Archive for July, 2005

Q & A sessions can get out of hand and lose their effectiveness unless the speaker maintains strict control of them.  It’s the only way that all the necessary information can be delivered.

Here are three techniques that are guaranteed to help you stay in charge:

1. Have listeners raise their hands if they have a question – just like we all learned in school.  This way, you can choose to answer questions as they arise – if there aren’t too many – or you can ask that the questions be saved for a specific time in the agenda.
2. If a questioner goes on and on, beating all around the bush and back, complicating the question for everyone, interrupt them.  If you don’t understand the question, ask for clarification.  If you do understand, paraphrase the question for everyone’s benefit and answer it right away to avoid further rambling by the participant.
3. Discourage audience discussion after a question has been raised.  The participants are there to hear your thoughts and experiences, not those of fellow audience members.  Don’t hesitate to interrupt the banter.  Move quickly back into your presentation.

Heresy you might say.  That was said a short dozen years ago when most considered the statement “image is substance” deceptive.  After all, image is a superficial thing, isn’t it?

Absolutely not!  In reality, image is a reflection of what exists inside.  A personal image is shown by many, many different things that a person does – what they say, how they act, how they look – each of these things count.  It is unfortunate that the word has such a bad connotation – probably brought about by those who would manipulate action and behavior in a deceptive way to accomplish a certain end.

These thoughts were triggered by a comment in A Passion for Excellence where Tom Peters said, “Perception is everything.”  This is true in the impact a corporation has just as it is in personal impact, so long as the perception reflects a true reality beneath the surface.

In considering our personal communication, the image we project under pressure is perhaps the most critical.  That’s why it is critically important to be aware of what that image is.  Meg Greenfield said it best in Newsweek when speaking of our “knowledge’ of our leaders in the public eye:  “We watch them intermittently and from afar, inferring from only a relatively few gestures and reactions what kind of people they are and whether they should be in charge.  Much depends on our intuition and their ability at a handful of opportune moments to project qualities we admire and respect.”

Image is substance.  Whatever message we are delivering rides the river of credibility established by those thousand little things that make up the image of our substance.

According to social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, author of Shyness, blushing can be a liability to people in business. A salesperson with the problem told him that it hindered his “involvement in many activities that my line of work leads me toward. Public speaking is out of the realm of possibility, small group discussions are rarely handled well, and occasionally, even face-to-face communication is difficult without showing signs of embarrassment.”

Another executive told Zimbardo that “the energy diverted by the shyness/blushing syndrome has undoubtedly prevented my movement into higher responsibility.”

Frequent and habitual blushers are called erythrophobes. Although women and young people are more likely to blush, it is a problem common to people of all races and skin pigmentations. Blushing usually has nothing to do with the ability to handle a tough situation. We have seen otherwise confident people show nervousness through blushing. And in some cases psychologist say that it can also connote low self esteem, low self confidence or unacknowledged shame.

If you’re an erythrophobe, for whatever reason, there is an easy superficial solution – cover up. Women can wear high necked blouses or dresses and a bit more makeup. Men can get higher riding shirts and specially tailored suits.

Depending on the root and severity of the problem, blushing can be helped by psychoanalytic treatment or behavior modification. There’s also another method, says Thomas Scheff, psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. This technique often works when you face the dilemma in a “real life” situation: Get your audience – be it one person or one thousand to laugh. If they laugh, the blush goes away very quickly.”

When Robert Kennedy first came to Washington as Senator, it was said that, “He hit the ground running, leaning forward.”

He was like that. So are most leaders in business. They have an attitude of “forward lean.” They are striving, moving toward something.

In our communications trainings, we continuously pound home the point that you can’t be effective in speaking just by learning about personal impact and techniques that work. You have to actually put yourself in the playing field.

Cicero said it best, “The skill to do comes from the doing.”

Sure, you need knowledge. Sure you need to know how you come across, what to work on next, what your strengths are and what areas can built up and made into strengths. But, above all, you need that attitude of forward lean.

I’m still surprised at how few people sit in the front row in seminars, or volunteer first – how few are stretching themselves as far as they might. It is my experience that those few who do these things are the ones who most often succeed. Note always, but most often.

There is one specific step that you can do a dozen times a day. Volunteer. Have that attitude of forward lean in the multitude of circumstances that come up when you can risk, but may not want to. Say something in a meeting, ask a question, phone in on a call-in show, sing at church, or be first up. With forward lean, you can’t go backward.