The Colloid Base

Monotony should be on the FBI’s most wanted list. It has killed more presentations than any of the deadly distractions. Everyone, not just those trained to perform critiques of speeches, picks up on monotony in a presentation.

You don’t find any best-selling songs that use only one note, do you? Nor do you find great one-note presentations. However, monotony is not just speaking in a monotone - that is using just that single note. It is a lack of variety in every element of your presentation.

The antithesis of monotony is variety. You can add heat, color, excitement, emotion and expressiveness by bringing variety to your presentations.

First, let’s talk about the vocal elements.

You should vary the notes, the sound level, and the flow of your words. Vary between a whisper and a shout. Speak slowly, then more rapidly. Use your voice to work up and down the register. Take advantage of silence, too. Use precise diction to underline a point. Change your voice to fit your content. Paint a picture by emphasizing certain words. Use your voice to be unpredictable. Keep the audience a little off guard and they will stay with you to the end.

Face has its place in fighting monotony. If you are practicing vocal variety, a deadpan face causes dissonance. Your face should match the content of your presentation, as well as the vocal qualities you are employing. Happy? Then, smile! Thoughtful? Show it.

Make eye contact with various audience members. Picking one person to stare at is just wrong. It makes everyone uncomfortable.

Movement and gestures also add variety. Now, we don’t want you to pace and wander all over the stage, but it is OK to step out from behind the lectern. Move toward or away from the audience to make a point.

Use your hands to punctuate a point. Make a fist. Sweep the room with your arm to draw in your audience. Point. But with gestures - as with everything else - make sure they have a point and fit into the context of what you are saying.

Remember monotony kills. Variety can bring even a dead audience back to life.

Ty Boyd, CEO of Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, is in the Broadcast Hall of Fame and the Speakers Hall of Fame. He has taught presentation skills to Fortune 1000 executives in more than 40 countries. His Excellence In Speaking Institute celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2005.

It’s that IT factor! It’s that special something that really makes people shine. It’s a combination of confidence, energy and warmth, and an extra sparkle in the eye. It’s easy to spot, but not so easy to attain. The question is.. do you have it? And can you get it?

The answer is YES!

If you take one look at all of the American Idol contestants, there is one thing in common with the people who HAVE it. They don’t need to promote it. It shines within them and they get more respect from the judges even if they don’t have a great voice. The judges usually say, “it was nice to meet you and good luck” as opposed to “Get me OUTTA here”. Watching American Idol is a wonderful way to study the quality of “charisma” over, and over and over again.

Charismatic people come in all shapes and sizes. There are some absolutely beautiful people with no inner spark whatsoever. There are tons of incredibly overweight or not so attractive in the traditional sense, that have been gifted with tons of Charisma.

The secret? It takes WORK.. but we all have it. Here are some quick tips:

1. Know who you are. Then SHUT up and BE it. People who have to talk about it all the time are BORES. When you know who you are, you can focus on OTHERS and get to know them.

2. Be an expert at something. Be smart. Be beautiful. Be a pianist. Be a martial artist. Be a teacher. Be an expert on ants.. it really doesn’t matter… just work and work and work and WORK, until you are an EXPERT at something.

3. Don’t be your own judge. Compete against others. Be judged in your sport or compete somehow or get noticed by OTHERS so you KNOW that you’ve accomplished something and are an expert at it. This can take years…. so suck it up and work on your craft!

4. Teach others and share with others your passion. When you’ve had some successes and some failures, you’ll appreciate yourself a lot more for the work you’ve put in. Then you can tell others about it… or better yet.. just show them! And when they compliment you.. say “thank you.” Don’t gloat and don’t apologize. Just say “thank you.. and I enjoy what I do.”

5. Work on your personal presence. Look at people in the eyes when you talk… eyeball to eyeball. Watch yourself in the mirror to see if you can PRACTICE that “inner spark” if you don’t have it naturally. Here is a test: Say to yourself: “You just won 1 million dollars” Then look at yourself! Are you lit up like a Christmas tree? This will give you a sense of what you can be like at your best. It’s a bright eyed, sincere, and genuinely happy look. It’s NOT boring.. that’s for sure!

Certainly there are so many other things to work on like a firm handshake, small talk skills, how to get comfortable meeting new people and things like that. But when you have a starting point and realize WHO you want to be, then you will have a visual of WHAT you want to be.

