Matt Abrahams: "How to Make Your Communication Memorable"

0:00 [Music] hello how are we doing excellent very good I am thrilled to be here and I'm thrilled to be talking about the topic of how to make our communication memorable so today is all about specific tips and tricks that you can use so that you can help yourself remember what you're trying to say and to help your audience remember well I like communicating I love hearing you communicate as well so today is going to be participative and I invite you to participate as much or as little as you like so let's go ahead and get started and you'll see by some of the imagery that I'm using I'm trying to keep a very serious subject playful so when I ask my

0:47 students or the people I coach what worries you the most what concerns you the most I hear two things all the time I'm afraid I'm not gonna remember what I need to say followed immediately by I'm afraid my audience is gonna remember what I say so today is all about trying to give those tools that we can use to make sure that our communication is memorable and we'll start by looking at how we can help ourselves remember our content and then we'll move forward and we'll talk about how to make sure that your content is memorable and we'll start by talking about presentation hygiene to me presentation hygiene is about what you do to prepare for your

1:32 communication not the actual practice which we will talk about but specifically what you do in your life to get yourself ready so to begin one of the most important things we can do is make sure that we eat well I coached an individual who kept getting promoted in his organization and he noticed that as he got promoted he got more nervous and more forgetful when he gave presentations and ran meetings and I asked him why do you think that is and he had no idea and I said walk me through your day and what we learned was as he kept getting promoted his diet got worse and worse he was drinking more caffeine he was eating more fast food and he couldn't remember well so by looking into some

2:20 nutritional advice by eating more healthy he actually regained his confidence and his memory so preparing for a presentation or a important meeting like you would prepare for some kind of athletic event is exactly what you should do make sure that you treat your diet well and that you focus on elements like what you eat and when you eat certain foods to make sure you're prepared quick bit of advice caffeine while preparing your communication but not before you deliver your communication in addition to eating we also have to make sure that we exercise we have to make sure that our body is warmed up and it works very well to

3:06 reduce stress that we have so instead of spending a whole night cramming for that big meeting or that big presentation it's far better to do a little exercise to breathe deeply and get a good night's sleep sleep is critical to memory formation and to making sure you have the energy you need to communicate effectively so simple hygiene what you eat the exercise you do the sleep you get can really help now we live in a valley of Technology so part of our hygiene in preparation needs to focus on technology there are myriad of apps and tools that you can use to help yourself become a better more effective

3:52 communicator I'm going to list several here these are tools that range from helping you reduce the number of disfluencies you have those are the UM zazz likes and I means all the way through tools that help you with your vocal intensity in your flow one of these tools actually allows you to dawn VR goggles and see an imaginary audience an audience you can determine if it's friendly or hostile big or small you can even see your slide deck behind you in a virtual world leverage tools to help you with your preparation this is the first step to being an effective memorable communicator next we actually

4:38 have to think about the messages that we communicate and I believe all effective communication all high-stakes communication must start with a goal and to me a goal has three key components it's about information emotion and action at the end of your meeting at the end of your presentation at the end of your email what do you want your audience to know how do you want them to feel and what do you want them to do you should be able to articulate your goal clearly before you create your content my goal for us today is simple I'd like

5:24 for each and every one of you to leave here with some tools and tactics you can use to be more memorable I want you to feel confident and dare I say excited to try these tools and ultimately I'd love for you to use them each of you needs to think about what is your goal for your upcoming high-stakes communication and by the way having a goal not only helps you focus what you say it also helps you assess the success of your communication in the work I do with my students here and the consulting I do around the world I often ask people how do you know if your communication was successful and the most frequent answer I get is I got through it survival becomes the success

6:12 criteria and that's not where we want to be if you have a goal you can actually assess were you successful do the people know what I wanted them to know are they feeling the way I want them to feel and ultimately are they doing what I wanted so having a goal helps you not only hone your message it helps you assess its success so once we have that goal we then need to think about how do we best communicate our message and I am a huge proponent of structure structure is critical to success in communication structure helps us in two ways first it helps us to set our audiences expectations and second it helps our audience to remember I learned

