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.

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.

I recently asked a friends 23 year daughter – what had she found useful.

Here are her top tips:

1. Put time in to knowing your products in services – knowing your stuff boosts your confidence as you are able to communicate well with both colleagues and clients
2. As a young woman make a conscious effort to present yourself with grace and elegance (not sex appeal) when it comes to your corporate dress
3. Go the extra mile and show that you are serious about your career but have a balance between doing this and being the ‘office suck up’
4. Avoid being the ‘class clown’ – this may get you more attention and favour with colleagues, however it won’t earn you respect from management and could damage opportunities for promotion
5. In meetings take notes of what the leader is saying – this not only helps to remind you of key points but it also shows the speaker that you take them seriously and are listening to what they have to say.
6. It’s important to sound authorative and confident when conveying a message. Practice speaking with a slightly deeper voice, empasising key words and people will believe you are confident in what you are saying.

What have you learnt ? It is useful to share with other new colleagues – help set them up for success.

Now they have a new CEO who is much quieter and more measured. The members of the senior leadership team get listened to very carefully and ideas are weighed up on quality not presence. As a result the leadership group is working together much more as a team and presenting a united vision to other staff. Apparently, you wouldn’t believe they were the same people.

There’s an interesting Harvard Business Review article on this subject: The hidden advantages of quiet bosses . The authors assert that whilst extroverted leaders are the conventional idea of a good leader, their research showed that  in dynamic and unpredictable environments, introverted leader will often do better.  An extrovert needs to be centre stage and will easily feel threatened by staff who are pro-active and want to think for themselves. Quiet leaders often listen carefully and are more receptive to people’s suggestions.

The idea of the value of quiet leaders isn’t new.  We have poetry on a similar theme written in 500 BC by Lao Tsu., but dynamic unpredictable environments are certainly a major feature of today’s world.  Quiet leaders can really make the most of that uncertainty. Bring on the quiet leaders!

Whether you are extroverted or introverted, maybe the real challenge is to know your strengths and play to them, but also you must understand and counteract your weaknesses.  Don’t stand back and think that you are too quiet to lead a group.  Introverted is not the same as shy.

The start of a new year provides a fantastic opportunity to reflect on what you might keep, stop or start doing  to make yourself more effective.  Make reflection a regular habit in your life – and you will  become better at self coaching.  It doesn’t need to be two days away from it all in some exotic place (although great if you can), it can as much as 5 mins a day.  

 Reflection is a great way to review our experiences and how they might shape our thinking and mindsets towards future experiences. When you have a positive experience it can be affirming to reflect on what you have achieved – reward improvement, good decision making and acknowledge strengths. If an experience is less positive – it is away to understand what contributed to it and what you could do differently next time. For example if you left a meeting feeling frustrated because you didn’t agree with the outcome and didn’t voice your opinion. You could ask yourself – “Why did I not speak up?” “ Was it because last time I got shot down in flames or wasn’t listened to?

If you don’t already or believe you don’t do it enough – take time to reflect in 2011.

The conclusion I have come to is relationships and good old fashioned communication. A board may set the policy and direction to guide and govern a school or any organisation for that matter. However it is the Principal or Chief Executive (in the case of a school they wear both hats) that has to make it work. So therefore the relationship between the CE and the board (particularly the chair) is critical.  If like me you are a new chair or board member – a useful place to start is to focus on creating a strong relationship with the Principal. Their enrolment in your plans and ideas is key!

In deciding how hands on to be with day-to-day operations - discuss this together and work out how best you can support and guide as a board – especially when you have an effective and high performing person in the role of CE/Principal. Check in on a regular basis to ensure the Principal/CE is comfortable that you have the balance right.  Ask the question – “What could we (the board) do more of or less of to help you be effective in your role?” Is a good place to start in ascertaining this.

I would also recommend the value of seeking the input from those who have expertise governing in your industry. My colleague Lee Wilkinson provided a referral for school board governance on her last post.

