December 20th, 2011 | by Lee
Isn’t it lovely for families to be together at Christmas…or is it? The thought is fine, but the actuality can sometimes be a bit different. Often, we convince ourselves that ‘this time’ we will do better – along comes ‘this time’ and we still all pick up our predestined steps in a destructive dance. Pity isn’t it? Family matters.
The Vital Smarts newsletter suggests an innovative approach to this seasonal challenge in their article titled: The Gift of Forgiveness. They recommend thinking about the stories we tell ourselves about family feuds. Once we have our story, the villains are fixed and keep to character. We, of course are always cast in the virtuous role. As the article says: ‘We can’t feel differently about others until we think differently about them.’ Change the story and you change the dynamics.
The Vital Smarts website was developed around the interesting book: ‘Crucial Conversations’. If you want some more depth before you leap into the family fray, this is a good starting point.
Meanwhile, all of us at Communicate wish you a happy (peaceful) Christmas and a great New Year.
Posted in Communication Tips, Personal Presence | No Comments »
December 5th, 2011 | by Lee
A client has recently been thrust into a role that requires him to be far more conscious and strategic about his relationship management than in his previous roles. His challenge is one that most of us face: How on earth to fit this aspect into an already very busy job?
In figuring out the answers to that challenge, remember that the people who are your key relationships don’t need you to be hand-in-hand with them every day. Despite the fantastic contribution you could make to their lives, you will just annoy them if you overdo the relationship building thing.
All you need is for your target person to remember you when you need them to! To achieve this, it appears that the client needs to be reminded of your existence in a reasonably positive way, about every ninety days. That reminder might just be that you have had a brief chat in passing, that you have sent them a useful piece of information, included them in an invite, or, of course, made direct contact.
Every ninety days is only once a quarter. Seems easy and the smallness of New Zealand’s population does make the process easier. Its also it, but surprisingly hard to do in reality. The more you can automate the contact the better. There is a Kiwi networker who does it by his Friday Joke List. If you meet him, he always asks if you would like to be on his Friday Joke email. According to his wife, practically everyone says yes. And there he has it: a regular weekly reminder of his existence. We don’t want everyone doing this, but you could find your own approach.
For some ideas, take a look at Robyn Henderson’s networking tips. Henderson is an Australia, so her ideas are likely to work here too.
Posted in Communication Tips, Personal Presence, Relationship Management, Time Management, Uncategorized | No Comments »
September 28th, 2011 | by Lee
I’ve always enjoyed reading Headlines – the national newsletter of the Neurological Foundation. If you are interested in the brain, its worth donating to the Foundation even just to get that newsletter. The latest issue has an very interesting article titled ‘The Brain – 10 Top Myths. The myth that relates most to communication is #10 Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
The author, Laura Helmuth, states categorically that there is very little difference between male and female brains, the few differences are minor and do not affect any ability.
In fact she describes the ‘Men are from Mars’ view as: “Some of the sloppiest, shoddiest, most biased, least reproducible, worst designed and most over-interpreted research in the history of science…” Now that’s telling us! And she’s no slouch – senior editor for the Smithsonian Magazine with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from UCLA, Berkley.
Helmuth says that the research about gender differences of the ‘Men are from Mars’ variety are strongly influenced by the beliefs of the test subjects. So all that handy stuff around spatial ability, empathy, who talks most and judging people’s emotions , does not relate to gender. Presumably socialisation has a big impact, but any gender differences are not due to the brain’s make-up.
When we are thinking about a communication challenge, don’t make excuses for the brain! Here’s a link if you want to think about this similarity in the context of your love life. You can expect yourself to be able to pick up on emotions plus shut up and listen – regardless of your gender. Now where’s something else to blame?
The other nine myths?
- We only use 10% of our brain: WRONG
- Snapshot memories are accurate: WRONG
- Its all downhill as we age: WRONG
- We have five senses: WRONG ( she mentions two other senses)
- The brain is hard wired and can’t be altered: WRONG
- A blow to the head can cause amnesia:WRONG
- We know what will make us happy: WRONG
- We see the world accurately:WRONG
Posted in Communication Tips, Conflict Resolution, Leadership, Negotiation Skills, Personal Presence, Relationship Management | 2 Comments »
August 28th, 2011 | by Lee
Imagine you are sitting in an audience. There’s quite a complicated presentation going on and you are attempting to follow it. The presenter is using a lot of slides with several sentences on every slide.
What do you do? Keep listening to the speaker and ignore the slides completely, or attempt to read the slides whilst the speaker keeps talking? Neither option works. Either you try to ignore the distraction of the slides and listen – hard to do. Or you can chose the opposite – while you struggle to read the slide, the speaker has moved on to a new topic.
Don’t try to use slides as hand-outs for the audience to take away. They are attending a face-to-face communication, not reading a book. Reading and listening are two completely different forms of communications, using different mental processes. Audiences can’t read slides and listen at the same time. In fact, If you have too much on the slides, they are very hard to read on their own, even without the complication of listening.
I’ve talked previously about how brief good slide content must be. Basically – hardly any words. Let’s face it: If the slides were any use to someone who hadn’t attended the presentation, they probably didn’t communicate well during it!
Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen has a good example of using speaker notes plus slides for a reasonable compromise on the slide+hand-out front.
Posted in Personal Presence, Presentation skills, Public Speaking, Speeches | No Comments »
August 26th, 2011 | by Janine
Why is it people still believe they need to tell a joke or two to make their presentation ‘come alive’.
Very few people are good joke tellers and even worse, presenters who know they are not that interesting (or even down right boring) think if they start their presentation with a joke somehow the speech will go well.
Jokes are a problem Firstly they are usually old . Secondly you can offend your audience if you tell a joke that is sexist,dirty,racist, religious,ageist ,etc. So really there is very little left in the joke cupboard
What works so much better are stories,personal anecdotes that may or may not provoke laughter but will remain in your audiences minds for a lot longer.
How many of you have been to a comedian and laughed throughout but can not remember a single joke next day? It is the same with presentations -we don’t lock in the joke ,what we remember is the story and how it made us feel.
Stories are an essential part of or human condition.We have stored inside us memories of childhood and the stories that are universally shared. These make the best content for a successful presntation.
So next time you are thinking of livening up your presentation leave out the jokes and replace them with your real stories and anecdotes.Then sit back and enjoy the audiences response.
Posted in Communication Tips, Presentation skills, Public Speaking, Uncategorized | No Comments »
someone there taking a photo of a friend with the statue. I’ve often wondered why the other interesting sculptures in the city don’t attract anywhere near as much interaction.
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