7:01 this first rule very early in my life when I was an undergraduate here at Stanford I was a tour guide they trained me for 12 weeks a full academic quarter to be a tour guide to this day I can still walk backwards in a straight line what do you think was the most important thing they taught us during that full quarter in terms of being a good tour guide here what do you think shout out some of the things smile what else make people feel welcome what else project be nice the best thing listen the best and most important thing they said to be a good tour guide is never lose your tour group you are a bad tour guide if you

7:49 lose your tour group and here on campus they were afraid of people get lost they might get hurt the same thing is true in your communication never lose your audience because once you lose them it's very hard to get them back they go to their phones they go to their friends they go to sleep we need to keep them with us setting expectations helps would you join me on my tour if I showed up and I said hi I'm Matt let's go a couple of you adventurous folks would come but the rest of you you'd be like no way where are we going why are we going there do I have the right shoes on that's why tour guides always set expectations that structure helps prepare you so you can be present and enjoy the tour structuring your communication does the same thing but structure also helps with memory for you

8:37 and for your audience it provides a map and you can't be lost if you have a map so allow me to share with you three of my favorite structures that once you have your goal you place your content into the first structure is a comparison contrast conclusion structure you miss things in common you list things that are different and then you identify your particular conclusion another structure that works very well is the problem solution benefit structure you start by talking about what the problem is you then talk about how you solve it and ultimately you end with the benefits to the person listening now sometimes the problem isn't really a problem it's

9:23 really an opportunity so this could become the opportunity solution benefit structure as well now finally my most favorite structure and I'm the kind of guy that has a favorite structure is the what so what now what structure in this structure you start by defining what it is you're talking about a product or process an idea you then talk about why it's important to the people you're talking to that's the so what and then the now what are the next steps what can somebody do with that information I like this structure so much because it not only helps with presenting but it's a great way to set up a meeting agenda it's a good way to structure an email you can even give feedback and answer

10:10 questions in this structure I encourage each and every one of you to try putting your communication into the structure now I'm smiling and I'm gonna take a timeout this is a meta moment for us I just used what so what now what to explain what so what now what I told you what it was why it was important and how you can use it take these structures or any structure you find beneficial and leverage it to make your communication memorable for you and your audience we start with a goal and then we put it in a structure alright enough of me talking we're gonna put this all together I'm gonna ask you to find a partner in one moment and I'm going to ask you to do

10:56 something with one of these structures so to begin how many of you remember what this device is up here it's a slinky a children's toy whose sole purpose I think is to walk downstairs except in my house and never worked you are going to sell a slinky to your partner and then your partner will sell the very same slinky back to you using the problem solution benefit structure identify a problem explain the solution and explain the benefit now one caveat this cannot be a children's toy you have to make it up to be something else I never asked my students to do something I'm not willing to do so allow me to demonstrate have you all heard of

11:44 a terrible plight affecting the African savannah day after day week after week elephants are dying why you ask because their trunks are getting cold allow me to introduce you to an expandable elephant trunk warmer with these cheap very effective supplies and tools you can reduce the deaths of elephants on the African savannah each of us must do our part problem solution benefit here's what you're going to do you're going to find a partner for some of you it's just turn to the person next of you a few of you might need to move around the room you have one minute each to sell your

12:32 device to your partner ready begin so I'm very curious I'm very curious what did this device become for some of you raise your hand I'll calling you what was this a cup holder what was it back there oh it's a it's a cozy for electric cords yes sir please an egg timer oh the egg sort of rolls down yes please a politically correct way to trap Gophers yes sir oh it's an exercise tool what in the back a bagel slicer multiple bagel

13:20 slicer excellent I don't know what you and your partner came up with but in looking out at you you were having a lot of fun the the pantomiming was was fantastic let me ask you this though in all seriousness was the structure helpful in you're creating your pitch I see several of you nodding your heads in what ways did the structure help you what did it do for you it helps you focus on the problem what else does it do for you it helps you remember where to go from one to the next what else the sequence it helps you finish in a lot of the teaching and coaching I do people tell me Matt I don't have a problem communicating I have a problem stopping

