How to turn your exec into a brilliant public speaker...“Must have great nonverbal public speaking skills.” They seldom have time for the kind of prepara- ... • Nonverbal communication

Lawrence Ragan

Communications, Inc.

SPONSORED BY:

How to turn your exec into a brilliant public speakerIf your leader wants to engage employees and become a resonant voice in the industry,

it’s essential for him or her to master these three basic areas of communication.

Lawrence Ragan

Communications, Inc.

SPONSORED BY:

How to turn your exec into a brilliant public speaker

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

13 ways to unearth stories for your execs 2

12 nonverbal ways to improve speeches and interviews 6

7 crucial factors in preparing for that internal speech 10


IntroductionYour executives might be brilliant at numbers. They know the business world and can be visionaries who envision new products or markets for what you are selling.

Yet storytelling is seldom in the job description of any corporate executive. You don’t often find, “Must have great nonverbal public speaking skills.” They seldom have time for the kind of prepara-tion that is necessary before giving a successful presentation.

If your leader wants to become a resonant voice in the industry—a respected figure others turn to and listen to—it’s essential for him or her to master three basic areas of communication.

• Storytelling. This powerful tool isn’t just for novelists and Hollywood filmmakers. It can enliven every presentation, from speeches to videos. So how do you mine stories within your organization—or find inspiring anecdotes from the world beyond your office walls?

• Nonverbal communication. Do you know how to communicate with your eyes and hands? Can you “scale your gestures” to fit a huge audience at an annual convention, or within the frame of a television or smartphone screen?

• Preparation. It is better to skip a presentation than to go in without a clear understanding of the audience profile. Learn what questions you should ask about your audience, and how to research it for sentiment and local references.

Follow these tips, and you or your leader can reach far beyond your organization to influence the market, sway legislators and raise the profile of your brand. Read on.

1


13 ways to unearth stories for your execsLeaders are often Type-A number crunchers who hate telling stories. The result? Data-clogged speeches, dull videos, stuffy blogs and op-eds no one will publish. Here’s how to mine gold.

Story strategist Justina Chen once was meeting with an executive when she learned he was an avid fisherman.

Chen, a novelist and author of “ The Art of Inspiration: Lead Your Best Story,” asked “What do you learn from fishing?”

“Patience,” he told her.

“Give me an example of using what you’ve learned from fishing and applied to a business chal-lenge?” she replied.

It was an ah-ha moment. It dawned on the executive that a personal story could make an abstract lesson concrete and real to his audience.

Whether you’re writing a TED Talk, producing a video or crafting an op-ed, stories are one of the most powerful means of communication. Why, then, is it so hard to get some leaders to tell them? Here are some tips for mining stories in your organization: 1. Do your research.

Before meeting with the principal, research to find what stories he or she has told in previous pro-files, speeches, videos, writing and interviews, says Jeff Shesol, founding partner at West Wing Writ-ers and a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton.

“You’ve got to know what’s out there so that you don’t waste your precious time with the principal asking him or her to tell you stories that you could’ve gotten somewhere else,” Shesol says.

2. Establish the ‘emotional destination.’

Set your goals up front, Shesol says. Stories must advance those goals or move the audience, reader or viewer toward your conclusion.

2


How to do that? Ask how your principal wants the listener to feel after hearing the speech, watching the video or reading the op-ed, says Drew Keller, president of StoryGuide.net and an Emmy-nominat-ed PBS writer and editor. You might wish to get a laugh along the way, but they need an intellectual or emotional destination—a moral of the story.

When the principal understands the destination, “they understand what you’re trying to accom-plish,” Keller says. “They say, ‘Oh, yeah, I had this thing happen to me when I was a kid.’”

In other words, don’t script that great joke about how a priest, a rabbi and a proctologist walk into a bar unless that advances your argument.

3. Make it an ‘interview.’

When you set up an appointment with your leader, ask for an “interview,” not a “meeting,” says Chen. Using the word “interview” puts speakers on notice that they will be answering questions. “They’re prepared to be talking,” Chen says.

4. Meet on their turf.

Go to your speaker’s office. Look around. Everyone has an “artifact” that is meaningful to the speak-er. These can hint at interests, values and (best of all) stories.

Are there community theater posters, ski lift tickets, a high school football helmet, an Australian boo-merang, a photo of your source’s spouse and kids in front of Hagia Sophia, a mounted alligator head given by a Marine Corps platoon? A baby shoe, a trophy from the O. Henry Pun-Off World Champion-ships? Ask about these.

