Being Nice

Today I typed “being nice” into Google and got a page of hits starting with the phrase “being nice gets you nowhere”.

Not very encouraging in a season that features goodness and giving.

I had just coached a young investment banker and remarked to the group that he exuded niceness. Hearing the comment, his colleagues around the table echoed my sentiments saying he was genuinely nice all the time. Not an easy thing to do in the cynical world of high finance.

Then I heard General Stanley McChrystal being interviewed by Charlie Rose on the radio. He was talking about his dad and how he never saw or heard him do a mean thing during his whole childhood. Not an easy thing to do since his dad was an Army man, used to ordering people around.

Then I thought about the pace of our busy lives and how hard it is to be genuinely nice to people all the time. We are always rushing to catch a bus or a cab or a movie or a sale, or to be at a meeting or an interview, or to shop and make dinner, or to answer an email or some other electronic poke or touch.

We always seem to be on the verge of completely losing our sense of calm and manners. As someone who has cursed traffic and standing in lines his whole life, I know whereof I speak. I know I’m not alone. I see plenty of people cursing in their cars and rolling their eyes in the queue just like me.

In this season of magic and wonder when bears dance in tutus on a grand stage at Radio City and lovers gaze at full moons while twirling around Wollman Rink and families put aside their gripes and griefs to share each other’s annual company, let’s remember to be nice – to ourselves and to each other.

You can be nice to yourself. Remind yourself that it was a very tough year, but you survived. Remind yourself that life knocked you down, but you got back up. Remind yourself that you never stopped trying even when you were crying. Pat yourself on the back for never losing faith and be nice to the face in the mirror. It needs some TLC. It got no help from the stimulus package.

You can be nice to the people closest to you. Be nice to the ones who had your back when no one else did. Be nice to the ones who made you great and never got enough credit. Be nice to the ones who gave you strength when you had doubt. Be nice to the ones who gave you hugs when you needed them more than money. Be nice to the ones who gave you love even when you were a jerk.

You can be nice to a stranger - even by opening a door to let someone through or with the wave of the hand to let someone change lanes or with a heartfelt hello or a gracious goodbye.

Our economy can certainly use a massive injection of jobs and renewed confidence and optimism. Our IM/Twitter/TMZ culture could also use a massive injection of manners and courtesy.

Maybe if we start really small now, someday a little kid will type “being nice” into Google 22.0 and the first page will be filled with hits starting with the phrase “being nice gets you everywhere”.

Food for Feedback

Hopefully you and your boss will get through the dreaded formal review process at your company with your self esteem intact and your temper untested. Here's some advice for next year and the ongoing feedback process that should make every formal review discussion an easy one. You can get a P.H.D. in feedback, but a few simple reminders can help keep you on track all year. There are dozens of tips I know I've left off the lists, so feel free to add your own.

Getting Feedback An old adage – “You don’t ask, you don’t get.” If a boss doesn’t give feedback, shame on them. If you don’t ask for it, shame on you.

• Evaluate Yourself – think about your own view first
• Pick Your Spots – know when and where to ask each person
• Make It Matter – don’t ask on everything, pick key stuff
• Get Specific – ask what worked and what to work on
• Offer Thanks – courtesy goes a long way in business

Giving Feedback Follow a time honored HR tip – “Feedback should be about a person’s performance or behavior, not about them as a person”. Respect counts.

• Be Prepared – avoid ‘shoot from the lip’ feedback
• Be Specific – vague feedback gives you nothing to work on
• Ditch the Dump Truck – people can change 1 thing, not 12
• Focus on Facts – make it personal and you lose credibility
• Watch Your Language – substitute “and” for “but”
• Refuse to Dance – don’t return emotion with emotion

Receiving Feedback Follow Ken Blanchard’s advice – “Feedback is the breakfast of champions”. Great performers use feedback to raise the level of their game.

• Open Your Mind – don’t get stuck in preconceptions
• Listen Well – don’t interrupt and play it back for clarity
• Write It Down After – what’s the use if you can’t remember
• Gauge Its Relevance – to yourself and your role
• Do Something With It – if you don’t apply it, don’t ask again

Busy leaders need to constantly challenge themselves to communicate with their people and let them know where they stand. The formal twice-yearly discussion milestones aren't enough and feedback by osmosis doesn't cut it. People need to know when they hit or miss the mark and how they can replicate what's working and work on what's not. Often it's too easy for all of us to get wrapped up in the next deal or transaction and not make time to talk to the people who make us great.

That includes our loved ones back at the ranch. They need it too.

For phone feedback to loved ones, a little Stevie Wonder tip. Start the discussion with "I just called to say I love you..."

Sully and Hillary

We all remember TV replays of the Miracle on the Hudson flight and the air traffic controller asking Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger "Do you want to divert to Teterboro?"

We probably expected something like, "That's no longer possible, we don't have enough time." Instead we heard a very busy man say a Clint Eastwood-like, "We'll be in the Hudson."

Even in subsequent interviews in the weeks and months following the accident, he didn't exactly open up and dish like Joe Biden or Joy Behar. He remained a man of few words and held his story and thoughts close to the vest.

Now that he's on a tour for his new book, Highest Duty, Captain Sullenberger is starting to open up and take us behind the curtain of what was going on in his head and in the cabin that fateful day.

I mention this to demonstrate a few key points for business leaders going on TV. Go to pbs.org and type sullenberger interview into the search box - then click on the first selection featuring Judy Woodruff - then click on streaming video.

Notice how he sits upright with his back off the chair and his feet firmly planted. Notice how he never rushes, stays calm, gives thoughtful answers and subtly punches words to give his voice life and variety. This is pilot presence in sales mode. He's in a strange new role, yet functions flawlessly.

In the interview, he talks about being prepared. I'll bet you $100 right now that Old Sully didn't just wing the interview (pun intended). He probably practiced and laid out a game plan to execute. He probably even had a pre-interview checklist.

A key lesson for executives going on TV.

Never, never, never go on the tube without being prepared and without having some kind of a game plan to execute.

Sully nailed it - you can too!

Now to the Secretary of State. I was never a big Hillary fan, but like many I've gained a lot of respect for her in her new role. She has won over many a critic on both sides of the aisle and seems to have adapted to her role extremely well - in fact, phenomenally well.

In an interview from Berlin this week on Charlie Rose, we witnessed a masterful communicator at the absolute top of her game. Go to charlierose.com and type Hillary into the search box and take a look at her November 9th appearance. The interview starts after a brief introduction piece.

Witness her calm, thoughtful demeanor and unflappable command of the subject matter as Charlie moves from question to question. She seems physically comfortable in her chair yet sits upright with a level head and a steady strong voice that oozes executive 'gravitas'.

Two more lessons for executives going on TV.

First, if possible, pick an interview format like one of these two where you can give thoughtful answers and develop a few key themes rather than give sound-bite answers. Then put a link to your TV interview on your company's website and market the hell out of it. You get to drive your message - your way.