14:05 communicating so the structure actually gives you a place to finish after I say the benefits I'm done it also helps you move from one place to the next it has built-in transitions so the flow is easier so structure helps with memory but it has a lot of other added benefits so once we've taken care of our personal hygiene and we then think about our goal in our structure the next thing we have to do to help with our own memory is practice so I'd like to give you some advice and guidance on practicing first when you practice actually stand and speak if you're in a meeting or you're preparing for a presentation stand up and practice I know how most people

14:52 practice we open up our slide deck that we've created we sit and we look at each slide and we think to ourselves mmm that's what I'll say mm-hmm that's what I'll say I don't know about you but in my mind I'm amazingly eloquent but when I open up my mouth I'm not always as lucky so it's useful and practical to actually stand and speak and standing helps you focus when I teach my class here on effective virtual communication that's where you're doing webinar or videoconference I encourage all of my students to stand adjust the camera and stand it helps you focus it allows you to use your voice fully and completely it is a very useful tool beyond standing to practice we need to

15:38 make sure we warm up most speakers especially those who are nervous go inside themselves and they think and they think and they worry and we don't warm up our voice so our first utterances aren't necessarily our strongest I believe warming up is critical so I'm going to ask you to help me do the world's quickest and easiest vocal warmup we are simply going to say two words a few times each and those two words are tea cup followed by hiccup so I'm going to ask you to say each word three times in a pair so it's going to be tea cup hiccup tea cup hiccup tea cup hiccup and we're all going to say it out loud and I want you to notice where in your mouth those two words get produced with me ready begin tea cup hiccup tea cup

16:27 hiccup tea cup hiccup we have a couple extra credit yes yes yes I know we're here at Stanford Business School everybody does the extra when you say tea cup where in your mouth does that come from front top when you say hiccup where does that come from back lower you've warmed up your whole voice very simple now I'm not saying you get up in front of your very important meeting and say one moment please DK pick up do you come here you do this before you enter the room I like to go around and talk to people in my audiences in my meetings I like to make sure I get there early and talk to people as they come in that's my way of warming up make sure you're warmed up for those of you who do athletics or who exercise you know warming up is important the same is true with your communication so we practice

17:12 standing up we warm up our voice now when we practice there's some really good research learning theory and cognitive neuroscience that tells us chunking your information is very useful take pieces of it and practice each piece separately and then assemble it in different ways so if you're giving a big presentation perhaps you practice the beginning then the middle then the end and then the next time you do the middle the end the beginning that form of chunking helps you to remember each part and it helps you avoid being in a particular pattern memorization actually works against you when you are in a high-stress situation because if you deviate from the script

17:58 you're lost so if you are very familiar with what you're talking about and practicing in a chunked manner helps you do that it also helps you give attention to the end most people because we're so nervous about how we're going to start practice the beginning a lot more than the rest so we figure oh by the time I get to the end I'll know how to finish do you know the most common way meetings and presentations end in the corporate world I guess we're out of time and somebody needs the room Thanks that is not the most effective way to end a presentation so you must practice each part in each part individually very helpful now research done not very far from here in the psychology department

18:43 several decades ago on the Stanford campus they did a tremendous amount of work on how where you actually learn something influences and impacts how you recall it so if you practice in a situation that is similar to the situation in which you will communicate you are more likely to remember the information so any of you who are parents who have instructed your children when they're studying for a test or a quiz to study in a quiet place you're actually doing them a service you're helping them my children like to study with lots of noise and devices yet when they take their exams or have to write their essays it's in silence that's actually causing a problem in terms of their memory so if possible go

19:29 into the venue that you'll be presenting in practice in there that will help you so there's some very specific things we can do to help prepare but what happens if we go blank what happens if we forget this is the number one fear people report to me so let me give you some advice on how to handle blanking out first don't acknowledge it oh man I just forgot instead leverage two techniques I'd like to suggest first repeat what you just said and see if that gets you back on track when you lose your keys how do you find them you retrace your

