High performance meetings are always safe
The best performing teams have one thing in common – psychological safety. It’s exactly the same in meetings. In your meetings, how willing are people to speak up when they have a different point of view? How willing are they to disagree? How willing are they to offer new ideas? How willing are they to […]
Steve reduced his meetings from 150 minutes to 40 minutes
Steve reduced hi meetings from 150 minutes to 40 minutes
Presence – the elusive quality
Which is more important when you speak or present – content or delivery?
Think about receiving a parcel. I have one coming today and I’m looking forward to receiving it. The delivery is crucial – it doesn’t matter what the contents are. If the delivery fails the whole thing is irrelevant. It’s exactly the same with presenting. If the delivery is poor, it doesn’t really matter about the […]
How we shortened a 2 hour meeting down to 15 minutes and still covered everything.
I had a client who had a requirement to formally meet with the workforce once a week. It could best be described as a cross between a toolbox meeting and a safety meeting. These meetings lasted for over an hour and the boss thought they could be shorter, much shorter. I asked him how […]
Challenge yourself to paint pictures with your words
Metaphors make your words sizzle and sing. They give instant clarity as brains are more wired to images than just words. They’re the quickest route to the brain. They’re visual, they get attention, they’re memorable, evocative and achieve instant understanding. It’s a way of communicating. A shortcut to instant understanding, use for persuasion, something is […]
Halve your meeting frequency & double productivity
Here’s an idea to put in your toaster and see what pops up. Halve the frequency of your meetings. Right now. Just try it. If you currently meet every week, try meeting every 2 weeks. If you currently meet every 2 weeks, try meeting every month or every 3 weeks. If you currently meet every […]
Respected leaders are decisive
There is a really interesting piece of research that was done with 400 CEOs. This is what they were asked….. “Of all the decisions that have been made in your organization, either by themselves or their Senior Management team, how many ended up being successful?” Amazingly the results were almost universal, and that is, about […]
This may explain why things aren’t moving forward
Are you and your team “Yes but” people, or “Yes and” people? Do you naturally tend to say “yes and” or do you naturally say “yes but“? The answer to that question can define your decision-making style and even your style of work generally. But let’s dive deeper. Think about your meetings – all of them. […]
Who is the drummer in your meetings? Who sets the pace?
Every meeting has a rhythm, a pace, sometimes called the cadence. Surprisingly, it’s not always the person running the meeting. But it should be. In almost every piece of music, the drummer is the first to start playing. There’s a reason for that. The drummer sets the rhythm. Everyone else takes their timing and rhythm […]
Design & Delivery – the 2 crucial ingredients for powerful presentations
Designing an executive’s presentation is like designing a car. It needs to fit the style of the executive. It needs to fulfil its function. It needs to be built for the appropriate audience. It needs to make the executive look and feel good and be proud of the end result. On top of all that […]
Biting the bullet on the people who are deadwood in your organisation
Bite the bullet on people who are deadwood in your organisation Recently I was working with a client and had an interesting conversation with a senior manager. The client was a very large organisation which employed thousands of people. The topic of deadwood came up – people who were not performing satisfactorily. I asked him […]
Use the Traffic Light Principle to improve your meetings
The humble traffic light – green, amber, red – is a quick and powerful way to find out what people really think about the meetings they attend. It’s simple. Ask your team members to simply rank what they think of the meetings they attend using the traffic light principle – it’s quick, easy and effective. […]
How many times should you practise a presentation?
We all know you need to practice before you present. But when it really matters, and your job could be on the line, what is the ideal number? Is it 5, 10 or 20 times? I was working with a large law firm who had been asked to make a presentation to a bank which […]
Is there a link between the number of meetings you attend and salary?
