Ignite CSP

Worthwhile for the audience.

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In a world of barely-average communicators, you stand out once you start using intention as the active foundation of your message. You may seem more earnest, more sincere, more “into it,” than your colleagues. You won’t blend in; it will be clear that you’re doing something other people are not.

 

For some people, that idea is off-putting. They don’t want to develop a reputation for being “on,” or too eager. They want to be in the middle of the pack. It’s safe in the middle of the pack. You’re not the worst, the one people dread, but you’re also not the one who sticks out, who seems to be trying harder than everyone else.

 

We have to reframe this. If it’s worth standing up in front of thirty people and speaking for fifteen minutes, it’s worth caring enough to stand out. That’s 7.5 hours of people-time, almost a whole traditional work day. How can you make that aggregated time valuable? What can you bring?

 

You can bring intention and preparation. You can know exactly why you’re talking. You can pare your talk down to one or two key messages, and give your audience several ways to engage with those points.

 

Yes, you will be different from the people who speak before and after you. You may also, over time, raise the bar of what it means to give a presentation in your organization’s culture. You’ll be consistent; people will learn to expect that you’re going to know your stuff, and they will start to look forward to the times when you’re in charge. You can help shift the understanding of what it means to take people’s time, value it, and offer something really worthwhile.

Personal setbacks

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One of the blogs I read daily is Stephen St. Amant’s “Savenwood.” Very often, Stephen’s words happen to be exactly what I need to hear!

I asked Stephen if I could share his recent post, as it encapsulates so much of what I believe about showing up with intention.

 

You’re not aware of the personal setbacks my doctor overcame this week.

And neither am I.

Because she’s a professional.

* * *

Share your personal struggles with a close friend. Maybe even a trusted colleague.

But in your profession — for the people you serve — be one hundred percent. Make things work magically. Seamlessly.

I’m not suggesting that we deny our own humanity. Or that we bottle things up and ignore personal challenges. Just that we choose the right time and the right venue to share.

Your surgeon. Your pilot. Your legal counsel. They all had perfect weekends, they’re well-rested, and they’re ready to work (from your perspective). Because they’re professionals.

We can be, too.

 

Thanks, Stephen! Check out more of his writing and work at https://www.savenwood.com/blog/ .

Assertions, part 2

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After this blog post came out, I got a terrific email from a reader, Laura. She told me that she was frustrated with my point of view because I seemed to be advocating standing up on a soapbox and throwing your opinions out there, with no supporting evidence.

 

When I got her email, I thought, “wait, surely I didn’t say that? That doesn’t sound like me!” But when I went back and re-read it, I saw that Laura was exactly right. I had not connected the dots in the way I thought I had.

 

I’m bringing this up for three reasons. One is to set the record straight—my position is that we have a responsibility to assert our beliefs and observations, and to remain open to hearing why we’re wrong. I think it’s our duty to dig for evidence, to listen to conflicting viewpoints, and to change our minds when it becomes clear we should.

 

Two, I’m really grateful to Laura for writing, and the exchange I had with her was a heartening instance of how people can communicate about a difference of opinion on the internet. I emailed her back, thanking her and telling her she was right, and she then wrote to me, thanking me for taking the time to reply. She said, “I rarely respond, but your blog touched a nerve.” Great! I love that.

 

Three, this is such a good example of what happens when we can’t get out of the way of our own thinking. I was sure I had covered the point she made in her email—it was clear in my own mind! But I had made an assumption in the text of the blog, and left it out completely.

 

Thanks, Laura. Keep those emails coming!

Managing time.

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This matters.

 

We’ve all been in meetings that run over, where it becomes obvious during the first agenda item that whatever is at the end of the meeting is going to get very short shrift. Someone has been unrealistic in their planning, someone isn’t taking charge of the meeting…

 

A few years ago, I attended a conference with break-out sessions. You didn’t have to sign up ahead of time for the session you wanted to attend. At the end of the keynote, I headed off for the break-out that interested me most, with, as it turned out, 50 other people. The person facilitating this one-hour session began by asking everyone to “briefly introduce themselves.”

 

Oh, dear. How can  50 people introduce themselves in a one-hour session? To make matters worse, this was a room full of theatre people, not renowned for their brevity. The introductions alone took 45 minutes.

 

There was a host of mistakes here. I think what happened was this: the facilitator had decided he would open with introductions, and failed to adjust his plan when he saw how many people were there. Second, the first person to introduce himself went very long—maybe two minutes. There was an opportunity there to change course, but when the facilitator didn’t intercede, the long, tedious, and time-wasting round robin of introductions was underway, and we were all trapped.

 

When you’re in charge, you manage the time. Remember, “why are we all here” is paramount; all the planning and logistics are to support that function.

Great voices.

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You know who are geniuses at using their voices and words effectively? Sportscasters. Not the TV ones, the radio ones.

 
Think about it. Have you ever listened to a game that’s broadcast on the radio? Those people have a really hard job—they have to watch what’s going on, translate it instantly into words, say what’s happening clearly and with the correct attribution of player and team, and say it all before the next thing happens that they need to tell us about. In addition, they have to have other stuff that’s relevant to the game ready to talk about in case there’s a lull in the action—but they have to be ready to drop that and get right back into the game if something happens.