Second, make sure you have command of your subject by having your team pepper you with tough Q&A before you submit to the interview. This deliberate practice, especially when it's done on videotape, allows you to see what the TV audience will see and hear in your answers.

Watch your nonverbals. Remember, people hear what they see.

One last thing. Both Captain Sullenberger and Secretary Clinton looked great on TV. Do you think they just grabbed some old rag out of the closet at the last minute or actually picked a particular suit and accessories for the occasion? I'm guessing the latter.

Final lesson for executives going on TV.

Find a TV outfit you look great in and hang it in your office just in case you ever have to do an impromptu TV appearance. Keep a backup TV outfit in the closet at home.

When you're on TV, it's all about managing your message and your presence. These two fine people, both fairly new to these roles, provide stellar examples.

P.S. For those who may be offended that I didn't put Secretary Clinton (the lady) first in this blog post, I want you to know that I saved the best for last.

Last Minute Leadership

It's fall and it's the season for leaders everywhere to start disappearing behind closed doors to prepare for the advancement process, year-end updates, bonuses, performance reviews, making the numbers, going on campus recruiting visits, starting to think about next year and a hundred other things from helping kids with homework to getting flu shots to making ball games and school plays on time.

It's easy to forget about communicating. It's the first thing that gets forgotten and employees notice - especially after a year like this. That's when this cliche rears its ugly head..."in the absence of information, people make up their own"

These days, it's rarely positive. So stay in touch. Keep your finger on the pulse of the people. Be visible. It's fairly simple to stay in touch if you lead 30 people. If it's 300 or 3,000 or 30,000, not so easy.

Try this. Talk to one person a day in your organization for 10 minutes by phone or face to face. Make it someone you don't normally talk to on a regular basis. Maybe pick someone who'll be surprised you called or that you even know who they are. Pick diverse roles and hit every level - from executives to executive assistants to the guard at the front door.

Ask them three open-ended questions - how's your business doing? how's your team doing? and most importantly, how are you doing?

Their business could be making copies or millions. Their team could be 50 people or just themselves. It doesn't matter. What matters is the boss knows who they are, what they're doing and why it's important. And best of all the boss knows their name and cares enough to find out about their life, not just their work.

Then they tell colleagues, "guess who I talked to today?"

I know it's a pain and it sounds hokey and you think you don't have the time, but it works. It's a simple choice - 10 more minutes on the stairmaster or 10 minutes with the people who make you great.

Your choice.

Spreading the Wealth

Knowledge is an asset which appreciates when shared...

Too often in large organizations the knowledge and expertise of our best people only gets shared with small circles of employees or gets lost in a procession of 'once and gone' learning events. We aren't as good as we could be at capturing, archiving and reusing critical knowledge from our 'stars'.

How do we normally learn in large organizations?

A) we attend multi-day training and eat wraps with strangers
B) we listen to talking heads bloviate about why they're terrific
C) we log onto web-based learning that takes hours to finish
D) we get a wake up call or a kick in the pants from the boss

A, B and C all have value but D can be very effective - it's short, wrapped in colorful commentary, and memorable for life.

The common misconception about corporate learning is that it has to be long to be good. Yet what if you tapped into your best brains and 'pro from Dover' experts and captured their thoughts in bite-sized video learning nuggets for publication and use on your intranet? What if you didn't give it a real fancy name like The Center for Advanced Professional Development?

Try something simple like "How To Do Stuff Around Here".

Examples long and short abound in cyberspace. FT.com has a video B-School on their website where they have professors from University of Chicago and Insead and other leading schools opine on a variety of management and leadership topics. YouTube has something called Expert Village (now E-How) where you can see hundreds of video tutorials like a guy on his apartment webcam teaching you how to play guitar. MIT has 'open courseware'. You can go online for free and see teaching legends like Walter Lewin on a swing in front of his physics class in Cambridge demonstrating a pendulum.

My all-time favorite though is an oldie called Red on Roundball.

Red Auerbach, the legendary basketball coach of the Boston Celtics, gathered the leading NBA stars of his day and filmed them demonstrating key techniques to help kids become better basketball players. Just go on You Tube and watch Red and 'Pistol Pete' Maravich show you the art of passing the basketball. The entire clip is 4:27.

Now, imagine a Red on Roundball-type video series in your shop featuring your best players talking about business basics and simple stuff like how to run a meeting or cold call a prospect or cut NPE costs. Here's an example of a useful topic...

Even top executives get agita when they go before the firm's executive committee or board of directors. What if you had a 4:27 video of your CEO saying, "here are 3 things we like to see in presentations and 3 things that drive us up the wall". Think of the anticipatory anxiety that could be relieved with that tutorial.

If you do these video learning nuggets, a few suggestions:

- Don't put your stars in what I call the "stiff in the studio" setting. Get them in more natural settings where they can just look into the camera and talk.

- Don't restrict 'stars' to the usual suspects. You have talent up and down your organization around the world. What if a 'star' executive assistant in London or Mumbai did a 4:27 tutorial titled "Getting Past the Gatekeeper". Wouldn't your people love to know how to do that when calling clients and prospects?

- Think about asking favorite coaches (like me) to add a clip on a key topic or ask clients to contribute. What if a top client did a clip called "worst sales pitches I've ever sat through and why they stunk". Your salespeople might eat it up.

- Keep them short. Under 10 minutes - maybe under 5. It's not a boring slide show. It's a tip on "how to do stuff around here."

A few reasons why this makes sense.

It's cheap - a few smart employees, a camcorder, a list of 'stars' to film and a set of topics to cover is all you need to get started.

It's global - once it's done, it's out there on your intranet for everyone to use and reuse. Simple repeatable messages from your in-house experts all over the world.

It's yours - you can brand it for your company and best of all, your people are the stars of the show as they get to show off their talent for the whole organization.

The days of the big magilla development experiences are fading because they're too costly, too cumbersome and the learning doesn't always stick past the last cocktail hour with the faculty.

Save a little money and spread the wealth.

Unleash your 'brains on board'.

If you need help email me at andy@speakingvirtually.com

The Advocacy Abyss

Recently the death of Walter Cronkite helped us look back wistfully at a time when news shows actually tried to report objectively and advocacy was confined to 3-minute segments at the end of a TV news broadcast. Ah, we long for the good old days when our athletes took performance depressing drugs; our comedians cursed off-air; our politicians had affairs under the covers; and our reporters reported actual news, not opinions.

Those days are gone - perhaps forever. If you ever get a chance, rent the movie Network. The Howard Beale show is not some writer's fantasy any longer - it's on every night on the Fox News Network (unfair and imbalanced unless you're a Rushie or a Colterite) or MSNBC (the prison network where murderers and rapists get their time on TV right after the leftist rantings of Keith and Rachel) or CNBC (the resident idiot network where reasonable economic observers mix in with WWF-type hedge fund/option trader whackos and whoever yells the loudest wins).

