I have no doubt you have been extensively virtual this past year. Me too. I’ve been coaching hundreds of people, trapped in a machine-based communication medium that feels stripped of soul and humanity, teaching them how to make all their virtual communications meaningful to their audience.
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.
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.
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 …
“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…
Let’s begin our New Year by talking about Vision.
Vision is all about seeing. The kind of vision that I’m talking about isn’t seeing what’s on the surface. It’s about seeing PAST.
On Day #1 of Transforming Your Presentation Skills, we usually film our students.
As we watch the first video together, we see very different things, the students and I. They usually hate themselves. This has everything to do with vision. What I do differently is….
When I first started Effective Training Solutions in my 20’s, I was a staff of one. This made me the CEO, which made my mother laugh to no end. After she was finally done laughing, she looked at me, and with great pity and sadness, said, “Oh, honey, why don’t you get a real job?”
As confident as my parents had taught me to be, my parents were terrified that I was going to fail. But I had learned well from them.
Even if it was all I had, I had a dream, and I knew that nothing else was going to make me happy but living that dream. I knew that you can make any dream come true if you don’t give up on it. And now, I’ve been living my dream, every day, for over 30 years.
We all had tears in our eyes. Elizabeth is an exec in the C-suite of a successful organization. Their senior exec team did the Causative Communication course together, and now, a month later in our follow up session, they were talking about the successes they created in the preceding month.
For Elizabeth, who was a stunning success in her professional life, this was personal.
Elizabeth‘s 12-year-old son, Matthew, had hit a stage where he wouldn’t talk to or look at her anymore. He defiantly turned his head away from her whenever she was talking.
You can imagine the pain wrenching her heart. Physically he was still in the house, but she’d lost his eyes. She’d lost his heart. She’d lost his trust. She’d lost all connection.
What I love about Causative Communication is that you learn simple truths that require very light energy and produce powerful outcomes.
We spend a lot of time on the concept of affinity. This is one of the most misunderstood, undervalued, underutilized, and yet most INDISPENSIBLE elements of deep, rich, emotionally satisfying human relationships.
Affinity ISN’T what you’re thinking. Affinity is what you’re FEELING.
I was explaining to Emily why I was not able to attend a meeting where I was not essential. The acknowledgement she gave me was a very resentful, “Bummer”.
I then tried to tell her what I had already booked during that time, and also why the meeting would be fine without me. Emily’s face was sour as I talked and she gave me an even more resentful, “Bummer.” She clearly was not listening to me.
My first impulse was, “This is not fun. I don’t like talking to you. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
And Emily was about to walk away herself.
At first, I was happy it was over, and then I thought to myself, “What would I tell a student to do in this situation?”
They already know how to walk away. But what they don’t know is how to transform an impasse like this.
George helps sales people close big deals. His track record is impressive. On average, he saves them 30 to 40 hours per sales proposal. His advice also increases their win rate by a wide margin.
George can look at a proposal or presentation in advance and with 100% accuracy tell you whether it will close the deal.
He has a very simple method. He has a computer algorithm which simply counts the number of times they use the word “YOU”. He compares that to the number of times the sales person mentions their own company.
Proposals where the prospect name is mentioned 10 times for every one time the sales person’s company is named (a ratio of 10:1) are a slam dunk and the deal is going to be closed.
Why is that? Is it because people are egotistical and they want it to be all about themselves? No.
If you look at the list of skills that make a hero, the ability to be in the moment is at the top.
When Dillon Reeves was asked how he knew exactly what to do to stop the bus to avert a catastrophe, it turns out he’s been carefully watching his father drive for years. His father said, “He’s always been very attentive to his environment.”
This extraordinary boy stands out. In a distracted world, he is awake, alert, aware.
Awareness is king.
The problem people have, when they’re not aware, is they don’t know what they’re not aware of.
Sometimes humanity is lucky enough to have a single individual who is able to break through all the preconceived notions of despair, hopelessness, and impossibility that overwhelm the rest of the world. They release in humanity the most powerful of forces, the force of love and harmony.
At that moment we see with great clarity what being human really means.
At that moment, we find what we are seeking, what seemed impossible the moment before. We reach that distant shore that we as humanity long for.
The video below is one such a story.
Ahmet: “Are you hungry?
Would you like half my dinner? I’m happy to share it with you. My wife made it and it’s very good.”
