Wrap it Up!

From all of us to all of you… a joyful and restful Holiday.

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!

SW&A Team

Helping Tech to Talk Exec

You’ve seen this challenge. It’s in every meeting where strategy connects to implementation. It’s where vision meets tactics. And it’s one of the biggest communication challenges in most companies.

Here’s how it happens:

The leadership team wants to expand a product into a new vertical. They’ve seen the numbers to support market size and they know there’s a window of opportunity. They’ve also been told there’s a “little tweaking” that will need to be done in the product’s application to make it viable in the new vertical. So, the next meeting calls for the engineers to come in and explain what’s involved in “tweaking” or converting the product.

The leadership team is looking for a 15-minute explanation to quantify what needs to be done and how long it will take. Instead, they get the step-by-step details of how it will be done.

In an effort to get out of the details and move toward answers, the leaders jump in with questions and assumptions. It was meant to speed up the discussion, but instead it signals to an engineer that the leaders didn’t understand the information. So, the engineer provides more explanation.

The leaders want the bottom-line. The engineers communicate in process and details. And whether the disconnect goes on for several minutes or more than an hour, it’s frustrating to both the executive listeners and the technical communicator.

As a coach I’ve been asked many times: “Why is communicating to the executive level so hard for engineers and technical teams? After all, they are arguably the smartest people in the company!”

Both points are true. Engineers are some of the smartest people in a company, and communicating with executives is a common challenge. It always has been. But companies are noticing it more because technical input has become more critical as a point of influence and essential to making smart decisions.

So, why is “executive talk” hard?

I’ve coached on both of sides of the table for decades and solved for the challenge when I wrote Leading Executive Conversations. But I wrote the book for all audiences who want to solve for the executives’ perspective…and the tech group is a little unique.

Through the years, I’ve learned that it really comes down to how people think, because how they think impacts how they speak. And engineers think in details, steps and precision. And thank goodness they do! Would you want to drive an automobile that was built from a sketch instead of a blueprint? Can you imagine working on a computer that can do 20 things but can’t connect those things to each other?

Whether process-thinking is innate or developed over time, engineers add the greatest value by bringing precision and detail to vague concepts. It’s no wonder that they communicate in details. To tell a leader that they can build a new capability in eight weeks isn’t how they think. And in fact, they wouldn’t be comfortable with that answer unless someone took them through details of what was planned over those eight weeks. It’s how they think, it’s how they work, and that’s why it’s how they communicate. I describe it as communicating from the bottom up.

Yet most leaders think in the opposite manner. They let go of thinking through details of HOW some time ago. They need the What, and the Why. They start with the big concept and challenge whether the WHY has enough value to pursue. They listen to implementation just enough to buy-in. Most leaders think and communicate from the top-down.

And the disconnect comes when the leader feels impatient working through the HOW to get to WHY and the engineer feels the value isn’t justified unless you communicate detailed steps to prove out the HOW.

But it’s a disconnect that’s solvable because you’re dealing with some of the smartest people in the room! And once we figured out why the challenge exists, we developed a process for solving it. And we’ve found that technical teams can be some of the best students of communication.

To help Tech to talk Exec, we developed a process that is based on key insights and a formulaic outline. We’re prescriptive in defining the executive perspective and building specific examples that illustrate how the outline works against common technical topics.

It’s our storyline formula with two key components: a Message and a Framework. This gives an engineer a blueprint to follow that lifts the altitude of their conversation. The details don’t disappear entirely. But the flow of communication is organized with a top-down approach that starts with what executives value and then leads to the technical steps that can be reduced or expanded based on an executive’s interest.

It’s solving for one of the biggest communication challenges in companies today. And it’s helping technical teams become key influencers at a time when their expertise is essential to smart business decisions.

Do you need help coaching tech to talk exec?  We’d love to share our insights and some great success stories about strengthening the voice and the impact of technical teams.

We’re here when you need us!

The Mastery of Presence

The development of an effective communicator is a journey. And I’ve always felt that my team can impact that journey in two ways. In our workshops, we introduce awareness and core competencies to start someone’s journey, and in our 1:1 coaching relationships, we accelerate the journey by working side by side to influence results.

But neither format nor a combination of the two is a promise of mastery. And I’ve thought about that a lot in the last few years.

I’ve had an opportunity to work with a lot of people over thirty years, and I’ve tracked their progress over time. Every investment of time leads to progress and every lapse in effort leads to bad habits. And so behind the scenes, I’ve been thinking about mastery and comparing my knowledge of different journeys to different outcomes.

