While everyone needs to be aware of their personal presence, as we take on more influential leadership roles, we  need to be even  more conscious of establishing our presence.

 The key to it is simple…..or is it?

Seek first to understand

The message isn’t new:  Great personal presence requires us first to simply be present to others – by listening to them very carefully. Steven Covey sums it up well with his quote: ‘Seek first to understand before being understood.’

This seems very straightforward, but most of us tend to go into conversations focused much more on our own point of view – what we find interesting, what we want to talk about and so on.  This approach certainly establishes presence, but of the wrong sort!  To develop a strong positive presence, we need to focus first on understanding where the other person is coming from in the conversation.  

 Active listening is the key communication tool for keeping ourselves present.  There’s a challenge though, because while listening appears to be simple, it isn’t often easy.  The process requires commitment and real discipline of our conscious thought. Sometimes we have to keep repeating to ourselves: ‘I really want to listen to this person.’  When we manage to focus in this way, we are truly present. There is a very powerful story that captures the magic of this combination in The Power of Presence and Listening: A Fellow’s Narrative by Musharraf Navaid MD, in the Journal of Palliative Medicine.

Aside from images providing faces and names, briefly explain why each person is included in the panel. Each panel member’s expertise needs to clearly add something special to the occasion and to fit with the whole.   As you introduce each person,you explain why Person B follows Person A and so on. In your introduction make sure you answer the following questions:

1. Why we are covering this specific subject, as part of the whole presentation?
2. Why we are covering this aspect now?

If you would like some more tips on other aspects of leading or convening a panel, there are some useful ones in Presentation Pointers

We often get asked the broader question: How can you assess audience’s reaction? There are the obvious responses of people falling asleep, looking angry, or walking out. But what about the more subtle responses? Usually if people are fidgeting or looking down most of the time, they are bored.

It can be hard to tell. In smaller centres in NZ, often audiences don’t interact much, but will stay on to discuss things  afterwards. In bigger cities, they may interact so much that you think you have made a whole lot of NBFF; then as soon as you finish, they leave!

Individuals within an audience may have unusual reactions.  Recently a client told me about a presenter who just used slides, each containing a great deal of information.  The presentation involved the audience reading them. Sounded tedious to me, but my informant said the presentation was fascinating, because of the interesting slide content. 

It is very difficult for a presenter to accurately read audience reaction.   You might think the whole thing was a disaster because you missed an important point, yet the audience may have liked it. At other times some of the audience may have looked grumpy and yet come up afterwards to say they thought it was great.

Some tips:

1. Ask someone before your presentation to give you feedback afterwards on the level of audience engagement.
2. Know your material very well, so you can stay mentally free enough to focus on audience reaction. 
3. If what you are doing is boring your audience, change it!

Recently a client was in a final interview and planning to make a senior  job offer to a highly suitable candidate.  Everything appeared to be going well, except that my client suddenly  became aware of a growing sense of uneasiness about the preferred candidate.

Follow up on that intuition

 They had conducted extensive interviews with the person; the referees were all glowing; when my client checked back with the rest of the recruitment panel they couldn’t understand his sudden wariness…but unease it was. Should he insist on pulling back, when up till then everything had checked out well; or should he trust their thorough process?

We discussed what had  happened at the two or three points when he got his gut feel. The comments were: ‘Oh, there was some  slightly negative body language in the candidate that didn’t align with what was being said…nothing much really…’  ‘Later on, I guess I just wondered whether the candidate would be as committed as we thought.  I don’t know why’  

We could call that unease ‘intuition’, but was it?  Gut feel or whatever you call it, I have learnt in positive and negative ways the value of trusting it.  Some years ago a searing recruitment experience decided me that if I ever felt a deep unease that didn’t relate to the evidence, I would at least carefully follow up on that unease.  In my coaching of a very wide range of people, I have found awareness of my intuition to be a very reliable indicator of what is really going on.

 I am very suspicious of ethereal versions of ‘intuition’.  I suspect so-called ‘intuition is just a bunch of minute clues that only we pick up subconsciously – then they build until we notice them as intuition. For more explanation of this, check out: Lifehack.  

If we define intuition as ‘perceptive insight’,  there some useful things for a practical person to tune into:

1. In an intense discussion, we unconsciously pick up very subtle changes in facial expression, skin colouration and nuance of tone.  These are only minute clues until they cluster around a stronger general impression that we then experience as ‘unease’.  Don’t jump to conclusions, but trust the feeling and follow up on your concerns.
2. When you notice a gap between the message communicated in the body language and the message in the words, look carefully at that gap. There are a lot of unsubstantiated claims about the messaging in body language, but research warns us to be alert around this type of misalignment.
3. We also bring to the communication our experience in similar situations.  A relevant but past experience might be almost forgotten yet still trigger an alarm bells in the present. When we think about it afterwards, we will usually remember exactly what that experience was…and its lesson!

