Beth Levine | SmartMouth Communications

Digging Deep

by Beth Levine | Dec 6, 2016 | preparing for a presentation, public speaking

It’s so funny that when someone achieves an admirable position or level of success, we use the phrase, “they’ve arrived.” The word “arrived” usually implies the end of a journey, but it’s often just the beginning of a new one.

People who rise to the top and assume leadership positions also assume an increasing – sometimes consuming – level of communication responsibilities. They find themselves needing to transition from their comfort zone of doing and overseeing, which they’ve done really well, to talking … talking A LOT. They talk to educate, sell, inform, motivate, persuade, reassure, and influence.

To be effective – and, even more pressing these days, to be authentic – leaders who want to succeed as much at talking as they did at doing and overseeing would be well-advised to take a good, hard look down deep inside themselves and inventory what they’ve got – personal stories (or not), compelling messages (or not), front-of-the-room charisma (or not).

And then begins the real work, the real journey.

This is not just for leaders, everyone can benefit from digging deep, so here’s what you want to look for deep inside yourself:

What are your prime motivators? Really. Truly. What drives you? Even if it feels unrelated to the work you do, describe it, share it. Was there someone who inspired or mentored you? Was there an influencing event or situation from your childhood? If it’s real and it’s you, it’s relevant.

What are your biggest holdbacks? Flaws, even? Self-awareness is a winning connector with any audience, just as self-deprecation is the safest form of humor with any audience. But seriously, think about the blocks and hurdles you place in your own way, or think about the traits you sometimes exhibit that aren’t so flattering. Are you willing to call yourself out and share them? Can you tie them to a lesson learned? If it’s real and it’s you, it’s relevant.

What excites you about your work? What scares you? What keeps you up at night? How do you view and feel about your team? If it’s real and it’s you, it’s relevant.

What’s your why? With so many people wanting meaningful, fulfilling, purposeful work, it’s important to be able to articulate why. The why we do what we do has become the new mission, vision and values of the old days.

And finally, what’s your personal communication style? Are you comfortable at the front of the room or uncomfortable? What self-perceptions are you holding onto that no longer serve you or that are no longer accurate? Can you let go of them and can you use positive imagery to re-imagine yourself as a more engaging speaker? What aspects of your presence are you comfortable with or confident in – voice, posture, hands, body language? Can you emphasize what works for you, what you like, and then work on the rest?

No matter what level of success you achieve, the journey of being an effective, engaging, connecting, communicator will be ongoing, so to access what you need to use to be at your best, dig deep!

Nerves Again

by Beth Levine | Oct 31, 2016 | preparing for a presentation, public speaking

shutterstock_310520624 Nerves versus focus. Dread versus opportunity.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article on calming nerves before a presentation by Amy Jen Su of Paravis Partners, Amy cites a few tidbits of insight and advice I offered when she interviewed me for the article several weeks ago. One of my quotes surprised even me as I was saying it, as it actually highlighted a new twist on how to view and manage nerves.

Here’s the excerpt: Levine advises, “Think of a quarterback playing in his first Super Bowl game. Yes, he may be nervous, but he’s not dreading it or seeing it as an obligation. He’s seeing it as a great opportunity that he’s ready to sink his teeth into. The nerves are a signal that this is something that matters to him.”

What is not new about what I said is that a mindset shift – more to the positive side of things – can be incredibly helpful. Usually that mindset shift involves thinking positively about performing well or about the audience assuming you’ll be successful.

What is new about what I said is that the mindset shift should be more specific – from dreading a presentation or looking at it as an obligation and something you need to simply survive to looking forward to it as a challenge to be conquered and an opportunity to shine.

In other words, your nervousness is not a block or an annoyance, it’s a signal that you have a great opportunity ahead of you to show your stuff. For more insights, read the article here.

Give Voice

by Beth Levine | Oct 19, 2016 | public speaking

At SmartMouth we talk a lot about content, in particular how to structure and present it, but once you have that down, you need start thinking about your physical presence. One of the most important aspects of your physical presence is your voice. Your voice literally sets the tone of your presentation and, if done properly, connects your audience to you. Your voice also establishes your credibility and trustworthiness.

Now, the problem with the physical aspects of communicating is that everyone has different mannerisms and physical characteristics, and we don’t believe in forcing everyone to fit a certain mold. What works for one person, doesn’t always work for another. However, how you use your voice is something that can be relatively easily modified and have a big impact.

There are three key tips that we give our clients to help engage the audiences with their voice:

Modulate your voice. Avoid speaking in a monotone. Regularly adjust the tone, volume, and pitch of your voice. The audience needs change to draw their attention back to you. That can be something as simple as walking around the room or changing a slide, but your voice is one of the most effective ways to draw the audience’s attention back to you. Also, monotone suggests to the audience that you’re bored and don’t care. And why should they care if you don’t sound like you do?
Match your voice to your words and the moment. When you are talking about something sad or happy, make sure your tone matches the emotion. You would be surprised how often people use a tone that is inappropriate for the moment. For example, people often think that delivering bad news, like job cuts, in an upbeat tone will make the news sound better. But the reality is that it makes it worse and alienates the audience. It will seem inappropriate and insincere to the audience. Your goal as a speaker should be to empathize with your audience, be as real as possible, and not confuse or potentially anger them.
Don’t fall into a rhythm. A constant rhythm or tempo runs the risk of putting people into a trance. You will want to adjust your speed. Sometimes you will want to speak slowly and other times you will want to speak a little faster (never too fast, of course!). You will also want to use pauses so your audience can digest or mull over important points. It can be a dramatic pause too, allowing you to create suspense or emphasis. Tempo is a powerful tool to make sure the audience does not drift away from you.

