Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How Henry became a VP without changing who he is

I’ve met too many people who have no personality left. It’s been sanitized out of existence.

I’ve met people who are afraid to speak up and are way too quiet. They say way less than they should. I’ve met people who are always apologizing for what they think and who they are (“I’m so sorry I feel this way …”).  I’ve met too many who are filled with self-doubt, trying to figure out “what’s wrong with me”.

And I’ve met too many “corporate professionals” who have learned to say and do all the right things, and then wonder where the satisfaction is in life.

Henry didn’t let the outside world influence him at all.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
Mastering “Direct to Camera” presentation skills

Jake, the executive I was coaching, was looking at the camera like it was a snake. He had come for coaching for what’s called “Direct to camera” presentation skills.

Many executives are coming here for this coaching because so many are being asked to make Direct to Camera videos. They’re being asked to sit in a small room and talk to a camera, with no actual audience present, to create a solo video that will be watched by 200 or 10,000 people. Many of these videos will be posted online for the public to see. I recently coached an executive who posted a video to 5,000,000 views.

It’s a weird feeling to talk directly to the camera. It’s not a “natural” skill.

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
The love we feel today

Me: “I just called to tell you how much I love you.”

Justine: “What’s wrong?”

Me: “Nothing‘s wrong.”

Justine: “Yes there is. You never call me in the middle of the week. And you sound like you’re about to cry.”

Justine’s my big sister. She was right. I was driving across the San Francisco Bay, on my way home …

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
One presentation strategy almost no one knows

“I don’t know if it’s possible, but I would like to be captivating.”

This came from Jeffrey who sounded like it would never happen.  He was telling me his goals at the start of the presentation skills workshop for senior execs their CEO had arranged. Jeffery is in Finance and no one would have described him as captivating.

Alan, the senior exec over Engineering, said, “Me too.”

The rest of the group all nodded, they wanted that too.

They all did their “Before” videos. They came across as brilliant, smart, experienced. None of them was captivating.

They looked at me hopefully.

 

By the end of the training, they were each not only captivating, but irresistibly compelling, and even charismatic. They came across as true leaders.

I’m going to talk to you about one of the things they learned that contributed to their transformation…

Coaching, Executive Presence
Ingrid Gudenas
How not to lose the audience … or yourself

I was watching the audience. When Arte walked on stage, they were looking at him with mild interest, light curiosity. It was his quarterly All-Hands presentation to 1500 in his division. Arte started:  

“Good morning, I’m excited to be here, I hope you’re excited about being here also. Today I would like to talk to you a little bit about…”
By the time Arte got to that point, the audience had lost their spark, they were fading. He didn’t see it.  By the time Arte got to the middle of his presentation, even to him something felt flat. He started to talk faster. He tried to inject enthusiasm, but it felt forced. He ended by telling a sea of polite but uninspired faces they had an exciting future ahead.

Arte knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what. He felt a powerful need to break free of something, but had no clue what was binding him and holding him back.

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How to disagree

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Laura:  "I would like to make a change in the process to improve it."

Me:  "We’ve always done it this way, it's been working fine. I don’t see why we need to change it now."

Laura:  "I understand." 

(Said coldly, with absolutely no understanding in tone of voice)

I was coaching Laura how to acknowledge others. As she practiced scenarios that were challenging for her, like the one above, her words were right, but her tone destroyed her acknowledgement. 

Your tone of voice is MUCH more important than your words.  Your tone of voice reflects what you're really thinking and you can't fake it. 

I asked Laura, "You said you understand.  DO you understand?"

Laura laughed and said, "No! I can't understand it!"

I said, "How come?"  Laura said, "I think what they’re saying is a really stupid reason."

I said, "Oh! You’re too busy disagreeing to understand!" 

Laura laughed and said, "Precisely!”

And this is what happens between people.  When they don’t agree, they withdraw their understanding.

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The power of one person listening

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Nothing changes a person faster than the way you listen to them.

One of my students, Carl, has a coworker named Marty. Marty is loud, stubborn, arrogant, and acts like he is the only one who knows the right way to do anything, whether he does or not.  Marty also says, “No” when you ask him for resources, time, help, anything.

Marty has managed to alienate just about everyone. He also talks a lot.  When he starts to talk, people leave.  If there's no escape, they endure Marty’s speeches, but always with a look of pain on their faces. 

No one has managed to get Marty to listen.  Every point they make about an issue triggers a counter-point from Marty that easily turns into an argument if they respond to it.