20:15 steps do the same in your presentations for some reason when we're presenting or running meetings and we blank out all we do is think about all the things we need to do or say in the future I only have ten more minutes left this is really important I you have to get the funding I have to get this good that's all future thinking you would never do that if you lost your keys if you lose your keys you don't stand there say I have to get to the store I have to pick up day we don't talk about the future we say wait I put those keys we go back repeat what you just said most of us can remember what we said even if we can't remember what we intend to say and simply by repeating yourself it often will get you back on track now if that doesn't work let me give you a second tool and I'm gonna let you in on a little secret when I teach and I have some former students here so you're

21:00 gonna hear something you heard when you were a student of mine have a back pocket question at the ready so if you forget simply pause and ask your audience a question thereby giving yourself time to collect your thoughts check your notes get back on track here's what I do in my lectures when I can't remember what I need to say next I'll simply pause and say this is a good place for us to take a pause and I'd like for you to reflect on something that we've just discussed and how it applies to you and your life and you know what my students do they pause and reflect on how their life has changed based on this information and what am i doing I mean what's next where do I go I check my notes now if I'm really lost

21:46 I'll say turn to your partner next and tell them the impact that has and my students think wow Matt really cares and I do but I'm also finding my place I want each of you to think about for the types of communication you do what are some questions you could ask midway through or perhaps towards the end or even at the beginning that would engage your audience in reflection and distract them from paying attention to the fact that you don't know where you are so you can find out there are lots of types of questions that you can ask have them at the ready simply by knowing that you can repeat yourself go back to go forward or that you have a back pocket question makes most people feel more comfortable and confident when they present which

22:31 therefore makes them more able to get through their presentation and less likely to forget what they want to say so the next time you fear blanking out know you have tools to get you through it so we've talked about what we can do to help ourselves remember we've talked about hygiene that's what we eat we exercise we sleep we leverage technology we've talked about how we prepare by having a goal know feel do and then creating a structure and then we've talked about ways to practice we stand up we chunk information we practice in the real environment I'd like now to flip the coin and I'd like to talk about

23:17 what we can do to help our audience remember and this involves three things - it involves using variation it involves making sure our content is relevant and finally how can we leverage emotion to make ideas stick so let's start we're gonna talk about variation and we're going to talk about variety in several ways first we're going to talk about variation in your voice evolution has designed humans to pay attention to variety to novelty if something stays the same we habituate if I were to have talked like this for my entire lecture you would no longer be paying attention and likely be asleep variety is what

24:07 keeps us focused so you must put variation in your voice how do you do that well record yourself and listen do you have variation if you notice that you don't have variety use emotive words when we invoke emotive words we tend to reflect their meaning so I might say this is a really big challenge I wouldn't say this is a really big challenge the words really and big invite that kind of vocal emphasis when you are practicing make sure that you extend and exaggerate the way you would normally say something when we get nervous we tense up and our vocal cords

24:53 are muscles and they tense up too so if my normal vocal range is here and I get nervous it becomes here so when I practice I purposely practice in an exaggerated way knowing that when I get nervous it will come back to my normal range be mindful of your voice and the variation in it we must also use variation well before we get to the next point we also have to practice I would like all of you to notice this word up here what is the word oh we're going to say Oh in a variety of ways to make sure that we have variation on our voice in a moment I'm gonna ask you to say oh is if a heavy object dropped on your foot you might say a naughty word after you say the word oh but I want us all to practice okay on the count of three

25:39 something heavy dropped on your foot I want you to say Oh ready one two three oh that was great now you just saw something so adorable and cute ready one two three now you've just made a terrible mistake and you're really sorry how would you say Oh ready one two three look what you just did you were able to take a very simple word and you were able to convey different meaning by varying your voice imagine what you could do in complex sentences and in an entire presentation or meeting variety in your voice is what makes it engaging we also need to think about variety and the evidence and support that we use when we communicate there

26:25 are lots of things we can do to encourage people to believe what we're saying to motivate them to change to educate them one type of evidence we can use is data we use lots and lots of data in our lives when you use data make sure you provide context so that people understand what it means but data is but one type of evidence you could use another type of evidence has to do with testimonies third-party voices other people advocating or supporting what it is you say and then finally there's stories examples use cases these to add value here's the key you must use variety among these types most of us communicate using the type that we are

