May I wish you all very happy holidays.

I hope and wish that you are well and that your families are also well and that you are at peace.  A friend I were having a celebratory lunch together when we started talking about contribution and gratitude and it was suggested letting people know how I go about it.

My personal commitment to strengthening goodwill is in fact built into my way of life, it shows up all year. Each year I choose a group or person where I can use my talent to help them help themselves, whether that is mentoring, coaching or helping a student create a vision. This is my way of strengthening goodwill in the world.

What will you do this coming year?

Will it be listening to a troubled friend or helping your neighbor?
Giving time to a local charity?
Helping a stranger in need?
Listening to a family member?

A simple act of giving your expertise, time or focus to help strengthen the fabric of goodwill has tremendous rewards immediately, for goodwill is in your neighborhood. The way you interact with others, the way you treat your home, friends and loved ones (not just the money spent) but the time, the sharing of thoughts and feelings; all of these acts strengthen goodwill around you. What will you do this year?

I wish you peace, much happiness and goodwill,

Geoffrey

Technorati Tags: behavior, change, community, contribution, goodwill, gratitude, relationship, social commentary

Stories Power Business Presentations

Stories change the way we think, feel and behave, and understanding that is a key factor for anyone who does business presentations. It’s common to lose sleep over a story on television or in a book. You’ve probably experienced the motivational thrust that can propel your actions after hearing a story of someone’s success that resonates with you.

The power of a good story can convince and motivate your audience – and all effective leaders know and use this. Stories can create legends that drive the culture of entire organizations. Stories touch people, when facts do not.

Five Classic Story Types

There are several different types of stories sometimes found in business presentations, and although they’re not always clearly delineated and often intermingle, these descriptions might give you ideas for stories you can add to your next business presentation. Look for the classic “W”s, who, what, where, why and when.

The Who Story – Earn the Right

“Who” stories, stories about who you are, are sometimes told by the presenter, and sometimes by the person introducing them. There is often one at the start of a business presentation. They are personal, and speak to the emotional experience of the presenter, and they “earn the right” for the audience’s attention. These stories are often about flaws, mistakes, or challenges that the speaker has been through. When Lance Armstrong tells an audience that “Testicular cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me”, they pay attention.

The What Story – Teaching Stories

“What” stories are teaching stories, and may be about an initiative, a product, a company direction. They’re used in a business presentation to encapsulate and demonstrate a lesson about what is being done or should be done. These stories are often told as warnings, and can be a negative lesson about what to avoid.

The Where Story – Vision of the Future Stories

“Where” stories are vision stories, future oriented, and designed to inspire hope. They envision a future that is better than now. They follow the common themes of science fiction stories: “If this goes on”, “What if”, and “If only”… and present a vision of positive change. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is one of the most well known examples of this type of story.

The Why Story – A Values Story

“Why” stories are stories used in a business presentation about why you (or your company) is here. These often overlap a little with stories about who you are. They explain your motivation for doing what you’re doing, speaking to the audience you’re speaking to, or presenting the topic you are presenting. They help build trust and receptivity in your audience.

These stories are, at their root, about values. They explain why a company or person acts as they do, and where the boundaries of that person or organization’s behavior originate from. Here’s an example from the International Tree Foundation, speaking of their founder: “During his years in Africa he became convinced that the destruction of trees was causing the enlargement of the Sahara desert.”

The When Story – A Story of Historical Roots

“When” stories are often about values or principles in action. They may give examples of times when staying true to one’s beliefs worked for a person or organization, in the long term if not the short term. They tend to be origin stories or pieces of the history of the organization or person.

Stories Can Move Your Business Presentation Audience

Stories work to engage the audience on a personal and emotional level. Particularly if a goal of your presentation is to move your audience to action, strengthen the stories that are included in your next business presentation.

Technorati Tags: business presentations, Public Speaking, storytelling

No matter what department you are working in; marketing, sales, IT, customer service, or another department, chances are you will have to give a presentation at some point in your career. Regardless of the presentation topic, you need to connect with the audience. Here are some tips for giving amazing presentations:

Make sure the structure of your presentation is logical and that you deliver with the X factor in mind.

The Power of 3

The power of 3 is a principle in English writing that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things. Any reader/audience of any form of communication is also more likely to consume information if it is written in groups of threes. From slogans (“Go, fight, win!”) to films, many things are structured in threes. There were three musketeers, three little pigs, three billy goats Gruff, Goldilocks and the three bears, and Three Stooges.

The series of three is used to create a progression in which tension is created, then built up, and finally released. Similarly, adjectives are often grouped together in threes in order to emphasize an idea.

3 important things to remember about structuring your presentation are:

1. Tell them what you are going to tell them
2. Tell them
3. Then tell them what you told them

The primary purpose of this structure is to get your main points across logically, and provide specific sequence for you and your audience.

The X Factor

Many people, especially those with stage fright, rush through presentations in order to get through it as quickly as possible. This only increases your tension.  Enjoy yourself, make your presentation clear, and infuse some enthusiasm and life into it. This will help your audience connect with you and what it is you are trying to say.  Relax and speak at a comfortable pace in an audible tone, just like a conversation with some friends you are happy to see. Pace yourself, relax and allow yourself to have some fun, you may be surprised at how well this works, if you have fun, the audience will too. Oh yes – the X Factor: When you demonstrate that you care (X Factor: enthusiasm, intensity, feeling or energy), they care.

The X Factor: When you DON’T demonstrate that you care, they WON’T care.

This is an excerpt from my new book “Turn Fear Into Power”. Have fun and speak up,

Geoffrey

Get more info at The Speakers Alchemist

www.thespeakersalchemist.com

Technorati Tags: communication skills, corporate communications, Leadership, leadership development, presentation skills, presentation skills training, public speaking skills, public speaking tips

Tell me a story

We all tell stories, all the time, about what went on at the weekend, first date, hockey game, in fact we use stories all the time to convey context, meaning and our reaction to them.  Stories and the way we tell them provide insights into our individual and cultural values. In stories we find our history, our future dreams and our visions.

The stories you present to the world reveals your ideals and motivations. If you know clearly what stories you are telling about your life, your organizations, then you can understand past events and organize future strategies more effectively.

Campaign stories, success stories, life stories, the corporate history, motivational stories, problem solving stories, inspirational stores – there are so many story forms that we use.  The human brain is wired to work with patterns of information and variations in patterns. We humans make good use of the narrative pattern in stories. We engage with them, relate them to previous stories we’ve heard, remember them easily and retell them when appropriate.

Touchstone Stories

Often these stories are written down and published or turned into jokes or anecdotes or even encapsulated in logos, symbols and icons and often made into powerful movies. The image of the fireman rescuing a child during a firestorm is a good example of a story that has so captured the imagination and motivation all of us: that it has endured and achieved mythological status. It continues to motivate fireman everywhere and probably everyone who views it subconsciously creates their own version of the story, imagining what it would be like to be the character in that firestorm rescuing or being rescued. Touchstone stories like this one can inform an individual, vision, motivation, commitment and processes.

Just as important however, are the informal stories that are being told about our organization by our customers and staff. The emotion being expressed in these stories can tell us so much, if we listen.

Storytelling is also an effective way to present complex information for planning and decision-making for businesses. Stories are like road maps. Present a problem or a set of results in story form and it allows the listener or reader to leave the logical left hand brain in neutral for a while and go off on a creative right hand brain exploration of the possibilities.

Stories reveal. Stories motivate. Stories bind individuals into teams. Stories create solutions.

You and I are made up of stories

Always tell me your story, Geoffrey

Technorati Tags: communication skills, communications, corporate communications, Leadership, leadership development