It was the end of a long day. His homemade dinner was steaming on a hot plate, it looked good, and it smelled good. And I was smiling as I said, “It looks delicious! But no, thank you. I’ll have dinner when I get home.”
Ahmet is a parking attendant in the basement garage of a tall, stunningly gorgeous building with floor-to-ceiling windows and spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay and the city’s financial district.
Everyone he serves has a lot more money than he does. But Ahmet has more heart than 100 people put together and he extends every bit of it as he invites me to share his dinner.
I can’t remember the last time someone made an offer like this to me.
We were meeting for the first time. Her face was hard, stern. She had her head tilted back and was looking down her nose at me. Her voice was uncompromising.
“I am the Chief of Staff here. We are responsible for billions of dollars of new product development and I report directly to the Chief Operating Officer. Everything to the COO goes through me. I make sure everything gets done. I have global responsibility.”
Her eyes challenged me, daring me to top that.
I looked into the heart of this woman and said, “Very nice to meet you. You must have done a lot to get there.”
I wasn’t flattering her. I was understanding her.
She looked into my eyes and changed into a different person. Her eyes softened and she smiled very slightly.
She thought for a moment and said, “Honestly, it’s a tough job, they don’t always listen to me.”
I thought about that for a moment and quietly said, “I can really understand that. That would be tough.”
I was in no rush. I wasn’t being sympathetic. I was understanding her.
She looked into my eyes to see if my understanding was true. Being understood was new to her. She saw it was.
Some people think you have to be “born with” the skills and charisma that make a really great public speaker. Not true. Let me tell you the story of Henry.
I was invited to give a two-hour talk on presentation skills at a technical conference for a highly specialized professional association.
At the banquet the night before my presentation, I told the President of the association, Steve, that I wanted to line up a volunteer to coach during my talk. He asked what qualities I was looking for and I said, “Someone who really needs to improve in their presentation skills.”
Steve enthusiastically told me Henry would be perfect and I said, “Let’s go meet him.” Well, meet him I did. Henry hardly took his eyes off the floor while we were talking, and for the brief moments they did come off the floor, they went straight to the ceiling or the wall on our right. Turns out, Steve interpreted my request as, “Who is the absolute worst communicator in this group?”
Henry didn’t look like someone who liked to be told what to do. I told Henry, “You know, I’m going to be coaching you in front of 300 people.” He glared at me for a brief moment and said, “What does THAT mean?” I said, “I’m going to be telling you what to do and you’re going to have to do it. Are you okay with that?” He mulled it over a little (looking at the ceiling) and then said, “I guess that’s okay.” Neither one of us was sure that it was, but with these words we locked in our next day’s destiny.
After Henry left, Steve said, “I hope you’re going to coach him on looking at people!” And then laughed for 2 minutes straight.
Tamara was nervous. In two days, she had to give a presentation to 400. Her first really big one.
It was Day 1 of Mastering Virtual Presentations and it was difficult for Tamara to practice without her teeth chattering.
The problem with being nervous is it makes you lose touch with everything good about you. Sometimes to the point where you can’t see anything good about yourself. The things you tell yourself at these moments tend to be dreadful.
Tamara was doubting whether she could speak without forgetting what to say, without everyone seeing how nervous she was.
There was a lot riding on how well Tamara did. If the Salespeople got excited about the new product, the revenue it would generate would be tremendous. But they had so many other products that they were selling, one new one often didn’t register. Tamara was one of many speakers throughout the day that would all turn into a blur.
As one doubt piled on top of another, Tamara doubted even her own ability to speak coherently.
She was a nervous wreck.
It was a truly exciting product she was going to present. If only the Salespeople understood what it did.
In Tamara’s case, it was not a matter of adding anything to her presentation. It was a matter of subtracting.
Last week I wrote about Victor, a VP I was coaching on Executive Presence. I wrote about the effect Victor’s facial expressions were having on others and how it diminished his Executive Presence.
Victor’s BIGGEST realization was when he saw a screenshot of his face during a moment he didn’t think he had any facial expression, when he was feeling neutral, not one way or the other, not positive or negative, not really feeling anything.
What shocked Victor when he saw his face was that his “neutral” expression looked COLD.
People don’t realize that when you put a neutral expression on your face, you look cold. Try it in the mirror and see for yourself. Get your neutral face on and then look.
Neutral has no warmth in it. Zero.
And no warmth equals cold. There’s no way around it.
