Another value of sharing stories and experiences is that they promote intimacy in the space. When you make yourself vulnerable, the audience will open up in return. The reason the audience has the firewall up in the first place is to protect and defend themselves from you. You are initially perceived as a threat because you are “not one of us.” Sharing stories and experiences makes you more “one of us.” It establishes greater common ground upon which to build the relationship.
When the audience sees you as open and vulnerable, they don’t need to defend themselves and so don’t need a firewall for protection. Stories and experiences are disarming. I would encourage you to share yourself as deeply as possible. Your sharing of self creates a more intimate environment in the room.
Being an authority on the subject matter gives you the confidence to project your energy into the space. The thicker the ice is under your feet, the more power you will have in the room. If you have not earned the right to talk on the subject at hand, you’re likely to be hesitant and uncertain in your delivery. Have you taken the time to plan and practice your presentation? Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Ideally, you should know thirty times more about the subject than you will be using in your talk. If you are an authority on the subject matter, you are standing on thick ice. You will be confident in your ability to fire the data across the space and you will have no fear of being asked a question that you cannot answer.
Listen to the audience. Put yourself in their shoes. What are their concerns, cultural background, loyalty to the conversation, and knowledge level? The audience is listening to you through their conditioned reality. The more you understand that reality, the better you will be at navigating past their firewalls and positioning the data in a manner they can accept.
Always allow the audience an opportunity to contribute to the conversation. When someone asks a question, it may be appropriate to let someone else in the audience answer.
Maintain eye contact with one person in the audience when you are delivering your data packets. Only speak when you have a solid virtual private network (VPN) eye contact connection. This automatically pulls you out from behind your firewall and ensures a high level of consciousness. The more conscious you are, the more effective your speaking will be. This is discussed in chapter four in the section on the Point of Focus.
Facilitate a conversation by asking the audience questions. Encourage the audience to participate. Techniques for accomplishing this will be addressed in chapter seven, which deals with The Art of Questioning.
If you are delivering the presentation in English in a foreign country, pick up a few words of the local language and use them in the conversation. Surely, you can learn to say hello, good morning, and thank you. From time to time, ask the audience how they would say a particular word in their language. Refer to popular subjects such as traffic jams, local sporting events, the World Cup. These references create the impression that you are interested in them.
This completes my suggestions about things you can do to reduce firewalls and create rapport, relationships, and common ground during the presentation.
After the Presentation
Here are several ways to continue the brick-pulling process and build a network of relationship with the audience:
• Collect names, addresses, phone numbers, titles, company names, and e-mail addresses and enter them into a database program.
• Use your database to send future newsletters, announcements, and updates to your contacts.
• Thank the participants for their participation and attendance at the presentation.
• Send the participants a summary of the presentation, along with a list of action items.
• Follow up with phone calls to answer any questions and to check on the status of the action items.
This completes my suggestions on how to lower the firewalls before, during, and after your presentations. By increasing your ability to dismantle the firewalls, you will notice the quality of your presentations increases.
The Structure of the Conversation
I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
—ALBERT SCHWEITZER
As an IT professional presenter, you are managing a conversation. I use the word conversation rather than presentation because the definition of presentation suggests lower effectiveness. Presentation is defined as a way to exhibit, show, and display, whereas conversation implies a two-way flow of communication. People will remember more of what they do and say rather than what they hear.
A well-structured conversation is a critical component of your success as a presenter in the IT world. Currently, there are more than six billion people and most of them would have a difficult time understanding your IT conversation because of its abstractness, complexity, and (sadly) boring delivery.
One of the roles you must inhabit as Manager of the Conversation is that of a translator. Your first job is to plug in to the IT abstract world of complexity, then download content into your database of knowledge, to understand what the content means, and finally, translate and clearly deliver that abstract information to the listening audience. That’s easier said than done.
This chapter will show you how to structure your communication, which will increase your ability to be a clear and effective communicator. It is divided into three parts:
• The Introduction
• The Body
• The Conclusion
Communicating my meaning clearly is so important that I want to take the time to define some key words in the Structure of Conversation.
Structure is the arrangement of parts or elements of something complex and/or abstract. A tour guide serves as a useful analogy for structure. Think of yourself as standing in front of the audience, taking them on a tour of your IT subject matter. There is a purpose to the tour and the sites or key points they will see along the way.
Complex means something that is involved, intricate, elaborate, and often difficult.
Abstract means existing as an idea but not having physical or concrete existence. Abstract things may not be easy to analyze or understand. IT conversations can often be distinguished as complex and abstract.
Purpose is the reason for which something is done or for which something exists. Purpose is the aim, intention, and point behind the action taken.
Introduction
The introduction of a presentation contains several important elements, which include purpose, enrollment, key points, trial close, rapport building, credibility, logistics, and the transition to the body. For timing purposes, allow 15 percent of the presentation to be the introduction.
DEVELOPING THE PURPOSE
Clarity of purpose is the number one characteristic of the master communicator, but unfortunately, a statement of purpose is almost always missing in IT presentations.
Why is purpose