…but then there is real life.  You may have a very formal speaking role where you have to get the wording exactly right.  In this situation, you will have to read the speech.

So really the advice is: Don’t look like you are reading the speech.

Last week I worked with a client on his introduction of a very important speaker at a very formal occasion. Aside from all the usual preparation elements, these were the three important steps so he would not look like he was reading the speech:

• Look up when you speak, look down to pick up the next sound bite.  This sounds very weird, but works really well.  You are creating a good pause when you look down and effective eye contact when you look up. This is sometimes called: ‘Scoop up then dump’. I don’t like that because it gives the wrong idea about the connection you need when you look up.

• When you are working on the speech, always read it aloud so you can get it close to how you would talk if you were just talking and not reading.  Try to recreate the natural rhythms of your speech.  You will need to use emphasis, stress and pace variation carefully to achieve this.  Read it out to someone who knows you well and get them to help you adjust it into your natural speaking patterns. This is the time to alter any wording that becomes difficult under pressure.

• Work out the meaning of the speech and the audience situation, then use your voice to create that meaning.  My client last week  was using contrasting pairs of ideas, from the very large to the very small. He could create that contrast by using a louder slower voice for the large and a quieter voice for the small. Really you are varying your voice to ‘act out’ the ideas.

Just one more thing: Use a large font for your lectern notes and keep the text to the top half of the page.  On the lectern this will enable you to easily see it without having to bend your head

There are some more tips in CommOn

The challenge is to find a different way of using slides if you are not artistic, zany or blessed with the ability to create pithy messages. Just this week I was working with a very busy client who had to rapidly develop a presentation on a very complex topic, including slides. All he could do was to simplify and thin out his slides.

David Gibson’s Trainer Tips useful fortnightly tips from www.Eureka.com recently provided a simple practical answer to this challenge.  I have reprinted it here:

It’s Official – Bullet Points Hinder Learning

I guess most trainers knew that – but until now it was just an instinctive feeling we had that we couldnt’t actually quantify. Well, Dr Chris Atherton, a cognitive psychologist carried out research using different formats of PowerPoint presentations – bullet points and ’sparse’ slides and found that the sparse slides returned double the recall of bullet points. Why? Because here learners are using 2 pathways in the brain, the auditory part of the brain which also handles the written word and a second part of the brain, the visual cortex which handles pictures. So rather than overloading the auditory cortex while ‘boring’ the visual cortex, you stimulate both. It also means that once the slide has been ‘processed’ by the brain, learners can concentrate on the spoken word.

So this tip builds upon that research and suggests ways to help maximise the recall potential of your learners when you have to use PowerPoint for some of your training.

Bullet Points vs Sparse Slides
Here is an example of a traditional type of slide that uses bullet points and a graph.

Chris’s research would suggest to maximise the learning using PowerPoint for this slide, you should use more slides with a reduced amount of text per slide rather than a single slide showing multiple bullet points. For example you might use several slides of just sparse text , or the same sparse slides including images .

How to maximise the learning when using PowerPoint

• Design your slides without using bullet points.
• Break slides down to a single idea per slide and ideally use about 4 words.
• Use an image only if the image ‘adds’ something to the content. Remove it if it’s there just to make the slide look ‘nice’ as this act as a distraction to your learners.
• Only put key information onto you slides, ie what you want your learners to focus upon.
• Make your learners work eg put a graph onto your slide but omit the axis number and have learners try to ‘guess’ the axis and the numbers, or in our example, we could include the text “Increases retention by up to …” and we could ask learners to have a guess at the number . In other words, remember to involve your learners in the learning.

To view a presentation using this method click here. Note, this is a presentation and I wouldn’t suggest you train using this style.

The actual research was presented at the recent Technical Communication UK Conference in 2009 by Dr Chris Atherton. Click here for further information on Dr Chris Atherton.

Call To Action

Design your slides for maximum retention. Do this by avoiding bullet points and ‘cluttered’ slides. Instead use multiple slides which include around 4-6 words and maybe an image to enhance the content.