The problem is that Marty has influence and he can't be ignored.  People like Carl rely on him for resources and cooperation.  Marty's been there a long time, he’s knowledgeable, he’s just utterly unwilling to hear to anyone else's viewpoint. 

As Carl asked me for help, it was obvious to me that Marty was unable to receive ANY incoming communication from others – he rejected all of it.

I also knew that no one was listening to Marty. They already “knew” what he was saying was wrong, so they would shut him out the moment he started talking and not hear him. They didn't realize they were doing the exact same annoying thing to Marty that he was doing to them.

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Pulling a star down from the sky

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“Hi Ingrid,

Just wanted to let you know I’ve been promoted to VP, due in no small part to your coaching. I wanted to thank you. I’m looking forward to great things ahead.

Sincerely, Henry”

I got this email this week. It’s the email I love getting, when my clients reach for the stars in the sky and experience the powerful satisfaction of pulling one down.

I especially smiled big on this one. I remembered how it all started.

 Tom, an SVP, that I’m coaching, told me, “I have someone reporting to me that I want to send to you. I want to promote him to VP but let me tell you what’s happening.  Henry’s been with the company for over 20 years and deserves to be a VP.  He rubbed me the wrong way when I first met him, but then I saw what a good job he does. He’s really good at getting business results.  I talked to the Executive Vice President but he nixed Henry’s promotion to VP because of his communication skills – he spent 20 minutes talking about how terrible they are. Henry has no executive presence, he rubs a lot of people the wrong way, he thinks he knows everything, he’s smug, dismissive, he interrupts, he’s always rolling his eyes when others offer up their ideas.  He shows up for virtual meetings in shorts, tank top and bare feet.  He leans back in his chair when others are talking and looks totally disinterested and even disgusted.  It’s hard enough to become a VP in this company, but Henry really has the deck stacked against him.  I want you to help him if he’s willing.”

The first time I met Henry, he said, “I’m open to trying your coaching, but I gotta warn you - this is not going to be easy. I’ve had coaching before, and I hated it. They keep trying to change me and I’ve got to be me. I don’t know how you’re gonna do it. I am me and I don’t want to be anybody else and I’ve gone through life feeling like if they don’t like it, it’s their problem.” 

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Why "trendy terminology" destroys communication

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I was watching a video of a live presentation by Mark, the CEO of a major corporation with more than 40,000 employees.  Mark was visibly and painfully uncomfortable.  Worse yet, he was making a fool of himself.

Mark had heard about me and reached out with a request that I coach him on his presentation skills.  He had his Chief of Staff send me a couple of his recent videos to watch in advance “to see what he’s doing wrong”. 

Mark knew something was clearly wrong.  In our initial conversation, Mark told me, “The more feedback I get, the worse I’m getting.  I need someone to straighten this out for me.  I may not be the best public speaker in the world, but there’s no reason I need to be the worst.”

I started our first coaching session wanting to understand what was going on in his mind. I asked Mark, “What were you trying to do up there?”

Mark answered, “I’ve been given feedback that as a CEO I need to be vulnerable, and that I also need to be more passionate. That’s what I was trying to do.” 

I asked, “What does that mean?  Vulnerable and passionate?”

Mark looked at me, and with great pain in his eyes said, “I have no idea.”

Well, there you go.  Mark was trying really hard to execute something that was completely incomprehensible and confusing.

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A "thank you" to these rock stars of corporate America

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Executive:

“Regarding that conference in Miami next week, I changed my mind and decided to go after all.  I want to stay in that fabulous hotel everyone talks about.  I know I’m booking that hotel at the last minute and I know the hotel is completely sold out and has been for weeks, but I need you to get me a suite there with a king-sized bed, with an ocean view and make sure it’s far from the elevators and above the seventh floor.”

Executive Assistant (60 minutes later):

“You’re all booked.  Room 1050.  Refrigerator will be stocked with all your favorites. And I let them know you’ll be checking in late and to hold the room no matter what.”

My article today is a tribute to my heroes in the corporate world: Administrative Professionals, also known as Administrative Assistants and, at the higher levels, Executive Assistants.  It’s especially appropriate today, because today is Administrative Professionals Day.

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Activating your power to inspire

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Alan has been giving “All-Hands” presentations to the 1500 people that report to him. His organization has over 80,000 people. They’re currently getting hammered in the news. The company has been struggling, trying to recover from mistakes made by the then-CEO five years ago.  Unfortunately, they’ve just had to announce layoffs.  There’s a tremendous amount of re-organization and re-shuffling happening. Where people will land is up in the air.  The future of the organization is uncertain and morale is at an all-time low.

