Give people your take on the information in your presentations. Remember, YOU are the expert and YOUR TAKE is what people really want to hear. Watch this video to learn more.
Something to think about this year - If you routinely give your team members gifts try something very different…give gifts to your team member's children! Not the same thing, give it some thought, you might even interview your team individually and see what each child is interested in. Not a specific gift the parent wants but “your” gift to them based on what you get from the interview. A book for a fourth grader? Or a cookbook! Clay for a middle schooler. What interests are there? Not just a gift but a present that understands your presence to their parents in this present moment.
When you present your facility and its people to the Board of Directors, your city council, or your state representatives remind yourself that they will remember the feeling you portray, not the content alone.
Your statistics need to have heart as well as head in them. Not only stories about patients but perhaps people telling the story - willing patients and families, doctors and housekeepers, nurses and maintenance. What would it be like to have them present? Interview them, bring the face and feeling of your place to the meeting.
This is what they will remember long after the meeting is over. This brings excitement about your place to your audience’s understanding.
Next time you invite someone to update your team, interview them instead of asking them to come with a presentation. They will like it better (no formal prep) and you and your team will be able to ask questions that get to the heart of what is needed. This works great with quality and safety data, financial information, construction updates, and finding the mood of some of the staff.
A recommendation: get rid of the tables and bring the chairs up close to you and the one you are interviewing. This creates a sense of community and intimacy and helps support the one being interviewed…distance of any sort (as well as tables!) creates spectators instead of participators. Try it. Take the risk a few times and see what happens.
Let's kick of 2023 with a question - when was the last time you took a risk? A calculated risk perhaps, but none the less, a risk. A leap of faith maybe. A time you spoke up first at a meeting. A time when you silenced your usual meeting speech or even a time when you realized you didn’t need to be at that meeting at all!
It’s fun and sometimes amazing to look back over our lives and notice the risks we did take, the ones that worked and the ones that didn’t, and to then ask ourselves what we now know even more about ourselves. Richard Rohr wrote, “It is never a straight line, but always three steps forward and two backward—and the backward creates much of the knowledge and impetus for the forward.”
As 2023 unfolds, think about the risks you take and what you learn from the experience?
Have you ever considered leading your boss? Now don’t tell them, but sometimes you will hear about “managing up” when in fact that seems to me to be short-sighted. What your boss, maybe every boss, needs is a fellow traveler to notice what they did well, to suggest a next step, to console, and to consider a possible ‘plan B’. Now make sure you don’t tell them you are mentoring them or leading them, no need for that. Instead take yourself out of your appointed role from time to time and instead of “speaking truth to power” consider your own power to speak to a fellow struggler, a fellow traveler, a fellow person who is doing the best they can at this very particular moment. They are just like you with all the fears and chaos and worries that you have. They might just need you to be their “boss whisperer.”
Give people your take on the information in your presentations. Remember, YOU are the expert and YOUR TAKE is what people really want to hear. Watch this video to learn more.
Do you live and work on a vertical level with those ‘above’ and others ‘below’? Some marriages are like that. Some corporate teams operate like that too.
The one on ‘top’ as somehow superior to the others. Some even relish this superiority. Those ‘below’ understand that this set up is meant for obedience and conformity, to be careful, stay in line, don’t rock the boat.
Other teams operate on a horizontal level: with each person being respected as ‘social equals’ who are contributing to the whole. Not all are the ‘same’ but all are contributing with cooperation and respect.
How is it where you live? Where you work? In your country? In your family of origin?
What I find interesting about the vertical set up is that the real power belongs to those below: if they move, guess who falls?!
Think about the words you add unnecessarily into your vocabulary. In this video I talk about how ‘HI GUYS’ didn’t go down very well. Be aware of words you’re using that may rub your audience up the wrong way and try something else instead…for example, simply using the person’s name.
BE CAREFUL with humour in presentations…especially with sarcasm. Humor is instantly not funny when it hurts someone or embarrasses them. The best humor actually comes from the audience themselves. Learn more in this video!
DON’T speed up your presentation if you have limited time. Give a good paced presentation with the right amount of information for the time available. Focus on the essence of the material and give YOUR take as the expert.