 

What I love the most about what they do is this. There is not a wasted word. Every adjective and verb is chosen well to do the most work. There’s no time to ramp up, find what you want to say, work it around…they are bringing the listener to the game with the words they say, and the pace and cadence of their voices. The athletes don’t run, they careen down they court. They don’t make a shot, they drain it. The coach on the sideline isn’t mad, he looks like someone took his brownies.

 

How is your vocabulary working for you? Where can you be more specific, more vibrant, paint a clearer picture, get to the point sooner?

Our greatest truthtellers

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Your body knows a lot. It knows when you’re feeling out of your depth, when you’re under-prepared, when you’re worried, when you’re excited. Sometimes it knows before you do.

 

Have you ever felt a tight throat, a racing heart, and not been quite sure why? Then you open your calendar and realize your day is packed, or you forgot to arrange the carpool, or, oh yeah, the boss wants you to sit down with her this afternoon.  Your physical self is working overtime to keep you up to date, giving you the chemicals you need to function.

 

What does your body want you to know? What messages does it send you?

I have too much to say!

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Marissa writes: I give quarterly reports to the board of the organization I work for. I only have ten minutes to recap everything, and I feel like I’m talking faster and faster to get it all in. What can I do to feel like I’m giving an effective update?

Marissa, we get this question a lot! You’re in good company.

 

We have a content bias. Like Marissa, we feel like we have to get it all in, even though our time is limited. Couple things to remember: even if you could fit it all in, your audience couldn’t remember it all. Your job is to curate your message so that the board (in this case) gets the main message you want to convey, and you are supporting that message in several ways: examples, stories, data.

 

One of the problems we tend to run into is that we’re so in the weeds with our work that it’s hard to see the broader sweep. Get that perspective—part of the job of periodic updates is to highlight the momentum and arc of our work, not the minutiae. This presentation is an opportunity to give the news anchor version of what’s going on, not the long-form embedded journalist answer.

If you’re here, be here.

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It’s a funny thing. Most of us know that when we’re engaged, time passes more quickly. We’re in flow, so we’re not watching the clock, so we’re surprised when we look up and see that an hour has passed.What we don’t quite always manage to implement is our own control over this phenomenon. We moan and complain about something we have to do, firmly setting the default intention that we just want to get through it. That really determines our experience; it is almost impossible to see past the elements we thought would be annoying or arduous or boring to experience what might be different or educational. When we hang onto the default intention, we are deciding that we will be bored and annoyed.

 

Not to be all Pollyanna or whatever, but if you know you have to do something, you may as well find a deliberate positive intention. If you have to write a report because the colleague who was supposed to do it went home sick, you can be irritated, take longer, and do a worse job, or you can look for something, no matter how small, to make it worth your while.

 

The great news is that we have opportunities to practice setting these intentions every day. What’s the thing you have to do that puts you in a bad mood? What can you do to find some measure of deliberate, positive intention in that task? For me, I really hate all the paperwork that comes along with my job. Contracts, invoices, expense reports…just knowing that I have those kinds of items on my to-do list weighs down my day. There’s something about the detail-oriented nature of those tasks that just makes me grumpy.

 

I have to practice setting a positive intention on paperwork day. I have to change my inner monologue from “uggggh, why do I have to do this it’s so stupid I hate this I’m irritated at myself for still being annoyed by this after all these years; I just want to get it over with so I can do something else” to something more conducive to actually getting the work done.

 

Here’s what I’m trying: “It’s time to send out contracts and invoices and expense reports. This is a chance for me to be as intentional in the logistical part of our work as I am in our coaching. Let me see if I can find some cool ways to integrate this part of our work into the rest of it.”  This is the kind of challenge I need—it takes the task out of the mundane and elevates it to be a crucial part of how we interact with clients.

Red herrings.

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I love mystery novels. There’s something about falling into the story and then being surprised at how it twists and turns that makes a mystery the ultimate relaxing read for me.

 

Recently though, reading a book by an author I usually enjoy, I found myself frustrated by just these same twists and turns. The plot involved a the murder of a millionaire, his dying sister, artwork stolen by the Nazis, several instances of infidelity, a will, intercontinental thievery, architecture, a old man and his even older father and their obsession with World War II, a museum…that’s not even everything this book asked me to contend with.  And then finally, there was no satisfactory resolution. The murderer did it to frame her brother (spoiler.)

 

A red herring is a plot device a writer uses to distract the reader from the real machinations. They’re the stock-in-trade of a mystery writer. In this case, though, the writer’s red herrings ran away with her. The most interesting parts of her book had nothing to do with the story she had decided to tell.

 

This happens to public speakers a lot. Our red herrings sneak into our material, intrigue our audiences, and are never heard from again. They’re wondering “when is she going to tie up the loose end of the story about the elephant?” or “how does that graph relate to the gist of all this?”

 

Red herrings don’t belong in your talk. If you bring it up, it’s gotta be relevant.

Losing our way.

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Put this in the “Everything is a metaphor for everything else” category:

 

We all have times in our lives when we don’t know what’s next. Something we counted on is gone, a person or a place or a job. Times of transition are often like this—“I knew what to expect in the last phase; I don’t know what’s next.”

 

The micro version of this is what happens when we forget what we want to say next in a presentation or a speech. We were on solid ground, and then it feels like we’ve walked off the edge of a cliff. Unmoored.

 

In both situations, we need to look for our intention. Why were we here in the first place? What can we hold onto that pulls us back to who we are and what we want to achieve?