I’ll leave you with an exercise: Close your eyes. Now see yourself where you want to be in 5 years. What are you wearing? What do you look like? How successful are you? What are you doing?

Carry this visual with you always. Return to it when you go to sleep at night. Wake up with it close to your heart. In time, you will become it.

Dreams take work. And you know the saying!

If it’s going to BE, it’s up to ME!

Mary Gardner, The Charisma Coach, has been teaching Charisma to celebrities, politicians, executives, sales pros and entrepeneurs for over 10 years. She holds workshops and seminars and does personal coaching. She has a 4 week intensive phone coaching program. For more information contact http://www.marygardner.com or mary@marygardner.com

Fred, the new manager, was working with Grant, an
employee who wasn’t getting his work done. Fred had
delegated work to Grant, and Grant hadn’t made progress
on the project for almost 4 months . . . long past the due
date.

For the most part, Fred had done well with the first two steps
of delegation and checking. He just wasn’t acting on Grant’s
lack of performance.

The key point in the process that determines if Fred needs
to have a coaching or counseling session with Grant is
when Fred asks if Grant needs anything from Fred to make
the project happen now. If Grant says anything but nothing,
then Fred had coaching work to do. If Grant replies that
there’s nothing he needs from Fred, time for a counseling
conversation.

Coaching is needed when an employee can’t do the
work he needs to do. Counseling is needed when an
employee won’t do the work he is assigned.

Typical situations where counseling is needed include
ongoing poor performance, an insecure employee who is
skilled, but doesn’t do as well as could be expected, an
employee who is allowing personal problems to adversely
impact performance, or employees who have an “attitude.”
They feel angry, frustrated, vindictive, unappreciated or
unrewarded, and they get back at the company by choosing
not to work.

Like with performance problems that require coaching,
sometimes Rule #1 is at work. Managers have inadvertently
“rewarded” employees into non-performance. The manager
has allowed employees to “get away with” not performing,
and the employee finds not working more rewarding than
working. Sometimes doing the work is punishing or not
rewarding: there’s nothing in it for an employee to do a good
job. Or, an employee may not have the authority to get the
job done, or is expected to buck policy or the way it’s always
been done. Or, worst of all, good performance or bad
performance, it just doesn’t matter. No one seems to notice.

If any of these are true, time for a little rehab program for the
manager, and even more work to bring the employee’s
behavior into line.

Fred has made the problem of Grant’s poor performance
worse by letting him “get away with” not getting his work
done. Now he has catch up work to do.

Step one: Prepare for the conversation. If Grant
suggests there’s nothing Fred can do to help him get the
work done, then it’s clear one of two problems is going on:
Grant either doesn’t know how to do it and won’t say he
doesn’t know; or Grant doesn’t want to do it and has some
belief he doesn’t have to. Either of these means time for a
counseling conversation.

Fred’s preparations must include deciding if Grant is willing
to address the issues, alternatives, and consequences of
his poor performance. If Fred has any question about
Grant’s willingness to participate . . . time to check in with
HR.

Step two: Counseling conversations start like coaching
conversations: establish rapport with the employee,
attend to the situation, and keep the context professional,
not personal. Fred needs to be clear that this conversation
with Grant is about his continued poor performance, and the
need for resolution.

Step three: Set the context. Focus on behaviors, not
intent, values, or motives. Fred’s task is to keep the
conversation focused on Grant’s behavior, even if he is
addressing attitude. So he can describe what he’s seen, i.e.
rolling eyes, tsk’ing in response to questions, shrugging
when asked a direct question, rather than labeling or
judging.

Step four: Solicit input from the employee. This is
the time for Fred to listen to Grant’s side of the situation.
Fred needs to maintain professional boundaries and not
get caught up in solving the Grant’s problems for him.
Attitude is Grant’s problem. At some level, you can’t insist
employees think or feel a particular way. But, you can insist
on performance.

Step five: Offer support while expecting a resolution.
Keep the balance between sympathy and solutions.
Fred can’t offer to fix it for Grant. Grant needs to take care of
his personal problems himself. This means Grant has to do
more than 50% of the work towards the solution. Set a
benchmark date for resolution, and commitment to
expectations.

Managers can get into difficulties with counseling
conversations in a number of ways. The first, and most
deadly, is by not checking with HR for assistance and
policy/procedure clarification. Counseling conversations are
designed to resolve issues that interfere with performance,
they aren’t a time to play shrink. Remember you are not
running a mental health clinic, and even if you were, you
wouldn’t be treating an employee. Avoid interpreting, or
telling the employee what the real problem is, even if you
are convinced your perspective is the real truth. They won’t
hear it and they just get frustrated and annoyed.