When it comes to human relationships, neutral leaves them cold about you. Possibly even defensive. You are discouraging them from warming up to you.
Larry, the Senior Vice President, was horrified.
It was an important meeting with important people. He was watching Victor, a newly promoted Vice President, and was completely horrified by what he saw. It wasn’t about what Victor was saying…he wasn’t saying anything. The problem was what Victor was doing.
Larry sent me an email saying, “You’ve got to coach Victor on his Executive Presence immediately!”
I said, “What specifically?”
It turned out to be something I’ve been coaching a surprisingly large number of people on, so I decided to write about it.
Larry said, “Victor is doing great work. But when he’s in a meeting, Victor looks totally bored, completely disengaged. He’s too relaxed, leaning back in his chair, totally disinterested. And often he has a disgusted look on his face. He’s creating a horrible impression.”
I told Larry, “No problem, it’s an easy fix.”
It was. It was one of the fastest coaching transformations in the history of the world.
A couple of days ago I started the first Executive Coaching session with Marcos. I asked him to tell me about his goals for the coaching and he said, “I really want to learn about Executive Presence.” I asked him why.
As he was telling me his goals, he apologized three times.
“I’m sorry, this probably sounds like a silly thing. But what I’d really like is…”
“That probably doesn’t make any sense, but what I was thinking was…”
“I’m sorry that was such a long-winded explanation of what I am looking for, I hope that makes sense…”
He’s not the only one apologizing. If I count the number of times each week that someone apologizes to me for communicating, it’s quite a number.
“I’m sorry if I’m coming across opinionated…”
“I’m sorry, I just have to say this…”
“I’m probably taking too long to explain this …”
This is a new phenomenon in society. Somehow perfectly wonderful people have been made to feel they need to apologize for communicating.
I could spend an entire article talking about how this came to be, but I want to get right to the point:
It’s not healthy.
Many people ask me what happens when TWO people who totally disagree, but who have BOTH learned Causative Communication skills, come together? In other words, when they each know how to make what they want happen, but both are super intent on achieving their own opposing or competing outcome? Wouldn’t that just cause a fight? Do they get stubborn and persistent? Does it go on forever? Does it stick in an unresolvable stalemate? Does it get ugly?
Let me answer that question with something that just happened.
When Rick came to the Causative Communication workshop, one of his prime motivations was a situation with someone he called “the difficult guy”. We’ll call this guy Philip.
Rick and Philip completely disagreed on important details of a big project. Up to this point, every single meeting turned into an argument. They never agreed on anything. They never came even slightly close to achieving the outcomes they wanted. All they managed to do was irritate each other.
During the Causative Communication workshop, as part of his practical assignment to apply what he was learning to real life situations, Rick decided to try what he’d learned in his next conversation with Philip. A real test.
Rick decided to initiate a conversation about a previously unresolved topic, but this time he would strictly follow the full process of the Communication Formula and see what happened.
Rick wasn’t going to give an inch on what he wanted, he was just going to follow the specific process of the formula while they talked about it.
Paula was a young “Early in Career” engineer, her first job out of college. She was excited to land in a successful corporation filled with 80,000 employees. As a new member, Paula was at the very bottom of the towering command chain.
While her position was small, her vision and her dreams were big. More than anything, Paula wanted to do good in the world around her.
She came to Causative Communication to learn how to communicate effectively with the whole world where everything was new to her. She was young and wide-eyed and innocent, no accumulated failures pulled back her confidence. She was driven by her dreams, not by her fears.
Paula knew she had no command power over anyone, but she could already see that communication is a powerful force, and had concluded by watching others that the ability to communicate is the most powerful ability she could have when it came to working with a whole lot of people.
She was part of a small team that was part of a larger team that was part of an even larger team. Paula often attended meetings with 40 others from her division. Everyone had seniority and experience over her.
With the communication skills she developed in the workshop under her belt, Paula spoke up with confidence in these larger meetings. She voiced her thoughts, she acknowledged others, she participated. She didn’t try to control the meeting. She just wanted to be a part of it.
Benjamin: “I used what I learned and I changed two teams.”
Fred, George and Sam disagreed and simply said, “No. That’s not what happened.”
These were corporate leaders attending a virtual online Causative Communication workshop. Their assignment, after the second training session, was to spend several weeks using their new communication abilities and observing the results.
