Know Your Audience and Build Empathy

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Designing a presentation without an audience in mind is like writing a love letter and addressing it “to whom it may concern.”  Ken Haemer, Presentation Research Manager, AT&T

Award-winning author and presentation expert Nancy Duarte has a new book out: HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations. Over the next few days, I will be posting an outline of the book’s 7 sections as well as zeroing in on a specific topic each day.

Section 1: Audience

  • Understand the Audience’s Power – your idea’s fate is in their hands
  • Segment the Audience – Focus on who matters most
  • Present Clearly and Concisely to Senior Executives – help them make big decisions on a tight schedule
  • Get to Know Your Audience – it’s easier to convince someone you know
  • Define How You’ll Change the Audience – what do you want people to believe? How do you want them to behave?
  • Find Common Ground – resonate through empathy

Get to Know Your Audience

Knowing people – really knowing them – makes it easier to influence them.

You are trying to influence them, right? If you’re not, forget the speech and just send a memo.

But if you’re really trying to influence them, you’ve got to connect with them. To connect with them, you’ve got to know something about them.

  • What are they like?
  • Why are they here?
  • What keeps them up at night?
  • What gets them up in the morning?
  • How can you solve their problems?
  • What do you want them to do?
  • How might they resist?
  • How can you best reach them?

When you know you are doing a presentation – whether a weekly sermon, new initiative, or a committee report, do your people homework before you begin preparing your words. Only when you know WHO can you began to think about the WHAT.

People don’t fall asleep during conversations, but they often do during presentations – and that’s because many presentations don’t feel conversational.

When you really know your audience, you are engaging them in a conversation even if it seems one-sided. Knowing your audience well helps you feel warmly toward the people in the room, speak sincerely to them and help them want to listen to you.

Next: Message

This is Part 2 of a series looking at Nancy Duarte’s new book HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

Part 1

 

 

 

 

Engage Your Audience, Sell Your Ideas, and Inspire People to Act

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If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now. – Woodrow T. Wilson

There are typically very few – if any – leadership positions in which the leader is a lone ranger with no teams to work with or report to, no organizational support, and no larger group to speak to on occasions.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are few leadership positions where the leader is constantly working with teams of all sizes, being supported by a few – or a few dozen – individuals, and is regularly speaking to a larger group.

One of those positions is a pastor.

When a pastor steps to the pulpit – in a 100 member church or a 10,000 member church, and everywhere in between – it would be easy to feel as if he were in a position of power. After all, he is up in front of the crowd, maybe even elevated on a stage, and people have come to hear him speak. The speaker is the star of the show, right?

Wrong. The audience is.

I would pause just to say that God is our ultimate audience, and everything we do as a believer is first to an audience of One. That, to me, is a given.

The speaker is not the star of the presentation – the audience is, because they will determine whether your idea spreads or dies, simply by embracing or rejecting it. You need them more than they need you. They have the control, and the speaker needs to be humble in his approach to speaking to them.

How, then, do you become an excellent presenter?

Nancy Duarte is CEO of Duarte, Inc. She teaches workshops on the art of presenting and is the author of two award-winning books: Slide:ology and Resonate. Wait a minute – better make that three!

Harvard Business Review has just published Duarte’s newest book, HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations, and once again she has delivered a valuable tool for speakers everywhere – but especially pastors who stand up every week and deliver a presentation – a sermon – to their congregations.

Duarte’s Guide is broken into 7 sections as follows:

We live and work in a first-draft culture. Type a text or email – send. Write a blog entry – post. Throw some images together – speak.

According to Duarte, though, it’s in crafting and recrafting, in iteration and rehearsal that excellence emerges.

But, you say, I have so many other things to do and I can’t worry about becoming an excellent communicator. Guess what? Becoming an excellent communicator will help you get those things done.

Ready to start?

Next: Audience: Know your audience and build empathy

Want to read more by Nancy Duarte? Click here to read her “10 Steps in Preparing a Powerful Presentation” and also download a free summary of her book Resonate.

Integrating Front-Line Team Members Makes for Better Decisions

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There is an overriding concern from many leaders in today’s organizations who are trying to lead in a time of tumultuous chaos: traditional organizational structures no longer seem sufficient. There’s a simple reason:

The world in which many of today’s leaders were raised and trained no longer exists.

Fast Company Editor Robert Safian’s cover article in the November issue of the magazine is entitled The Secrets of Generation Flux: How to Lead in a Time of Chaos. In an earlier post I took a look at one section; now it’s time for another section – one that hits close to home for me.