A good voice is like a good story. It has highs and lows, suspense and excitement, and slow parts and fast parts. Your voice, like your body language, is a critical delivery tool, so use it to your advantage!

Your Best Currency

by Beth Levine | Oct 5, 2016 | smartmouth talks!

Communication is the currency of success.

When you think about it, no one succeeds alone; every single one of us needs to communicate in order to get things done, achieve goals, and ultimately succeed. We exchange words and ideas more often than we exchange money.

Good communication skills are therefore critical to organizational effectiveness. Yet very few organizations embrace excellence in communication as a value or a performance imperative.

This is my personal crusade. Excellence in communication doesn’t just happen, it needs to be cultivated and nurtured by organizations.

While the direct ROI of excellence in communication may not be easily measurable, it would be hard to argue that strong communication skills don’t yield better results whether used in selling, negotiating, client and customer service, employee relations, you name it.

Both anecdotally and through research, I have become almost painfully aware that there are three elements that make a pretty compelling case for looking more closely at how communication impacts your organization.

1. Performance Issue. Over the past couple of years, I have heard from clients that communication skills consistently emerge as the #1 area of need in performance reviews. In fact, it’s become pretty standard for me, that whenever I meet an HR person, I now ask what tops their list of performance needs, and communications skills are always at or near the top.

2. Career Maker/Breaker. I’ve also observed that communication skills are seen as something that can make or break careers – even by organizations that don’t explicitly embrace good communication skills as a performance imperative.

Anecdotally, I’ve often been hired to coach high-level executives who are either long-winded, short-tempered or not inspiring enough. These are people in the C-Suite who might be flailing a little bit or need a boost; they may be technically competent but communication-challenged. Or I’ve worked with executives who have C-Suite potential but their ability to communicate clearly and influence with confidence is just not there yet.

There’s also research that shows how recruiters and employers view and value communication skills, which impacts people’s careers:

According to a 2014 survey of 565 global employers by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which administers the business school entrance test, corporate recruiters ranked communication skills ahead of teamwork, technical knowledge and leadership when assessing MBA graduates for mid-level jobs. They rated communication skills ahead of managerial ability by a two-to-one margin.

Also in 2014, in an online survey of 845 North American business executives, respondents identified leadership and effective communication as the two most important management competencies – as well as the two most in need of improvement!

3. Complaint. We can’t close the case for putting communication skills on the corporate values list until we look at one of the biggest complaints in the business world – and one of the biggest impacts on organizational effectiveness – which is long, boring, tedious meetings and presentations.

It is estimated that there are 25 million meetings in the U.S. per day, 30 million PowerPoint presentations per day, and that more than $37 billion per year is spent on unproductive meetings. Yikes!

C-Suite executives are estimated to spend 85% of their time with other people – largely in meetings. Upper management spends 50% of their time in meetings. And middle management spends 35% of their time in meetings.

Why do I pick on meetings and presentations? Because they are the most common and most pure vehicles for business communication. They’re supposed to be productive, but we know otherwise.

Communicating is not something people just do. When performance and success are on the line, it needs to be thoughtful and deliberate.

You all do a lot of communicating, so embrace it and get it right. Your organization’s effectiveness and success depend on it!

The Foolproof Five

by Beth Levine | Sep 21, 2016 | preparing for a presentation, public speaking

More often than not, what makes people freeze before a big presentation is the nagging question, “Am I even doing this right?” and its companion, the fear of embarrassment.

I’m always taken aback when smart, successful, otherwise confident people reveal that they’re afraid to make a fool of themselves. I would never have guessed in most cases.

Trust me when I say that no one is “a natural” at speaking and presenting; even the best of the best think about it, worry, and work at it. Regardless of your style or your comfort level with public speaking, it’s wise to consider some core guiding principles for yourself as a speaker.

Below are five foolproof principles of being an effective speaker or presenter that will give you the confidence to know you’re “doing it right,” and will leave your audience quite impressed.

The five principles are:

Audience-centricity
Transparency
Graciousness
Brevity
Preparedness

Taken together, they send two really important messages about you to your audience:

That you care about and respect them.
That you’re real and therefore credible and trustworthy.

Audience-centricity
It may be a new term to you, yet it’s probably the most fundamental of the five principles. Simply put, audience-centricity is making the audience’s interests and experience a top priority in the planning and execution of a talk.

Too many speakers prepare and deliver what is important and interesting to themselves without enough careful considerations of their listeners. Being audience-centric is a mindset shift that encourages the speaker to prepare and deliver content in a way that will matter to and resonate with the audience.

Transparency
It is exactly what you think it is; it’s about being open and direct — yes, and honest, too. Transparency is critical. It contributes to the levels of sincerity and trust that are accorded to you by your audience.

Graciousness
It is the art, skill, and willingness to be kind-hearted, fair and polite. As motivators and influencers, love and peace work far better than anger and war. Speaking in positives rather than negatives leaves lasting, favorable impressions.

Brevity
Brevity is a crowd-pleaser and needs no further introduction.

Preparedness
Preparedness speaks for itself as well. The unprepared speaker is the one who is most likely to be long-winded, not to mention unfocused. While the mere thought of preparation might bring feelings of dread, the feeling of approaching the front of the room ill-prepared is far worse – and it shows.

Success is in the eye of the beholder – your audience. Show care and respect, be real, and your audience is much more likely to listen, like you, and be impressed.

[Excerpted in part from Jock Talk: 5 Communication Principles for Leaders as Exemplified by Legends of the Sports World, www.jocktalkbook.com]