Your Opening Line

Digging into the vault for a timeless truth about presentations that still rings true today:

I am continually amazed by presentation after presentation where the opening lines are about the presenter and not the audience. Are you guilt of ever starting with any of the following?

“You probably want to know a bit about me…”
“I am blah blah and I studied at blah blah and blah blah blah…”
“Before we get the meat of today I want to thank…”
“Before I get to the report you’ve been waiting for, you have to understand…”
And of course, the infamous, “How’s everyone doing this morning?” (followed by “I can’t hear you!”)

While the audience will be patient with you nonverbally (we’ve been taught to sit and listen politely!) they will also mark you as ordinary, expected, and frankly, wasting their time.

Dale Carnegie’s famous admonition, “Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them” still works today for the soul reason - it is audience focused. Our nervousness, our ego, our desire to please or our wish to look good unfortunately puts the focus on us instead of those who came to hear us. The hard truth is that the audience don’t really care about you. No matter how important you are, the audience has one pivotal question in their minds “Can you help me solve my problem; can you improve my condition.” Start there and you will see and maybe even hear your audience say, “Whew! Yes!”

From Success to Significance: What Truly Matters

Many years ago, Nido Qubein President of High Point University taught me the difference between success and significance. Success is certainly a good thing whether in things financial, career, family, or any of the many goals one might accomplish. Nido reminded us, however, that these things are not usually in a eulogy. What we speak of when they pass are how what they did was significant to us, to those around us, to the world. So, if you are ever called upon to give a eulogy to the many at a funeral or a mini-eulogy as you speak to a surviving family member…think about how this person was significant to you, how they made you better, in what ways they infused a quality in your life that made all the difference. Success is certainly good; significance is lots better still.

Wednesday Rewind: The Secret of a Successful Interview

This week’s Wednesday Rewind takes us back to my post on The Secret of a Successful Interview — timeless advice that still holds true today.

Remember your last interview for a job? Despite a really fine resume and plenty (did I say plenty?) of experience, the interviewers seemed difficult and hard to impress. After all, you’ve done a lot! When I prepare physicians for their interviews (some tell me that they have never had to interview for a position in their lives!) I suggest that they speak to their capabilities, not only to their experiences. So, an “experience” answer might sound like this, “Yes, I have worked to construct 12 ambulatory units for my system.” That is nice but interviewers know that their system is different! Internally they are thinking, “Yes, she may have built them there, but we have different issues here.” A better answer would be, “Yes, I have worked to construct 12 ambulatory units for my system…and what I learned when I did that was the executive capability not only of consensus building but of a community feeling among the team to unify our efforts and each persons’ unique capability.” This answer will lead to a deeper question, which will enhance your expertise as being like them, their culture, their unique situation. The inner voice then of the interviewer is, “She has what we need…she could solve our problem.” Never end the answer with what you did; always with what you learned.