Put stage fright behind you

By ANGELA McCARTHY

Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?

You enter the lift in the building of your company's largest customer. The only other person in the lift is its managing director, who you've seen before but never spoken to.

He introduces himself and asks what you do for your company. You want to make a good impression. What do you say?

Here's another one: the monthly management meeting is in serious overtime. There is a lot of fidgeting. Every other presenter has used, or in several cases, abused, their allocated 10 minutes.

You can take your rightful allocation and really hack everyone off. But what if you could condense your key points into one meaningful minute, and earn the gratitude of all present?

And one more: you're about to speak at the board meeting. Organising your thoughts to make a good case is harrowing enough. Even worse is the thought of being thrown to the lions at the end with the inevitable question-and-answer session.

Just before entering the boardroom you're asked to leave your laptop and PowerPoint presentation behind. What now?

Such occurrences can send people into a panic - but can be easily overcome, says Jim Center, a sales and marketing consultant and registered New Zealand Think on Your Feet (TOYF) trainer.

The secret to coping with any of the above scenarios is to structure your thoughts in a short time using clarity, brevity and impact, says Center.

Then you can respond clearly and intelligently whether meeting royalty unexpectedly, summarising to a tired audience, or coping with loss of props.

Think on Your Feet workshops suggest 10 different structural ways of approaching subjects. The method was designed by Canadian academic and media expert Dr Keith Spicer to reflect the way our brains naturally work.

He recognised that while structure is a left-brain notion, the secret of improvisation is to release right-brain creativity.

It is, says Center, "much like [how] a repertoire of chords supports the improvisation of a musician".

Structure is necessary because it provides the pattern recognition our brains need to deal efficiently with data. Consider the number 100000000. Providing a pattern by adding commas makes it instantly recognisable as 100,000,000.

"When we pattern our ideas quickly and clearly, we not only enhance our own survival chances, we also do our listeners a big favour," says Center.

Sounds wonderful? It is, according to IBM New Zealand learning services manager Dianne Ashleigh.

She did a workshop four years ago when new to IBM, wanting to improve her ability to communicate clearly to different audiences.

"For me, it is important that I leave very clear messages when I leave meetings," she says. "Often people talk a lot, but you're not sure what they are trying to say.

"The workshop teaches you how to gather your thoughts quickly and concisely. It is about analysing, organising and presenting ideas persuasively."

IBM actively encourages employees to take TOYF workshops, which are regularly run in-house.

Customers and business partners are also offered the workshop.

Ashleigh says the two-day workshop, with its emphasis on role-play and group critiquing, gave her the confidence to put the approach into practice immediately.

So how do you convert, when caught on the hop, from a blushing stutterer to a cool, calm and collected individual?

The trick is to lead off with an "announcement that provides a road map to the listener", says Center.

He suggests you "announce" what you are going to talk about by "headlining" or outlining three specific aspects: maybe your business capabilities, your customers and benefits you offer.

You then expand on each of the three areas: "Let me begin with the capabilities."

Your listeners relax and pay attention because they feel they know where they're heading. You feel in charge because you have a structure to work with.

Three is an important number in TOYF methodology, says Center. By offering three main points, you reinforce without becoming long-winded.

"One of the worst things you can do is announce headings then launch into your presentation and forget them."

However, this rule of threes should not be adhered to rigidly. Sometimes you'll have more to say than other times, but it is a good premise to work from, says Center.

"If you're asked to talk about your quarterly returns, you don't leave one out.

"But if you haven't got a good reason to use another number, then talk in threes."

Formal presentations require similar skills. Writing down screeds of words to be parroted is not a good look, according to Center.

"You're better off working out how to structure your presentation. We encourage people to rehearse structures and key messages, not words and sentences. Spontaneity flows on from that."

If you're surprised by a question, Center suggests initial bridging responses such as, "That is an interesting question/comment. Why do you think that?" or, "That is an interesting observation. Can you explain what it is based on?"

But speed of response isn't everything.

Comments such as "Let me think about that", or "Let me think about the best way to respond to that", all help you to think on your feet, says Center.

Another common mistake is saying too much while gathering thoughts.

"There is a sense of filling the void, of not recognising the value of silence," says Center.

Timing, word emphasis and gestures all help to get messages across efficiently, says Center, although gesturing is not a favourite with New Zealanders.

One of the structures practised in the workshop is the pendulum approach, which looks at a situation where you have two conflicting views and need to find a common ground.

Center says it can be very effective to indicate the pendulum physically, swinging arms to the left for one point of view, the right for the other, then drawing them together.

Such gestures help people who take a visual approach to assimilating information.

Trainer John Adams says tone and body language are as important as words - 80 per cent of our communication is non-verbal.

* Think on Your Feet workshops led by trainer Jim Center will be held at the New Zealand Institute of Management (NZIM) Auckland Division at 17 Sultan Street, Penrose, Auckland, on August 26 and 27, December 5 and 6, and in February next year.

Contact (09) 525-3300

kyle-ball@nzim.co.nz


Think on your feet

NZIM