In the 1920’s, legendary producer and director George M Cohan was coaching a young Spencer Tracy (Tracy went on to win two Oscars and had nine Academy Award nominations) in the rehearsal of one of Cohan’s plays.Continue reading
How to give & receive compliments
Recently at a café I regularly visit I noticed a watch on the wrist of the café person who was serving me. I was struck by its distinctiveness.Continue reading
An example where speaking short sentences paid off
Last week I was meeting with a general manager from one of Australia’s major banks. He had been a participant in one of my programmes several years ago. I reminded him of his Action Areas (that is, actions he needed to take/behaviours he needed to regularly practice to improve his personal communication impact).Continue reading
What not to do when you speak – a lesson from Bob Carr
Earlier this week I heard Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr being interviewed on the radio. I’ve worked with Carr in the past in producing the audio product, Choice Voice: Lessons from great speaking voices.Continue reading
Networking techniques ‘how to’
Of late, in my sales presentation consulting and in my Memorable Spoken Messages (formerly ‘Effective Spoken Messages’) programmes, participants have been asking how to improve their networking skill in their work.Continue reading
A message to help you when you don’t seem to be improving
Last week I was reading an insightful poem contained in a book entitled: Finding Inner Courage, by Mark Nepo (Conari Press, 2007). Here is the poem “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters” by Portia Nelson.Continue reading
Learn why the best presenter’s don’t need ‘props’
. . . you don’t need PowerPoint.” (Steve Jobs, as quoted in Walter Isaacson’s article, ‘Jobs well done’, Australian Financial Review, Review Lift-out, 8 June 2012, p. 11).Continue reading
How do you tell a person? (they need help)
I recently had a chat with a middle manager, during my work with one of my sales presentation clients. The manager relayed that she had just come from an off-site meeting where a senior manager in the organisation delivered a presentation.
The senior manager (the next level up from the middle manager) was reading the entire presentation and was ineffective in the delivery of the presentation. In addition, all the other senior managers presenting on the day did not read their presentation, and were markedly better that the senior manager.
The middle manager asked for my advice on how she might broach this lack of effective presentation skill with the senior person. We agreed it would be a difficult task – due to the senior position the person held, and to the high regard the person commanded within the organisation.
I suggested one way to handle this situation was to enlist a peer of the senior manager, to sensitively ask, if the manger was open to feedback on the person’s presentation and delivery of spoken messages.
I’d love to get your ideas/feedback on your experience with a similar situation(s) to this one, and on how the situation was handled.
How to give ‘bad news’
Recently some of my clients have asked me how they should give bad news. While there are different types of bad news, here are general suggestions for delivering a ‘bad news’ message in a business environment, face to face interaction.Continue reading
Why not to hand out your slides before your presentation
Microsoft has done a superb job of marketing PowerPoint. So much so that whenever a person thinks of delivering a presentation they automatically think they must use PowerPoint. This is a falsehood. PowerPoint slides are not obligatory for a presentation.Continue reading