Alan’s group has been the only one that’s been inspired. Why are they inspired? In the midst of all this, there is one reason only:  Alan is inspiring them.

This wasn’t always the case.

When Alan came to me for coaching, his desperate “pep talks” had been falling flat.  Alan said, “If I don’t inspire them, I’ve lost them. I need them inspired, aligned, engaged, and enthusiastic. I know it’s impossible, but I need them to stop listening to the news, to tune out what’s happening in the rest of the organization and focus on what we need to be doing.  I haven’t been able to get them to see it, but I know we can make a difference.”

That’s a difficult assignment when the only conversation in the halls is the latest trash in the news, who got laid off, who’s afraid of getting laid off, how all the “good people” are leaving, the shattered trust in management and loss of faith in the vision.

Alan wanted to be MORE than just understood.  That wasn’t enough.  He wanted to inspire. Many people who come to me for coaching want that.

It’s an important ability for a leader to have, at any time.

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How to create transformation without having to speak

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“I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate our conversations. It’s an honor to work for you.”

This is what Ann told Patrick after their third conversation. It might seem like a natural thing to say to a very good manager. But let me fill you in on the actual context.

Patrick is a Vice President. Ann was a Senior Director reporting to him and she wasn’t cutting it.  Ann had been promoted prematurely, wasn’t qualified and was falling short on key projects.

Patrick would never have put Ann in her role, would never have promoted her to a senior level. Patrick had inherited Ann from previous VPs and others who continuously promoted Ann, despite the fact that her results were always sketchy at best.  She had never been held accountable.  Now it was Patrick’s problem as he took over as her new VP.

After his initial assessment, Patrick’s three conversations with Ann were intense. The first was when he told her he was demoting her from Senior Director to “Individual Contributor”.

“Individual Contributor” is a nice term that is used to mean no one reports to you.

Patrick told me, “I walked in to our first conversation prepared. I knew it was going to be a tough conversation and I walked in ready for it.”

It would have been very different even one month ago.  Patrick would have confronted Ann with the blunt facts of the situation, very directly, a very “no nonsense” approach, a very “deal with it and let’s move on” kind of attitude.  And Patrick would have gotten a very different reaction and a very different employee.

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The magic of trading in small problems for big problems

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Susan was sent to me by her boss. She is a very competent Senior Director and they want to prepare her to become a Vice President.

The Senior Vice President told me that what is holding Susan back is that, “She doesn’t have enough executive presence and she doesn’t come across like a leader. She is very confident in what she does, but she doesn’t have that leadership quality and that executive presence needed at the senior level.”

It turns out Susan was terrified of communication. Especially with her peers, the other Senior Directors, who intimidated her. Even worse with people higher up. When she faced an upcoming meeting, Susan was stressed solid the whole week leading up to it and did not sleep at all the night before.

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How to defuse arguments before they even begin

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It was a pleasant afternoon and I had a pleasant book….

I was sitting with an exquisite cup of white tea in a beautiful local tea shop. They serve delicious teas made from leaves growing on ancient trees, picked by hand in the Spring and then lovingly hand-processed on very small family farms in very remote regions of China. 

My environment was perfect.

At the table next to me sat a couple.

The man was in quite a pleasant mood. He was telling the woman about something that had happened that morning. He was enjoying talking with her and enjoying the telling. He finished and smiled at her.

The woman spoke: “Why didn’t you ask her? I would have thought that would have been the first thing you would have asked her.”

The woman’s question seemed polite, but her tone of voice had a slight edge, an unspoken quality of “I’m trying hard to be very polite, but I really don’t get how you could have done something so wrong.”

 I’m sure she was completely unaware of her tone. Most people are.

I picked up my book and pretended to read because I knew where this conversation was going. I didn’t even know what they were talking about, but I knew they were headed for a fight.

Can you see how the question itself makes him wrong?  I knew he was going to defend what he did.  In other words, he was going to get “defensive”.

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How to be the authority, even if the CEO is in the room

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Sam was about to enter the room to give his 3rd quarterly presentation to the Board of Directors of a $50 billion multinational corporation.

The presenter before him had 45 minutes and came in with 79 slides. No surprise, they ran over their time.  By the time Sam walked in they said, “Hurry up, come on in, we’re running late, let’s get started.”

Sam walked in thinking he’d find the same room he’d experienced in his two previous Board meeting presentations.  He was completely unprepared to find four times as many people in the room.

The person ushering Sam in was trying to move him to his seat very quickly. Sam started to ask a question, someone cut him off and said, “Let’s just get started, we’re running late.”