I don’t think it can be solely blamed on a lack of effort if someone never truly masters the art. And I don’t think it can be assumed that only a few people can. I’ve seen the road to mastery for many clients, and I’ve thought about my own experiences at trying to master different things in life.

To be honest, there are far more skills that I’ve quit on than ones I’ve mastered. And you may feel the same way. It’s why I believe any kind of “road to mastery” has to have passion behind it. You have to deeply want something to be great at it before you’ll invest the time and the length of the journey to master a skill. That easily takes learning guitar and marathon running off my list!  Way too much of a commitment and not enough passion to master it. But it still leaves hiking 16ers and beating my kids at pickleball as potentials!

If you connect passion to a true interest in mastery of communication, then you’ll see some people  drop off the journey based on a lack of a commitment toward something they just don’t value enough.  And if that’s you, we should have a different conversation because I believe that someone who can influence and impact groups is destined to be a leader in one setting or another. And I also believe if you aren’t willing to be a great communicator, then you shouldn’t lead people because people want to follow someone who can define a direction with passion and purpose.

But even those who have been earnest about communication skills, don’t always master them. And I think some people stall on the journey because they don’t have all the ingredients in place for mastery.  As we’ve thought about it on our team, we’ve agreed that mastery comes from combining six things:

FEEDBACK:

Impressions and guidance aren’t the same thing. Everyone can give feedback by telling you how they’ve experienced you. But few people really understand what drives impressions and how to help someone consider new choices that move beyond them. And that’s why a lot of communicators get guidance that isn’t very helpful. More than 70% of the guidance clients share was a clear impression and misguided direction.

To master communication, you need insights from an expert, and someone who knows how to interpret impressions into actionable goals.

WELL-DEFINED GOALS:

One of the hardest things to do as a coach is to meet someone where they are versus where you think they should be. Thinking through where a person’s journey is today helps shape goals that they can reach. And accomplishing some goals encourages someone to keep working toward mastery.

It’s no different than training for anything else. You don’t start at the top of the 16er. You work your way up through the length and difficulty of hikes.

We work hard to set goals that can be reached in a workshop day or across a coaching engagement. To master communication, you have to keep resetting goals that align to your journey and push you toward the next milestone.

NEW HABITS:

That’s the first real roadblock for new skills. Are we really willing to change habits and think about being uncomfortable as a part of the journey? Mastery is way outside your comfort zone, and it’s the reason a good coach can keep setting new goals and forward motion for a communicator.  Expectations change with any new role, and skills have to expand and grow as well. It’s why communication should be integrated into any transition plan.

To master communication, you have to keep resetting communication skills. Every time you step into a new role, you should align goals for influence and impact and think through how you can continue to grow.

Those three elements make a big difference in how well someone begins the communication journey.  It’s the right formula to start with awareness, intention and effort. And I’ve evolved our coaching steps over the years to integrate these three concepts into everything we do.

And we deliver on it really well…as long as we’re in charge! And that’s what I’ve been thinking about around mastery. The difference in someone who becomes a master of communication is something that’s happening when we aren’t around:

PRACTICE:

It’s really what leads to mastery. And it’s practice with intention, not just repetition. It takes a plan, manageable pieces and a little motivation. And those are the remaining three ingredients.

PRACTICE PLAN:

We’ve created practice plans in coaching engagements for years. We outline where to practice and align someone’s goals to upcoming events. But we’ve come to realize we can’t practice for someone. And the difference in someone who knows how to practice versus someone who picks up a few techniques is miles apart.

People who master communication buy into practice. They’re less about “I use a few things” and all about “Here’s how I think about it.” When it’s internalized, it sticks.

SMALL PARTS:

Practice helps a communicator break big goals into small parts. Whether it happened in our workshops or someone else’s, when someone tells me they took away a technique, I explore it further. Techniques feel like acting to me. It’s something you think you’re supposed to do in a certain setting. Communication doesn’t have one setting or one technique. Communication is all about intention in every situation.

To master communication, you have to know what you’re trying to do in order to do it well. Break down techniques into intents. When you truly understand it, you begin to accomplish it. And, that’s great momentum toward mastery.

MOTIVATION:

I called out passion at the start of the newsletter, and I think it’s critical to keep you going. I can’t force you to be as passionate about communication as I am. But I can help you practice in small parts, and maybe that’s all the motivation you need! That’s why we built SWAU – a practice platform that provides the intent behind every communication tool and a little encouragement in every step. It brings clear goals together with an intentional plan to work on style step by step.

