Oh dear, It’s really hard to get this right isn’t it? Yorkshire Building Society creates cards with 6 female employees baking and it gets labelled ‘sexist’. Some businesses don’t do cards but do do cash to charity (The Co-op). And Deutsche Bank just sends out a snow-covered sales pitch about how well their investments have…
My corporate client had a tough message that she wanted to get through to a group of her internal stakeholders. The message was-
Grow up
Take some responsibility
Make the most of this amazing opportunity you have working for this world-leading firm.
She hired me to help her make the point and we decided that we’d adopt the strategy of 1950’s film noir cops, and we scripted a speech together for me to deliver as a part of 4-hour session. I played the grizzled ‘bad cop’ and she, the polished, concerned ‘good cop’ of legend.
Here’s a really interesting article for Linked in novices about using it to build a solid, helpful and valuable network. LinkedIn SVP Deep Nishar’s Three Career Tips For Novice Networkers | Fast Company. From the ever excellent Fast Company Magazine.
Waiting to speak to a group of internal IT experts in a global banking business last week. Listening to their boss talk to them about why networking was so important to them, however difficult they may find it. He said a really interesting thing-
I had a really interesting challenge the other day, to speak to 30 or so 14-16 year old girls about ‘personal impact’. I had 30 minutes to make an impression and help them make the most of the event they were at. The event was a ‘bring your daughter to work’ day, arranged by the fabulous people…
There are three types of people in business- Those people who take away energy and enthusiasm from a room- ‘dementors’ if you like Harry Potter. Those people that leave the energy and enthusiasm the same in the room after they’ve left as it was when they were in the room- ‘Neutrals’ for want of a better expressions Those…
Lovely post from Simon Raybould on his refreshingly opinionated blog- ‘Telling People’. He makes the point that ‘errr’ is a natural human sound that people make when they’re looking for the next word, and most people in our audiences don’t notice it, but lots of presentation trainers do. His thesis being ‘a little bit is fine’ and presentation coaches can get narrow in what they work on with their clients. Here’s the blog and a recommendation that you read lots of it.
It’s only a disaster if someone gets killed isn’t it? I remember when one of my clients fell off the stage, but he wasn’t actually killed, so it was just an embarrassment that he handled well. A matter for caution, yes; but also an opportunity to show the audience how a professional presenter handles those ‘slapstick’ moments…
In summary- The book’s great buy it now.
Here’s another book that I’d like to have written. I’d put ‘The FT Guide to Business Networking’ by Heather Townsend alongside the irritatingly comprehensive ‘Beyond Bullet Points’ by Cliff Atkinson- Reviewed here, in the ‘Oh my God, there really are people as structured, efficient, and focused as this, surely I could learn something from them…’ part of my library.