“Already, you’re rolling them into storytelling mode,” Chen says.

5. Ask for a ‘grit story.’

These stories, Friedman says, tend to say, “I was knocked down, but I got back up again.” An easy climb to success makes for an uninteresting narrative. We want to hear about resilience: how some-one came back from defeat, overcame a challenge or triumphed over hardship. These stories don’t have to be about your speaker; they can be inspirational tales about others.

3


4

One executive told Chen about how, when he was 13, he grew eight inches in a year. His spine didn’t keep up with the rest of his skeletal growth, leaving him bent over. At 13, he was in an uncomfortable brace. The doctors told him he couldn’t play football or basketball again.

So he learned how to play tennis in a brace, and he became nationally ranked. When he told the story to an audience of 14,000 employees, he drew a business lesson from it, saying, “People, we are still playing tennis.” He received the first standing ovation of his career, Chen says.

6. Keep an ear open for stories.

So many times in conversation, leaders will say, “I never tell stories,” says Friedman. Yet the same person probably tells stories all the time. Listen for them, and take a note.

“If you’re talking about a speech with your principal and they tell a story, there’s a good chance that’s going to apply to the speech,” Friedman says.

Say to your leader: “That’s great. Can we use it?”

7. Ask directly.

Some parts of the speech will be easy for audiences, readers or video viewers to understand. But often there are often other parts where the point is more abstract. Friedman says to tell them, “This would be a good place for a story.”

Then ask your principal for a story illustrating that point.

8. Gather stories in your organization.

Mary Kate Cary, a former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush, is working on “41ON41,” a documentary film about her former boss, the 41st president, Friedman says. The approach is a good one for dig-ging up stories: Ask others in your organization for stories.

Whether you need it for a speech or a video, you can tell your executive, “I was talking to so-and-so, and she gave me this unbelievable story,” Friedman says.


5

9. Share a story.

If you tell someone a story, it’s likely they’ll share one with you, Friedman says. Your just-the-facts leaders might be surprised at how many stories they have unconsciously stashed away.

10. Collect stories.

Any time you hear or read a good story, write it down, clip it from the newspaper or cut and paste it in a file, Friedman says. Here is the moment when the Wright Brothers figured out flight. Here is a light bulb moment for Thomas Edison.

“That’s part of the job: to look for stories,” Friedman says.

When The Wall Street Journal turned a century old, the newspaper ran a series based on the number 100. In one feature, the paper interviewed a 100-year-old man and his 97-year-old wife, who had been married 80 years.

To what do you attribute this long marriage? They both traveled a lot, and they were both hard of hearing. Friedman used it in a speech about teamwork.

11. Give them a heads-up.

Executives tend to be Type A personalities who want to feel in control and don’t like surprises, Keller says. They are pressed for time and don’t want to look foolish. Many try to give off a vibe of omnipo-tence, yet they fear a personal story will make them look vulnerable.

Knowing this, you can ease your way by telling them (or their admin or the go-between) what you’ll be looking for so the executive can prepare.

“Surprise rarely works,” Keller says. “They need, frankly, time to plan ahead.”

12. Skip the Brothers Grimm.

“They need to own the story,” Keller says. “In other words, it needs to be genuine. It can’t be a myth or something they heard. It needs to be, from them, a real story.”

Not only can people tell when a story isn’t genuine, but you also must find out what they learned.


6

13. Follow up.

Use follow-up questions to dig deeper or add depth of understanding, Keller says. Try questions such as these:

•Howdidyoufeel? •Whatdidyoulearn? •Knowingwhatyouknownow,whatwouldyoudodifferently?

Try these techniques, and you’ll drag a story out of the boss—one way or another.

12 nonverbal ways to improve speeches and interviewsSpeaking publicly or giving a video interview, we’re careful about the words we speak, but what about a presentation’s physical aspects: gestures, eye contact, pacing? The experts weigh in.

When Jenna Cooper was a TV anchor, her news director let her in on a key secret of how he hired his on-air staff.

He would cover up the bottom half of the candidate’s face to see whether his or her eyes told the story, says Cooper, founder and president of Gratia PR.

“If the anchor used the same eye expressions while reading a car accident script versus the prover-bial water-skiing squirrel kicker, that anchor didn’t make the cut,” Cooper says.