Our exploration around mastery has expanded our thinking about Presence and has led to a few additions to our offerings.

We recommend you begin your journey with our personal brand workshop. It takes a deeper look at impressions and assumptions. And it sets a great stage for thinking through why impressions occur so that you start your journey with a clear set of intentional choices, rather than universal techniques.

And when you’re ready…we’ve added Presence 2.0, which we call Mastering Executive Presence. And whether we worked with you two years ago or ten, this is the next level course that shifts focus from your style to the audience impact. We look at style through the lens of a listener and take the basic concepts and fit them within a higher profile setting and a high-stakes impact.

And mostly, we’ve built the practice platform to keep the journey going.

That’s what we’ve done about mastering communication. What will you do?

 We’re here when you need us!

The Wingman

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As a leader, your brand, style, message of the company, and the company itself are intertwined. SW&A coaches many leaders and considers themselves the “wingman” for people in leadership positions.

On this episode of What’s Your Story?, Sally talks with instructors Francie Schulwolf and Lia Panayotidis about their experience as The Wingman.

More About Our Guests

Francie Schulwolf: Francie’s focus is on developing strong, confident communicators. With close to twenty-five years of global, corporate experience in advertising, marketing and communications, she is intimately familiar with the demands executives face. This understanding, along with her honest and warm style, create a safe and comfortable environment for individuals to learn and grow.

Lia Panayotidis: As a lead instructor for our style programs, Lia focuses on raising awareness of individual brands and working with people to strengthen personal presence. She creates an insightful learning environment in each program and can make the most vulnerable discussions a little easier. She approaches each program with a natural joy of connection and fifteen years of diverse experience in training and development

Show Highlights:

• As a leader, your brand, style, message of the company, and the company itself are intertwined.
• Sally Williams and Associates coach several leaders and consider themselves the “wingman” for people in leadership positions.
  • Wingman means the person behind the leader who is focused on that individual to become successful.
• Sally has spent several years speaking in front of groups and now uses the tools she learned in leadership and visible roles to help others.
• Coaching is about observing others.
  • There is more joy in watching someone else succeed.
• What is the role of communications as an influencer?
  • Having the ability to get people to deliver on a message they can get behind.
  • Understand every CEO has a different approach and skill set.
  • Being the voice behind the curtain that makes everybody sound really good.
  • Understand how to separate content from style components.
  • Practice and teach others how to become self-aware and develop self-confidence.
• Coaching is all about connections and getting leaders to the next level.
• What is done with the content collected?
  • SWA talks about celebrations and people.
  • SWA learns from each new leader they work with.
• Coaches are trying to figure out what is going on and how to get their leaders/clients to that next place.
  • They work toward figuring out how to help them discover their voice and how to get them there.
• What is frustrating as a coach?
  • Coming into a session and encountering apprehension from the beginning and an unwillingness to be open. When clients have their guards up from the start.
  • Seeing the potential that the coach knows is there and they are matched with resistance.
  • Clients who don’t realize the value of feedback.
  • Leaders who refuse to watch themselves on stage to learn.
• What makes a great coach?
  • Chemistry.
  • Connection.
  • Relationship.
  • Creating a safe zone where clients can try new things.
  • Coaches who are still learning.
• The clients that are remembered are the ones that really made a difference during the training.
• The ones who grew a lot not.
• Leadership is about:
  • learning what is happening in the room
  • Embracing the intent is behind what they are doing
  • Discovering how the listener is doing
• Coaching is taking the love of people and development and putting it together.
• How do you coach mastery?
  • You give them the tools and show them how to master it.
  • Encourage clients to be intentional about practicing.
  • Realize that each person’s goals are different and embrace it.
  • Ask the clients:
    • What do you want for yourself?
    • What do you see for yourself?
  • Success is gauged by audience response.
  • Helping clients realize it comes down to their own desire to master it.

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!

How Securities Teams Share Data Insights with Kim Keever

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Every communicator plays a significant role within an organization, but some of those roles get more visibility than others. Sales shares about customer insights, marketing relays their brand and product strategies, and something we’ve seen grow in the last five years, is that data security teams have become big communicators, with many CISO’s managing the communication to leadership teams and corporate Boards.

On this episode of What’s Your Story, Sally connects with Kim Keever, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer of Cox Communications, one of the leading cable, internet and home automation providers to talk about the increased demand for security insights and how she brings clarity to a pretty complex topic.