With either coaching conversations or counseling
conversations, the goal is improving employee performance
and getting the work done. If problems continue, time to
have a more serious conversation with your HR rep. It may
be time to move to the next level.

Patricia Wiklund Ph.D. works with managers who are
challenged with a difficult employee or colleague, and
organizations that need to get back on track to effectiveness
and productivity. Start increasing your management and
leadership skills with her new audio coaching program on
Emotional Intelligence: The Leadership Edge. Just click
here: http://www.PatWiklund.com/eiaudiocoaching.shtml
Contact Pat at Pat@patwiklund.com

The wellspring of confidence is belief. When you believe in something, you accept and have conviction about the truth, actuality, or validity of that thing. When the belief is about you, its called self-confidence. Self-confidence is your belief that you can marshal your physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual resources in the successful pursuit of a goal.

The number one predictor of individual or team success is confidence level. Confident people tend to initiate action and control their environment - even under difficult conditions. Your degree of self-confidence will determine the kinds of risks you take, the amount of effort you’ll expend, and the strength of your perseverance in time of trouble. Your confidence will determine the amount of flexibility you creatively apply in new situations. Your confidence will promote either optimism or pessimism and will dictate the degree to which you are vulnerable to debilitating stress or depression.

We’ve already said that confidence is the single most important factor in determining an individual or team’s likelihood of success. That being the case, promoting confidence is the first task that any leader should undertake. Even though confidence is a personal, intangible belief, it can be actively promoted. There are four basic ways in which we build confidence: the direct experience of success, observing someone similar to you, model success, coaching from a respected individual, and celebration.

The four ways of promoting confidence can work alone or in concert. The important point for leaders to remember is that confidence is the single greatest key to success. The great news is that confidence can be home grown and nurtured. Thus, it’s vital that individuals and teams be provided the opportunity to succeed as part of their development. Such opportunities may be provided by assigning progressively more difficult tasks or by scheduling associative experiences. High-energy models or coaches can be employed. However it’s done, this is a function of the planning process. The best results will come from the best-developed resources. It’s also a planning function to ensure that success, and sometimes failure, is celebrated on a routine basis. That is not to say that the celebration should become routine - celebrating Tuesdays would quickly lose its impact - but it should be recognized as an integral part of the work process. Growing confident people and teams is a leader’s first and greatest responsibility.

The bottom line: productivity gains of 30% can be achieved almost immediately and at little cost by simply boosting confidence.

George Ebert is the President of Trinity River Seminars and Consulting, a firm specializing in the custom design and delivery of team building, personal growth and ethical development programs. Mr. Ebert is a highly sought after speaker, educator and consultant with over thirty years experience in both the public and private sectors. He has presented widely throughout the Unites States. He is the author of the management cult classic, Climbing From the Fifth Station: A guide to building teams that work!

Vilfredo Pareto’s Principle, or The “Pareto Principle,” is more commonly known as the 80-20 rule. It suggests that a ratio of approximately 20% to 80% can be found as an effective measure for most things in life. Whether revenues generated per customer or value for hours worked, it usually can be found that 80% of all of our results in business and in life come from only 20% of our efforts!

As importantly, the 80-20 ratio seems to hold true for many input/outputs, causes/consequences, or efforts/results. It also holds true across the spectrum of relationships, business, finances, time whatever the case may be.

Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle, suggests that the key to earning more and working less is to pick the right thing to do and only those things that add the highest value. Contrary to public belief, “be intelligent and lazy” is NOT an oxymoron in fact, it’s an important theme of this book! Discarding low value activities in all areas of your life, the true essence of the Pareto Principle, will create the time and freedom for you to enjoy a more richly endowed lifestyle.

How can you apply Pareto’s Principle?

Look for the evidence of Pareto’s Principle in all areas of your life. As best you can, determine where 20% of your energies, resources, time, and talents should be invested for maximum benefit (The 80-20 Rule). Then do it.

In addition to concepts like Pareto’s Principle, wizardZofwealth.com offers people of all income levels wealth-building strategies in the areas of small business, entrepreneurship, self development, personal finance, trading, and investing. The site’s exclusive Wealth Notes presentation style makes learning easy for people seeking financial independence.