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14 Apr Five Ideas for Encouraging Participation in Virtual Meetings
Research and experience tell us how important equal and energized group meetings are to morale and productivity.
Yet, clients using virtual audio or video conferencing say that engaging all participants, holding attention, and controlling interruptions and overlapping speakers are significant challenges.
Make sure you are incorporating these five essentials in your virtual meetings:
1 Apr Dr. Dennis Becker at World Speech Day
Dr. Dennis Becker, founder of The Speech Improvement Company, spoke on March 16 at World Speech Day. The honor of representing North America was given to him in recognition of his stature as a worldwide expert in human communication.
World Speech Day is a day to celebrate speeches and speechmaking that change the world – socially, politically, in the arts, business, and religion. This is their fifth year and featured a Master Class of speakers from 120+ countries delivering speeches and taking questions from viewers and listeners. This year’s theme was Classical Rhetoric and its Effect on Contemporary Communication.
Dennis’ 15-minute live-streamed speech was entitled “Aristotle’s Patterns of Reasoning.” He took this 3,000-year-old content and showed its use and value in today’s world. Of course, his comfortable and “shirtsleeve” English style benefitted viewers and listeners across the globe.
24 Mar Communicating During Crisis (Recorded Webinar)
30-minute recorded webinar
Communicating During Crisis
Navigating Essential Conversations
Watch Now
In these unprecedented times, your people are relying on your insight and direction. Effective communication is every leader’s best tool and using it appropriately is the key to moving business forward. Your employees, peers, vendors, partners, and others all need clear, concise, and useful information.
Our team of Executive Communication Coaches will be joined by renowned crisis expert Dr. Kevin Becker to give you a framework for essential management communication. During this webinar you will learn the three most important things that must be communicated during a time of crisis and proven techniques for putting it all in place immediately.
How Can Disaster Psychology Help Business Through the Coronavirus Crisis?
In recent years, the world has seen a number of significant large-scale disasters; some caused by nature and some caused by humans. For many, the words “disaster” or “crisis” evoke images of buildings in shambles, decimated communities, and families who are homeless and uncertain where their next meal will come from. Until recently, these disasters included only such events as tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and terrorist attacks. These days it is the coronavirus that is bringing us pictures of people wearing masks, being quarantined, schools closing, and so on. This current crisis has wreaked havoc with the stock market and the investments of millions of people. That alone is creating an economic crisis.
Indeed, the current financial crisis has been referred to as an “economic tsunami”. Undeniably, the current conditions have caused communities to come to a complete standstill. The trauma has been severe for many companies, and leaders worldwide have spoken in terms usually reserved for those occasions when a hurricane or earthquake has occurred. Rallying cries of hope and promises for “a full recovery” can be heard from leaders across the globe.
In the United States, since the disaster of 9/11, there has been significant research in the areas of Disaster Psychology and Human Communication which offer important insights into how people operate and what motivates them during times of crisis. For political leaders and business professionals, understanding some important disaster principles and practices can mean the difference between success and failure as the crisis and subsequent economic troubles unfold. (more…)
16 Mar Managing Employees Remotely (Recorded Webinar)
Managing Employees Remotely
Overcoming challenges in communication,
motivation, and employee engagement
The coronavirus is forcing many of us to work and manage remotely. With large numbers of employees working remotely for the first time and reading frightening headlines daily, managers have a whole new set of challenges to continue leading effectively.
Watch our webinar and you will learn:
- The key challenges to remote work
- Five important skills for effective remote collaboration
- How to motivate and engage employees
This is a unique opportunity to fine-tune your communication skills. You will learn proven strategies you can put to use immediately with any remote employee or team to keep them focused and productive.
This recorded webinar is for:
Watch Now
10 Mar Running Effective Remote Team Meetings
To curb the spread of coronavirus, organizations are encouraging employees around the globe to work remotely. Setting clear guidelines for how, when, and why teams operate remotely helps form cohesion. How do you create a collaborative agenda with remote meeting attendees, allowing all remote team members to remain engaged during team conference calls? This blog post offers tips based on our experience training companies on how to communicate effectively when using digital platforms and how to collaborate and manage remotely.