Today you cannot turn on cable TV or AM radio without witnessing a cacophony of verbal street fights with highly-paid equivalents of the Crips and the Bloods having at each other between commercials for erectile dysfunction drugs and Cash for Clunker deals. We are now witnessing Town Halls on health care reform on TV that resemble the latest Jerry Springer show.

All this is really not new. We Americans have been yelling at each other since the first patriot began ridiculing King George and his hated taxes. It used to be that only the precious few were able to publish their opinions for general consumption. Today everyman/everywoman around the globe is a multimedia self-publisher on Twitter, YouTube, Blogs, and scores of other online vehicles. We are potential reporters-in-the-field for major networks who publish our 1st-hand accounts of disasters replete with cell phone photos - as recently as the helicopter/small plane tragedy this week in the Hudson River in New York.

We are avalanched by advocates. We are overwhelmed by opiners. We are tweeted by twits. The Vox Populi is all around us - every minute of every day. It's loud and getting louder.

Your only recourse is to unlpug whatever device is assaulting your eyes or ears and go read a book.

Yet it doesn't have to be that way. We may never return to the old Uncle Walter days with the tweed suits and the pipes but we can return to the notion of civility in our public discourse. It's all supply and demand of course. If we demand it, the networks may start to supply it.

Don't hold your breath though.

In a world where ultra fighting with mixed marital arts (with lots of blood) is rivaling other mainline sports for popularity on TV here, our society is obviously thirsty for combat of all kinds. ('Our society' is the U.S. I don't presume to talk for other societies. That would be rude.)

It is truly ironic that we have sunk this low because people in the business world with divergent political views nonetheless come together around business issues and solve problems. People in business meetings across the world disagree strongly with each other's views yet somehow the fights stay within the bounds of reasonable discourse. It's probably because there is a high price to be paid for being a corporate 'animal' these days. Yelling and screaming still happens but you might find yourself on the outside looking in if you do it long enough and loud enough.

Can we be civil with each other outside of the work place? Here are a few things we can try.

• Understand the other person's point of view. To paraphrase St. Augustine - if you want to convince someone of something first walk over to where they are standing and see what the view looks like from there.
• Understand that their reality is different from yours. The Gates v. Cambridge Police fiasco drove that point home. Where we've been and what we've seen and how we've lived has a lot to do with how we think, act and react.
• Respect their right to hold their position. That takes patience. In business or politics or marriage or life we stop communciating when we stop respecting each other's right to hold an opinion or position.
• Treasure the triumph of joint problem solving. Whether it's putting a man on the moon or doing the family budget, we all lift each other up when we band together to face adversity or meet a challenge.
• Stop being so damn certain about everything. Every talk show yeller on TV and radio acts like they have it all figured out. Life is still an unfolding mystery and the only being who has it all figured out is the one we will hopefully meet when this life is over.
• Remember that love still beats hate. Remember how you felt when you fell in love for the first time. Exhilarated, giddy and drunk with joy. Now, remember how you felt when you hated for the first time. Not so good, huh?

This is just my opinion. Now the hard part is making it part of your life every day with those you know and love and those you don't know and don't love. I'm going to try it out. Like all the rest of us, I'm a work-in-progress. Just ask my wife.

'Obamatic' Overtalking

Like many people, I can talk too much at times. My boss once told me, "you're not as concise as you think you are". She was right. So I've taken to strengthening a critical communication skill called...knowing when to shut up.

When you run into an overtalker and you hear them say, "and I'd just like to add..." - run!

Now I'm a huge admirer of President Obama as a communicator. This guy really knows how to talk. His speeches have informed and moved the nation. Even his opponents give him his due as an orator of tremendous skill and accomplishment.

Yet on July 22nd his press conference fell short of my expectations for him as a communicator. Like most Americans, I wanted to know the following about health care reform:

• Why are we doing it?
• What will I gain or lose?
• How are we going to pay for it?

The President is a master of the facts, has great presentation skills and has presence out the wazoo - and he did give us some of those answers. So, what's the beef?

I think the beef is this. His answers got buried under a deluge of detail, parenthetical points and extraneous explanation - so much so that you needed to take notes to get the real points. Unfortunately, we're not reporters, we're people - so many of us forgot our notepads.

I realize you have a background that includes lawyering and professoring Mr. President - two professions guaranteed to put everyone to sleep. So overtalking is expected. You're also extremely intelligent. Like former President Clinton, you have such a command of the facts that you sometimes can't resist telling us just one more thing. There's one big problem with that.

Bombarding us with more and more information doesn't help us understand the issue better and by the time you make your fourth point in an answer, we already forgotten your first.

Here are a few simple suggestions for you Mr. President before your next press conference.

• Dump the teleprompter. Even though they moved it to the middle so you can fake talking directly to us, it still makes you seem like you're running on 'Obamatic'. Your advisers probably want to ensure you get it right. Forget getting it right - get it real. This health care reform measure is one of the centerpieces of your presidency. You shouldn't have to read off a screen to explain it to us and if you do, how can you expect us to understand it if you can't explain it without visual aids. You spent 7:53 reading to us.
• Give shorter answers. Except for a brief reporter followup "is that your job", your answer to the first question on guidance to Congress was an almost unbroken 7+ minute monologue. That's half as long as President Kennedy's inaugural speech. This isn't a Harvard teach-in. It's an opportunity to connect with the American people on a critical issue between airings of Entertainment Tonight and America's Got Talent. We're used to sound bites and commercials, not PHD dissertations. It has nothing to do with our intelligence, it has everything to do with our attention span in this Twitter/You Tube age.
• Don't bury the Hook. You gave a 2-minute preamble about inherited deficits before you got to the question many Americans were asking "what's in this for me"? Later on at 13:04 you said "if someone told you..." and proceeded to make the point that the status quo stinks. At another juncture you talked about the stars being aligned between patients, doctors, hospitals, and big pharma companies to get something done. Out of all of that you could have crafted a quick straight-to-the-point Hook that grabbed our attention and set the table for the press conference, instead of starting out on defense.
• Inject some passion. I appreciate the No Drama Obama style that characterizes you and your administration. It's comforting to know that you don't shoot from the lip and you don't make decisions by the seat of your pants. It helps us sleep at night. In this context though, you needed to project some passion. You are not merely transferring information. You are transferring belief. There are some people who think you have no emotions - that you are all cerebral and no visceral. Health care is a visceral issue. Speak from your gut.
• Share the burden. Because some in your administration are not very effective communicators, you end up playing the role of Salesperson-In-Chief. Some of the least effective could be much better if they would make a few mechanical changes to their delivery style and engage in some deliberate practice. They can try to escape by saying they're too busy to practice - most busy executives do that. Yet if they could get the health care bill passed by winning a golf match, they'd be out on the driving range at midnight practicing. Don't let them skate.
• Use more "We" and "Us". I realize you are understandably the main focus of attention in your first year in office, so I hear a lot of "I" and "My" in your speeches and press conferences. As you constantly remind us though, "this is not about me". Make sure your words match that message.