It’s the same thing with giving a speech, shooting a video or answering questions in a town hall. The eyes tell all.

When senior leaders speak publicly or sit for an interview, they usually understand the importance of using the right words and phrases. What fewer have mastered are nonverbal tools that help in delivery—from posture to gesturing to the expression of the eyes.

Here are some tips for your senior executives:


7

1. Rehearse.

When leaders prepare, they should practice in order to “develop the kind of muscle memory of the speech, of the rhythm of a speech,” says Jeff Shesol, founding partner of West Wing Writers.

“Even if you’re a naturally a good speaker, simply the act of having said it out loud even just once, but ideally more than once, really without any guidance, will improve your delivery,” he says.

This helps them determine where the pauses and emphases are. They also might sense where the speech drags and should be cut.

2. Relax.

“Some people talk with their hands; some don’t,” says Drew Keller, president of StoryGuide.net and an Emmy-nominated PBS writer and editor. “Typically, the more anxious they are, the more stressed they are, the stiffer they are.”

Keller reminds interview subjects that in his medium—video—he usually isn’t recording live. If they don’t like the way they said something, he can start over.

3. Pace yourself.

When people get nervous, they talk more rapidly, says attorney James Goodnow, who regularly ap-pears on CNN and on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Your audience must process what you are say-ing. Effective speakers talk at a rate of about 125 words per minute. Record yourself to find out how fast you’re speaking.

Also, pause before and after a significant point. “Let it simmer with the audience,” Goodnow says. “What seems like a horrible awkward silence for you is actually giving your audience time to reflect on the point you made.”

4. Maintain eye contact.

We’ve all heard it, but few speakers do it effectively, Goodnow says. Eye contact conveys sincerity and helps you connect. Scan the room and hold your gaze for no more than three seconds. Too long, and your audience gets creeped out. Not enough, and people think you’re not interested in them. If you’re connecting via satellite or on Skype, look at the camera. If you’re being interviewed in person, look at the interviewer-not the camera.


8

5. Practice hand gestures.

When people are uncomfortable, their hands feel cartoony, twice their actual size, Cooper says. Prac-tice using your hands to underscore points (one, two and three takeaways). Don’t cross your arms—that makes you look closed off.

“Also for men—be careful of the hand in the pants pockets,” she says. “There’s a tendency to jiggle change, which can be distracting.”

6. Scale your gestures.

When addressing a gathering of 10,000 associates in an auditorium at an annual sales event, feel free to throw your arms wide when talking about “all of us here.” If you’re on live TV, your gestures must be smaller, contained within the frame of the screen, says Terence J. Murnin, communications specialist with Fennemore Craig.

Gestures should be consistent with the content they are reinforcing, adds Ronald Kaufman of the Ronald Kaufman Consultancy. Examples:

•Moveyourhandupordowntoindicaterisingorfallingprofitsandexpenses. •Placeoneorbothhandsstraightoutinfrontforstop,likeatrafficcop. •Makeacircularmovementforcontinuingtodosomethingsuchasbeingateam.

7. Maintain good posture.

“Listen to your mother—stand up straight,” Cooper says. “Picture a piece of string at the top of your head pulling you toward the ceiling. It opens up your lungs and diaphragm and makes you look more confident and approachable.”

8. Move around.

Get out from behind the lectern, Cooper adds. This is more interesting visually and keeps your pre-senter’s blood flowing.


9. Carefully plan your visuals.

PowerPoints fail when you treat them as essays or overload them with text. Carefully consider the visual story you’re telling through your PowerPoint, says story strategist Justina Chen, author of “The Art of Inspiration: Lead Your Best Story.” Think metaphorically when you select images.

“If you’re telling people that we’re actually in a precarious situation right now, show a picture of a slack line right behind you,” she says.

Emphasize a point with an image or a few short words in large font, Goodnow says. Anything more, and it will detract.

10. Punctuate the script.

Depending on your speaker, stage directions in the script can enhance nonverbal communication, Shesol says. If your speaker finds it helpful, punctuate the script as people speak it. Writers often place ellipses or bracketed directions in scripts, such as “[pause]” or “[pause for applause].”

“A lot of speakers just don’t need that, because they understand it intuitively and they pick it up when they’re rehearsing it,” Shesol says. “Others really like to have the stage directions there.”

11. Sip warm water.

Avoid the ice water on the table and drink warm water prior to speaking, says Lynne Curry of The Growth Company. “Ice water chills the vocal cords and makes your voice sound harsher and more strident, while warm water loosens your vocal cords,” she says.