27:12 most comfortable with what we like if I'm a data person when I communicate I use a lot of data if I'm a storyteller I tell lots of stories the problem is my audience isn't all like me so I have to cast a wide net I have to use variety in the support I use maybe I give a testimony and give some data maybe I put both the testimony and the data in a story this helps my audience understand and remember my points use variety to help you support your points we also have to think about variety in terms of the images and visuals we use you'll notice that many of my visuals are referring to children's play or toys and they vary the idea is to keep the audience engaged if all you show people

28:00 is bullet point after bullet point after bullet point they will habituate remember bullet skill don't kill your audience with bullet points use images now variation is important but so too is relevance you must make sure that your content is meaningful and relevant to your audience that means we have to do some reconnaissance and reflection about who's in the who's listening to my communication who's reading my messages and we must tailor our messages to their needs while some of you will get upset to hear me say this you need to change and adapt your communication audience by audience

28:45 time by time does that mean more work for you yes but does it mean that the impact and the relevance your message will have will be greater yes and that's why we do it so we need to tailor our audience our messages for our audience in several factors one we have to first think about their knowledge what do they know about what we're speaking on we don't want to come in too high level we don't want to get too deep we need to meet our audience where they're at so you have to think about that you have to do some reflection you have to ask people who are in the audience talk to people who have spoken to this audience before and ask what's their knowledge level you must also think about their expectations what is it they expect from you and then choose to either conform to

29:32 those expectations or perhaps deviate from them and then finally you need to understand what are your audience's attitudes are they in favor of what you're suggesting are they agnostic or perhaps hesitant or resistant and with this information we can craft our messages and hone them to be more relevant and memorable I want to give you an example let's say you are presenting to an audience that you know is a bit hesitant or resistant to what you're advocating for that is valuable information I might change the way I structure a message based on it so you know that problem/solution benefit structure we talked about if I have a hesitant or resistant audience it might

30:17 be in my best interest to move the benefits to be the first part start by talking about the benefits imagine what it would be like if we could or what if it was possible to get your audience to agree to that imagined future and that reduces their resistance you then say what's in the way is this particular problem and here's how we solve it now I certainly can't guarantee that all resistance and hesitation will disappear but I can suggest that by starting with the benefits you put yourself in a better position so understanding your audience their knowledge their expectations their attitudes can influence and should influence the way you communicate so that your audience will receive your message better and

31:02 remember it longer it's not enough just to tailor our message we also have to make it engaging and I'd like to suggest some ways that we can get physical engagement as well as mental engagement physical the engagement is to have your audience do something you could pose a question rhetorical or a polling question you can show a video provide a schematic if you're in the virtual world have them go to an external website have them type something into the chat get your audience involved by having them do something they are more likely to engage with the content which we know increases the likelihood of their remembering but physical engagement is not enough you also need mental engagement and there

31:47 are lots of ways to do that I already alluded to one use the word imagine or what if or picture this we know from research done two doors down that this engages areas of the brain associated with attention and retention so if I can ask you to imagine or picture this in your mind you're actually seeing it which will help you remember it similarly use analogies analogies connect what people know to what they don't know this also makes it stick I talked about structuring a presentation is like giving a tour that's an analogy by engaging our audience physically and mentally they are much more likely to remember what we're saying and have a good time while you're communicating

32:32 with them finally we must leverage emotion we have known for millennia that emotion is powerful and engages people and helps them remember so we need to find ways to leverage emotion in what we say part of that is how we say it bring emotion to your messages you it's congruent and appropriate show that you have passion show that you have interest a wonderful technique that comes from the world of theater and acting if you are trying to convey something that you're very that you want to be exciting for your audience think about a time you were excited right before you deliver that message by getting yourself into that physical