I offer these suggestions with great respect for how difficult it must be to explain complex issues to an audience of 300 million people. You've done a terrific job so far but even you can raise the level of your game.

Mr. President, I wish you great success working with the Congress on this issue but if you choose to continue giving seven-minute answers, I hope to see you at the next Overtalkers Anonymous meeting. It's covered in your health plan - with a 300-word deductible!

Pull vs. Push

If Socrates only knew back in Athens that his teachings would be used in the 20th and 21st centuries to train salespople, he would have hired an agent. Socrates - like Sinatra, Elvis, Janis, Marilyn and Picasso - would make the Forbes 400 every year if they were still appearing 'live'.

I confess that I have never taken a Socratic Selling Skills Seminar. Who knows, maybe I should. They even have a Socrates Society at the Aspen Institute. I only know what I see as a communication coach - in myself and others. When we sell - we tend to talk too much, question too haphazardly, listen too little and miss too much.

I too have erred in this regard. Every time I meet someone, it's an opportunity to sell them on what I do for a living. Every time I push information, I kick myself afterwards. Every time I ask a few questions and shut up and listen, I pat myself on the back because I managed to pull information. It helps me target my message to their needs.

First off, we all sell and we're all actors.

We each go out everyday into the world and sell ourselves, our companies, our ideas, our products, our services, our skills, or our points of view.

Like actors, we also make people believe. We are not merely transferring information to the people we talk to, we are transferring belief.

The question is this. How do we do that best, pushing or pulling? I vote pull - with both hands!!

Now, if it's a 'dog and pony' show type meeting like a bakeoff for an investment banking deal, by all means give them the dog and pony by pushing information. If it's not, try the pull approach.

I roleplay client situations with salespeople all the time. I play the client. When we debrief the situation, I usually ask them to turn the message on its head to hear what that sounds like or I ask them to front the whole message with an open ended or high gain question for their prospective client.

Let's say the practice scenario involves a wealthy individual looking for a new money manager. Sound familiar?

What if the person pitching that prospect started with the ending instead of running though their professional resume or the firm's qualifications - namely what the prospect would experience with them as one of their clients and how that experience differs from the client experiences they may have had up to that point?

Could it work? Perhaps. The point is - it's worth trying it out in the practice arena to see what it sounds like and feels like. One of my jobs as a communication coach is to help people challenge their thinking to come up with options. Developing options is a worthwhile pursuit for salespeople or any communicator. It helps you design a better game plan.

I once asked a very successful manager who runs a sales desk how research analysts could make better morning calls when addressing the sales force. He said, "easy - lead with your conclusion". Try it once in a while. It's refreshing. Why take your audience on a long meandering verbal walk through the Forbidden Forest when all they want to know is - does Harry Potter die in the end?

Now finally to the pull vs. push. Isn't that the title of this post?

I also ask the person pitching that prospect to consider asking a question at the outset to draw the prospect out. A short open-ended or high gain question fronted by a simple reporter word - who, what, where, when, why or how. It helps:

• uncover previously unknown information
• open a door that was otherwise closed
• open up a line of inquiry or advocacy
• spark an extended conversation
• build a human connection

Most importantly, the salesperson can now target all of their well-prepared information to their prospect's needs. They may also get a glimpse 'behind the curtain' into a prospect's motivations, concerns, hopes, fears, and dreams.

Now, does every prospect open up like a gushing guest on Oprah or Dr. Phil? No, of course not. Yet the 'lead with a question' approach can get you much more than you thought you would. Sometimes the prospect opens up an avenue the size of Broadway to drive your points home if you simply ask a question like, "how are you feeling about things?"

Let's say the prospect responds with something like "Well, I haven't been very happy with the performance of my fixed income investments". Some salespeople would jump all over that opening and say "well that's actually one of the reasons why I came here today - our fixed income investments have out-performed in the last year."

What if the salesperson resisted that impulse and simply followed up with "why?"

Perhaps the prospect might respond by saying "because my current investment advisor didn't listen to me." The salesperson could even dig a bit further (as we all do in normal conversation) and say "how could that happen?" The prospect might even open up a bit more and say, "because he's a jackass!"

Now we're getting somewhere. All of a sudden the traffic on Broadway is clearing up bigtime.

Before you sell that prospect on fixed income investments, you now know why. You have a clearer glimpse into the prospect's motivation and you are better enabled to take advantage of the opening and serve the needs of your prospective client.

Bottom line - think of your next conversation - with a prospect, a board of directors, a client, a training class, your children, a group of new hires, or the PTA. What if you framed your entire conversation or talk around a few simple open ended or high gain questions? Isn't that better than going off blind throwing information at them to see what sticks. If they don't want to play along you'll know and you can always revert to the old "I'll be brilliant for 45 minutes and then you get to ask me questions" routine. If they do play along, you get an opening.

REMINDER - KEEP YOUR QUESTIONS OPEN AND SHORT! We tend to get stuck in close ended or leading questions or we overframe open ended questions with all sorts of qualifiers. The best questions in the English language (in my opinion) tend to be only four to eight words (i.e. "what do you think?" or "how did that happen?" or "where do you think it went wrong?") and they always start with who, what, where, when, why or how.

Now some people say that's OK one on one but you can't have a conversation with 200 people in an auditorium. I say, why not?

Many times I'll walk up in front of a room an ask an audience "by a show of hands, how many of you experience some level of nervousness or anxiety before you speak in public?" You will get hands raised on that one - guaranteed. Then I follow up and ask a few individuals, "how do you handle that?" After I get 3 or 4 responses I'll try to find the thread among them and use it to begin my talk. I haven't started a presentation - I've started a conversation - with 50 or 200 or 2000 people. Later on, I can also use this conversation to say "remember what Mary said about using anxiety as an asset..."

I contend (and so do a lot of people who are smarter than I am) that we all prefer to talk first and listen second. Try reversing that order and try not to jump all over the first response you get. Play reporter and follow up. When you are finally prepared to speak, you will be in a much stronger position to target your thoughts and be more helpful to the other person. At the very least, challenge your thinking as you gameplan a sales call or a speech or a talk or an interview or a meeting. Either flip your message on it's head and hear what that sounds like or start the whole deal with a question.

If you go with a question, the royalty checks still go to Socrates. And if you can't find him, find the best salesperson you know. They do this stuff every single day of their lives.

Sonia the Supreme

For a moment, forget about which political party you belong to; forget whether you're a man or a woman; and forget whether or not you will be supporting Sonia Sotomayor's nomination as the next Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead, click on the URL below for a video clip from today's New York Times and join me to celebrate 7 minutes of 'presence personified'. You can move the slider to the beginning of her remarks at 11:35 if you don't have time to hear President Obama's introduction.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/05/26/us/politics/1194840503914/obamas-supreme-court-nominee.html

Here is a woman who came from the humblest of beginnings but who is now being nominated to the highest court in the land. An honor, as she reminded us, beyond her wildest imagination.