Where hierarchy clearly fails the modern organization is in fostering and encouraging the creative ideas needed to stay agile in today’s networked world. The challenge for the Generation Flux leader, then, is to encourage creativity and agility while retaining the advantages of hierarchy. One of the leaders who has done so most successfully is General Stanley McChrystal. An Army man, McChrystal ran Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly five years, and later commanded all U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, before he resigned in 2010 after his staff was quoted saying critical things about the Obama administration in a Rolling Stone article.

McChrystal experienced a reinvention challenge of his own when the threat of Al Qaeda emerged and the U.S. military had to rethink its assumptions. “We thought we knew the rules, that we knew what it took to be successful,” he says. “But the sport we had been playing wasn’t good enough for the sport we were required to be effective at.” McChrystal, 58, speaks with the stentorian assurance of an old-school leader. But what he has to say doesn’t fit that profile.

“We grew up in the military with this [classic hierarchy]: one person at the top, with two to seven subordinates below that, and two to seven below that, and so on. That’s what organizational theory says works,” he explains. Against Al Qaeda, however, “we had to change our structure, to become a network. We were required to react quickly. Instead of decisions being made by people who were more senior–the assumption that senior meant wiser–we found that the wisest decisions were usually made by those closest to the problem.”

In other words, leaders need to be open to letting others make decisions for them. In a fast-changing world, the boots on the ground–be they soldiers or salespeople, engineers or intelligence officers–often need to react without going up the chain of command for approval. What’s more, they need to be empowered to act, to solve problems they encounter unexpectedly. This kind of openness requires not just free-flowing information but a new kind of collaborative trust.

For McChrystal, creating an organization where the best ideas win starts with instilling what he calls a “shared consciousness.” Leaders want the best ideas, but they want to ensure that everyone across the organization understands its goals and strategies. How else can you ensure that your people will act as you would like, even when you are not there? “If I’d proposed this idea to the people I grew up with [in the military],” says McChrystal, “they would have beaten me up and taken my lunch money.”

In Iraq and Afghanistan, local commanders relied on video surveillance from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), which gave them unparalleled views of target zones. But there were few UAVs to share among many commanders. Divvying them up was operationally critical but also emotionally important; in a fluid, diffuse war zone, commanders could easily feel slighted if they weren’t informed and empowered. “We forced our task force to hold frequent video conferences,” says McChrystal. “It was tempting to centralize control of these assets, but neither I nor my top leaders did. The commanders made the decisions about how to disperse them.” McChrystal invested in technology to spur communication and decentralize decision-making; his organizational structure made sure that it was used by the troops in more efficient ways. “My command team and I guided our values, strategy, and priorities,” he explains. “The leaders lower in the organization made tactical and operational decisions in line with those principles.”

What makes McChrystal’s comments above very personal to me is that one of my sons is in the Air Force UAV program. He’s a sensor operator, providing the video surveillance described above that helps commanders make crucial, time-sensitive decisions. Serving under the same command structure described in the Fast Company article, he has guidelines to follow. But more than ever before, those guidelines allow the critical input of the front-line troops.

As the son of a WWII vet, the father of an active-duty airman, and an avid reader of military history, the movement toward this type of decision-making is unprecedented. That may be, but it’s being duplicated in all types of organizations – even in ChurchWorld.

As McChrystal says, “The wisest decisions are made by those closest to the problem – regardless of their seniority.”

At organizations big and small, the smartest leaders recognize that a new kind of openness to ideas is required. This is where hierarchy fails us completely. How can a leader make sure that all the options and ideas from the trenches make their way to the top? If you rely on a traditional suggestion-box approach–“Please send me your ideas”–you’re doomed to limit your inputs, even in a digital, social age. Self-censorship is endemic wherever there is a whiff of hierarchy. People assume that their opinions aren’t really valued.

It seems as if today’s leadership is about ambiguity. It’s time for both/and, not either/or. Leaders need a balance between top-down command and control and bottom-up, front-line leadership.

It’s time for GenFlux leaders.

Who’s the GenFlux leader in your organization?

My favorite post from October, 2012

Putting Processes to Work for Your Guest Services Team

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Here’s the bottom line principle when it comes to designing processes for guest services:

An organization needs to think like a customer (or in this case, a Guest)

Put yourselves in the shoes of the typical guest coming to your campus this weekend. Walk through (literally) every touchpoint and interaction that your guest might conceivably encounter. Develop a process or system that will anticipate their need and meet it before it becomes apparent to the guest.