33:19 emotion you will deliver it more likely in that way now some of you are thinking I get it emotions important but I talk about things that don't have a lot of emotion I talk about technology or science there's not a lot of emotion there and you might be right but the consequences in implications and results of that science and technology has potential emotion if you're saving trees saving time saving lives there's emotion you can tap into take the time to find a way to bring emotion into your communication it will help the audience feel something and remember so we've talked about several factors that help

34:04 make your communication more memorable we talked about hygiene that's that preparation we talked about structure and practice we then talked about what you can do to help your audience in terms of variation in relevance and emotion these are the levers that you have to pull to make your communication much more memorable now I want to see how memorable what we just did together is for you so I'm gonna ask you to think about one thing of value that you learned today in our time together and I want you to turn to a different partner somebody perhaps who you didn't work with last time and I want you to explain that thing of value using the what so

34:50 what now what structure so you're going to tell your partner what the idea or tool or tactic is you're going to tell them why you think that is important and you're going to then tell them how you will use it and then your partner will do the same for you I want to know what you're carrying out of here that will help your can be more memorable so find another partner pick one thing of value share that value in the what so what now what we often don't spend time reflecting on how we communicate we are so fixated on just getting it done and moving on that we don't take time the only way to get better at your communication is through three things repetition reflection and feedback you need to give yourself the

35:37 reps you need to give yourself opportunities to communicate and try new ways try new structures try varying your voice try new ways of practice second you must reflect and think about what worked and what didn't work what's that definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results we do that all the time in our communication we need to think about what worked and what didn't I challenge all of you who lead teams and other people at the end of your meetings or presentations take 30 seconds in debrief what worked and what didn't work in terms of the communication not the content but how we actually communicate it that sends a very powerful message to your team's the communication matters and then finally

36:22 we need feedback find trusted others friends family co-workers who can give you honest feedback use digital recording as a tool to give yourself feedback that's how we get better there are also tools and resources available to you and I encourage you to take advantage of them here you see a website that I curate called no freaking speaking and this is a website that has lots of free content from me and from others you could take advantage of Stanford continuing studies is a hidden gem that this campus provides if you live in the local community look at the classes they offer there are a tremendous number of business and communication classes they also have many virtual offerings for those of you visiting us from far away you can take

37:08 webinar based classes from continuing studies and then finally Toastmasters an international organization designed to help people feel more comfortable and confident when they communicate take time to find avenues to learn and practice these skills it is my hope that you are leaving here today with some specific tactics and techniques you can use to help you be more memorable and your messages to be more memorable when you communicate before I take your questions and I invite those questions I have two questions for you did you learn something today that you think can help you in your communication Thanks did you have a little bit of fun then I have done my job now I would like to hear

37:54 what questions you have of me there's some microphones in the back people will get them to you they're coming we'll have here and then I've said over there yes sir thank you very much Matt that was terrific um who is the greatest speaker in your mind that's ever lived that is an incredibly hard question oh just what first comes to your mom right are you gonna ask me a question because you were quite blunt no no no I'm not I have been so moved in the last year by the teenagers who suffered that great tragedy in Florida the shooting which was just absolutely horrific those young people are among some of the most

38:41 eloquent speakers I have heard and they're not coached they're not trained and in fact they have actively not sought that out they've rejected those who want to help so when I look at people who have had an impact people whose messages are memorable people who deploy some of the techniques we've talked about I look to those teens in to me that is so moving thank you for that question yeah please over here I was gonna you you mentioned about talking to an audience that's hostile but what about an audience that just doesn't relate to you at all sometimes I have talked to a group of students of color and trying to figure out exactly how to say something that they're they open their minds to here and the second question that may be related is what's the role of humor

39:27 right so let me take the second question first humor is a wonderful way to engage your audience if you're funny having a shared laugh is a great way to bring people together it engages them the problem is humor is tricky it's not always funny it's culturally sensitive you have to be careful here are my two rules for humor focus group your jokes if you intend to use some humor talk to people who are like people who will be in the audience and ask them is this funny and most importantly listen to what they tell you second use humor about yourself self-deprecating humor is the safest