The teams that Benjamin was talking about had been stuck in an argument for weeks prior to the training. Their meetings never moved beyond stubborn debates and were disappointingly unsatisfying and unproductive, much disgruntled grumbling on both sides. They were each “right”, but unable to unite to solve the bigger problem the organization needed them to solve.
There were extremely smart people on both sides. Genuinely good people who all believed they were doing the right thing.
Unfortunately, their communication ability was nowhere near up to the challenge of solving the heated, disagreement-filled situation they were all in.
Benjamin was the one person who decided to do something about it. He arrived to the training tremendously motivated. Benjamin was frustrated because the lack of cooperation seriously interfered with his ability to be productive and move forward in his own job.
In the first two training sessions, he worked on his own ability to communicate. He learned how to create a real human connection and a level of understanding that uplifts every conversation. He developed the ability to transform any conflict into harmony, then lead discussions into creative, productive and satisfying outcomes.
He had 3 weeks to put his new skills into action and make them hold up in this hurricane.
When we got together again at the start of the third day of training, they all were reporting back on what they had done, and the results they had produced.
Benjamin: “I used what I learned and I changed two teams.”
The others: “No, Benjamin. You changed the whole organization.”
I was watching Jed give a sales presentation. The faces of his audience were attentive and respectful. They were also unsold. Unmoved.
In other words, Jed’s ideas weren’t landing the way he wanted.
They were politely waiting for Jed to come to the end. They had probably already mentally formulated a polite way of telling him, “Thank you, we’ll consider it” as they gently ushered him out the door.
Jed had no idea why he was losing it, and he kept going. As Jed talked, he got visibly more and more enthusiastic as a way to pump energy into the meeting, which did nothing for his audience.
Jed knew something was wrong, but had no idea what it was.
I have seen innumerable methods for attempting to vanquish stage fright.
Bianca addresses groups of 3,000 customers at a time. She’s in sales. Her way of coping with terror was to run out on a large stage with very loud music, seemingly all “pumped up” and yell at the crowd, “Hey! How's everybody doing?” It was about as far from her true personality as could be, and the second she started her presentation it was obvious she was tense nervous.
Peter found two people in the audience on either side of the room. First, he talked to one, then he talked to the other. They were the only 2 people he looked at. Anchoring on only 2 people didn’t handle his stage fright, but it kept him from totally losing it.
Risha is an engineer. She presents project updates to a skeptical and demanding senior leadership team. Her solution was to avoid all eye contact because she didn’t want to see their disapproving looks, she forced herself to keep her eyes squarely fixed on her notes and her slides.
Lynette powered through her talks on pure nerves and adrenaline, and collapsed with exhaustion when they were over.
If any of these methods of handling stage fright worked, they wouldn't have it.
What they’re all trying to do is drive their symptoms out of existence. The symptoms include every flavor and intensity of fear, from feeling slightly nervous and on edge to complete terror.
The reason these methods don't work is because they don't address the root cause of stage fright. And most people have no idea what's causing it.
If you don't know what's causing it, how can you fix it?
Frank: “I thought when I got the title, everyone would listen to me. But I’ve never been so frustrated in all my life.”
Frank is a Fellow in one of Silicon Valley’s largest high-tech companies. “Fellow” is an extremely prestigious and the most senior title one can achieve in a scientific or engineering career. Fellows are the geniuses behind the inventions we all enjoy.
So far, Frank’s scientific and engineering breakthroughs had made his organization over $42 billion as new products he dreamed into existence rolled out to eager customers around the world. He should have been someone everyone listened to.
The problem Frank was having, however, was happening full blown in frustrating meetings with the senior leadership team. No one was listening to him. Led by a new CEO, the company was now going in a direction that Frank saw was never going to be viable.
Frank: “The company is going off a cliff.”
The people making the decisions did not have the technological expertise to understand why they were headed for a disaster. The new CEO got his technical advice from The Wall Street Journal. If it wasn’t in his morning paper, he dismissed it.
Frank’s problem was that he was SO smart, and knew so much, he was at a complete loss for how to explain complex technology principles to people who didn’t even understand the basics.
What made it worse was that Frank knew the technology advance that would save them and lead the company rather quickly into a new realm of innovation, consumer joy and market leadership. But when Frank tried to explain it all to the senior leadership team, their eyes glazed over. They told him, “No time, no budget, and very risky.”
Being the smartest guy in the room was excruciatingly painful.
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