Amplifiers

Leaders today need to go “old school”. They need to get out from behind their strategy and bring leadership to life. They need to be able to make a difference personally. Their very role as leaders, the purpose of their existence, is to make a difference and the difference they make is one of amplification.

They need to be able to make more out of what is going on. They amplify the messages that matter, they amplify the commitment to getting things done, they amplify the positive mood in a culture and they amplify the results we get.

Amplifiers are those leaders who make a difference at all levels within a business, a community or a family.

The challenge is that being an Amplifier is a choice you make, more so than a promotion you get or a set of capabilities you develop.

We desperately need leaders who can lead. We need Amplifiers - those leaders who can reduce fear and replace it with confidence, reduce confusion and replace it with clarity, mobilising us all in pursuit of a better future. It's not a “nice to do”, it's a necessity, and one that becomes increasingly so as we move further into a technological age where we find ourselves time poor and information rich. We need leaders who can take this data deluge and provide meaning, engagement and relevance around all the stuff that matters.

Amplifiers are a new level in the leadership ladder, distinguishable from other levels by their ability to develop motivators and inspirers and not just be one themselves. In tech terms they are the new operating system. They take all the best bits of the previous five positive stages on the leadership ladder and add a final quality multiplication. They are not only motivating - they create motivators; they are not only inspiring - they inspire inspirers. They go from being the smartest and most inspiring in the room, and actually breed those qualities in others. As a result their effect is exponential. If one motivator can reach 150 people and an amplifier creates 150 motivators -  they then reach 22,500 people indirectly. They become 150n. They have exponential and immeasurable impacts on communities and businesses.

Learn how to use motivational leadership to get things done in and around you. Get really good at being an Amplifier, it's not just talk and you do make a difference! We need Amplifiers!

M@

15 Questions

When speaking in public, there are 15 questions in the minds of your audience members that need to be answered before you deliver the content of your message. These questions are often unconscious, but answering them in advance means that people are more receptive to what you have to say and more likely to remember what you said.

The first set of questions are all about making your message a priority:
1. Why this message? I read a piece recently that suggested that there are 3,500 books being written every day, and the question is not "How will I find time to read them all?", but rather, "Of those I choose to read, which ones are worth my attention?" Sharing information any other way is much the same; the audience gives me an hour of their time, so I had better give them something worth listening to. (IMPORTANCE)
2. Why this message now? Almost every audience you will address will feel that they have a lot on, and that all of it is all-important. This is something you need to navigate every time you are attempting to gather people's attention around your idea or cause. They must give it a sense of urgency! (URGENCY)
3. Why are you the person to tell me this message? This is where you begin to build credibility around who you are and your message. If you get a great response to your first two pieces around the message and the urgency of it, you can spend less time on the third credibility piece. (CREDIBILITY)

The second set of questions are all about positioning who you are and what you do:
4. Who are you? The critical thing whenever you talk about yourself is to do so humbly. Make sure you own your success but be quick to share how you have learnt from mistakes and failures. (DISCLOSURE)
5. What do you do? Think like an engineer as you talk through what it is you do and how you go about doing it. See if you can elevate others. State the fact that you are surrounded by some seriously smart technical cookies. Then proceed to explain how person X's genius allows you to get Y done better than others. (PROCESS)
6. Why should I care? You need to link what you know to what people want. If you can link how what you propose helps the audience get what they are in business for - people get that you are delivering a message just for them - that addresses their real work challenges. This makes you super relevant. (BENEFIT)

The third set of questions are all about knocking down barriers and subconscious objections:
7. What's wrong with you? At some time in your life you will be the odd one - maybe you are short, maybe you are bald, maybe you are white and the audience is not. Be careful that you don't come from insecurity when framing out a what’s-wrong-with-you concern. (PERSONAL)
8. What’s wrong with them? Think through your audience and see if they have a professional bias or some such. Eg. Engineers over specify things (like bridges so they don't fall down), accountants analyse things. Frame their bias in a complimentary way and position the disruption or change that is instructing your thinking. Ask for thoughts - then position your message. (AUDIENCE)
9. What's wrong with your message? If a message is hard to swallow or you know something might be poorly received it’s useful to get that elephant out the front of the room and name it. (MESSAGE)