Need help working it out? Try this six-step continuous improvement cycle from Xerox:

  • Identify and select the problem to be worked on
  • Analyze the problem
  • Generate potential solutions
  • Select and plan the best solution
  • Implement the solution
  • Evaluate the solution

Once you have identified a solution and find that it works, continue to use it, evaluating it periodically as needed, replacing it completely when it no longer works.

Here’s a real world situation as an example:

I serve as a Guest Services Team Coordinator for Elevation Church’s Uptown campus in Charlotte, NC. We meet in McGlohan Theater in Spirit Square (the former First Baptist Charlotte campus, turned into an entertainment venue in the 1970’s when the church relocated).

Problem: Almost everyone attending the Uptown Campus drives from somewhere else in Charlotte – which means lots of cars.

Analysis: The theatre only has about 40 parking spaces associated with it. Wanting to reserve those for VIPs (first time guests) and families with small children, we had to locate other parking.

Potential Solutions: Everybody for themselves (no way!); utilize street parking (not enough, and used by businesses or not available many Sundays); negotiate favorable rates with surface parking lots (not so favorable rates, it turns out); negotiate the use of a parking deck 1 1/2 blocks away (good rate, but a little far)

Select the Best Solution: Utilize the parking deck because it puts the majority of cars in one place, allowing maximum efficiency of guest services teams; helps with security; gives a sense of “place” to everyone coming Uptown

Implement the Solution: Determine the traffic patterns of cars coming Uptown and design appropriate signs and locations to maximize impact; develop a checklist of the different types of signs and their locations; negotiate with parking company to insure staff is on site or nearby in case of mechanical problems; promote the “how” of the parking deck through website videos, print materials, and live announcements as needed; plan for inclement weather; coordinate Parking Team, VIP Team, and Greeters to insure smooth transition from parking deck to theater

Evaluate the Solution: Every week the parking team notes hits and misses, and adjusts the process to eliminate them

That’s how we do it at Uptown!

Now, take the principle and apply it in your context.

Efficient processes can transform your Guest Services Team

My favorite post from August, 2012

How to Be Like Walt, Part 1

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Growing up in the 60’s, my earliest memories of Walt Disney came through his television shows and movies. Only decades later did I experience the magic of one of his theme parks. Looking back over all those experiences, I realize that in some sense, Walt Disney’s creative genius was equal, if not superior, to another genius of our time – Steve Jobs.

My curiosity led to ongoing research about the man called Walt Disney – and is producing some amazing lessons from his life that are powerful leadership lessons for today.

Walt Disney was more than a man. He is a symbol of the values he represents: imagination, honesty, perseverance, optimism, and vision. He was a creative genius who could visualize a future found only in his dreams – and then make those dreams come true.

Pat Williams

Walt Disney’s life provides powerful lessons that can be applied in any leadership position. Author Pat Williams recognized this, and went behind the legend to discover a man every bit as fascinating as the world he created.

How to Be Like Walt is the result of thousands of hours of interviews of the people who knew Walt best. In addition to being a fascinating life story of one of our nation’s most creative minds, the author has distilled Walt’s life into 17 lessons – lessons that we all could learn from.

Live the Adventure – Walt’s boyhood on a farm near Marceline MO inspired a sense of wonder and imagination that stayed with him throughout his life. He also experienced treatment from his father that by today’s standards would be abusive. Yet he didn’t let those memories dominate; instead, he shaped his life around the warm, nostalgic memories of his boyhood. It doesn’t matter where you came from, or who your parents are, or what happened when you were a child. All that matters is that you are willing to live the adventure and dream big dreams, them make those dreams come true.

Be a Salesman – A deeper look at Walt’s life reveals that from the beginning of his career, he was a salesman – one of the greatest salesman the world has ever known. He worked hard and sold his ideas from the earliest days of his career. Walt had the right idea and the right spirit, and he was willing to go out and sell his ideas, even when faced with huge challenges. A great salesman can’t be stopped. Be honest, enthusiastic, confident, courageous and persistent. Sell your dreams, and make them come true.

Dare to Do the Impossible – Walt returned from France after WWI and believed that anything was possible. He was audacious enough to believe that an 18-year old with one year of art school could go to a newspaper and get a job as a political cartoonist. He was brash enough to believe that he could teach animation to other artists – after learning to animate after reading two books checked out from the library. He was reckless enough that, after going bankrupt in Kansas City he went to Hollywood to start over in animated cartoons when all the animation studios were in New York City. Dare to do the impossible. Dream big dreams, and don’t be surprised when your impossible dreams come true.