Obviously you have to observe the other person very carefully. The weird thing is though, that  to develop your perceptive insight, you have to listen very carefully to yourself.  Be  very alert to your own reactions.  Trust them. Don’t jump to conclusions, but do follow up on your instinct, by asking questions.

 There are some really good tips on listening to your own awareness at a blog with the appealing name of: hellomynameisblog  

So what happened in client’s case?   He decided to insist that the panel take the time to check up on his concerns. Having taken legal advice, they went back to the referees and that turned out to be a very good move.  Put briefly: They re-advertised!

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This questioner said he needs to think things through before speaking up.  As a result he often leaves a meeting having said nothing. He has been told that colleagues believe either that he has nothing to contribute, or that he is disengaged from the discussion.  Can you relate to this challenge?

Often the easiest way to contribute is by asking questions and the questions can steer a group that is going around in circles.  Questions can arise simply from listening and enable us to contribute while we guide the group towards a more useful outcome. 

Goal oriented questions are one way to do this - for example:

• What do we need to achieve in this meeting?
• What would you like to be different when you leave this session or meeting?
• What is important for the end user of this xxxx?
• What do we want to be different about the customer experience?

Another simple intervention is to asking clarifying questions, such as: “What is an L.E.T again?” This will let people know you are listening.  You can also use summarising questions to ensure you have understood: “So for you to be comfortable with the new system you require more information on x, y and z?”

To be heard and  to demonstrate that you are involved – ask questions.  For some more suggestions look at an interesting article in the American Chronicle

Presentations or speaking to groups is something most of you do everyday at work. In meetings ,presenting ideas, or more formally giving proposals etc. The people you are talkiing to are not ‘public’ , unless you are a politician and thats another whole new ball game!

You will prbably be known to your audience, if not you will have been introduced.Yet some people call it public speaking.
This is not a toastmasters exercise, most of you will be presenting in work environments where the opportunity to speak is quite different.

Here are some tips for presenting (not public speaking!)

Always put yourself in the shoes of your audience-talk their talk
Know what you want to achieve with your presentation-what do you want your take home message to be? e.g “I’m excited about the changes and understand how they will affect me”.
Use as many live examples as you can
and be real-it is important you come through as authentic and not a clone.

It is 10 pm.  You are in your office on your own, making a technical presentation to an internal audience.  This audience is, however, spread around the globe and viewing your complex slides on their PCs.  Every so often a side conversation breaks out in a different office and in a different.

Tough presenting?  Yes and you can expect to do more teleconference presenting, especially in New Zealand and Australia.  The use of this type of presentation is increasing rapidly, because the technology enables huge savings of time and money and helps reduce the carbon emissions involved in air travel.   Unfortunately, the NZ end of such presentations is often scheduled at late evening hours to fit in with northern hemisphere timetables.

So, if there will be far more teleconference presentations, how can we make the best of them?

Get the protocols right:

Make sure that a facilitator is appointed to manage the whole process.  Get the whole group to agree on the etiquette that will be followed, including aspects such as: no side discussions, speakers always going through the facilitator and always identifying themselves as they start to speak,

Help the audience concentrate:

Take into account that this type of presentation is difficult for the audience’s concentration as well as your own. Help them with the listening process as much as you can:

1. Use repetition.

Plan to include a preview of your presentation early in your presentation, so the audience get a sense of what to expect. Regularly repeat key words and summarise the main points so far. Make a final summary near the end

2. Plan for variety

Structure your presentation so that it has a variety of short segments, with some differences in approach between segments.  Make sure your slides use varied visual effects and take the time to briefly orient the audience to more complex slides. Include some humour in your slides

3. Build a personal connection

Form a mental picture of someone in your audience at their particular location and imagine that you are speaking to them.  Create this impressions by using names of people in your audience. Ask questions that get the audience involved and as you ask them, use someone’s name.

Work on getting your personality to come through, so that the audience can get some sense of personal connection. Do this via voice variety, turns of phrase, metaphor and anecdote. • Use people’s names to keep them focused on your presentation.

Use plenty of pause. We do this frequently when speaking to a visible audience and you need to replicate this with your invisible audience.

4. Manage the logistics

For the audience, provide a PDF of your presentation online, in case the slides don’t show on their screens.  Keep  a paper copy of the slides handy in case the slides don’t show up on your screen. For a good personal touch, think about emailing a summary of your presentation after you have finished.

These teleconference presentations are here to stay, it is up to presenters to ‘get with the programme’.  For some more tips – on the technical side look at: chacocanyon and on the communication side look at:coachboz