work for a given client, and I have seen that a lot of the work we have “won” has come from an effective pitch that highlights the strengths of our organization in a visually compelling manner that engages the client and shows that we can “give meaning to numbers” which is a skill that is hard to quantify.

I would be curious to get any thoughts on your experience with data visualization software and any recommendations you might have.

 

Other helpful data visualization links:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-data-visualization-revolution/

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/04/the-quick-and-dirty-on-data-visualization/

http://fortune.com/2011/11/15/how-tableau-software-makes-business-data-beautiful/

07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation

The Silent Story: Striking a Power Pose

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Stories, sales pitches, and every other form of communication rely heavily on word selection, but there is another key ingredient in the recipe: body language.  Our subconscious relies on more than just a string of words to interpret the meaning and depth of a story.  We also use body language to determine the credibility of the speaker.  The interesting thing about body language is that it has a similar effect on both the speaker and the audience.  An article published by the Wall Street Journal says that striking a powerful pose actually changes a person’s hormones and behavior, giving the perception of real power.  The power pose can be practiced before a meeting to start elevating the hormones conducive to a better performance and more confidence.

Professor Amy Cuddy of Harvard University presented a TED talk  titled “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are” in which she elaborated on her research regarding the impact of the power pose.   In one experiment that she conducted, individuals were asked to assume either a low power pose or a high power pose for 2 minutes.  The results showed that after just 2 minutes, there was a change in the hormones testosterone and cortisol, giving the high power posing individuals a higher tolerance for risk and the low power posing individuals a lower tolerance for risk.

So what exactly is a power pose?  According to Forbes magazine, a power pose can be as simple as standing with arms out, hands on hips, and legs spread open.  The victory arm-pumping in the air is another example.  Although very informal, sitting back in a chair with legs propped on a desk and arms folded behind the shoulders is a classic power pose.  Basically, the act of expanding the body can create a power pose that triggers the brain to think bigger too.

There is a proper time to strike a power pose, whether privately in a bathroom or publicly in front of an audience.  The mindset that is achieved through behavior is one of the most powerful tools that can be utilized in communication.  Your business pitch might just depend on that extra little bump in hormones.

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, team roles

Listen, Learn and then Lead

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2) Planning the Work of a Team, 3) Managing a Project Team

http://www.ted.com/speakers/stanley_mcchrystal

So I openly admit bias on my inspirational and informative reference (but in fairness most of my other Military Officer vets have incredible admiration for the guy). The former commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, General Stanly McChrystal, gave an incredible lecture via TED that is applicable to anyone wishing to take on a leadership role in a not just challenging environment but seek to implement transformational changes to said organization. As with many of my peers, I too have been in (and will seek post-MBA) leadership positions that have entirely different duties and responsibilities than my previous roles. From the transition from a Platoon Leader as a Second Lieutenant in a Sapper Platoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp5LqGCtzYI ) to my other less interesting (and more plans-oriented) positions I realized that there are certain traits that make leaders excel in any field or organization that they are placed in.

One of the common themes at the US Army Officer Candidate School is leadership is leadership: irrespective of your specialty or organizational level responsibility. It has taken years for me to develop (and am still learning in the corporate world now) but the key traits I have observed and am now especially cognizant of are best summed up by General McChrystal:

Listen, Learn and then Lead.

Reflecting on all the skills one learns during his or her MBA experience I believe it to be equally important to understand how to implement your ideas to fully utilize lessons learned from classes such as Management Practice. In the course of leading often skeptical clients or coworkers (or Soldiers and civilians in the General’s case), McChrystal suggests to first listen. Listening is quite possibly the most difficult task leaders have, particularly as we are prone to defaulting to preconceived notions on how the role and responsibilities should play out before we even arrive; this is especially difficult when compounded with issues such as generational differences, prior experiences and job diversity. Throughout the learning phase (continuous) the main goal is to build trust and rapport; people tend to work harder and with more conviction when they believe someone has their best interest in mind; this is particularly true when it comes to leading higher risk maneuvers or actions where the natural tendency is risk-aversion to prevent failure / negative performance reviews. Finally there is learning when to fully lead. “When in charge be in charge” is one of the idioms always taught to military officers; when you have demonstrated the listening and learning traits to your group this becomes significantly easier to execute. I have found these leadership maxims to be of extreme value regardless of leading Soldiers in warzones or my peers when implementing a new sales strategy as a novice to seasoned sales representatives.

The “Listen, learn and lead” design is paramount to a leader’s success, particularly of importance when leading teams with informational and generational differences.