Some people justify their salary by having meetings. But are the meetings effective? Today I had an interesting meeting with a senior business person with experience across a lot of businesses as a consultant and as a leader within. We were talking about my favourite subject – meetings (yes, it’s sad isn’t it) and he […]
Why the difference between misinformation and disinformation in meetings matters
Why the difference between misinformation and disinformation in meetings matters The meaning of misinformation is often merged with that of disinformation, but they are not interchangeable. You cannot put them together as they are very different. Disinformation is when someone deliberately misleads by sending biased or manipulated facts on purpose. Often the data is crafted […]
Parkinson’s Law is alive and Well
I’ve been talking about Parkinson’s Law in relation to meetings for over 30 years. Simply stated (in terms of meetings) it says that a meeting will run for as long as there is time available. I have added the flip – meetings will also run for as long as the time allotted. So in simple […]
Is snail mail the way of the future?
Every now and then, I go through my emails and set up a pile of filters to delete the email newsletters and other things that I simply never read – I set the filter to delete them – gone forever! I know I am not alone in doing this. I send email notifications out to […]
It’s all about getting your ducks in a row!
Everyone was surprised at how we managed to get so many people to vote at a community association meeting. It’s all about getting your ducks in a row! This week I was involved in a Special General Meeting of a community organisation for which I am responsible for governance. There were two very important special […]
How do some people climb the ladder but somehow miss out on learning how to speak effectively?
It’s really interesting, I think, that some leaders climb the corporate ladder and yet they somehow miss out on acquiring the skill to present and speak effectively. We have all been at presentations where a CEO or director has spoken at an event and their staff have cringed in embarrassment. It happens a lot. I […]
To Wear a Tie or Not to Wear a Tie
Recently I was working with a professional services firm and the issue of wearing ties sparked some interest. It was raised from a person in the team who preferred not to wear a tie, while his boss, did have a preference for wearing ties. It prompted me to do some informal research. I sat in […]
Some businesses seem to miss the point
Recently I have come across two businesses that in my humble opinion have missed the point. I am not going to identify either business as that is not the important issue. Business One. The first is a small food business. It does mainly take away food and also has enough seating for around 10 – […]
The secret sauce you need to make sense of the different generations
The other generations are not “wrong”, they are just different! I have found myself talking a lot in the last couple of weeks about the different generations and their different needs, expectations and ways of working. The first thing I found I needed to do was find some categorical information about who actually fits into […]
Fact or Opinion – The crucial distinction for good decision making
It’s been calculated that the “average” adult makes 35,000 decisions every day. It seems a bit high to me but who am I to argue with esteemed researchers. But let’s be a little more realistic and find a number we can comprehend more easily. Let’s say that at work, the average person makes between 50 […]
What is confirmation bias and how does it affect your decisions?
Confirmation bias is the phenomenon that when making a decision, people tend to look for and consider data that supports their own view or opinion or the decision they “want”. It is a serious problem because it means that the range of options is not considered and the resulting decision tends to be based on […]
Charisma – You Either Have It Or You Don’t..Maybe Not.
Charisma is that magnetic quality that some speakers may have in drawing an audience. It is that certain “something” that the audience may not be able to name, but they certainly feel it. It is what makes speakers effective, and it’s what makes speakers convincing and influential. Charisma also goes beyond public speaking. It could […]
How to be a Charismatic Chairperson – David Price
In every workplace, on virtually any day, there will be one, six, ten, a hundred meetings and every one will be “led” by someone. Whether that person sees themselves as “chairing” the meeting or not, the other people do. And so every day throughout the world there are tens of thousands of people chairing meetings – it is perhaps the most common universal activity which occurs in workplaces in every part of the globe every working day.
What To Wear When You Speak? – David Price
You have an important presentation to make and you just don’t know what to wear. It’s a question that is as important for men as it is for women. In his book “You are the message”, Roger Ailes, titles the first chapter “The First Seven Seconds” and you can guess what it says – first […]
Speak Confidently and Persuasively – David Price
Make 2017 “The Year of You – The speaker!” by following these four strategies 1. Face the fear Depending on who you speak to, most people say that speaking in front of a group is one of the things that scares them the most. It’s natural to be nervous, even scared to death! The only […]
Meetings! Meetings! Meetings!
Virtually everyone in the working world attends meetings at some stage. Staff meetings, management meetings, planning meetings, information meetings, update meetings … they are apparently endless. Research conducted in Australia recently showed that the average manager spent 70% of their time in meetings. When do they get time to work? It really doesn’t have to […]