What I found particularly striking and instructive for all who are called upon to speak in public was her unassuming yet masterful ownership of an incredibly difficult stage. She confessed to being nervous (and who wouldn't be under the circumstances). In spite of her understandable speaker anxiety though, she talked to the audience calmly and confidently, showing a wonderfully understated command of her message and her emotions.

The good news - Judge Sotomayor provided an outstanding example for the rest of us to follow when we're put on the spot in front of an audience. A few areas to focus on when watching:

• She had notes but used them sparingly. I'm guessing they consisted of 'thought triggers' rather than a speech written out in prose. In any case, she spent most of her time up and engaged with her audience.
• She had magnificent pace. I never heard her rush and her slow pace lent strength and power to her words. It made her words seem considered, thoughtful and significant.
• She punched specific words with her voice and this made them all the more impactful for our ears. She elevated certain words above others making them paramount.
• She had a level head and set her feet while speaking. These two factors helped her radiate confidence by focusing her physical energy in the audience's direction.
• She wore a simple yet striking outfit using contrasting primary colors to frame our attention on her face.
• She spoke from the three places every great speaker talks from - her head, her heart and her soul.
• She matched her message to the historic opportunity by speaking about a moment in time where her personal history meshed with the country's.
• She projected enormous power, albeit in a very modest way, even though she shared the stage with a man viewed by many as a speaker for the ages.

Some may think that what Judge Sotomayor did today on that stage was easy. I think not. To climb to the pinnacle of success in the blinding spotlight of the White House and the national media and still manage to maintain your calm, your poise and your presence is incredible. Moments like this would make many a man or woman shake with fear and lose their voice, their message and their cool.

The great news - what Judge Sotomayor did as a speaker today on that stage is something we can all do as speakers with a little bit of planning, preparation and practice.

Does being an Appellate Court judge help - absolutely. But don't let that stop you. You can get there (as a public speaker) if you put in the work.

I used to suggest to people that they watch John Roberts in his confirmation hearings in the Senate when he was nominated to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I'm sure I will be watching Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings as well. They both 'own their stage' and give us all a great model of how to communicate in difficult circumstances while projecting quiet and humble 'here I am' strength.

Judge Sotomayor, you rocked the house! This time it was the White House.

Bravo. Thanks for showing us all how it's done.

P.S. Next time remember to brush that wisp of hair off your face. Your eyes are hugely expressive. We need to see both of them.

Boyle's Law

The old Boyle's Law had to do with traditional chemistry. The new Boyle's Law has to do with a subject near and dear to the heart of this coach - audience chemistry.

When we speak in public, I think we all long to have presence in front of our audience - to really 'own your stage' as the name of this blog suggests. If you are one of the 46 million people who have seen Susan Boyle on You Tube singing I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables on the TV show Britain's Got Talent, then you saw an object lesson in owning your stage from a woman who was previously known only to the inhabitants of her home town in Scotland. To say that her performance was remarkable is an understatement indeed. It lifted us up like the end of a movie like Rocky or Hoosiers. Many of us erupted like the live audience, cheering for the everywoman we saw on that stage.

So what can we learn from the new Boyle's Law?

First, it's OK to be nervous. Susan appeared nervous backstage but she seemed determined not to let it get to her. She decided to channel her nervousness into performance by proclaiming that she wanted to "rock that audience". Many among us want to make our nervousness and anxiety as public speakers disappear forever. It's a useless effort. We can learn to manage our anxiety and use it to our advantage in front of the audience. I call it 'befriending the butterflies'. A few common sense tips:

• Clear your mind, close your eyes, focus on a single point and breathe


• Visualize yourself taking the stage or the podium and succeeding famously


• Remind yourself that you know what you're doing because you practiced


• Know that the audience wants you to succeed - failure is painful for them too


• Remind yourself of the first sentence you will utter when you get out there


• Remind yourself that no matter what happens you will live to speak another day

Second, it pays to practice. If you think that Susan Boyle took to the stage without knowing how that song would come out, you're dreaming. She had the confidence of a professional knowing she had done the work to prepare and own her material. She had already heard herself sing it and knew what the notes felt like and how she would gesture to the crowd. If you are afraid that practice will make you sound rehearsed, don't worry. The very act of rehearsal makes you sound unrehearsed. The practice gives you confidence to succeed, so put in that effort if you can find the time. If you can't, make the time. It will show on stage.

Third, stand your ground and own your stage. If you saw the video, Susan Boyle had to stand there on TV being ridiculed, laughed at and forced to tell her age to millions. Now I know if she was a lousy singer, we would not be talking about her now. I realize that her talent has a lot to do with her success that night. But her presence was there ahead of her talent. To my mind, she won the day before she had ever sung a note because she had the guts to stand there and hear snickers and laughter directed at her and she didn't flinch. She owned her space and did not relinquish her personal power to the judges or the audience - the magical power of knowing that she belonged there.

There are famous and accomplished people who don't have Susan Boyle's presence. The good news is that they can - if they just would try. The best news about the new Boyle's Law is that all us can stand in front of an audience and look like we belong there. We simply need to befriend our butterflies, practice out loud, and stand our ground in the face of adversity.

Whether singing or speaking, presence counts!

Bravo Susan. You rocked the house!

Postscript to our last post - Larry Summers did it again. On Fox News Sunday (4/26/2009) he appeared again on video feed like the week before on Meet the Press. Chris Wallace never laid a glove on him.

Good show Larry. Keep up the good work!

Beat the Press

Finally, someone in President Obama's administration nailed an appearance on Meet the Press. It was Larry Summers on today's show (April 19, 2009) on NBC. The host, David Gregory, tried to put forth his very best Tim Russert impression, complete with the usual assortment of 'gotcha' quotes and video clips, but he didn't lay a glove on Summers the whole show.

This is surprising since on a previous MTP appearance, Larry Summers had turned in a less than stellar performance back in January when David Gregory seemed to have the physical and adversarial advantage in that interview and Mr. Summers seemed to be in a prevent defense.

Not this time.

Whether it was him making a few key adjustments between MTP appearances, or taking advice from Secretary Geithner's new speech guru, Michael Sheehan, or simply good luck, Mr. Summers clicked on all cylinders and provided an example for all the President's men and women to follow on the Sunday interview shows. He also served as an example for executives of how even mechanical changes can make meaningful improvements in your communication style, especially on TV.

Let the pundits both right and left argue the content. Here's why I think Mr. Summers delivery choices worked so incredibly well.

First, he looked us in the eye. Due to the fact that Mr. Summers was on satellite video hookup from the Americas summit in Trinidad, he was forced to look straight into the camera. He looked through David Gregory and spoke directly to us - the TV audience. It helped him connect with us in a way he wouldn't have been able to if he were sitting in the studio in Washington looking at David Gregory. This was significant since the last time he was on MTP he looked away almost every time he answered a question. If you want to connect, you have to look at people, especially on the tube.