More About Kim Keever

Kim Keever is Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Senior Vice President of Security, Analytics and Technology Services for Cox Communications (CCI) in Atlanta, Georgia. Her teams are responsible for all aspects of Information Security for Cox Communications; the Technology, Product and Operations Center of Excellence for Analytics; and for Technology people programs. Since joining Cox, she has built an industry recognized security team.  Additionally, the new Analytics COE has transformed the use of analytics resulting in significant cost savings for Cox. Her teams partner closely with Cox Enterprises, Cox Automotive and Cox Media Group. In early 2016, Kim’s team received an innovation award from CSO Magazine, and Kim was named a top woman in technology by Multichannel News. Each year from 2017-2019, she was named one of the most powerful women in cable by Cablefax.  She was a 2018 Women in Technology (WIT) honoree in the large/enterprise organization category, and early in 2019 she was named the Information Security Executive (ISE) of the Year for the Southeast Region and in November 2019 named the North American Information Security Executive (ISE) of the Year in the Commercial category.

Kim is a graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology.  She is a member of several industry associations and boards including Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council V. She is active in volunteer organizations including Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Technology Advisory Board and support of homeless shelters located in Atlanta.

Show Highlights:

• There has been an increased demand for security insights since 2014 because of large company security breaches.
• Leaders started looking for an increase in security insights out of worry and wanted to know: what happened, how did it happen, and could it happen to us?
• How do you talk to leaders about security without scaring them?
•  We talk about security with a risk based approach:
  • Call out the highest risks first.
  • Do a little bit at a time.
  • Give them context.
  • Give them a comparison so they can better understand where the risks are.
• There are two types of CISO’s:
  • High tech.
  • Business focused.
• The ability to explain the technology in a business context and alert companies to what the risks are is important because it’s the most effective way to help CISO’s operate. Companies will be more likely to get buy-in and senior leaders will feel more comfortable with the security team.
• How do you understand the magnitude of what to keep a watch on?
• There are different areas in which data breaches are happening:
  • Bad Guys.
  • Nation State Actors.
  • Hack-tivists.
• When you start talking about security and risk, you run the risk of making companies look bad as far as their security of data goes.
• Don’t let your vulnerability be because of funding. How can you partner with other departments or organizations to get the funding needed to reduce the risks and fix the issues early on?
• Don’t bombard your listeners with too much detail, give them the facts but don’t overwhelm them.
• Train your employees on effective communication, and continue to practice it.
• Be sensitive of the information you share.
• Help clear up misunderstandings or potential misunderstandings.
• When you speak about complex things, you may need to say them multiple times and tell them in different ways in order for listeners to fully understand and remember.
• The security team is trying to educate the entire organization, more than just talking about security risks.
• Hands on experiences have helped prove the need for heightened security. Finding ways to make security fun and interesting tends to help the content resonate with people.
• A strong leader is someone that employees are willing to follow.
• As a leader, hire people who are smarter than you and have diversity of thought, those who are independent in their work and want to do the right thing.
• Give employees opportunities to keep them engaged, allow people to own their own space, and let them grow in their career.
• Keep your employee’s best interest in mind, and always keep an open dialogue.
• Security is a great field to get into. Having a background in technology helps, and this career is in high demand and won’t go away.
• Be willing to gently show people that they may not be doing enough in one area.

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!

Communicating Through Crisis with Special Guest Panel

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As we focus on a pandemic around the world, we are all searching for information and for answers. On a personal level, we’re relying on our government and our media to share what’s happening. It’s an unprecedented topic and a new normal in our homes, schools and our lives.  But we also wonder about our professional lives. And companies have to interpret the impact of that new normal for employees.  In most companies, that calls up the communications and human resources teams to activate or develop a crisis communication plan.

SW&A hosted a special panel with some of our colleagues and friends, who know how to manage crisis communications. You’ll hear insights and best practices on what employees and customers need and want during trying times. It takes clarity in ambiguity, confidence in uncertainty and some guidance and advice from those who’ve been there a time or two.

More About Our Panel

Patti Wilmot: former HR Leader – Patti has over twenty years’ experience as a former-chief human resources officer. She has helped create award-winning leadership development programs focused on creating a “bench” of future leaders. She brings expertise in assessing talent, improving the effectiveness of leadership teams and helping leaders leverage their strengths to improve effectiveness and impact.

Steve Soltis: former Executive Communications Leader – Steve is a senior adviser with MAS Leadership Communication. Soltis recently retired from The Coca-Cola Company, where he led both executive and internal communication for the past 11 years. In his role at Coca-Cola, Soltis was responsible for orchestrating the company’s entire C-suite executive visibility efforts and for formulating its employee communication strategies and execution.

