Tag: Kite

  • Enthusiasm in Training

    As a trainer or presenter, enthusiasm goes a long way in making you the best you can be. As your joy excites your participants, their energy rises to meet yours. People feel good. Work gets done.

    But what if your enthusiasm has taken a hit? How can you regain a sense of joy while giving a presentation or training a group?

    These five practical steps will help.

    1. Create a list of 10 positive aspects about the subject. Your brain may balk at doing this, but you’ll be forced to see the subject in a new way. Its “newness” will stimulate you in unexpected ways.

    2. Do something physical. When your blood pumps aerobically, it helps wash away your “blaahs.” Don’t wait — you can take a walk right now.

    3. Visualize yourself being enthusiastic. Take a moment to close your eyes. See yourself as you would from the outside, feeling fantastic and emanating positive energy. Seeing yourself this way can kick-start your acting this way.

    4. Smile. Research has shown that when you smile, even if that smile doesn’t come easily, your brain chemistry changes. Try smiling and feeling joyful, even if it is difficult. You’ll be surprised how it “ups” your mood.

    5. Get excited about the success of those around you. When you express authentic enthusiasm about what others are doing, your own mood improves. You start feeling excited about what you’re doing, too.

    Keep the vitality and magic of life as you train, facilitate or present. It will be your gift not only to others, but to yourself.

  • Focus on the Uncommitted in Your Audience


    Presenters, do you fear waves of animosity coming from your audience? Or have you ever believed your audience to be friendly and accepting, only to receive a terrible shock?

    One of the best “Presenter Tricks” I know is to present as if everyone in your audience is “uncommitted”. Doing so allows you to effectively deal with crosscurrents, hostility, and support–all at the same time.

    This chart identifies the needs of all the segments in your audience. By focusing on the uncommitted, you benefit everyone!

    Audience Segment What Do They Want from the Experience? Dangers of Focusing Only on This Segment? How This Segment Benefits When You Focus on the Uncommitted
    “Friendlies” Satisfaction, affinity. Perhaps a pep-talk. Too easy – you may assume too much. Their knowledge and commitment is deepened.
    “Hostiles” To see you fail. To hear you say something wrong. Increases your own nervousness and defensiveness. You may come off abrasively and unlikable. They experience human respect, openness and reason from you (and are likely to mirror the behavior.)
    “Indifferents” To be left alone and unchanged. To the exclusion of the rest of the audience, you may tie yourself up into knots trying get a response. They may get the message, while not being hammered by you.
    “Uncommitteds” To experience a reasoned, well-thought-out, good-natured exposure to the issues. NONE! They get the best of YOU: affinity and reason.You won’t cut corners by assuming support where it might not exist. You construct and present your message thoroughly, persuasively and with confidence.

    By focusing on the Uncommitted, you take great strides towards more resiliency and effectiveness as a presenter. Try doing this the next time you present.

     

  • The Myth of the Facilitator

    imagesHere’s a pet peeve of mine: Adult educators who call themselves “Facilitators”…and then go on to give a traditional, one-sided, PowerPoint-heavy training session. I estimate that 87.5% of trainers who call themselves “facilitators” are lying. Why? Because they model few skills of facilitation.

    Well Then, What is a Facilitator?

    A facilitator is content-neutral. Because of this, the most appropriate role for a facilitator is that of meeting leader. In this role, he or she can extract insights and enable collaboration.

    The trainer is a content expert. The trainer’s role is to elicit behavior change in participants. This behavior change is called learning. A trainer’s role is to ensure that learning of specific content takes place. (That’s why so many trainers just tell, tell, and tell!)

    So What About “Facilitator of Learning”?

    This term is less popular than plain old “facilitator”, but to me, it is the gold standard for which all trainers should strive. A trainer can be considered a “facilitator of learning” only when he or she:

    • shuts up (a lot),
    • asks meaningful, provocative, open-ended questions, remaining aware of group dynamics at all times, and
    • provides many opportunities for participants to figure things out for themselves.

    Put most simply, a facilitator of learning ASKS. Asking creates disequilibrium and curiosity in participants. Disequilibrium requires participants to adapt, to question themselves, and ultimately to change. Learning IS change!

    How to Be a Facilitator of Learning, not Just an Authority Who Spews Content?

    If you strive to see behavior change in your participants and are willing to drop the more comfortable role of constantly “telling”, and  these guidelines will help.

    1. Ask questions.

    Plan and integrate questions that will spur not-so-easy thinking and feeling.

    1. Be provocative.

    Be willing to name dynamics, factions, or hidden assumptions in the group…with the positive intention of causing disequilibrium and curiosity.

    1. Encourage experimentation.

    Balance your “Telling” role with opportunities for participants to explore, create, and make mistakes.

    When trainers facilitate learning instead of staying on the safer shore of “telling”, we often feel more vulnerable and closer in status to our participants. This unpredictability may not feel comfortable. Each of us must decide for ourselves what type of adult educators we want to be…and be honest in what we call ourselves.

    Sign up for Guila Muir’s newsletter to receive monthly tips and techniques.

