by Alan | Aug 17, 2006 | Communication skills, Delivery, Toastmasters
Seen several speeches (the latest in Toastmasters today) where a previous speaker had PowerPoint slides that ended with the ubiquitous end/summary/any questions slide. No problems (well, only minor ones) with that. But the next speaker spoke without PowerPoint...
by Alan | Aug 17, 2006 | Communication skills, Content, Delivery
Watched a mid-level manager open a speech to the troops the other day with an attempt at a related story which was clearly formulated as a grabber (no problems so far), followed with the requisite transition into business-ese (still no problem), followed by a posture...
by Alan | Aug 14, 2006 | Communication skills, Delivery, Don't!
Would be better than a piece of paper. Watch a C-level executive today saunter on stage and announce he had taken notes during the division’s meeting and had a few points to make. He accentuated the point by showing the piece of paper he had purportedly taken...
by Alan | Aug 13, 2006 | Communication skills, Content, Customer Service, Leadership
Had a friend relate a customer service story I thought appropos.Seems his airline (who shall remain nameless, but let’s just say that bankruptcy filings are not too far in their past history) lost his bags, left them on the ramp, they got rained on, ruined all...
by Alan | Aug 8, 2006 | Communication skills, Content, Delivery, Efficiency, PowerPoint
Walked in to teach a class today to discover that the handouts I had requested were not present, two of the notebooks had the wrong cover sheet (and were thus not distributed correctly), and the printed roster was not accurate. A prop I had used the last time I...
by Alan | Aug 7, 2006 | Communication skills, Content, Delivery, Sales
Frequently in life the things that are not said carry meaning that goes well beyond words. But when action is expected from words, clear honesty is the best practice. I had a chance to spend some time with a world-reknown speaker over the weekend, and he said that...