Francie Schulwolf: Former Communications Leader at InterContinental Hotel Group – Francie’s focus is on developing strong, confident communicators. With close to twenty-five years of global, corporate experience in advertising, marketing and communications, she is intimately familiar with the demands executives face. This understanding, along with her honest and warm style, create a safe and comfortable environment for individuals to learn and grow.

Sally Williamson: Founder of SW&A – Sally is a leading resource for improving the impact of spoken communications. She has developed key messages and coached leaders and their teams to deliver them effectively for more than thirty years. Sally specializes in executive coaching and developing custom programs for groups across company verticals.

Show Highlights:

• What is the picture of success? What do you want to achieve through this situation?
• How can businesses leverage this situation? How to win hearts and minds. 
• What is your central message and who are your stakeholders? 
• Know how your employees are doing, understand what your consumers are needing to hear.
• Timing is critical and consistency is key. 
• Address compensation as best as possible for employees. Be honest with your messaging, if you don’t know the answer let employees know. 
• You can be just as clear about what you know and what you don’t know.
• Always show unity with leadership and re-enforce it in your messaging.
• Figure out who are your best messengers who can clearly communicate. Be in constant contact with your employees. 
• Come out with messaging that connects with your brand and your culture. 
• How to construct a plan that shows a picture of success – do this through employee engagement and build off of that. 
• How do you help a group think about clarity and how to understand it? 
• How do leaders deliver this messaging to their teams? There needs to be a means to get the message to them, let employees know how it will get to them and be consistent. 
• Front line people managers are incredibly important during this time, this is the time to step up and this is the time to reach out to employees. 
• Contact each individual employee frequently and know what is going on with your employees. 
• Even if you don’t have something to say to employees, still have that touch point to contact them frequently. Employee care is incredibly important. Keep morale up. 
• Make sure your employees hear about what you are doing before the public knows.
• Get senior leadership out, touching base with employees personally. 
• Learn to develop manager talking points from leadership.
• What companies are doing a good job with communicating their message through the crisis?
• Clarity of truth is important. Not all companies can give good news. 
• This is the moment that will define your leadership. 
• It’s overwhelming as a leader right now, leaders need to be the calming force and utilize empathy.
• Leaders need to be able to send information both ways, up to higher leadership and down to employees. 
• Don’t let a world wide crisis become your crisis, do everything with kindness and with accurate information. 
• Ask people how they are and if they know what they are supposed to be doing during this time. 
• How we treat our team members now will come back to us.

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!

Clarity Around Complexity with Bharath Kadaba

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Innovation is king. But that doesn’t mean everyone understands it or knows how to leverage it. In fact, many view it as the silver bullet and the easy button that changes everything overnight. And that’s just not how it works.

Innovation evolves step by step and can be years in the making before a viable product or concept can be leveraged. And that’s why companies invest in future technologies.

On our latest episode of What’s Your Story, Sally speaks with Bharath Kadaba, Chief Innovation Officer of Intuit, about his role building and leading the Technology Futures group within Intuit, and how that group communicates about their work in a way that builds interest and buy-in.

More About Bharath Kadaba

Bharath Kadaba is Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Intuit, and leads the Technology Futures group.  His organization is responsible for creating game-changing technology in support of Intuit’s mission to power prosperity for consumer, small business and self-employed customers.

Since joining the company in 2008, Bharath has served in a variety of executive leadership positions. Prior to his current role, he was Vice President and Engineering Fellow with responsibility for leading engineering teams that built innovative new technology for the company’s QuickBooks, TurboTax and Mint product lines. Before that, he led advanced technology development as Vice President for Global Ready Offerings, and Vice President for the Global Business Division, Product Development, respectively.

Before Intuit, Bharath was Vice President of Media Engineering at Yahoo, where he led the development of a shared services platform to serve as the foundation for all media properties (news, finance, sports, games, etc.) and significantly expanded the U.S. media product capabilities. Prior to Yahoo, he was an executive with Siebel Systems, AristaSoft, and News Corp., after spending 15 years at IBM and IBM’s TJ Watson Labs.

Bharath earned a Ph.D. in Computer Networks from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and a BSEE and Master’s in Computers and Control from the Indian Institute of Science.

