Understanding life

Every boss wants employees who do their jobs well. But even among highly competent employees, there are distinctions. Here are 10 tips for making sure you're on the boss' A-list:


1. Communicate, communicate, communicate. 

Especially at the beginning of your relationship. that is, when either you or the boss is new to the job -- err on the side of giving your boss too much information and asking too many questions.

"There's no such thing as a dumb question," says Marianne Adoradio, a Silicon Valley recruiter and career counselor. "Look at it as information gathering."

Don't keep up the constant stream of communication unless your boss likes it, though. It's best to ask directly whether you're giving the boss enough information or too much.

2. Acknowledge what the boss says. 

Bosses appreciate "responsive listening," says John Farner, principal of Russell Employee Management Consulting. When your boss asks you to do something or suggests ways for you to improve your work, let her know you heard.

3. Collaborate. 

When your boss has a new idea, respond to it in a constructive way instead of throwing up roadblocks.

"Be willing to brainstorm ways to get something done," says Michael Beasley, principal of Career-Crossings and a leadership and career development coach.

4. Build relationships. 

You'll make your boss look good if you establish a good rapport with your department's customers, whether they're inside the company or outside. Bring back what you learn -- about ways to offer better customer service, for example -- to your boss. This is also helpful for your own career development.

"Everybody wins in the long run," Adoradio says.

5. Understand how you fit in. 

Is your boss detail-oriented, or someone who keeps his head in the clouds?

"The boss's personality is just incredibly important," says Norm Meshriy, a career counselor and principal of Career Insights.

Equally important is understanding what your boss wants in an employee. It may be, for example, that a boss who is detail-oriented will expect his employees to be as well. But a boss who has no time for details may actually appreciate an employee who does.

To be continued. Thank you for your attention! 

Ice breaker (or Icebreaker) is a term which describes an activity which reduces tension and anxiety in a group.

Thus, it is fitting that the first Toastmaster speech project is titled The Ice Breaker.

This article of the Toastmasters Speech Series examines the primary goals of this project, provides tips and techniques, and links to numerous sample speeches.

Why is This Speech Important?

The Ice Breaker speech has three aims:

Introduce yourself.
Your ice breaker speech topic is you – something about your life, your job, your hobbies, your unique interests, your family, or any combination of these. You are an absolute authority on this topic, and everyone in the audience will learn something about you.

Begin to conquer the fear of speaking in front of a group.
It is nervewracking when speaking in front of a new group. If you feel this nervousness, remember that a Toastmaster audience is always supportive and understanding. Nobody is grading you, and nobody will mind if you stumble through 99 “Um”s and “Ah”s. If you get up, say something, and sit down, you have succeeded in this project.

Provide a “base line” of your current strengths and weaknesses.
Some new members have no public speaking experience, while others have years of presentations behind them. No matter where you fit into this spectrum, your goal is to improve from your starting point. This first speech helps club members gauge your current strengths so that they can make specific recommendations to help you improve.

Tips and Techniques

The Competent Communicator manual has a wealth of helpful advice. You can download a PDF version here: Toastmasters Speech 1 – Ice Breaker (PDF).

Here are a few other things which may help you:
“Nobody expects you to be a world-class orator. Just do your best.”

Ask for Help
If you have a mentor, don’t hesitate to ask them for help. If you don’t, feel free to ask any other club member. Perhaps they can share what they spoke about for their Icebreaker. Perhaps they can help you select a topic. Perhaps you can practice it privately before the meeting. All other members have gone through the Ice Breaker before, and can provide words of encouragement.

Practice Helps
You don’t need to practice the speech 35 times, and you don’t need to have it memorized. However, your nervousness will be reduced considerably if you give it a couple of practice runs out loud (even if your only audience is you).

Timing
The recommended time for the Ice Breaker speech is four to six minutes. It may seem like a long time, but in later projects, you’ll start wishing you had much more time to deliver your message. Don’t worry too much about going under or over time. Just aim for somewhere in that range.

Notes
There are no rules on the use of notes. If you need notes, use them. If you don’t need notes, don’t. Either way, don’t worry about it. It’s okay if you read your ice breaker from a script (just try to look up once in a while), if you refer to cue cards, or if you talk without notes.

Don’t Expect to be Winston Churchill
This is your first challenge. Nobody expects you to be a world-class orator. Just do your best. Once you have established your “base line”, then you can aim to raise your skill level in future projects.

Speak Up and Slow Down
Two common effects of nervousness are mumbling words and racing through the speech. Try to avoid these, but don’t worry if you can’t help it.

Humour Reduces Your Nervousness
If you are comfortable incorporating humour into your ice breaker, go for it. The laughs from the audience will reduce your nervousness. An easy way to do this is to make a self-depracating joke at the start. (If nobody laughs, don’t worry about that either… it’s something to work on later.)