40:13 even though it might be tempting to talk about politics or geo issues stay focused on yourself it's much safer now how do you relate to an audience that can be hard a lot of it has to do with the work you do up front try to understand what motivates them what are the issues who are the speakers they listen to are looking for what what helps connect and then engage in dialogue so it's not always about you talking get them to speak so some of the best ways to engage an audience that you feel is going to be disconnected from you is to ask questions have them talk to each other become a facilitator rather than a presenter or teacher and that's a way to build camaraderie build trust and to break down some of those

40:59 barriers microphones over here yes thank you those thoughts are applicable to different cultures I mean that stretchered is applicable for almost I will I believe that much of what we've talked about today is very relevant cross culturally clearly there are some things you have to think about in terms of expectations norms etc to factor into your communication but I do believe having a clear goal having a structure will help figuring out how to engage your audience will help now that engagement might differ by culture but having engagement is critical so yes I believe at the highest level everything we've talked about today spans culture how that gets deployed and

41:45 what that looks like we'll have to take the culture in context into account for whereas we've got some questions here and a microphone is coming so great for presentations yes but often times we are at our age coaching people so how do you take that into a two minute synopsis of how you can use your skills because I've seen conversations kind of explode I can't even control it right yeah so just whatever thoughts you have so I believe with practice you can get very effective at quickly coming up with a goal for the interaction you're about to have and then use a structure in coaching situations where you're giving feedback I think the what's so what now what structure is wonderful what becomes the

42:32 issue or the behavior that you want to address so what is why it is important in the now what is the guidance that you believe the person should undertake so having that structure can keep it tight keep it focused and make it memorable but it takes practice to be comfortable doing that in a spontaneous way so you have to practice doing that type of feedback several times before it becomes natural but I do believe coming up with a goal and structuring it can be very very helpful for feedback as well as answering questions yes please yeah the most important takeaway for me is that before communication preparation is so important but preparation each time and usually there's not enough time and he

43:18 also suggests us to have a good sleep and you know so how can we you know trade off between I wish and the secret to how we could all get more time in our lives what I suggest is the more you practice this the more efficient you become at it so you can do things more quickly it also has to do with prioritization many of us think well I'm not going to sleep tonight because I'm gonna drill and drill this big presentation I have to give in fact the research suggests getting a good night's sleep is far better for you than repetitive practice well tired so part of it is is prioritizing based on what you know it will be helpful and then the other part is just becoming more efficient at it the more effective and efficient you are that the quicker you can do it but it is

44:05 a trade-off you have to have that initial investment I have a very simple heuristic I use if I have a big presentation coming up or meeting when whatever that date is I take the time between today and that date and I cut it in half and that first half is preparation and that second half is practice most of us sacrifice the practice piece we're working on our content up until the last minute because we think because I've worked on it I'm gonna be able to deliver it well and every one of you who has ever done that knows that's not true so I I just use that simple heuristic and after you do that for a while it becomes easier becomes easier yes please I have a comment and a question for okay the first one is it when I was in the Army I learned the army way of communicating which is tell them what you're gonna tell them tell them and tell them what

44:52 you told them and you followed that almost to the liver well thank you the question yes do you ever use the Gettysburg Address as an example of persuasive communication so I use the Gettysburg Address in my classes in a different way there is and I'm I'm not remembering who did this but somebody took the Gettysburg Address and created a PowerPoint for it the whole speech there seven slides and I use it to prove a point that message is important slides are less important there's a bar chart for score right and I mean it's very funny but it proves a point and you can you can all go search go search Gettysburg Address as a PowerPoint and you will see the seven slides so I use

45:40 it but I use it not as a persuasive tool though it is a very effective tool I use it to prove the point that that we need to have our story and message first and then create slides if we rely too heavily on slides we we lose a lot and that that makes that point very very well other questions yes I I have a class that I have to give in Galway Ireland of Executive MBA students yes and they're a wonderful wonderful group but you know what the Irish are like and occasionally I'm very friendly yes they are that they're fantastic especially after the class is over in my club haha that's right but occasionally I have a student or two that will start looking at their mobile phone during my my piece which I suppose