Also, take a short walk around the room to greet people prior to speaking. Walking helps your body to process the adrenaline in your bloodstream, which helps you stave off nervousness.

12. When all else fails, call in a coach.

“If you don’t know the basics, bring in a trainer,” says speech consultant Rob Friedman. This is par-ticularly true if you have an executive who does a lot of public speaking. It’ll be worth the cost.

9


7 crucial factors in preparing for that internal speechThere’s a lot riding on this presentation. Did you do your homework? Did you rehearse? Can you be a showman like Steve Jobs?

The basketball arena is rented for the all-employee meeting. The speechwriter, producer and lighting crew are sweating the last-minute details.

The principal, however, can’t seem to focus on the big event. Not to worry. I’ve done these things before.

How to light a fire under your bigwig? Show her the venue, says Justina Chen, a consultant and former executive communicator at Microsoft.

“Sometimes a principal needs to see the big stage in order to understand what’s truly at stake,” says Chen, author of “The Art of Inspiration: Lead Your Best Story.”

Preparation is key not only for important speeches to ballparks full of associates, but also for smaller audiences. Here are some tips for executives and the communicators who work with them:

1. Rehearse.

If it’s a big arena, there usually will be a technical rehearsal. Even if none is scheduled, a principal should check out the venue, Chen says. A company meeting with 20,000 means facing an audience the size of a crowd at a professional basketball game.

That’s when the executive is likely to gulp and say: “Oh, it is tomorrow. It is going to be in front of a couple thousand people. I need to rehearse,” she says.

The technical rehearsal covers where the speakers will show up, where the green room is, where the makeup room is and where presenters take the stage. If it’s a huge stage, the speaker must work with the producer to figure out how to occupy the space.

Likewise, the executive should go through the speech itself, says Jonathan Rick of The Jonathan Rick Group, who speaks and offers webinars on the topic. In the movie “The Social Network,” director Da-vid Fincher required the actors to rehearse the opening scene 99 times, Rick adds.

10


11

“These are professional actors and a director,” he says. “If they’re going to be forced to do that 99 times, what does that say about your own presentation?”

2. Research internal audiences—not just external.

Most executives are mindful of the need to research an external audience, but it’s important to pre-pare for internal audiences as well, says Bill Corbett Jr. of Corbett Public Relations. Top leaders may be insulated, mistakenly thinking the organization is running smoothly when it is not. The communica-tion team and HR team must be candid so the leader isn’t blindsided by an issue.

“A misinformed CEO who delivers a failed speech is not great job security for those who prepared him or her-or did not prepare them,” Corbett says.

Your audience will quickly sniff out a speaker who talks over their heads, adds Jeff Shesol, a former White House writer and founding partner of West Wing Writers. He and Corbett recommend asking these questions for both internal and external audiences:

•Who’sintheaudience? •Whyaretheyattending? •Whydotheywanttohearfromyou? •Whatisimportanttothem—life,businessandcareer? •Whatchallengesaretheyfacing? •What’stheaudience’sstakeintheissue? •Whatinformationdotheywantorrequiretobesuccessful,groworachieveagoal? •Whatcanyouoffertothisgroup,andwhatwillmaketheprogrammemorable?

Also find out the general age of the audience, their interests and their years in the industry. Get the titles and roles of those in attendance. “A speech to managing partners at CPA firms is going to be very different from a presentation to insurance sales professionals,” Corbett says.

3. Determine your goals.

A speech shouldn’t just be an information dump. What is the journey you wish to take your audience on? Chen won’t write a speech until she can get a principal to answer these questions:

•Whatdoyouwantthemtofeel? •Whatdoyouwanttheaudiencetothink? •Whatdoyouwantthemtodo?


Chen recently worked with an executive for a speech by an executive to a business unit facing difficult odds.

“We want the audience to believe that this leader knows how hard it’s going to be,” Chen says. “At the same time emotionally, we them to feel completely inspired. So there’s this credibility: ‘I get it. Busi-ness is tough. At the same time, I believe in you, and I know we’re going to succeed.’”

What did they want the employees to do? Take the information and discuss it with their peers. Audiences want to know, “What’s in it for me?” Offer something that matters to them.