Note: It didn't hurt to have the flowering bush waving in the breeze behind him. For someone who can occasionally come across as a hardass on TV, it was serendipitous set design and softened his image a bit.

Second, he turned around most of David Gregory's 'gotcha' questions into opportunities to further his own message. A case in point was his answer to a fairly tough question about Paul Krugman's 'depression still lurking' editorial in the paper, which Gregory quoted. Summers first stated that he disagrees with Krugman a lot, yet acknowledged Krugman's "we're not out of the woods yet" point and then explained why everything the President is doing and saying makes sense in light of that point. Whether you agree with the logic of his response or not, it was a classic example of not taking the interviewer's bait and staying on your own message.

Third, when he wanted to emphasize a key point in his answer he would shift gears, slow down and punch his words for effect.

Fourth, for the most part he kept a nice level head. Combined with looking into the camera it gives the television audience a nonverbal sense of strength, forthrightness and transparency.

Fifth, because he was only present in David Gregory's TV studio on a video monitor, it neutralized the physical advantage Gregory has in the studio. He actually had to look up a tiny bit to Larry Summers to ask his questions and due to Mr. Summers aplomb in deflecting the hardest of his questions, at times Mr. Gregory seemed like a student trying to 'stump the prof' in an economics class. He tried and tried again but never did any serious damage to his guest.

Sixth, Mr. Summers kept a nice conversational tone throughout versus his more formal tone the last time he was on Meet the Press. He just talked to us and sounded like a reasonable man making reasonable points. He also spoke in 'human tempo' versus Secretary Geithner's 'trader tempo' which helps us keep up with him and lets his words sink in.

Bottom line, if this was a prize fight it would have gone the distance with no knockdowns but Larry Summers would have walked away with a unanimous decision on all the judges scorecards. It was by far and away his best TV performance in my view and underscores how important it is to make good choices when communicating in an adversarial interview setting.

The Irish Priest

Six months after 9/11, I was riding the #6 subway train in New York City. I was straphanging. There, straphanging next to me, was a Catholic priest. He looked to be in his early 60's. He had the map of experience on his face. We started talking and it turns out he was an Irish Catholic priest, from Ireland, who was temporarily stationed at a monastery somewhere up the Hudson.

At the time, I was managing a VP leadership development program at a major investment bank. After a bit of conversation, he said, "Well, there seems to be a lot of similarities between what you do for a living and what I do for a living. After all, aren't we both helping people to improve in their lives?"

I didn't know just what to say, so I fell back on my Irish Catholic genes and replied, "Yes Father".

After a little more conversation as we passed stations on our way uptown he said, "All this development stuff you're doin', well it all goes back to the Greek philosophers don't ya know. It's the three great lessons - Know Thyself, Accept Thyself, Overcome Thyself".

I said, "Well Father, after all these years of trying I think I finally have the Knowing Thyself part down and I'm working really hard on the Accepting Thyself part - but that Overcoming Thyself part is a real pain in the ass...."
(almost by reflex, I asked his forgiveness for my language)

He smiled, and in his magnificently understated Irish Catholic priest manner, paused and said, "isn't it though".

We came to our stop and parted company, wishing each other good luck. I guess my lesson from the #6 train was - we're never really done with this development stuff and in this wonderful life that we all share; change is a process, not a transaction.

I'm guessing that Saint Peter might have a little Irish priest in him. We'll all come up to the pearly gates and he'll ask us how we found our lives on Earth and one of us might say:

"Well, it wasn't all that bad, except for the Recession of 09'. That was a real pain in the ass".

Saint Peter will smile, pause and say, "wasn't it though".


The Global Coach

Accents are Beautiful

The French have a saying, "Vive La Difference". It was coined by a man giving thanks to God for having created women.

Yet when it comes to accents, it seems that everywhere in Corporate America we are shouting "Vive La Boring".

Sometimes it appears that we want to put everyone through a kind of Cultural Cuisinart and have them emerge sounding like a newsreader on CSPAN. Everyone stops being a Rich Roquefort, or a Sharp Cheddar or a Racy Romano and we become American Cheese, with no flavor, aroma or bite. It's bland-by-design.

Managers call coaches like myself and report that they or their clients cannot understand one of the employees because of an accent. They want to send them off for 'accent reduction' or something called 'accent neutralization'.

Now I'm sure these are legitimate corrective measures taken by professionals in the field of speech. I do not mean to denigrate their profession. I want to offer common-sense alternatives from someone who listens to people speak for a living.

#1 - Go buy some French champagne and celebrate your accent. You might even yell "Vive La Difference" while you're doing it. Your accent is part of who you are as a person. It makes you sound distinctive and memorable. We are drawn to listen to you.

#2 - Slow down. Buy a $20 microcassette recorder and a $20 digital metronome. Then set the metronome on it's slowest beat and record yourself reading stories from a newspaper at that slow beat. You are now retraining your ear. Or click here on http://americanrhetoric.com and click on Movie Speeches. Then try to mimic the pace of one of the really slow speeches. A real good one is Billy Bob Thornton's Being Perfect speech as Coach Gaines from the movie Friday Night Lights or Kelly MacDonald's reply to the Prime Minister from the movie The Girl in the Cafe. The best slow speech out at the movies now in my opinion is Philip Seymour Hoffman's sermon on Gossip as Father Flynn in the movie Doubt. The technique is about speaking slower and pausing and breathing. Try it. People will hear you better, even with your accent.

#3 - Vary your voice. If you have a constant high pitch, add in some bass or alto to give your voice more authority. If you have a constant low pitch, add in some tenor or soprano to give your voice more life. In any language or any accent, what kills is sameness. We love to listen to variety, as in a piece of classical music - up and down volume, high and low pitch, fast and slow pace, passionate and peaceful delivery. If your voice always sounds the same, we will lose your personality - and you will lose our attention.

#4 - Move your face. Many people with accents speak with a tight jaw which exacerbates our lack of understanding. Words get swallowed, sylabbles disappear and messages get missed. Whether you're from Ireland or Belarus or Pakistan or Japan or West Texas - if you never move your lips when you talk, people will have a hard time hearing you. Relax your jaw and your facial muscles and engage them when you talk. It may seem strange at first but it allows the air to come up from your diaphragm and escape your lips. Add in some deeper breathing as you talk and all of a sudden a weak voice becomes a lot more powerful - and we hear you better.

#5 - Gesture with purpose. Some people are deathly afraid of being seen as someone who 'talks with their hands'. But there is a simple guideline for gestures. If they have purpose, keep them. If they don't, get rid of them. At times though, punching words with gestures help us hear you better. It's great for phone calls. The counterparty can't see you. You could be standing there in a Speedo doing a Samba while you speak. They don't know. Try it. Not the Speedo and the Samba. Just the purposeful gesturing. It gives your words bite and it acts as a natural speed governor when you sync your gestures to a key word in a sentence, like "assets got crushed".