     

     

     

     

  • Fake It ‘Til You Make It – Annoying Cliche or Truth?

    I occasionally surprise myself by uttering the cliché above while encouraging a shy person to improve their presentation skills and confidence. I used to secretly kick myself for using such a hackneyed phrase—until I read Richard Wiseman’s great book, “As If.” In it, he cites dozens of studies showing that if we act a certain way, we begin to think and feel that way.

    Here’s one scientific study that’s particularly relevant to presenters:

    Vanessa Bohns and her associates at the University of Toronto asked one group of volunteers to adopt a posture associated with dominance and power: these volunteers stuck out their chests and moved their arms away from their bodies. Other volunteers were instructed to curl up in a powerless-looking ball.

    Then, the experimenters placed a tourniquet on each volunteer’s arm and slowly inflated it. The band got tighter and tighter, reducing blood flow. Volunteers were asked to say when they could no longer tolerate the discomfort. Findings: those in the powerful posture were able to tolerate much tighter tourniquets that those curled up in a ball. Simply acting as if they were powerful and strong helped push away an unwanted emotion.

    So-step into that “magic circle” and fake it ‘til you make it! Roll those shoulders back, opening up your chest. Separate your arms from your body. Be BIG! No one will know you are quaking inside…go on and give it a try. Science supports you!

    Learn about Guila Muir’s Presentation Skills Workshops.

    Guila Muir is a premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

  • How To Build “Home-Grown” Trainers

    Happy top manager standing by the whiteboard and interacting with business partners at seminar

    Have you ever wished you could reduce your organization’s dependence on outside trainers? How about developing your own workshops? Join the ranks of organizations that have benefited from developing their internal resources, saved money, and improved the relevance and quality of their training!

    What’s Not Working

    Over the last few years, I’ve worked with dozens of agencies to develop their own “home grown” trainers and tailor-made curricula. Why? Agencies tell me it begins with dissatisfaction with current options:

    1. Sending employees out to workshops advertised by national companies. Though some of the information is valuable, the workshops are generic. Typically participating are a hundred people or more, from all industries. One or two from your organization that attend may benefit, but the value to the agency may end there.

    2. Bringing in training experts. Though sometimes necessary and very appropriate, bringing in experts can be expensive. These specialists may provide a “one-size-fits-all” training – after all, they just gave this same presentation in Cleveland a week ago. And what happens if you can’t find an expert in your very specific subject area?

    Exploring Options

    The term “training of trainers” (TOT) can mean different things. To some, it means training people the “ins and outs” of a specific program, the ultimate goal being their ability to teach that program. For example, a local health promotion organization trains elementary school teachers to use its packaged curriculum. They assume that teachers will use their already-established training skills with the product. This type of TOT’s focus is on content.

    A more flexible type of TOT focuses on process. It usually includes how to design a lesson based on adult learning principles, how to integrate a variety of participatory exercises, how to enhance presentation skills, develop learning aids and evaluate the learning. The best TOTs include strategies to ensure learning occurs and to identify and analyze training needs from the outset. Using these new strategies, participants often develop and present a lesson based on their area of expertise that they can use immediately.

    Steps To Develop “Home Grown” Trainers

    Once an organization decides to “grow” its own trainers, there are two major investments: a one-time investment in training and an ongoing investment of time.

    • When possible, garner enthusiastic, visible support from the top.
      When leaders overtly support trainer development, all employees get the message that learning is a valued and important element of work.
    • Select people to become “trainers in training.”
      These can be people with training expertise or just a strong interest, as well as subject matter experts who traditionally have “bored the pants off” people while transmitting information. Clarify expectations, time commitments and potential rewards for participating.
    • Provide an expert Training of Trainers.
    • Provide regular Trainer Development Meetings. These meetings usually take place once a month. Trainers meet to discuss what is working well and to debrief issues and challenges. Often a different trainer will model a “chunk” of curriculum or an activity each month.

    Wouldn’t it be great to use the resources you have right at your fingertips to develop or expand your agency’s training potential? “Home gown” trainers benefit personally from enhancing their skills, the agency benefits from increasing its training ability and other employees benefit from increased training opportunities. “Home-grown” trainers play an important role in creating an organizational culture of learning, innovation and self-reliance.

    Guila Muir is the premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

    © Guila Muir.

  • Dive In!
    Presenting and Open Water Swimming

    I am an “adult onset” swimmer. Learning to swim at age 46, I trembled with the same anxieties as many of my Presentation Skills clients. I even heard myself describe my experience using the same words. Swimming was unnatural, awkward, unnerving, and out of my comfort zone.

    Twelve years after my first lesson,  I continue to feel amazed at how many parallels I continue to discover between swimming and presenting. I often ask my workshop participants for similarities they perceive between these two divergent activities. Their collective wisdom will help YOU overcome your “fear of the water:”

    1. You must prepare

    Workshop participants cite this similarity most often. This makes me happy. Open water swimmers can literally die (and sometimes do) for lack of preparation. Presenters can metaphorically “die” if they are not prepared.

    Keep the ratio of 1:3 in mind. For each hour spent presenting, it’s wise to put aside a minimum of three hours to design, prepare, and rehearse your material.