Sam felt off kilter, but started anyway, rushing, going a little too fast, talking too much, trying to get it all in, looking around, trying to find faces he knew to connect with in the crowd, feeling totally off.

A CEO of a major corporation, new on the Board, interrupted Sam and said, “I want to challenge one of the points you just made.” and asked Sam a somewhat hostile question.  Sam knew the answer, but he stumbled and was awkward. The CEO said, “That’s not a good enough answer, I need more specifics.”  Sam recovered somewhat and answered with more specifics. The CEO didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look satisfied either.

A week later Sam showed up for Executive Coaching with me and asked, “How should I have handled this? It was dreadful!”

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Your power to create deep human connection

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Sally: “I can’t!”

Kevin: “It’s really hard!”

Mark: “I feel totally uncomfortable doing it.”

Mary: “I’m afraid people are going to think I’m weird.”

Phillip: “I don’t want to make people uncomfortable.”

I’m only giving you five examples, but I have hundreds, and probably 30 from just this week alone.

What terrible thing have I asked these people to do?

Lately, I’ve been coaching a lot of executives, leaders and people in leadership development programs. These are competent, capable, strong, courageous professionals with proven track records.

And they struggle with this.

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The secret to creating an aura of success

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Kendra was giving a sales presentation to VIP prospects. She was explaining why her company would outperform the competition and why they were a better choice as a partner, even though they were newer and not as well-known. The message was powerful. She was saying things like, “We’re best at … We have the highest record of … No one can match our…”

Her words were well crafted and she was beautifully dressed. But her overall body language was unmistakably expressing a suppressed anxiety, a “I hope you believe me, I hope this works. Are you getting what I’m saying? Do you believe me?”  It was a bit tense, with a very slight nervousness.

The prospects were sitting there listening, no expressions on their faces. Kendra became progressively deflated as she went along, and then ended weakly with, “Well that about sums it up. Those are all of our strengths as a partner and we hope to do business with you.  Let me know if you have any questions.”

They chose the competitor.

When Kendra showed up for the Transforming Your Presentation Skills workshop, she explained to me that her company actually IS the best in the industry and why. It was clear she has a compelling story, and I mean really compelling.

Her delivery, on the other hand, inspired sympathy, not success.

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The day I helped an engineer perform a miracle

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I was part of the audience watching Louis present. The audience was listening, but unmoved. Louis could feel that and was suffering.

Until recently, his career had been focused on the engineering technology that was the core of his company’s success in the high-tech industry. He had now been promoted two levels up and his presentations were no longer to other engineers. They were now business presentations, not technical presentations. All the details that had made Louis an expert within the engineering community were uninteresting to his new audience of executives. Louis felt like a fish out of water. The senior executives he was presenting to looked and felt like a panel of cold, unresponsive strangers.

Louis had two goals when he began the Transforming Your Presentation Skills workshop, two skills he wanted to learn: how to keep his audience engaged and how to be persuasive. Louis felt both were impossible for him to ever achieve.

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You had me BEFORE “Hello”

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We've all heard the expression, “You had me at ‘Hello’.”  That sounds pretty good.  But when it comes to giving presentations, for a real winner that's way too late.  The really GREAT communicators will have you before they say “Hello”.

You see them standing there and, well BEFORE they ever say anything, you can SEE there's something different about them. 

Their poise, their dignity, their self-assuredness, their utter calm, make them stand out.

They don’t look like “normal” people.  They have presence.  They own the room.

It takes you in the audience only a split second to see all that.  Enough that you're intrigued, captivated, leaning forward a little to catch their words.

They have you well before, “Hello.”

This is the hallmark of a great communicator.

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“They” want me to…

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Jennifer: “They’re only giving me two minutes in front of senior leadership to present this big idea! TWO minutes! I need your help! How do you present this in two minutes?”

Me: “Let’s take a step back. What do you really need?”

Jennifer: “I need 20 minutes!”

Me: “Good.  Why don’t we work on how to successfully communicate so that you get the 20 minutes?”

Jennifer: “Oh my gosh, could I do that?  That’s what I really want!”

Brad: “I’ve been waiting for this promotion for so long and I went to talk to my boss about it and he wants to give me a stretch assignment that has nothing to do with where my career is headed. I feel like I’m going backwards and being seriously delayed. And I’m going to be heading up a team that’s dysfunctional!  How do I convince them to get this project done, and do it fast so I can get this stretch assignment over and get back on track?”