Facilitate your next presentation instead of simply “presenting.” In every presentation consider how to involve others. Without participation you will simply have spectators quietly judging you and your content. With facilitation you will have fellow participants engaged.
Nora Dunn from Saturday Night Live in the 80s told my class of actors, “Your job is not to please the audience, your job is to engage the audience.” (And it is in the engagement that they will be pleased.) You cannot engage if you only talk, no matter how good you are.
The audience, especially today’s audience, has far more wisdom than we do. Let them talk to one another and learn with them. (And a hint: Never ever say,” Turn to the person next to you”…instead get them moving with “When I give you the signal I want you to get up find two other people not at your table and go and sit with them to form a group of three AWAY from the tables (you will have to enforce this). Then tell them what to discuss for 5-8 minutes (not too long or they will start talking about sports and their kids) then ask, “What did you just learn from your group?” (and then wait in silence)…when they start talking you have engagement. Avoid: “What did you just talk about?”
When preparing your presentation, think about what information the AUDIENCE NEEDS and how they are going to use it. It shouldn’t just be what you want to say. Make sure you truly understand the essence of your presentation and can deliver it less than 3 minutes. Then hey presto... you have a powerful opening or closing!
Do you use powerpoint? Remember it will look different on the big screen to how it looks on your computer screen. Organize the visualization of yours slides for those who are visually impaired, and ensure it’s simple enough that you can capture it for these people. Also consider people who are hearing impaired - always use a microphone. It makes you stronger and ensures you are the centre of attention, which is why they invited you there – you’re the expert! Watch this video to learn more...
When you are asked by an outside group for a tour of your facility, don't think of it as a marketing activity. Instead think of the audience. Who are they? What will help them solve their problem? Why did they pick your facility?
Do they really need to know how many trauma surgeries you did last year, or do they need to tour your trauma department and talk to the surgeons and nurses? Do they really need to endure the standard dog-and-pony PowerPoint program or do they need the time to have a robust Q&A...not with your CEO or CNO, but rather your most endearing ED nurse?
Be careful when you are asked for the tour. Find out first what your visitors want.
In your next meeting give people more choice. Lace your language with choice making: ‘Is it possible that…?’ ‘Could it be…?’ ‘I wonder if…?’ instead of making a judgement. Maybe you’ll decide to watch this video to learn more…or you could decide not to!
Take 3 MINUTES to learn the rule of 3 and your next presentation will be THE BEST YET! It focuses your answer, helps you to understand exactly what you’re going to say and most importantly makes the audience remember what you said. And not only does it work for presentations, you can use it for wedding toasts, speaking to a stranger in an elevator, talking to your kids…
Watch this video and give it a try. Let me know what you think.
How much jargon has slipped into your day to day work and even your presentations? ADR, JAHCO, NQF, PAYOR MIX, HIPAA, RAPPS, TIPS, CHIRP, MOB, HOPD...
Great presenters simplify and illuminate as not everyone in the audience knows what all those letters are! So, consider this: spell it out, say the words, explain in lay terms what the term is and what it means. What is its importance for this presentation? For THIS presentation!
In most cases, the audience doesn't know the most important part of your presentation which is ‘your take’ on the topic, the data, the 'thing' that they came to hear about. They all have a number of boxes in their heads and your content (or jargon!) is ready to go into one of those boxes with a self-assured “Oh, I know what that means!” Make sure that your take on things has no prepared box. Be different enough so they have to roam from box to box and they cannot dismiss what you say with “Oh I know that!” Instead they have to respond with “Uh, I never heard it presented that way before!”
I learned a lot from the time I spent with a group of Saudi Arabian doctors, nurses and administrators at the American College of Healthcare Executives Global Executive Program. My main take away was how specific and detailed the feedback they gave was. WOW! It almost made me tearful. It reminded me that I should be more specific about what I liked, learned and appreciated about interactions with people, whether at work, at home…in the airport! Try it this week and let me know how you get on!
Here’s an idea for your next networking lunch or dinner to help people get to meet one another and to harvest some of the wisdom that’s in these people. It’s called a French Salon, and when I did it at the Ritz Carlton for some of my clients, it was amazing. People still talk about it! Watch the video to find out more!