Admit it, when there is no video aspect to a conference call, it’s not unusual for employees to hit mute, (or not), and do a variety of tasks during phone conferences and remote team meetings, such as checking and composing email, scrolling Twitter, eating a sandwich, and (gasp) going to the bathroom?! (more…)
8 Mar Speaking Tips
The PPI consists of 10 questions to ask prior to the business presentation process. These 10 questions relate to listener analysis, and therefore your needs:
- Why am I speaking to these listeners?
- Why are they listening?
- What relationship do we have?
- What relationship do listener members have to each other?
- What do they know about this topic?
- What would they like to know?
- How will they use this information?
- What are they doing the day before I speak?
- What will they be doing the day after?
- What are the logistics of the event:time, location, room
description, temperature, seating, lighting, and sound?
The information you gather from these 10 questions will make the job of preparing a speech much easier. In addition, your listeners will be more likely to respond positively if they feel that your research has helped you prepare specifically for them.
3 Mar Four Practice Strategies for Your Next Investor Presentation
Raising capital for your biotech company requires more than a great product and a fancy slide deck. You need a combination of substantial scientific evidence, a great story, and a solid pitch. The road to funding is a long and winding journey, from extensive costs to regulatory requirements to navigate. What is often lost during this presentation brainstorm process is a rigorous practice schedule to hone and perfect your investor pitch. This article outlines the four imperative practice strategies biotech companies need to succeed.
For some biotech executives, practice means memorization. While being very comfortable with your presentation material is a crucial factor, there is so much more to be done than rote memorization. The quality of your practice has a direct impact on the success of your presentation. Don’t worry about memorization; what is most important is HOW you say it.
Once your investor pitch and the slide deck are created, your goal is to increase your market valuation by crystallizing your message using storytelling, evidence, and in-depth financial analysis. The four practice tools below will captivate investors and emphasize your value proposition.
1. Structural Practice
The structural practice covers the logistics of a group presentation. Questions to discuss with the presentation team include:
- How will we talk into the room, and in what order?
- Where will we stand?
- Will the projector/ screen be blocked if we stand in a specific spot?
- Who speaks first, second, third? How is the speaker role passed along, e.g., “Now Frank will talk about…”?
- Will the PowerPoint clicker be passed along, and when?
- Do we all need microphones, or will one microphone be passed from person to person?
- If we had to present the same pitch in 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes, how will we achieve this? Who will speak? What will we share? What slides would we use?
- If the PowerPoint fails, do we know the order of the presentation?
- How will be exit the room?
18 Feb Three Ways to Handle Investor Questions Confidently
Questions are an essential part of meetings. When questions are asked, there is interest. Questions can be a test not only for your knowledge of the content but your confidence in what you are representing.
The three techniques below will help you prepare for inevitable questions.
- Restate– In restating the question, you are NOT adding any new information or changing the meaning. Changing the meaning does not always mean words, many times it’s done with tone and inflection. Also restating DOES NOT mean using the same words and ‘parroting’ the information. When this technique is done well, the listener repeats the essence of the message with no judgment, emotion, or opinion implied. In other words – a neutral tone. It’s much easier said than done. It can be most challenging in an emotionally loaded conversation, which is also where it is the most powerful and effective. The main resistance people have to restate a question comes from the fear that they appear to be agreeing when they do not. Do not let this stop you from using this effective technique, as it is even more powerful when you do not agree with the other person’s statement.
- Disclaiming– Many times, people are fearful of answering because they want to have the right answer. “I don’t know, but I will find out” won’t get you very far in business communication, especially when it’s used more than once. Learning how to frame your answer can help. Some phrases act as a disclaimer so you can offer insight or at least the limited information you do have.