46:25 is partly a criticism of me but the others don't so it isn't a total criticism how do you handle individuals or do you just ignore them who appear to be distracted by something else so I always make the assumption that when people are doing something distracting like looking at their phone that there is a important reason that they're doing so so I start from a place of compassion rather than it would just hurt my ego too much to be thinking that I'm boring right but what I try to do is I try to engage non-verbally if you're standing up you can move closer to the people who are distracted and and we've all learned that as the voice gets louder we should pay attention try to bring them in asking questions works well what I have

47:11 learned in the digital age that I teach in and all my students that haven't you know not just one but multiple devices sometimes you can actually enlist the devices and what you do so you can ask people go search on this or there are tools that allow you to take polls through texting so people text a certain number and that's a poll and you can actually show the data live so rather than fight the technology see if there ways that you can leverage it to help you accomplish your goal and that that will make you feel better and it'll actually lead to some very interesting interactions thank you yes please oh you don't have a mic mic is coming kind of the company's culture when you're giving for example uh the founder of Trader Joe's Joe Colome said that in all his messaging he always wanted to have fun with the customer as you give these

47:58 presentations do you take into account kind of what drives the company and have that in your messaging absolutely so I try to practice what I preach so when I go in and do some consulting with companies all around the world I spend time trying to understand the culture and the values and I watch some of the senior leaders to see what they do and then I infuse that in the advice that I give them and that can be really important it could also get me in trouble I went to one start up not too far from here and the executive team had a tradition of cursing in their presentations and so so we had some interesting examples in the workshop I led but understanding what they do and how they do it is very important for sure yes please a microphone is coming your way thank you

48:44 it was great I used my mobile for sharing the slides to the group oh thank you good reason thank you I I have to tell you this taking pictures of slides is new and I never know where to stand I always feel like I'm photobombing my materials and so so I'm getting used to it but yes Nicholas you're going to love your pictures excellent my you look great yes thank you look great and I'm blanking ask me a question no I know if I'm blanking on desking good question so I think it was about what do you do is interrupt so sometimes you're presenting and you get asked questions yeah how do

49:30 you handle Samia is a choker yes and a perfect interrupter so what do you do what do you do when something interrupts your flow so if you can ignore it ignore it if it's you know if it's somebody's cellphone going off or something of that nature ignore it if it's somebody interrupting with a question or some kind of comment what I recommend you do is you use paraphrasing to take something from what they're saying and then redirect so if somebody's saying but what about this what about this you could say ah that's an important point I'm really interested in and notice what I've just done I acknowledged and then I move away I've signaled I'm done with you non-verbally here's the challenge when you are in a situation where you were under under some kind of interrupts or somebody's challenging you you have to

50:16 balance being appropriate versus being rude to the individual but also to the rest of the group if somebody is being distracting and interrupting and disrupting the rest of the room is feeling that tension and very rarely will the rest of the room help you they're looking for you to deal with it and if you don't then your credibility is affected so you have to to understand that you need to manage that and manage it as politely as you can and I firmly believe that paraphrasing taking something of value and then redirecting is the way to handle that I'm going to take one more question to stay on time but I will stay afterwards and ask individual questions is there a final question right over here thank you

51:02 thank you my question is how do you change track in a conversation or rather engaging conversation especially when you're conversing statements is like one question after another but meanwhile you're well aware the conversation is just going downward against you're going to want it too right so how do you regard the conversation and again I don't mean to sound repetitive but I really think paraphrasing is a very polite tool for doing that so acknowledge that you hear what the person is saying oh I understand what you're saying or I hear where that's going I'm curious to know how so use it

51:47 as a bridge so the paraphrase acknowledges and then bridge to the direction that you wish to go I believe paraphrasing when paired with structure and having a goal are the three essential ingredients to effective communication those are the bottom line tools if you can create goals structure your messages and know how to paraphrase the content it can really help I would like simply to conclude by saying thank you each of us has important ideas and stories and messages to convey we must take the time to make sure that they are memorable for us so we can communicate them clearly and memorable for our audience so they can take them with them with that I hope you

52:33 are taking away some memorable ideas to help you be a more effective communicator thank you very much [Applause] [Music]