Unleash Your Imagination – After losing the rights to his first cartoon creation (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit), Walt responded with imagination. In effect, he said “I’ll solve this problem by creating something new, something the world has never seen before.” So Walt created Mickey Mouse. Walt had an astounding creative awareness. He not only stored up ideas and material in his mind, but he was alert to ideas from the world around him. He had the ability to expand a good idea into a spectacular idea.

Tomorrow: How to Be Like Walt, Part 2 

My favorite post from July, 2012

Mission is What You Measure

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Following up from yesterday’s post, here’s a simple question for you:

What types of “film” would you watch to improve the effectiveness of your church?

Keeping in mind that I’m using “film” in a figurative sense – there are many ways to observe, measure, and evaluate activities in your organization for possible improvement.

What most established churches measure is harmony, stability, and privilege. That is what occupies the agenda of most staff meetings, congregational gatherings, and denominational processes.

  • Churches go to great lengths to measure harmony – they mark every single, conceivable, and even half-baked complaint, anxiety, or hurt feeling.
  • Churches go to great lengths to measure stability. They chart the financial and membership trends. They have mastered the art of risk management.
  • Churches go to great length to measure privilege. They maintain elaborate by-laws and exacting processes for consensus management

Often the problem is that a watching and seeking world sees the disconnect between the stated (or at least assumed) mission of the church and the reality.

Is it possible to consider other activities that the church should be doing? How about “watching the film” in these areas for starters?

  • Do you have a red carpet? – What is your guest experience like? How do you welcome people to your campus? What makes your guests say, “Wow – I didn’t expect that!”
  • How do you handle frequent fliers? – Welcoming every guest is important. Welcoming guests for the second and third time is extremely important!
  • Who’s on your team? – Team matters – if you’re going to be in the game, you’ve got to have a team. There are probably dozens of opportunities in your church for people to be involved. How do you move them from attending to participating?
  • What’s my draft like? – Sports teams don’t just randomly pick their players; they spend lots of money and effort to know the potential of each player. Recruiting leaders in your church ought to operate the same way.
  • How many teams are in your league? Your church probably worships in a large group or two, but it will only thrive and grow by creating small groups. How do you create them, what do you expect them to do, and how do they reproduce?
  • How do you define a win? In sports, you look at the scoreboard. What’s a win look like for your church as individuals, groups, and the church as a whole?

I’ve only scratched the surface – you can probably add a dozen more activities to this list – things you ought to be “watching the film” on. Understanding what is important, and then taking steps to continually improve it, will produce results.

Mission is what you measure.

My favorite post from June, 2012

One Button: The Official Symbol of Simplicity

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…a single iconic image can be the most powerful form of communication.

– Ken Segall, Insanely Simple

Ken Segall was the creative director at several ad agencies, working for big-name tech companies like IBM, Intel, and Dell. However, it was his work with Apple over a period of years that gives him a unique perspective of the stark contrast of Apple’s ways that made Segall appreciate the power of Simplicity.

The obsession with Simplicity is what separates Apple from other technology companies. Led by Steve Jobs’ uncompromising ways, you can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it’s structured, the way it innovates, and the way it speaks to its customers.

Like this:

Or even this:

Apple branded itself using iconic images and two words that perfectly described the spirit of the company. Every Apple produce sold contributed to the brand image; every product became a manifestation of the brand.

There’s one more example:

One is the simplest number ever invented. It’s so simple, a child can understand it. The further you get away from one, the more complicated things get.

That’s why Steve Jobs insisted on iPhone having only one button, rejecting many models before arriving at the final version. You don’t even have to use an iPhone to get that it’s simple. In fact, one could say that the single button has become an icon of Apple’s devotion to Simplicity.

Simplicity requires little effort.

If Apple had it’s way, all of its products would feature a single button. Now that the iPhone has Siri, the voice-controlled assistant, you might want to prepare yourself for Apple products with zero buttons.

After all, zero is the only number that’s simpler than one.

I’ve really enjoyed reading Insanely Simple and its true insider’s perspective on Apple’s obsession with Simplicity. Ken Segall has really brought the concepts of Simplicity home.

As a leader, are you practicing Simplicity?

Growth Should be a Tactic, Not a Strategy

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Starbucks was recently named the most innovative company in the Food & Beverage category in Fast Company’s “World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.”

Not a bad place for a company that just a few short years ago was failing at success.