Apologizing
You may feel an urge to apologize to your audience (e.g. for uttering too many “Um”s, for losing your place, etc.). There is no need to do so! Often, the audience doesn’t notice the little glitches, and it is much better for you to ignore them too.

Topic Ideas for Your Ice Breaker Speech

Although your broad topic is yourself, there are numerous angles to take, and several ways to organize your speech.

Don’t worry too much about the organization of the speech; later speech projects (especially #2 and #3) encourage you to focus more on that. However, having said that, one of these ideas may help you overcome writer’s block.

Idea #1: Chronological

For many people, a series of chronological snapshots of their life is the easiest to write and deliver.

Example: Ravi Singal takes this approach with his Ice Breaker: Why Me? Try Me!

Example: Oleg Kagan starts at birth in his Ice Breaker speech.

Example: Bob Cain addresses his love of travel, then photography, and then his career/education in his Ice Breaker speech. (video)

Idea #3: Common Thread

Select a common thread that runs through your life, and share brief stories where this common element appears. It might be a signature phrase, a philosophy that guides you, or even something obscure like peanut butter. (i.e. imagine stories through your life where peanut butter played a role)

My own Ice Breaker speech followed this general structure. It was titled “Andrew of All Trades – Master of None” and touched on several examples where I have breadth, but not depth of knowledge.

Example: Steph Corwin provides a great example with her Ice Breaker titled Swimming Through Life.

Idea #4: One Key Event

Focus on one critical event which took your life in a completely different direction.

Example: Tanya Huang talks about moving continents in Made in Taiwan, Calibrated in Canada.

Idea #5: How I Got Here…

A combination of #1 and #4, explain the series of decisions or events that brought you “here”, where “here” might be the place you currently live, the job you currently have, the life you lead, or the decision to join Toastmasters.

Example: Tracy Buxton does this wonderfully in her Ice Breaker titled I used to be June Cleaver, but I’m not sure who I am now.

Example: Jill Williamson also demonstrates this approach in the aptly titled How I Came To Be Here. (video).

Thank you for your attention!
 

As a speaker, one major milestone you face is your first highly public speech. Most of you won’t have to give that first talk at a TED conference as I did. However, if you do, it helps to remember that the things which make TED talks great can make all talks great.

TED speakers are asked to do six things in their talk:

1.Distill your life’s work or experience into a 3, 6, 9 or 18 minute talk
2.Be authentic/vulnerable
3.Convey one strong idea
4.Tell a story that hasn’t been told before
5.Tell and not sell
6.Absolutely and positively stick to the time limit

Do those things and you too can give “the talk of your life.”

1. Distill Your Life’s Work or Experience into a 3, 6, 9 or 18 minute talk

Any of us could fill books with the story of our lives. But how do you narrow your focus and distill a life to mere minutes? Determine your message – is it to educate? Motivate? Persuade? Entertain? Or inspire? I wanted to do all those things.

I had lived in my van for a year with a dog and house cat while working a full-time job. I was dealing with heat, depression, hassles from police and security guards whose job it was to make sure I didn’t sleep in my van on their property. There was the day-to-day struggle to eat, sleep, work, shower and survive on the streets. There was the struggle to remain true to the vision I had of being a free spirit on an adventure while fighting clinical depression. As I prepared for the talk, I was living in an apartment, and couldn’t decide what part of the van-dwelling experience I wanted to convey.

2. Be Authentic

I kept asking myself, what was my message? Where did I focus? It wasn’t easy to decide. I finally climbed back into my van, closed my eyes and asked myself, “What will the audience want to know? What would I want to know if I heard a similar story?” Simple. I’d want to know how I escaped. What got me out of the van and homelessness and back into an apartment? That was the message, the quality, the focus. From there it just got easier.

3. Convey one strong idea

The theme for TED Global was, “The essence of things not seen.” My talk was about being one of the invisible working homeless – the essence of things not seen. But it was also about the essence of things – like perspectives and judgments, that influence our lives. In this context, my message was clear: “People are not where they live, where they sleep, what they are doing at any given moment. People are their dreams and visions.”

Tip: Take time to focus each idea you want to express, then pick the most compelling, the strongest idea.

4. Tell a story that hasn’t been told before

As a journalist I had an advantage. I’m a professional storyteller. Yet I still had to find a new story, a story about being homeless that hadn’t been told before. So I told my story. It’s easy to hide behind talking about other people in similar situations, with similar issues, but the powerful story, the one people want to hear, is your story.

Once I believed that, I could start looking at how my experience, my journey through homelessness, while the same on many levels, was also new and untold in many other ways. I also noticed that with many stories about the homeless, it’s easy to resort to playing on the audience’s heart strings and going for the pity pull. I didn’t want that. I wanted my audience to be with me emotionally, but to identify with me, not to feel sorry for me. I wanted to come across as authentic, not as a victim.