Me: “How about if we develop the skills you need to get your boss to see that there’s a better idea than the stretch assignment and that is to promote you to vice president?”

Brad: “Oh, wow! Could we do that? That’s what I really want!”

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times, in my coaching sessions, I help a person achieve, NOT the goal they initially state, but the real goal they actually have.

Moral of the story: To be truly causative you need to make sure you are working on the goal you want to achieve, not a goal someone has given you. 

This is how people sacrifice their integrity and their basic purpose, bit by bit, until they are running under someone else’s control.  It never goes well.

These are tricky situations that take a lot of skill. Getting others to agree with you.  Getting others to change direction.  Getting others enthusiastic about cooperating with you.

People think that when they rise to positions of authority, they’ll have more control. The opposite is true:  When you have more control, you will rise to a position of authority.

You don’t need authority.  You need skills. 

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How to speak with your eyes…

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Do you have a favorite photo of you? 

If you’re like most people, you have many photos of you that you’re not crazy about, and only a small handful you like. 

That photo of you that you really like captures for forever something wonderful about you.  It’s the one photo of you that makes even you smile.  You know the one I mean.

A really good photographer knows how to bring that out in you.  That’s what I do while coaching people.  I help bring something amazing out of each of them.  My genius is in knowing how.  In this article, I want to help you see WHY you like that photo of you and why you hate the others.  And how to bring that amazing quality out of yourself and loving how you look, especially when you’re giving presentations.

I’m going to use Alessandro as an example.  Alessandro is a senior executive I coached this week, helping him prepare for a presentation he’ll be making for an audience of thousands. 

As a high level executive and technical leader, Alessandro has a unique 40,000-foot view of the industry and the future of the industry.  He’s super smart and he’s innovative.  None of this come across. 

Alessandro comes across “corporate” and dry.  Disappointingly uninspiring.  After 3 minutes, you’ll wish it was over.

How do you bring out the charisma of someone like this?

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The alternative to being confrontational

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Anita and Kevin made everyone in the meeting uncomfortable. Their disputes were legendary.  As the heads of different departments, they stubbornly fought for what they believed were conflicting priorities. They argued even the smallest points. Neither one would give in an inch.

Attending a meeting with them was torture.

Anita’s boss finally told her it was affecting her career. Although she was a top performer, her confrontational approach was forever going to stop her from getting promoted to Senior Director and then VP, her passionate objective.

It didn’t matter how “right” Anita was, or the fact that she “won” every argument and was ultimately proven right, people flinched when she was in the room.

Anita couldn’t believe they wouldn’t promote her!  “How can they justify holding me back when my performance is outstanding?!!!!  I’m only doing what they told me to get done!!!!”

That’s how Anita found herself in front of me.  A strong, smart woman in a super dilemma. What should she do when she was right, the other person was wrong and they wouldn’t back down?

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Living the magical life of an expert communicator

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Jesse is used to doing the impossible. He just applied for a position that everyone told him he couldn’t get.  He’s been told many times that “usually” people need to “prove” themselves for several years before they’re considered for these higher levels. 

 Jesse long ago decided that “usually” was not for him.

 He applied for the position … and got it.  Right away too, I might add.

 Jesse has gotten every position he’s applied for in the last 5 years, and there have been a good number.  Many more than “usual”.  His career is on the fast track.

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The solution to thinking under pressure

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I have a client in my life who makes unreasonable requests. I know, you’re thinking, “You’re lucky it’s just one unreasonable person in your life!”  Well, there are more, but this is about a particularly prickly one. 

The requests are always over the top, and sometimes they're impossible.  At a minimum, they're "make-your-team-bend-over-backwards-to-make-this-happen".

I was always caught off guard by his demanding and harsh attitude. I used to try to reason with him, but was always a little off balance.  I never came out of the meeting feeling good. Afterward I was always thinking, "Oh, I should have said ....."

I think it was uncomfortable for him too.

I decided one day, "No more of that!" (I hate feeling like an idiot.) I realized I wasn't giving myself time to think through what he was asking. My immediate reaction was always, "You have got to be kidding!" and I never had time for a second thought before he was demanding an immediate answer.

So, I changed my operating basis.

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The look in your eyes

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The look in your eyes tells me everything I need to know.  Way in advance of it happening, I can tell by the look in your eyes if you are going to win, barely maintain, or lose.

What is it I see?  I see the strength of your intention.  It tells me everything about how it’s going to turn out for you.

Intention is something I teach, so I know a lot about it.  It’s the secret ingredient of all success.

But, intention is not generally well understood.

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