As Christmas approaches we get time to reflect upon what we have learned from 2009; here are a few things that come to my mind.
It has undoubtedly been a tough year with a global financial meltdown and H1N1 amongst the challenges we have all faced – so what have we learned? Continue Reading »
It is more than a year ago that I walked through the door of the Self Leadership International office for the first time. I was a young graduate of psychology, coming all the way from Romania to learn about training and leadership development in Singapore; with very little idea of what my internship will bring about.
Now, one year later, I can whole heartedly say that it was the greatest learning experience of my life.
The ability to speak effectively to small or large audiences is a vital competency for manager and leaders and yet this competency is often lacking.
As a Certified Professional Speaker myself, I have spoken to thousands of people over the years and experienced the first hand what to do and what not to do with an audience. As an executive coach I have trained and coached hundred’s of managers who were previously tongue tied to connect with the audience and deliver their message effectively; so allow me to share with you a secret of public and professional speaking:
The biggest mistake that novice speaker make is to imagine their perspective audience as critical or hostile. Creating this mental picture of a group united in their disapproval of you will create a state of anxiety in even the strongest of heart.
Accomplished speakers realise that an audience, small or large, is made up of individuals just like you. Each individual has needs and wants and can change their state from boredom to curiosity. If you connect to their needs and wants and create a sense of curiosity they will be on the edge of thier seats.
So the first key to successful public or professional speaking is to break down your audience into a group of individuals and preferably know what it is they want before you deliver your topic.
Most of the work in speaking is not the speech itself but the research and preparation before the speech. Only speak “off the cuff” if you know your topic backwards and know exactly who you are talking to.
As you present make eye contact, smile and imagine you are having a conversation with a group of friends or colleagues. Will it still be nerve wracking? Perhaps but the only way to get better at it is to practice at every opportunity. Remember, as we move up through an organisation, we are paid less for what we do an more for what we influence others to do. Speaking in public is a core competency for influence.
If you are interested in professional speaking training or coaching please contact us.
A good resume cannot get you a job, but a bad resume will not get you an interview, and without an interview there is less chance of you getting the job.
A resume is usually the first impression that you make with a prospective employer. It gives you the opportunity to gain their interest and hold their attention by displaying your skills and experience before them. Continue Reading »
In a previous blog on professional development, I shared that I had submitted my paperwork for the designation of Certified Speaking Professional (CSP); well I am proud to announce that my application was successful.
The Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, conferred by the National Speakers Association (USA and Australia) and the International Federation for Professional Speakers, is the speaking profession’s international measure of professional platform skills. There are less than 600 CSP’s in the world and only 3 currently in Singapore.
If you are a meeting planner or planning a meeting, hiring a professional speaker who has achieved CSP means that you have insured that your event will be a success because the speaker has demonstrated competency in:
In addition the speaker has received excellent ratings from past clients on performance evaluations.
If you are a speaker or want to become a professional speaker I highly recommend that you join an IFFPS association, I am a member of the Asian Professional Speakers Singapore and you can read my blog post on presentation skills.
See you on the platform, Andrew Bryant CSP an expert who speaks on Self Leadership, Coaching and People Development.
What’s your worst customer service experience?
I bet you have a story about receiving lousy customer service, I know I have a few. On the flipside – do you have a story about giving lousy customer service? Ouch, this is more difficult to contemplate because we naturally see the world from our own point of view.
Whatever work you do, you have customers – whether they pay you directly or not. If you work in an organisation you will have internal as well as external customers.
The word customer contains the word custom which means habit. So a customer is someone who buys or interacts with you more than once, and this suggests some kind of relationship. Just like other relationships, customer service can be good or bad depending on the mindset you bring to it.
When I was about 12 years old I started working in my father’s hardware store. I was an enthusiastic young man and began to learn about the products, becoming knowledgeable and therefore important (in my mind). One day I got into an argument with a customer about the ‘proper’ definition of a product, my father stepped in, agreed with the customer and sold the product. I was furious because I knew I was right and confronted my father about this. His response was, “Son, I know you were right, but do you want to be right or do you want to be rich?”
The famous sales trainer Zig Ziglar said it this way:
“If you help enough other people get what they want, you can have anything you want.”
With this frame of mind we can prosper by meeting and exceeding the customer’s expectations.
A couple of yeas ago I was rushing to meet a new client, a CEO who required some coaching; as I was running short of time I chose to miss lunch and go straight to the appointment.
I was greeted at the company by the company’s communications manager who was to show me to the boardroom to meet the CEO. She politely asked me if she could get me anything, perhaps thinking I might need a tea or coffee. My response was, Continue Reading »
When I speak about leadership at a conference or workshop, I often talk about my children, Tasha (3 1/2) and Nathan (22 months). This is for a couple of reasons, firstly and selfishly because I am a proud father, secondly because it builds rapport with the audience and thirdly and most importantly because they are good examples of leadership and influence principles. In this blog post I wanted to share 3 such leadership principles.
Every parent knows that children are great mimics, they watch you like a hawk and duplicate your behaviour. This can be amusing, as when Tasha first started painting her nails after watching my wife or Nathan picking up my tennis racket and saying, “like daddy.” The dark side of this modeling is when children mimic the aggressive behaviour of adults, which was demonstrated by Dr. Albert Bandura with the Bobo Doll experiment and is evidenced in war torn areas of the world where children carry weapons.
Adults to0 model behaviour which is why the leaders of any team or organisation must “walk the talk”, they must be the model for the behaviours they wish to see duplicated. Talk is cheap – action is real.
Both Tasha and Nathan like to clap themselves when they do something right and they both beam when Zurina and I give them praise. As a leadership consultant I know how important it is that I continue to praise even moderately good performance as research by Dr Ethna Reid shows that teachers who get the best results, validate regularly. Successful teachers also alternate between teaching and questioning (testing) for comprehension.
In leadership and management in a hectic paced world it is all too easy to criticise poor performance and to tell rather than ask. In our leadership for managers program, we emphasise and rehearse the arts of validation and asking good questions.
Children love stories and interpret our cultural moral code from those stories. Tasha knows who are the good princesses (coutesy of Disney) and who is the evil queen, Nathan is learning from Thomas the Tank Engine that when you break the rules you go off the rails, he even exclaims very loudly “oh no!” when this happens.
Effective leaders also tell stories that let their followers know what the vision and culture of the organisation is. These stories get retold and strongly influence the behaviour of the team or workforce. When I was teaching coaching skills at Singapore Airlines I noticed how they regularly used stories of exemplary customer service to validate and reinforce the behaviour of going the extra mile service (GEMS).
Perhaps you have other Leadership Principles you have learned from children – feel free to share.
Can you perform your job/role better than someone has been doing it for 10 years longer than you?
Would you be interested in getting to the top of your game in less time and before the competition?
The secret is to get past the plateau. With most simple tasks we reach our highest level of proficiency after about 50 hours of practice and then our performance skills become automated and we stop learning. This explains why a 20-year-veteran brain surgeon is not likely to be more skilled than a 5-year newbie by virtue of time on the job. Continue Reading »
Executive Coaching has come of age, and is now viewed as an effective way of developing leaders.
I was recently asked to contribute to a book on executive coaching by Dr Susie Linder-Pelz who wanted me to share my perspectives on Executive Coaching in Singapore and Asia. To get the full scoop you will have to buy the book but here are a few things that might interest HR professionals or those looking to engage an executive coach. Continue Reading »