When asked why an HR Manager wanted a Presentation skills program for their staff. She shared that her staff, whilst technically proficient. Couldn’t translate that proficiency and knowledge into a well-delivered presentation. This type of statement is not unusual based on years of anecdotal experience.

I have worked with so many talented, enthusiastic, knowledgeable people who unfortunately fall apart when they stand up to present their ideas in person.

The good news is that presentation skills are teachable. Even better, everyone can do it. I often describe presentations skills to learning to drive a car. Once you have mastered the basics, you can then forget about the physical skills. You can then focus on enjoying the journey.

I believe that if you can learn some basic presentation skills. Practice them regularly. You will become a better speaker.

The key here is to learn some new skills which are uncomfortable. It involves putting yourself out there. Once you have learnt those new techniques. You need to raise your hand and practice, practice, practice.

For many of us, eating is just something we do to fuel ourselves. We grab a bite to eat whilst working at our desk. Additionally, we eat in front of the tv at the end of the day. We do this because we are generally so busy that taking time to slow down is not something that we feel is important.

However, it has been shown that when we create a mealtime routine. One that allows us time to think about what we are eating. We do not just benefit from the food itself. We actually digest and process it better.

For some people eating is a time fraught with anxiety and stress. They are worried about the calories and the impact that will have on their weight. For many people with disordered eating, mealtimes are the worst time of the day for them.

Resilience and Mindfulness

What is the connection?

How well do we cope with adversity?

The better we can manage our responses to adversity the more resilient we can be.

Twenty twenty has certainly been testing our resilience in an uncertain environment. Our resilience has been challenged by changes to our working life, our ability to exercise and to destress. For many of us we have lost many of the connections we had. Not only that but additional stress about finances, job stability and our health have added to our anxiety. We need to be more resilient than anytime before.

How can mindfulness help us to build resilience?

Mindfulness is taking time to connect with ourselves and manage our stress better. Resilience allows us to keep going when times are hard and too keep trying no matter what happens. By using mindfulness exercises and activities we give ourselves a process to help us to build resilience.

Mindfulness helps us to slow down and develop our self-awareness. Once we are able to identify how we are feeling, what we are feeling and why then we are better able to build our resilience.

Is there room for optimism during a pandemic?

It is interesting to try and write an article about optimism in the middle of a pandemic. In general the future right now is uncertain at best.

So at this time should we be optimistic?

If we are optimistic how do we guard against what will be for everyone (some to greater and lesser extents) an uncertain future.

Depending on how long it takes for the pandemic to get under control will determine how much economic loss there will be. Therefore, in the midst of global uncertainty how do you stay optimistic?

What helps me is that I know the following:

A lot of very smart people are actively looking at how to best treat and manage Covid-19 so that the loss of life is reduced as much as possible.

Many groups are also working on a vaccine, which will become available in the next 12 to 18 months.

By both getting better at treating the virus and eventually preventing people from getting sick from the virus life should return to normal.

Procrastination and Stretch Goals

This year I set myself a stretch goal to start writing business related articles and to complete a novel. The problem with setting goals like this is I’m the only who can keep myself accountable. It’s now September and I’ve written fourteen articles since January. I have also written one novel and started a second one. This is good but I’d hardly say that I am kicking any goals.

Why is it so hard to do things that we actually enjoy doing?

I think that since they are low reward and other than being something we want to do there is very little motivation and incentive to complete these tasks.

Not just work goals, my fitness goals suffer from a similar issue. I like running and cycling but sometimes I just find it so hard to get started. If I can start though, I usually enjoy myself and feel pretty good about myself at the end. Even knowing I’ll enjoy it isn’t enough sometimes to light that fire under me.

I have spent today cleaning out my stationary drawers, drafting my next social media campaign and pretty much doing anything other than what I should be doing. I’ve finally had enough and promised myself that if I just type for ten minutes I can go and get a coffee. That seems to have worked and I have finally sat down and started thinking about what I wanted to write about.

Failure sucks. Big time.

It also teaches us so much about ourselves. We can learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. This is because when we fail we learn about our resilience and how quickly we can bounce back from hardship.

How can we respond positively to our failure?