4. Work the room.

This won’t work in all settings, but it often helps. On the day of a speech, arrive early and introduce yourself to audience members, says attorney James Goodnow, who frequently addresses large crowds and regularly appears on CNN and on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Talk to your employees about why they are at the event and what they hope to gain from it. This will not only help you get to know your audience better, but it will warm you up before you take the stage. “To take your speech to an even higher level, integrate a few of the anecdotes you learned from work-ing the room into your speech,” Goodnow says.

5. Be a showman.

PowerPoint should be like the screen behind the anchor in a newscast, providing visuals or video that amplify the points of the speech. It should not be a place where a speaker dumps his or her notes, says Rick.

Is your text big enough? Even if you use words sparingly (and you should), text that looked cool on your computer screen might not be legible at the back of a huge ballroom or arena, Rick says. Will the room be dark or light? This could affect the readability of the text.

Citing former Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ famous product launches, Rick recommends “treating the presen-tation as art, not just a meeting. People are going to remember you more for your showmanship than your content.” You’re not going to be able to educate people if you don’t grab them.

Use movie scenes, clips, and images to make your topic relevant and offer a take that no one else could, and you will stand out, says management consultant Michael Provitera.

12


“Find the best video on YouTube that acts like a guest speaker during your presentation,” Provitera says. “Pick a movie scene that represents your presentation well. Show the relevance up front, and then address the content afterward—and the way the clip or video relates to the presentation.”

6. Remember broader audiences.

These days, most large live events are broadcast out to remote audiences. In some cases, such as all-employee broadcasts, the majority of the audience might in fact be in distant cities or even overseas. It’s therefore imperative for the speaker to engage these remote people in addition to the local audi-ence.

Speakers should acknowledge remote audiences, looking not only around the room but at the cam-era. A speaker could invite comments through their webcast platform’s text features or via email. Speakers should also refer to remote locations, and when looking for employee call-outs or successes to feature, cast your net beyond corporate HQ.

Nowadays, everything internal is external, and be mindful that that inside joke or callous remark you make may find its way online. All it takes is somebody with a smartphone. Just ask the folks at Carrier Corp., whose decision to shutter air conditioner plants in Indiana and move production to Mexico be-came a hot campaign issue after someone video-recorded an executive’s announcement to dismayed workers.

“You are also almost always speaking to a larger audience,” Shesol says. “Your speeches might be streamed, they might be recorded on YouTube and later broadcast, they might be carried live by the news or covered while they’re happening by a bunch of reporters.”

7. Provide context.

Use relevant references to offer context to your references, says Daniel Gregory of Susan Davis Interna-tional. When speaking to a branch office or a factory in another state, describe distances using local landmarks, or tell how an issue affected a nearby community. Paint a mental picture about the num-ber of kids harmed by a problem by using the student body of the local high school for comparison. If you’re too rushed to research, you can say something like, “One in every five people you ride the Metro with every morning will be affected by this.”

To expand to reach a YouTube audience, Gregory suggests using broader references. Say, “One thou-sand people in this community do not have clean tap water. If the same percentage of people in New York City faced this problem, the equivalent of every person in Manhattan would be affected.”

13


Kollective, Silicon Valley1230 Midas Way,Suite 120Sunnyvale, CA 94085+1 408 215 6400

Kollective, Bend1001 SW Emkay Drive,Suite 150Bend, OR 97702+1 541 371 2661

Kollective, UKRegent’s Place338 Euston RoadLondon NW1 3BT United Kingdom+44 (0) 800 242 5602

Kollective, India#10, S End Street,KumaraPark East, Bangalore – 01, India+91 (80) 41218777

Kollective, Hong KongSuite 1201, Two Grand Tower625 Nathan RdKowloon. Hong Kong+852 3107 0577

Kollective, China2-821 Bright ChinaChang An BuildingNo. 7 Jianguomen Nei Avenue Beijing 100005, PRC+(86) 10 6510 2099

Learn more at kollective.com

KOLLECTIVE AMERICAS +1 408 215 6400

KOLLECTIVE EUROPE +44 (0) 800 242 5602

KOLLECTIVE ASIA +91 (80) 41 21 87 77

Help your leaders reach their entire global workforce simultaneously with high-quality, uninterrupted video broadcasting.

Reach& Engagewith flawless video

http://www.kontiki.com/webcasting/

Documents

How to turn your exec into a brilliant public speaker...“Must have great nonverbal public speaking skills.” They seldom have time for the kind of prepara- ... • Nonverbal communication