Show Highlights

• Innovation evolves- What is it and how do you leverage it?
• Why do companies invest in future technology?
• How does a company define a future technology group?
• How do we bring technologies and build products that benefit our customers?
  • Start with the customer problems.
• The goal is to help consumers lead a prosperous life as technology is constantly changing,
• what is the match between the customer problem and the new technology?
• Purpose: To help customers at the same time as building future technology.
• Customers always want to see how they can make more money.
• Small teams that are obsessed with technology – How can we change the way humans interact with machines?
• There is a need for people who are passionate about the work, problem solver, innovative, and future thinking.
• The beauty of the deep craft expertise is somebody who knows the tech well and can problem solve.
• Always be willing to explore multiple solutions. Fall in love with the problem not the solution.
• What is a craft expert?
• How do you find a craft expert and a person with curiosity and expertise?
  • Find somebody customer obsessed, they will be the first to solve the problem.
• Customer Collaborative commerce? What is it?
• How does your team think about clarity when outcomes aren’t always clean/how to find clarity in communication?
• Understand what is clear and what is ambiguous – Always set the expectations of what you know and don’t know from the start.
• Communication and narratives are critically important. Know what the challenge is and why you have the challenge.
• How to show that you are about the future and relevant today at the same time.
• How to invert a story so that it’s built entirely from the consumer’s perspective?
• How to teach a team to do good work and illustrate what they do?
• How much has awareness gone up since they began talking about what they do?
• How storytelling has brought to life the impact of what they have done and how they do it?
• Doing Great Work is not enough, you have to stand up and tell a story.

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!

Don’t Blame PowerPoint!

Next to a laptop, PowerPoint (PPT) could be considered one of the top three tools used in business. More than 30 million presentations are built in the software every day tying up 15 million people hours at a cost of $252 million…..every single day! And yet, few of us are Masters of it. In fact, we have a love/hate relationship with the software which has led to the term, “death by PPT.”

AT SW&A, we hear a lot of the angst around preparing presentations blamed on the software.

From the listeners:

• “There were too many details and too much information.”
• “I got lost in the details and didn’t understand what the listener was asking me to do.”
• “It’s a horrible eye chart.”

From the communicators:

• “We go through more than 15 iterations of decks before we have a final presentation.”
• “I got so many edits to my slides that I’ve lost the point I was trying to make.”
• “I’m not artistic or creative; I hate building slides.”

And our response is always: Don’t blame PPT.

It’s the process…or lack of a process…that frustrates you. Not the software.

Here’s a little self-diagnosis.

Assume that you’re asked to deliver a presentation two weeks from today.  Whether you start planning it today or wait until next week to develop it, how many of you will start the process by opening up a PPT document on your laptop?

If this sounds like you, stay with me. Then, you begin outlining points by putting a text box on each slide or if you’ve covered the topic previously, you’ll open up another PPT and begin to migrate slides to your new deck. Either way, you’re building the foundation of your content, one slide at a time.

It’s a very linear approach to structure, and it’s the wrong approach.

Because now you have a collection of details instead of a storyline, and you will present the deck slide by slide versus concept linked to concept.

Is this your approach?  Most people say yes.

When PPT is used as the planning tool, it becomes cumbersome to work with and takes on a very different role. PPT’S role is to help you illustrate details or connect two points, not to thread all the points together.  That’s the role of an outline or storyline structure as we refer to it. The usage numbers above may explain this.  Because organizing content has become such a constant in our day, we may be telling ourselves that we can skip a step and organize our thoughts at the same time as we illustrate them. And, that’s a misuse of PPT.

The storyline structure is the first step, always. Whether you use our model or you have your own tool, as the communicator, you should always start with an end to end view of what you’re asking the listener to do. It’s rarely the details that fail in presentations; it’s always the connection between them.

A storyline view helps a communicator understand the bigger ideas and repeatable points that will lead the listener to an outcome or takeaway.  This changes how you build out a PPT.

When PPT becomes the second step, it works beautifully for the communicator and the listener. A broader storyline helps the listener see beyond what you’re illustrating and understand why you’re illustrating it. The communicator’s focus gets simpler and key concepts get repeated as the communicator focuses on pulling ideas forward rather than making every point.

PPT is also a horrible communicator and a really good illustrator.

Let’s diagnose that one.

Assume that the presentation you’re building is for another leader to deliver or it has such high visibility that several people want to give input before you deliver it. So, you work on the PPT for a few days and then you forward it for feedback.

