Who are the Thought Leaders in your organisation?

I've recently spent some time mentoring amazing thought leaders (subject matter experts) within large organisations. I call these thought leaders 'intrapreneurs'.

They often say to me.. 'I'm not a thought leader, I'm just doing my job'… Seriously though, they are.

Sure, they may not sell their expertise as a well known author or conference speaker, but they often speak at conferences. They may not get paid to coach individuals, but they are doing it all the time in their day-to-day jobs.

In my mind, the 'intrapreneurial' thought leaders who may be the head of Learning & Development within an organisation, or the Project Manager on a major project, are just as much a thought leader as the well-known author speaking at their annual conference.

Your senior partner could and should have a book published. They all share the same fundamental issues. It’s only the commercialisation of their ideas that differ.

It seems to me there are 9 fundamental questions you need to be able to answer well in order to establish yourself as a thought leader (subject matter expert) in any field...

1. How is it relevant? 2. Do you know how others think? 3. How can you be persuasive? 4. What do you know? 5. How do you communicate? 6. How do you sell what you know? 7. Who are you? 8. What do you do? 9. Who needs that?

Each of these questions, as simple as it sounds, has a whole amount of learning and depth attached to it.

M@

Manage Your State

Public speaking acts like a mirror; you see outside of you an amplified version of what is going on inside of you. Great speakers choose their state. A presenter who feels the audience was boring, was most likely bored themselves. A presenter who finds the audience is angry, was probably stirred up or frustrated.

That's not to say that you don't have bad days. Of course you do, we all do. The difference is that if your work that day is to present to a room full of people, you are required to get over it and get on with the presentation.

For me, the lighter side of life allows me to shift my state. In any situation, if I can see the funny side I can almost immediately get out of a funk or an unproductive emotional state and choose a better one. Do not give your power over to other people. I think that's a life lesson and one we learn on the road of speaking all the time.

*State is also a case of preparation. * Things almost always go wrong and having done what you can to be in a productive and positive state means that these things don't affect you quite as much.

*There are several things you can do to help manage your state more effectively; *

*Focus on the game plan. * A method and outline for what you are going to say, designed in advance, can often help you out when you feel less than inspired. I am often glad that I have a planned opening, I may not always use it, but its acts like a mood fall back.

*Develop pre-speech rituals.* I clean my teeth before I speak no matter when I am speaking. I like to shower before a speech if it's possible. You may listen to a certain song on your Ipod. Michael Jordan wore his North Carolina shorts under his Chicago bulls uniform every time he played. The rituals act as triggers for state. Make your rituals mean something to you.

*Eat right. * Protein, not carbohydrate food types will help you remain mentally alert. Watch your caffeine intake as it's a diuretic and makes you need to go to the toilet and get a dry mouth. Plan your day and force food down. When you are on adrenaline your body shuts down the hunger response and the last thing you want to do is eat. Fight this or else you will end up with a sugar crash and lose the mental energy required to stay in state.

*Exercise on the day. * Excess nerves and mental run throughs all compound the amount of cortisol in your body. Cortisol is like the adrenal systems back up fuel. Too much cortisol though can make you angry, sad, afraid or guilty. These four emotions are state killers for a speaker. Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day advised the Groundhog ‘don't drive angry' - you don't speak angry either. Some vigorous exercise on the day of the speech helps take the excess stress hormones out of your system.

*Be your own Barometer. *When delivering in a dynamic way, you try to read your room and adjust what you do accordingly. The problem with this is you can misread a room and assume things are going better or worse than they are. Don't assume you know what's going on with an audience. Stay a little detached and self-referring with your state. Remember, if you feel good, they will too.

*Take care of yourself. * People often ask me if I choose my pre show music to match the demographic of the people in my room. That would be so clever. I don't. I choose music that lifts me and gets me ready.

M@

Think about it!

I usually provide answers, but this week I've decided to pose some questions: I expect your answers may be perfect for you.

*Turnaround questions*

- What one thing if you fixed it right now would make the single biggest difference in your life or business? - What three specific things can you do to change/or turn that one thing around? - How is it serving you to not change this one thing?

*Other questions you might find useful:*

- Do you know what business you are in? - Do you know what kind of job you want? - How do you want to be remembered when you leave your current role? - What do you want to be known for in your business?

Take some time to think in advance about who you are and what you want.

Some simple Mantra’s:

*If you don’t stand for something then you will fall for anything!*

And on the flipside.

*If you have no expectations then you are never disappointed.*

M@

Conference Presenter Basics

Are you planning to speak at a conference anytime soon? If so, here are a few basic things to remember...

Before you begin speaking...

- SEND your information. Your photo, presentation title and blurb, AV requirements etc. DON'T wait for them to chase you! Be pro-active and make it easy for the organiser. Include YOUR name in the filename of every document you send. - Write an introduction. Email it to the organiser and also print it out and take it with you. Make it fun and focussed more on your message than on you. - Take your presentation slides. Take it on a USB, and again, include YOUR name in the filename of your presentation document. Not just the conference name. Make sure it is the ONLY file on the USB to avoid confusion. - ARRIVE in the conference room early. - FIND OUT what has happened before your presentation and what will be happening afterwards.