Do we:

fall into negative self talk

ignore that the event happened

give up entirely

Or do we:

pick ourselves up and try again?

review what went wrong?

Make adjustments and try again?

Everybody likes a good story. One that sucks you in from the beginning and has you sitting on the edge of your chair with bated breath waiting for the conclusion. It is for this reason that storytelling is becoming more important when delivering a professional presentation in the workplace.

When presenting in a professional setting you are limited by what information you can deliver and quite often the format that you need to use. So weaving in an interesting or gripping story is just as important to consider as you put your presentation together.

How to become a better listener

Previously I have written about why listening skills are so fundamental to effective leadership and why we all should try to be better listeners.

In this article I’m going to look at one area that can limit our listening and share a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) strategy we can use to help us to improve our listening skills.

Identify your Listening Blockers

One of the common blockers to listening is simply that we talk too much. Such a simple issue but how can we talk less?

First we need to identify why we are doing so much talking.

Is it that we are just so enthusiastic about the subject we just can’t help but jump in to help. Or is that we, to quote Celeste Hedley, “we feel in control when we do the talking”.

Some other common listening blockers are:

Multi-tasking

Distractions

Time constraints

You think you already know what the situation is

Whatever the reason, once we identify what it is the second step is to flip the conversation.

Feedback is very helpful whether we are doing a good job or a bad one. Good feedback helps us to know what we are doing right so we can continue to do it. If we need to make changes then it helps us to know where and why those changes need to occur. So how do we give good feedback?

Good feedback

Good feedback has several elements and leaving out any of those will weaken the response we are likely to get.

Firstly feedback should be clear and it should help the person to understand why the behaviour is or is not working.

Next it should help them to understand what would be a better way of handling the situation so that they know what is expected of them.

It should also contain a “what’s in if for them” (WIFT) to change or maintain a behaviour. For people to maintain momentum knowing that what they are doing will benefit them in some way encourages them to keep doing it. If they need to make changes to their behaviour then a WIFT will help them to push themselves to make a change.

When offering feedback you need to consider the state of mind of the person who is receiving it.

Prioritisation or Procrastination

For me the hardest part of prioritizing is not getting distracted once I have identified my priorities for the day. I actually sat down to write this article then went to get a glass of water. I got distracted and forgot about it until I sat down to turn off the computer. So now I am in the process of writing two documents. My novel which I have scheduled to write at this time and this article which was scheduled for earlier in the day.

Priorities with no hard deadline

Part of the issue is I’m actually quite excited about both documents and neither have a hard deadline. I have soft deadlines as both these projects are things I want to do but don’t have to do. So sometimes it’s easy to get drawn into other activities.

How to create achievable goals

Goal setting is an important skill to help you change behaviour and adopt new positive habits. Everyone knows that you need to set SMART goals but quite often we struggle to actually write objectives that are achievable.

I once did a program where I asked my class to write postcards to themselves with their goals listed down. The plan was to mail the postcards to them in three months time. I shared with the group the SMART model of goal setting and then I asked them to work in groups and set themselves two to three goals. As I walked around the room I found all of the students had written down aspirations rather than actual goals.

How do you uncover what you don’t know?

I find in many coaching conversations that two topics consistently come up for discussion. These two topics are that people need to listen more effectively and ask better questions.

Why ask questions?

Increase understanding

Avoid errors

Demonstrate empathy

When we take the time to really listen to people and ask thoughtful questions we are able to better understand the real challenges and issues the person is facing. We are able to get to the heart of the matter and actually solve problems.

Why is curiosity a good trait to foster?

When we are curious about people, experiences and things then we will make ourselves ask more questions and find out more about a subject or topic.

Curiosity is an essential aspect in developing a Growth Mindset. When we identify a gap in our knowledge we can take steps to close that gap.

Curiosity allows us to explore and learn more about the world around us. When I hear something that I don’t understand I will do some basic research. That sometimes will lead me down a rabbit hole. But it is interesting to find things out.

A growth mindset is our attitude and response to a challenge or a new experience in our lives. Do we believe that our strengths and weaknesses are fixed or can we through hard work and perseverance manage to develop and grow?