#6 - Examine your speech. Have a native English speaker listen to an audiotape of your voice and help you to identify missing articles of speech like the or a or English words you may be mispronouncing because you emphasize a different sylabble or sounds that come out differently like a d sound instead of a t or th sound. For example, if a sports talk radio host with a New York accent says the phrase "we'll be back after this" it becomes "we'll be back after dis". If that person retrains their voice with a tape recorder to get used to the th sound, they can eliminate one of the tell-tale signs of a New York accent.

#7 - Be conversational. This is why offshore (and even onshore) call centers make some people upset. People hear a person reading a script. "Of course, I can help you with that problem. May I put you on hold for a brief moment?" If you have a script to adhere to, practice it and internalize it to the point where it sounds conversational. It is doable and people will react to you more favorably and they will hear you better. I once sat next to a 'cold call' salesman for a month. We both had the exact same sales script. People hung up on me but they talked to him and he made hundred of sales. Why? He made the script his own and sounded like he and the person whose name he picked out of a phone book were long lost friends. Disingenous? Perhaps. But he argued that he was simply being friendly and talking to people as people, not as blind prospects. Whatever you think of the strategy, it worked. When we go across cultures, we tend to lose our native personality that exists in our native tongue. I know it's extremely difficult to be yourself when you are simultaneously translating in your head as you speak, but try. When we like you, we listen better.

Even if you only do these 6 things (I'll let you decide on the champagne), I believe colleagues, clients and audiences will begin to hear you better and your boss may stop trying to send you off to have your accent neutered. After all, we're not cats. We're human beings.

OK, enough of this English-Centric approach to communication.

Anyone want to help someone get rid of a Brooklyn accent when speaking Hindi?


The Global Coach

The Geithner Gap

After Timothy Geithner made his initial speech as Treasury Secretary to the public on his banking plan, the reviews were not kind to say the least. He got panned on content and delivery.

On content, it was the old "where's the beef" argument. The market, the pundits and the public wanted more details on the plan and were left wanting. They expected more - and got less.

On the delivery side, he got horrible reviews as well. Why?

First of all, President Obama must own a teleprompter company because it seems that everyone in his administration has used one for a speech. Secretary Geithner used the left/right teleprompter setup as well and came off like a student reading a book report. In his first opportunity to look the American people in the eye and gain their confidence, he bailed out and read his words off a teleprompter screen. He failed in his first big test as a communicator.

It's a shame too, because it was a pretty easy test. His predecessor, Secretary Paulson, was probably the worst communicator in an administration known for lousy communicators. It's unfortunate because both men seem to be very decent fellows who are smart, savvy, credible, experienced and highly accomplished. They have been communicating in business and govenment for decades.

They should succeed as communicators. Why did they fail?

For the same reason many of us fail as speakers - we don't connect with our audience. With a simple 'prepared but unscripted' leader message at the beginning and end of his talk, looking directly into the camera, Geithner could have transformed his talk, and the public's reaction to it.

He had no Hook at the beginning (to grab the audience) and he had no Hammer at the end (to nail down his message).

He 'presented' to us. He didn't 'talk' to us.

I'm not suggesting that speakers like Geithner should never use a teleprompter. President Reagan did, but he made it look like he wasn't. He made it look like he was speaking directly to you through that television screen.

Why did it work for Reagan, and not for Geithner? Because Reagan knew how to connect with people on television and Geithner doesn't, yet.

Heck, it worked so well for the Great Communicator that it turned my mother into a Reagan Democrat. He made her and millions of other Americans feel better; feel more confident; and feel that things would work out in the end. Emphasis on feel.

Even when he made his 'arms for hostages' confessional from the oval office on television he connected, one human being to another; enough so that many Americans were willing to at least give him the benefit of the doubt, even if they were opposed to him politically. He didn't convince everyone but he connected well enough to keep it from being a total communication disaster. The American people, after all the angst, let it go.

The key is connecting.

Watch President Obama tomorrow night. He's a public speaker for the ages, like Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Reagan. Yet even he can fail to connect with his audience on occasion. In fact, he's fallen so much in love with teleprompters, he runs the risk of coming off android-like - 'Obamatic'.

He is becoming so focused on giving the 'perfect' speech that he's ignoring the emotional connectivity with the American people that helped get him elected in the first place. He succeeded at convincing voters across the country that he was 'one of us' while the opposition pulled out all the stops to convince people of just the opposite. He was able to do it.

That takes connecting.

So on February 24th at 9 PM, President Obama should look directly into the TV camera and simply 'talk' to us - at least at the beginning and definitely at the end. I know he'll be in front of Congress but he only has one audience - us.

He has a challenge not unlike a father or mother sitting down at the kitchen table in the midst of a family crisis, looking into the eyes of their children and saying; "Everything is going to be alright. We'll get through this together".

It's sounds hokey, but Tuesday night that's the whole ballgame right there. He needs to speak fron the head, the heart and the gut. Otherwise it will just be a bare collection of facts to be dissected the next day on CNBC and MSNBC and Fox - and they are going to do that anyway.

So next time you give a speech at a conference or sit across the table from a group of clients or give a talk to your church group, please remember to connect first. Look them in the eye and talk. Don't look down or away and read. Start human and end human. Grab them with a Hook and then hit them with a Hammer.

Connect, Connect, Connect!


The Global Coach

What Did You Say?

An old joke has two guys sitting in a bar. One guy says, "my wife says I don't listen to her....at least I think that's what she said".

When you think about business meetings, substitute either gender and that joke is not far from the truth.

How many of us really listen in business meetings? How many of us are just waiting to talk?

We sit in meetings listening to someone drone on about a point we don't think is relevant and we know as soon as they shut up we will jump in with an absolutely brilliant point.

Sounds arrogant, but if we plumb the depths of our 'impatient listener' souls, we've all probably done that - more times than we'd care to admit.

So how do you become a better listener? By doing the Bill Clinton head-bob while other people talk, biting your lip and saying "I feel your pain". Nah. A good way to start becoming a better listener is to try the following exercise the next time you're listening to someone talk in a meeting:

• Look at the speaker - not eye to eye - eye to face is fine. Just direct your eye focus toward them to the exclusion of everyone else in the room. If they are down at the end of a long table turn your torso toward them as well.
• Be physically quiet while the other person speaks. This puts the spotlight on them, where it belongs and makes them the star. A subtle nod once in a while is OK - just make sure that any head movement is subtle and sparse.
• If you're going to respond, wait till you think they are finished and then wait an extra beat to make sure they are really finished. Then talk. This is tough, especially when others in the meeting respond so quickly it makes it seem like the start of the Kentucky Derby...and they're off!
• Build your response off of something they just said as in, "we reacted the same way as you did to the numbers, with disbelief, but we went back and took another look and here's what we found". This gives the other person tangible evidence that you just listened to them. It can be referred to as 'playing back' or 'reflecting back' what you heard. Whatever you call it - do it. It helps. A lot.