Does this sound like you?  Then, what you may not realize is that even though you shared it for feedback, you were pretty locked into those slides. And your editors now begin to interpret what the slides mean.  They can see the illustration; they just don’t know the storyline. So, they create their own mental storyline to support your details. Then, they edit to their own thinking.

This leads to adding content on your slides, reordering your slides and even adding new slides to support their thinking. You get the edits back and don’t feel grateful for the input.  You’re frustrated. Because they’ve changed the meaning of your slides and thrown off the flow of your storyline. At least the storyline you have in your head.  Because it was never shared as a structure for the conversation.

Have you had this experience? Most people say yes.

The storyline drives communication; PPT creates illustration. If an editor can read a storyline to see the end to end plan for communication, they are much less likely to edit slides.  Instead, they’ll identify areas of the storyline that aren’t easy to understand or where they want you to add detail.

In fact, when a team is involved in preparing a presentation, we urge communicators to get buy-in to the storyline first before PPT is even introduced. This helps a group align to the full direction of communication and the big ideas before the supporting PPT takes shape. And it keeps a team moving through the organization process together. Then when you move to PPT, the second step, the feedback is limited to the look and feel of illustrations.

As a communicator, you want listeners spending less time on how to follow your thoughts and more time on understanding how the big ideas connect and lead to outcomes.

And if we’re pleased with the transformation we see when individuals add our first step  into content planning, we’re ecstatic when we see teams adopt it. Because if an individual can improve a single meeting, the full team can change their influence in an organization.

We know because we’ve made it happen.

We’ve taken many teams beyond the storyline structure to a team template that gives the communicators a template to follow and the listeners a consistent expectation. So, listeners spend less time trying to follow the structure and more time hearing the ideas.

When teams adopt a standard structure, it quickly takes hold in an organization. They become known for their ability to deliver clear ideas and recommendations which often raises their visibility in a company.

If you’re getting bogged down in details and edits, don’t blame PPT. Put the first step back into your process. And if you’d like some help learning to do that, join us for an upcoming storylines workshop. Even better, bring your team together and strengthen the group’s impact across your organization.

Call us when you need us.

Sharing Student Stories: Storytelling’s Place in a Changing Academic World with Pete Wheelan

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We know storytelling’s place in the business world, but have you considered the role it plays in academic institutions across the nation? In our first episode of What’s Your Story?, Season 2, Sally speaks with Pete Wheelan of InsideTrack about how he uses storytelling alongside professional coaching, technology, and data analytics to increase the enrollment, completion, and career readiness of students.

More About Pete Wheelan

Pete Wheelan is dedicated to leading mission-driven, high-growth companies unlocking human potential and currently serves as CEO of InsideTrack, the nation’s leading student success coaching organization.

Under Pete’s leadership, InsideTrack has now served 2 million + students and 4000+ academic programs for clients including Harvard, the Cal State System and Ivy Tech. He led the purchase of InsideTrack by Strada Education Network, a $1.4 billion public charity focused on improving high education outcomes, and InsideTrack’s acquisition of Logrado, the foundation for InsideTrack’s uCoach technology and analytics platform. Pete also serves as Executive Chairman at Roadtrip Nation, a fellow Strada Education Network affiliate.

Before InsideTrack, Pete served as COO/CRO of Blurb, a leader in self-published books, and as SVP of strategic marketing and business development for Lonely Planet. He also founded online portal Adventureseek and was a strategy consultant with BCG.

Pete received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. and J.D. from Northwestern University.

Show Highlights

• What is the power of stories in academic settings?
• Inside Track is a company that started in 2001 that was trying to solve the issue that college is hard and most institutions don’t provide support that is not academic or financial aid related
• What are the big issues that stop students from completing their academic programs?
• For communication, the best way is to meet students where they are, utilizing email and texting and not just a phone call.
• What are students seeking with InsideTrack’s service?
• Most higher education institutes have gone from a growth mindset to a fixed mindset
• Why is the sense of belonging a big struggle for new students?
• What are the causes of a student actually dropping out?
• How do you approach universities to integrate this program?
• How does the storyline with the school take shape?
• Inside Track coached 300-400,000 students in 2019
  • Inside Track has access to student satisfaction and work to help remove obstacles and challenges for students
  • Student success has become increasingly important in the institution
• What are some things InsideTrack provides for students?
• With students, InsideTrack provides reputation and relationships that develop over time – it’s not a one and done.
• How do you keep the human at the core of your program but use technology to enable them?
• To sell this program the best case is having partners and clients tell their story via a case study,
  • Teaching sales to lead with stories in their conversations
  • Bring coaches and coach managers into early conversations with potential partners
  • Use first generation students as coaches to represent and share their story- makes it real and relatable
  • Stories that are repeated by other institutions using their stories and coming back as a referral
• InsideTrack is a predominantly virtual workforce.
• Advice on inspiring employees?
  • Communication
  • Authenticity
  • Repetition
  • Clarity and consistency
• When you are approachable it provides credibility for the other communications to an employee.