The fourth set of questions switch the smart cookies on to your talk:
10. What's it like? This question is basically addressing the need for referencing. This helps people to see that you are not passing off ideas as your own. Quote others, hold up books, references, shared experiences and use analogies to start your conversation. (ABSTRACT)
11. What's it about? This is a question that positions your message into a primary overarching context. Basically pick a word that sums up what you want to discuss and share it at the outset. Then, what you want to do is build a memorable phrase that anchors that word in a way that's easy to recall. (EXISTENTIAL)
12. What's in it for me? The ‘me’ in this case may be 'my group' or 'my division' or 'my family' and it’s not an unreasonable question for someone to ask. Take time to get really clear what the pay off is for your desired audience. (INTRAPERSONAL)

The last three questions are about action and driving change:
13. What's your point? Make sure that your point is clear and well articulated. Your three or so great points nest under your primary context, (question 11) and make it real. (CLARITY)
14. How is it unique? Make sure you can explain how your idea is unique - look for a point of difference. (DIFFERENTIATION)
15. So what should I do? Our final frame is the action frame. Pick three, five or seven simple actions that people can take. Make them practical as well as conceptual. (PRESCRIPTION)

If the message you deliver is relevant, thorough, elegant and unique - then they just might act on it.

M@

Rah Rah! It's not just talk

Leaders today need to go old school. They need to get out from behind their strategy and bring leadership to life.

Motivational leadership is the ability to influence culture and drive change. It’s applied powerfully at home, in communities and organisations everywhere. 

We need leaders who can lead. Leaders who can remove fear and replace it with confidence, remove confusion and replace it with clarity and mobilise us all in pursuit of a better future.

It seems that strategy is failing many as it is almost impossible to create solutions for futures further out than 12-36 months. Make no mistake, strategy is critical, it’s simply not all it’s been made out to be. The idea of motivational leadership trumps strategy every time.

Motivational Leadership (Rah Rah!) is the missing link between what we know we should do (strategy), the willingness to do it (attitude) and getting it done (execution). While the principles of Rah Rah are simple, the application of them requires a combination of art, finesse and courage.

One thing though is universally true, you cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without also illuminating your own.

Speak to influence

Great Leaders are Great Speakers.

Public speaking is a critical leadership tool. We invented a word to kind of make this point 'Speakership', its our strong belief that leaders who can't effectively communicate their vision are running with both legs shackled. 

Essentially its about two things, one is horizontal and one is vertical. 

The horizontal skill:

Great leaders can communicate to any team member regardless of their world view. They can communicate to the guy making ends meet through to the spiritual leader in their community. Being able to adapt a core message so that it has the flexibility of different world views is speakership. 

This is primarily about being able to shift the values filter through which your message is being communicated.

The vertical skill: 

Great leaders can adjust their message so that it appeals to all the different frames of reference. Some people engage with an idea when it is presented logically and in great detail, others would prefer to hear a message in its emotional form with strong attachment to the big picture.  

This is primarily about being able to prepare and deliver your messages so that they are full spectrum ideas. Complete and not half baked.

Great Leaders are Great Communicators.  

If you would like help deploying the speakership capability through your senior leadership team drop us a note, info@mattchurch.com.

Such a fan of Nancy Duarte - TED talks good

Mantra Message for Speakers:

Five ideas that will help you present 10x better next time

Think before you speak - 7 questions you can ask yourself before your next speech

Before you open your mouth to speak, there are some questions you need to develop answers for, think of this as the pre-work for any speech.

7 Great Questions

1. The context
If you could summarise your speech in one word (x), what is it about?

2. The key points
What 3, 5 or 7 points are you hoping to make about that context (x)?

3. Importance
Why is context (x) important? This is all about answering the question, why this message?

4. Urgency
Now that you have established that (x) is important, you need to make it urgent. So, why do we need to care about (x) now? Note: You will see at this point we are not discussing your points, simply the big picture context of your speech. This can normally be summarised in one word.

5. Problems (common)
What common problem/challenge or aspiration does the audience have that needs to be fixed?

6. Problems (deeper)
What deeper problem do they have to fix that your speech addresses?

7. Prescriptions
What actions can the audience take after your presentation that will make a difference with (x)? (List 3 things the audience can do immediately to make a difference around (x))

Anyone can speak to drive business, they just need to learn the formula's.