I realize these four tactics are not always doable in a world where the competition for airtime in a meeting is fierce. Think about it though. How many meetings have you been in where the smartest comment was made by someone who waited patiently, then made a 'spot-on' observation that wove all the threads of the meeting together? Often people remember those people and their comments more than the folks who practically leapt out of their seats competing to see how much air they could each suck out of the room.

The key is patience. It is a skill that needs to be strengthened through practice. Here's a simple hokey exercise you can do at home. It will eventually pay off with your clients and your colleagues - I promise. Here it is:

When you go home after a long day, plop down on the couch after dinner with your spouse, partner, family member or close friend and listen to them vent about their horrendous day. Then, see how long you can hold out without...

• interrupting
• judging
• problem solving

To do the exercise justice, try holding out for ten minutes without doing any of the three things above. If the other person runs out of gas in their story, you are only allowed to say "so, what happened then?" - and then resume listening. Then you must recap what you learned to the other person and have them informally grade your comprehension.

It sounds easy, but it isn't. Just ask my wife how well I do at it. She'll probably tell you I'm still learning. When I offer this challenge to most men, they laugh. They know they will go home that night and never hold out for anything close to ten minutes. If you do this exercise it can help you discipline your ear to be patient - and it certainly won't hurt your relationship either.

Bottom Line

The best leaders listen well - the best salespeople listen well - and the best partners listen well. Be one of them. It doesn't take miracles. Just practice.

The Global Coach

Pitching Yourself

If you enter the words (job interviews) in Amazon you get 30,570 results starting with Winning Job Interviews and Acing the Interview. I don't intend to compete with all that information and the thousands of other sources on the subject. You can surf as well as I can.

I will offer a few practical tips here to help you prepare for the onslaught of job interviews you will face between now and your next role. These tips are based solely on my common sense, my 28 years of experience in the business world and my observations as a communication coach to more than 1500 people. For this blog, I will assume that you are looking for a more senior role, but the tips can be useful for any level job.

Preparation

• Read Peter Drucker's article "Managing Oneself" - it will help you focus on your strengths and avoid wasting time on converting weaknesses. You can get it as an electronic download at hbsp.com.


• Grab a pad and sit down at the kitchen table. Write a line down the middle. On the left, list your strengths. On the right, list a corresponding real-life example of that strength in action. Keep pushing yourself until you have twenty. Then pare it down to the Top Ten that are relevant to your current job search.


• Practice relating your examples (out loud to a mirror or tape recorder) until you can say them in your sleep. Don't worry, the act of rehearsal makes you sound unrehearsed and you don't need to memorize word for word. You're learning to tell your story.


• Repeat the process for your weaknesses. On the left, list the weakness. On the right, how you overcame or managed the weakness. Start with five and pare it down to three or less. Then practice as above.


• Review your resume. Is it a recitation of function or value? Review it and change it until the person reading it can determine the value you added to each organization and each job.


• Review the job you are pursuing. Is it a turnaround situation? Is is a build-it-from-scratch situation? Is it a strong-getting-stronger situation? Make sure you match your interview prep to the reality of the business and the company.


• Do due diligence. Write down the name of everyone you know who ever worked with or for the company you are interviewing with. Call them and interview them about the company. What's the culture? Who succeeds there, and why? Who fails there, and why?


• Review your wardrobe. Make sure the suit you pick out is one you not only look great in, but you feel great in. Make sure it fits you comfortably. Make sure it fits in with their culture. For women, make sure it frames your face with the right accessories. For men, make sure the tie is tied all the way to the top. For either gender, carry a small cosmetic mirror with you. You can't always hit the restroom before your interview. You always want the advantage of a last minute face check.


• Get into the interviewer head. Many interviewers play the interview straight up. Some play games. With the games-players, don't play. Unless they make you a Michael Corleone offer, why would you want to work with them anyway? There are enough jerks in the world and life's too short to spend 12 hours a day with one more. In any case, I think that most interviewers have four common sense questions they want answered: a) Do I like you? b) Will you fit in with our team? c) What do you bring that the other candidates don't? 4) Will you make our business better?

Body Language

• Think tall (whether you are or not) and look them in the eye while shaking hands firmly. Visualize yourself entering the room confidently, as if you were already colleagues. Also, remember to heed the words of a legendary salesman, "people hear what they see". If you look like you belong where you are, maybe they'll ask you to stay.


• To quote our mothers, Sit Up Straight! They were right. After watching 1500 people on videotape pitching clients and colleagues, I assure you it makes a big difference.


• Keep a level head - leaning your head to either side is a weak deferential gesture - avoid it. It can make you look uncertain, questioning, or equivocal.


• Be physically quiet while listening. An occasional nod is OK. Keep eye contact (not always eye to eye - more eye to face). If you're physically quiet, it puts the spotlight on the person speaking and you come off as a much more attentive listener. When they sound like they are finished, pause for a second to make sure they've really finished. Then build a response off something they just said. Be a great listener.


• Gesture with purpose. Your purpose is to project strength and self-management. If you gesture without purpose, you can appear nervous, jittery or out of control. Tie your gestures to words. Keep them subtle. If they are too big they may seem out of place. Interviews should be conversations, not presentations. You don't need big gestures to make an impact.


• Avoid nervous tics. If you clasp your hands together you may start 'washing' them if you get nervous or get a tough question. You could also shift around in your seat, play with your tie, hair, wedding ring or other jewelry. You want to look comfortable and composed.

• Practice, practice, practice. If I'm prepping an executive for a media interview. my goal is to make the practice interview harder than the real one. Similar to mock trial for a law student or a hitter swinging a weighted bat in the on-deck circle in baseball. Pick someone you know who can play a tough S.O.B. interviewer and practice with them.

Vocal Presence

• Speak slowly. The actor Michael Caine is my godfather of slow speaking. He maintains that powerful people speak slowly because they assume that everyone wants to hear what they have to say, whereas subservient people speak quickly because they think no one wants to hear what they have to say. Slow down - where's the fire?


• Emphasize key words. There is usually a key word or two in each sentence that you want to hit a bit harder than the others. If you do, it gives you vocal variety. That's what people like to listen to. We hate monotone, but monotone is a by-product of 'monoenergy'. Apply more energy to specific words and it helps the interviewer listen to you.


• Inject a little passion. The one constant in the business world is passion. Every good leader has it and most good leaders look for it. Speak with your head, heart and gut and sound like a person who loves what they do for a living -whether you have a job or not. It goes back to that cliche in sales - "If you don't sound like you care, why should they?"

There are 10,000 other tips you can get from other sources. Consider this a down payment. Remember, Barack Obama has just endured a year-long string of job interviews. He aced some, screwed up a few and was average in some others.

In the end though, he got the job. You will too!

As I always say,

"If you believe it, you will be it.

If you don't, you won't."

Remember, the first interview you have to ace is the one you have with yourself.

The Global Coach