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!

Retirements, Weddings and Funerals

Whether you’re a frequent communicator or an occasional one, chances are you’ve had the experience and pressure of speaking at some of life’s most important moments. Whether it’s a colleague’s retirement, a friend’s wedding or a loved one’s funeral, these important life moments raise the bar on wanting to get the message right and covering all the highlights.

I’ve helped with these moments hundreds of times by writing a toast, editing a eulogy, or bringing humor to a retirement speech. And in each instance, the communicator shares the concern and pressure of getting it right and saying it all. They feel responsible for communicating the importance of the individual as well as their relationship with them.

It’s a classic example of the difference between a communicator who is worried about everything they need to say and loses focus on what a group of listeners really want to hear. I had to follow my own advice a week ago when my son got married, and it brought the “rules of engagement” for these short speeches top of mind. 

Like any speech, success is defined by what listeners want to hear.

The “rules of engagement” are:

Make a Point.

While most speakers feel the pressure to give a summary of events or cover a timeline, it’s better to make a single point than talk through a laundry list of points. Listeners want to hear one or two points about an individual, not every point. In fact, the most important goal is to connect the audience or group to the individual being honored, and it works much better to focus on a few ideas and bring them to life with stories.  

Stories set time, place and situation. So even listeners who weren’t a part of the story can connect to the situation and relate to the individual because of it.

Use Humor. 

All life moments include emotion. Whether it’s grief or joy, speakers often get overwhelmed by emotion during their remarks. It’s fine to share emotion and acknowledge it as part of your remarks. But in most of these situations, the listeners really want to be entertained. They want to laugh and connect to the humanity of the individual. Sharing sentiment is good; but a speech based entirely on emotion rarely works because it leaves the listeners focused on the communicator rather than the honoree.

Avoid Inuendoes.

While there may be a few stories or events that are unique to you and the honoree, if you aren’t comfortable being clear about the event, don’t talk about it. There’s nothing worse than a speech that has vague references or hints about something that a group doesn’t understand. If you have a story that’s inappropriate for the group but important to you, talk about the topic rather than the event and focus on how the honoree handled it or what you learned about them as a result of going through it. 

End with Impact.

Endings are as important as openings in these speeches. Work to connect how the speech begins with how it ends. Listeners like to hear the connection between how you started and how you ended. It adds impact, surprise and validates that you led them to a point.

Prepare & Practice.

Finding time to prepare remarks for an unexpected life moment or a long-planned one is difficult. This is where the pressure is real because listeners expect thoughts to be planned in a way that helps them celebrate an event, mourn a loss or bring closure to a career. 

And when a communicator rambles through thoughts, it frustrates listeners and they seem to miss the point of why they are together. In time-pressed situations, give yourself permission to tell one story and practice delivering it well. It’s less about making profound remarks and all about connecting the listeners to the honoree.

“So, how well did the communication coach follow her own rules?“

And since I confessed that the “rules of engagement” were real for me a week ago, you may be  wondering:  So, how well did the communication coach follow her own rules? Pretty well, but it wasn’t easy.

Like most communicators, I had a lifeline to cover and wanted to be sure that I expressed my love and pride in my son a hundred times over. I felt the pressure to say it all as no one, but his Mother, could. Well actually, I guess his Father could cover the same lifeline, so we decided to deliver our toast together. That complicated things!

His father was happy for me to write it, but he wanted editing rights. Fair compromise. As we worked on our point, several stories and experiences hit the edit floor. And, I made us stay true to a point. We focused on two attributes of his personality that everyone in the room had experienced, and we built most of his friends into the examples we gave so that the listeners felt a part of our story.

We added humor in our delivery with back and forth banter and a story that illustrated our two different perspectives as parents. We connected the opening to the close and wrapped up with a final message to his bride.

Did it work? I think so. A lot of laughter, a few tears and a special hug were our proof points. But mostly for me, a good reminder that these short speeches are less about saying the right thing and all about connecting people to each other to celebrate important life moments.

And whether your speech is a life moment, a career moment or just a routine one, it’s our goal to help you connect with listeners. 

Call us when you need us!