CEO Howard Schultz tends to see his company’s recent tribulations as a case study in what can happen to a business that uses growth as a strategy rather than a tactic.

For the better part of 15 years, from 1992 through 2006, practically everything the company did produced a level of success and adulation. If Frappuccino is a hot category and you introduce a new flavor, and it moves the needle a lot, the organization comes to believe, ‘That was a great thing we did.’ And it imprints a feeling of, ‘That was innovation.’ But that’s not innovation. In fact, it’s laziness.

By Schultz’s criteria, the line extension of a product involves little in the way of risk-taking or long-range vision. That was the problem with the old Starbucks.

And it’s probably a problem with your church, too.

Starbucks’ rebound is complicated: the financial rebound can be traced to domestic cost-cutting and global expansion (most notably China). More fascinating is Starbucks’ reputational rebound – the result of Schultz and his company’s efforts to renew a culture of entrepreneurialism and innovation that had fallen by the wayside during a mad rush for growth a few years back.

It’s a cultural shift from a methodical expansion of the brand to a methodical enhancement of the brand. As Fast Company’s Jon Gertner writes:

Starbucks no longer seems to perceive its future as depending on an ability to clone its essential store concept ad infinitum. To be somewhat reductive: You can try to sell the same amount of stuff at more stores. Or you can try to sell more and more stuff at the same number of stores. These days, the overarching gestalt of the company – demonstrated by its plans for redesigned stores, investments in innovative coffee machines, and expansion of its digital networks, and rewards programs – is striving for every branch to be both more versatile and more artisanal.

Don’t let all this business talk put you to sleep:

Churches often think growth is the end game, when it’s really only part of the playbook.

What sacrifices have you made – only to later regret – in the name of growth?

 

Favorite Post from February, 2012

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Snow…

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Monday was the busiest mailing day of the year.stuffed mailbox

The U.S. Postal Service handled over 658 million pieces of mail last Monday. That’s 130 million more pieces than a regular day, and a 20% increase over their busiest day in 2011.

What would you do if your organization knew it had to increase its output 20% over its busiest time for a day?

 

My Big Toe, I Corinthians 12, and the Body of Christ

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You’ve seen it hundreds of times in spy movies, or read about it in a book. The hero, after fighting off dozens of bad guys, is finally knocked unconscious, awakening in a dimly lit, cold, dank dungeon. A truly evil face is staring at him as he regains consciousness. “You think you can resist us, but you will change your mind once we begin pulling out your nails, one by one.”

Okay, maybe a little heavy there.

For the last two weeks, I have been self-treating an ingrown toenail on my big toe. Over the past weekend, the pain began to override the every four hours of Advil, and my OTC meds weren’t making a dent. I called my doctor Monday morning to see if he would refer me to a specialist. “No problem,” his nurse said, “He does these all the time. We can see you tomorrow.”

With only a little trepidation (especially after almost passing out this morning after bumping my toe on the bedpost), I greeted my doctor and showed him the toe. With a sly grin that masked the truly evil person he is, he barely touched the toe and said “Does this hurt?” After coming down off the ceiling, I managed to nod. (The preceding sentence is just hyperbole – my doctor is a great guy, has been for the 17+ years I have known him, and furthermore, is my age. Somehow it is comforting to know your doctor really understands what’s going on in your middle-age body).

He then said, “That nail has got to come off so we can treat the whole problem, not just the pain. Are you game?” (Flashback to all those movies)

My reply? “As long as anesthesia is involved, and the end result is the pain going away, I’m good for whatever you recommend.”

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (I Corinthians 12:12-26)

It might have just been a pain in my big toe, but one thing led to another, and before long my whole body was involved:

  • Shifting weight off the front of my foot caused my heel to hurt
  • To relieve the heel pain, I altered my stride while walking
  • Before long, my back began to ache
  • With an achy back, I could not sit in my usual work position
  • With the toe sensitive to even the lightest touch, I did not sleep well
  • Taking 400mg of Advil every 3-4 hours around the clock for 2+ weeks eventually has its own issues

Who knew what big problems a little toe could cause?

In a sense, that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul was talking about in the passage above.

The gathered believers are the Body of Christ, and like the human body, have different roles to play in a healthy Body. When everyone is doing their part, the Body is functioning as it was intended.

But when one part of the Body is not working as it was designed, the whole Body suffers.

God created each believer with as specific role and gifting. If you are not fulfilling that role and using your gift, the Body suffers.

What’s your role?

What’s your gift?

Are you contributing to a whole, healthy Body? Or is your absence causing the Body to suffer?