To do that I focused on the facts, not on the trauma of the pain or the emotion. Own the situation, don’t blame the situation. Tell the story and let the reader or listener make their own choice about the outcome.

5. Tell and not sell

One of the strongest “rules” that TED organizers establish is to not “sell” anything, or use your time to pitch your book, organization, or business. It’s great advice.

Tell the audience something, don’t sell them something. They want solutions. If you can provide that, the rest will come. I had nothing to sell, so abiding by that rule was easy! If you have a great message, a fabulous idea, or an amazing story or product – people will want to buy. You don’t have to sell them. Focus on being remarkable, not profitable.

6. Stick to the time limit

TED organizers don’t budge on this one. I watched several people interrupted when they breached their time limit. The same holds true for any venue where you talk. Even if you go over your limit, the audience is watching the clock. Their timers will go off and you’ll lose them if you talk too long. Set your own limit and keep it.
 

Practical Speaking Tips

I also learned numerous practical speaking lessons along the way. In terms of preparation and practice, here’s my advice to you:

Memorize your talk where possible and refer back to notes or prompters

Get 8-hours sleep after practicing. This helps your brain commit, process, and store the speech, allowing you to remember what you’ve crammed for.

Give the speech to a small audience the day before

Give the speech to yourself an hour before your actual speech
Practice in the venue where you’ll be talking – get on the stage if possible beforehand.

Learn From the Best You Can Access

I also got fantastic advice from some of the best speakers at TED.

From Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO and founder of the Accumen Foundation:(Novogratz is not only a seasoned TED speaker, she’s married to Chris Anderson, moderator for TED.)
Give your speech (no matter how often you’ve given it before) to a close friend, or out loud to yourself before you actually get on stage for your real talk.

From Daniel Pink, professional speaker, best-selling author, former speech writer for Al Gore, and TED talker:

Remember your audience wants you to succeed

Relax and enjoy your time on stage

From June Cohen, TED University Moderator,

Stand, move, and walk around on stage, but don’t stand and sway or shuffle
Smile

Don’t block the TED logo

Don’t walk out of the camera range

Don’t worry about looking perfect. We edit out all the mistakes and the parts where you forget your place. The video makes you look perfect, but no one gives an error free presentation.

From the guys who ran the sound checks…

From Bruno Giussani (European Director of TED Global Conferences)…

From Sam Martin, TED Magazine editor…

And from all the TED Global Fellows:
Breathe
The louder your voice, the more you’ll naturally gesticulate
Enjoy the ride
Be authentic
It’s not a competition

Thank you for your attention! 

Are you still annoying your audience with boring slide after boring slide?

Break free from PowerPoint bullets!

Learn from photojournalists — tell stories with visuals, and your audience will love you.

A Visual Feast — What the World Eats

This article is inspired by a captivating photo essay from Time magazine titled: What the World Eats.

The photo essay is based on the remarkable book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio.

Among the families, we meet the Mellanders, a German household of five who enjoy cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants, and beef roulades, and whose weekly food expenses amount to $500. We also encounter the Natomos of Mali, a family of one husband, his two wives, and their nine children, whose corn and millet-based diet costs $26.39 weekly.

Captivating contrasts, indeed!

How Would You Present this with PowerPoint?

Suppose you wanted to discuss the contrasts in your next speech.

How would you do it?

Would you present a series of boring text slides?

Would you prove your conformity and lack of originality by using one of the stock PowerPoint templates?

Would you read the slides aloud to your audience?

Audiences hate that!

Or…

Would you use a series of visuals?

Would use maximize the photos to run from edge to edge?

Would you punctuate the visuals by sharing real stories about the families?

Thank you for your attention!

Earlier this month, I was the master of ceremonies for a corporate holiday party. Rather than randomly selecting tables to take their turn at the buffet, I asked for twelve volunteers (maximum one per table). Each of them sang one of the Twelve Days (a version customized for the company), and thus earned their table an early visit to the buffet. It worked out even better than I had hoped.

Inspired by the success of that activity, I offer you the Twelve Days of Public Speaking Christmas.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, the presentation gave to me:

• Twelve figures of speech;
• Eleven poignant phrases;
• Ten timely gestures;
• Nine meaningful quotes;
• Eight laughs from humor;
• Seven smooth transitions;
• Six “um”-free minutes;
• Five metaphors;
• Four simple ideas;
• Three major points;
• Two stories told; and
• A message in the speech!

This worked out very well at a Toastmaster event where we sang the “On the twelfth day of Christmas, Toastmasters gave to me…”

Try out this song idea at your next Christmas event!

Thank you for your attention!