M@

The artful science of humour

Whenever I try to be funny, the audience doesn’t always laugh, or worse, they may laugh at stuff when I’m trying to be serious.

Over the years, I have learned to listen to what the room is laughing at and make sure I keep that part of what I was doing in my speeches. Many of my professional speaker friends record every talk they give. This would be a great way to capture the specific word sequence and structure of the sections that people find funny.

Humour really is an artful science; science, that there are formulas and steps you can follow; and it is an art in that there is a need for an intuitive sense of timing, and appropriateness is key.

But will they take you seriously if you use humour? In my opinion, some things are simply too important to not be laughed at. It’s almost as if the most serious messages are best delivered with a “lightness of being”.

Here are several ideas to help you be funnier when you speak:

Tell stories, not jokes
It’s much easier to use humorous stories to lighten things up than to deliver jokes that don’t offend. Most jokes will definitely offend. Situational comedy is nice and safe. Seinfeld built an Emmy award winning show based on funny situations.

Google for laughs
Jokes are risky but the punch-line often isn’t. A joke usually has a setup and a punch-line. Google ‘jokes on (the key topic)’ or idea in your stories, and you can often weave the punch-line into your stories as an off-hand comment, rather than fully set up the joke.

Use your audience
The people in your audience are often funnier than you will ever be. If you can get comfortable with a degree of audience participation and interaction, you can often lift the mood by bouncing humour around with your audience. This technique is kind of like flirting with the humour that exists in the room. Work with what you have available to you. If you are not naturally funny, then let them be. Over time, as you relax into this role, you may find yourself dropping small lighthearted comments into the humour provided. In this way, you can build on the work being done by the jokers in the room.

Make fun of yourself
Self-deprecation is the safest route to humour. Sarcasm is the riskiest. Shakespeare said it well when he said, ‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit’. It’s easy to poke fun at others but this is hardly ever a successful strategy for speakers. The ability to laugh at yourself is a fabulous signal that you are relaxed and not too nervous. It also shows you respect the room and are not cocky or overly confident. Obviously, the idea of making jokes at your own expense is culturally dependent. The British do it to excess, and as a result it will work in countries with a shared Commonwealth history. It also works in the US, but less so in some Asian cultures. Humility, though, is a universal value; if done right, this kind of humour may elevate your standing by showing great humility. Just make sure you don’t take it too far.

M@

Presenter Evolution

As you start to watch different presenters and listen to what they say and how they say it, you might notice some distinct differences. For example, a sports person who just won gold in their chosen event might be sharing a story of how they did it. Or, a consultant on customer service might be sharing the steps you go through to improve your service experience for customers. A spiritual guide might simply sit in service doing what appears to be an off the cuff yet profound question and answer session, they are setting a state of energy in the room.

What follows are my thoughts on the evolution of speakers. It steps out, what is for me, an easy to follow process for taking your presentations to the next level. As it's not how we normally see things, each stage is ‘AND also’ not ‘then NEXT’. It's about incorporating the best of the early stages content into each next progressive level.

First Stage: You see this with kids at primary school. My 8 year old son will present a message from his point of view (I) and will deliver his message through narrative (story). Assuming you are interested in him and his stories, and of course I am, it's compelling. This stage is used to stimulate interest and is often best delivered with a semi theatrical style... ‘An amazing thing happened to me the other day...’

Second Stage: Teachers tend to come from this stage most of the time. They will set out a sequential process (steps) and deliver it with a training outcome approach (you). The idea is you acquire a new skill, a way of doing something. This stage is designed to impact the audience in some way and is very much delivered with an instructive show and tell style... ‘Here is something you may find useful...’

Third Stage: A great coach with an elite sports team will often present from this third stage. They use tone and shift the energy in a room. It's all about the energy or mood (state) they create. Often they challenge, confront, excite or inspire, depending on the outcome they are hoping to facilitate. It's very much about getting into the heads of the audience and connecting (engagement) with them in some significant way. This is the stage most change occurs from... ‘together we can create history here today, but you have to want it bad. Do you want it? I know one thing; physical pain disappears but the feeling of defeat lasts a lifetime...’

This evolution is key to getting better exponentially and to build your next learning on the foundations of your previous knowledge. It requires more continuous focus but I think is the determining factor between competence and mastery.

M@