Things to remember when on the stage...

- Don't say, I'll get to that in a few minutes, or I'll speak about that later in my talk. - Don't read your slides. - Don't use someone else's material without attribution. - Do make the organiser look good. If authentic, praise them from the stage. - Do acknowledge the time remaining signs held up at the back of the room (or elsewhere). A nod will do.

And finally,

Make sure you know the actual finish time and length of talk, so you finish then, no matter what!

Anticipate what might go right... or wrong!

Many leaders and certainly Thought Leaders who present, are often loathed to prepare for unlikely events. World class presenters head off disaster before it happens. They anticipate what might go right or wrong and build in key concepts or frames to manage the possible fall out.

A word of caution goes with this idea. Often in anticipating a situation, we actually create the situation. If you are coming from a lack of confidence or even some flawed assumptions about your audience, you can make things worse using this idea. If I could repeat this paragraph several times through this idea I would. So every few paragraphs, read this one again.

I have stumbled onto a recurring problem in my Inspired Leader series. The keynotes, workshops and full day programs unpack what it takes to be inspired and be inspiring. I had not anticipated (perhaps naively) that there would be a few people who want to throw a wet blanket on anything at all, either up or hopeful. It was not every program, but I started to notice that certain people might white ant the message of hope and self-accountability in the breaks between sessions. I had to fix it and fast! So I started to build a key message about the difference between a Cynic and a Sceptic. I encouraged scepticism and communicated a zero tolerance for cynicism. I defined a cynic as someone who had hope and now ‘polutes the attitude pond we all drink from'. A sceptic on the other hand is someone who suspends good or bad judgement until they're convinced. This frame is very powerful as it makes thinking OK and negative whiney judgement as not. It doesn't fix the problem completely, but it does set the tone.

Start with writing a list of what might go wrong when you speak. It's not negative thinking to prepare for all eventualities. This is the intellectual challenge that scenario planning has an idea. People who are particularly superstitious don't like discussing the downside of any idea. It's as if for them, the considering of the idea makes it more likely to happen. It is something you have to think through as a speaker.

So what might go wrong?

Not logistically wrong, but conceptually or culturally wrong? Here are some examples…

- There may be cynicism to your key ideas. A negative undercurrent might be running through the audience that you have seemingly no control of.

- A major disaster happens just before you go on stage. 9/11 is a good example for this for many of us who were working that day.

- The Speaker before you may deliver some bad news that leaves a lot of unanswered questions in the minds of the audience members.

- You might have an accent that the audience stereotypes to mean a certain mindset. E.g. Australians in New Zealand. Americans in Canada.

So, what would you do in each situation?

Here are four approaches that help deal with situations like those listed above.

1. Name the elephant. One of the quickest ways to shut down a problem is to name it plainly and accurately. You state what's on peoples minds and you have better chance of getting onto something productive or possibly managing the issue. "I know what I might be thinking in your position, another Australian telling Kiwis how to do it better..." "I just want to say from the outset, I have learned so much at this conference seeing the innovative ideas many of your local awards winners have used to increase sales. My notebook is full and I can't wait to get back and try some of them in my office."

2. Give up control to gain it. In tough situations I like to list the 7 points I planned to speak about and ask the audience if we only had time for 3, which 3 would they choose? Then go around the room asking them to vote. You then mix up your sequence so it serves the request of the room. Of course you need to know your presentation in idea chunks or modules to do this. The audience feels like they designed their own speech, you of course are delivering what you planned to but doing so in a flexible way. I heard it said once that a person's degree of happiness is directly proportional to their degree of control. In this case you can turn tough crowds around as they get to exert a little more influence on the agenda. This is particularly useful when something has just been taken away from the audience or they are used to making decisions.

3. Respond with a story. Developing a bank of stories you can draw on at a moments notice is definitely a skill of world class presenters. A perfectly placed story that responds artfully to what has just happened or the prevailing mood of the room is an antidote to negative situations.

4. Plan to be spontaneous. Anticipate what might go wrong and prepare in advance for these situations with off the cuff one-liners. A waiter walks in front of you while your speaking and you might say ‘don't worry it's just a stage your going through' (direct and yet satisfying), you fall off the stage onto the floor you might say ‘OK I will now take questions from the floor', a mobile phone goes off you might say ‘If that's my mum tell her I am working damn it.' You may of course find better humour than these seemingly lame ‘o' punch lines. It's not the size of the laugh that counts it's the sense of cool you bring to a potentially tricky situation.

There is nothing wrong with focusing on the potentially hazardous stuff that could come up. Some people seem to be superstitious about even considering what might go wrong, it's as if by doing so they make it possible. So, grab your rabbits foot, cross your fingers and start to hope for the best while you prepare for the worst. You may never need it...but if you do, you'll be glad you spent some time building in a plan.

M@