    2. You must keep focused on the final goal

    For swimmers, effectively sighting on the final buoy helps determine who wins and who loses. Open water swimmers can end up swimming hundreds of extra yards if they don’t continually keep their eyes on where they want to end up. Those who sight poorly end up off-course, exhausted, and maybe even wounded: One swimmer I know ran into a piling and broke a tooth because lost sight of his final goal.

    Presenters also lose when they drift away from their stated purpose. Remember to carefully craft and state your purpose. (Here’s an article that will help.) Then remain accountable to your purpose throughout your presentation, even if metaphorical winds, chop or waves  try to toss you off course.

    3. You must stand tall

    Efficient, graceful swimmers demonstrate the same physical skills as presenters. Although swimmers remain horizontal, the fastest ones elongate the back of their necks. Their shoulders roll back and down to achieve the most powerful stroke, and their chests press into the water.

    Presenters, if you practice these exact physical techniques, you will appear more credible, authoritative, and strong in front of any group.

    Both in swimming and presenting, conditions can be rough. The first few strokes can feel icy. But if you’ve taken these three participant-generated tips to heart, you will overcome those challenges within the first few minutes. Then everything will go “swimmingly!”

    Send me your “swimming” and “presenting” analogies!

  • The Curse of Knowledge

    by Guila Muir
    info@guilamuir.com

    Think of a skill you have, (such as driving, swimming, writing, reading…) Would you say you are unconsciously competent with this skill? That is,

    • Can you do it without thinking about it?
    • Is it part of you, like an instinct?
    • Would you have a hard time explaining the steps of this skill to someone with no knowledge at all about it?

    All of us have skills like these. And it’s great that we do! And yet, here’s the big question. Can this level of expertise actually hurt us as teachers, trainers or presenters?

    Before taking a guess at the answer, consider this experiment Elizabeth Newton did in 1990 at Stanford University. She assigned volunteers to one of two roles, either a “tapper” or a “listener.” Each tapper was asked to pick a well-known tune such as “Happy Birthday” and tap out the rhythm on a table. The listener’s job was to guess the song.

    Over the course of the experiment, 120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only three of the songs correctly, making the success ratio only 2.5 percent. But before they guessed, Newton asked the tappers to predict the probability that the listeners would guess correctly. They predicted 50 percent. The tapers were flabbergasted by how hard the listeners had to work to “get” the tune.

    Why?

    The problem is that once we know something (for example, a song’s melody or a skill), we find it hard to imagine not knowing it. Our knowledge has cursed us. The more intimately we know a subject or a skill, the harder it may be to effectively teach or present it to others in a way they can understand. We may find it impossible to fathom how to teach because we don’t know where to begin.

    The Need for “Conscious Competence”

    It’s common knowledge that experts who know the most about a topic don’t always make the best teachers. In fact, some of the very worst teachers have the highest levels of knowledge and expertise. These experts have lost touch with conscious competence, and they wonder why their students aren’t learning.

    As presenters and trainers, we must come to our subjects anew. We need to get in touch with what the Buddhists call “beginner’s mind”, an experience of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions. But we must also “crank ourselves down” from unconscious competence to conscious competence.

    Conscious competence is the state we’re in when we are able to do a skill, yet must still concentrate on its steps and nuances. It’s the state we inhabit when we don’t feel like an expert, even if we are. Even if we must concentrate in order to do the skill correctly, we can verbalize each step we take. We are not on automatic pilot.

    A Challenge

    So-beyond the need to “know your stuff,” which elements do YOU believe are most important to make a great teacher? Here’s this month’s challenge. Please take the time to answer the question, What makes a great teacher, trainer, or presenter? in the “add new comment” box below. I’ll publish the most-often stated ideas in our next newsletter.

    Thanks to The Art of Explanation, by Lee Lefever, for introducing me to the Stanford experiment.

    Learn about Guila Muir’s Pre­sen­ta­tion Skills Workshops.

    Guila Muir is a pre­miere trainer of train­ers, facil­i­ta­tors, and pre­sen­ters. Since 1994, she has helped thou­sands of pro­fes­sion­als improve their train­ing, facil­i­ta­tion, and pre­sen­ta­tion skills. Find out how she can help trans­form you from a bor­ing expert to a great pre­sen­ter: www.guilamuir.com

  • Presenting from the Seat of Your Pants


    The Challenge of Sitting

    We can lose a great deal of speaking power when we present from a seated position. Why?

    1. Half our bodies, with their eloquent capacity for language, are hidden.
    2. Often, our hands are not visible.
    3. Our internal organs are more tightly constrained.

    What’s Wrong With This Picture?

    Here’s how to present with confidence and authority while sitting:

    • Place your feet parallel to each other, flat on the floor, facing forward. Your knees should be bent at a 90 degree angle. No crossing your legs!
    • Feel your sitz bones, (the bones at the very bottom ends of each side of your pelvis) sitting squarely on the chair. These form your anchor.
    • Roll your shoulders down your back, opening your chest.
    • Practice gesturing in the camera. Make sure your hands are visible, but don’t move them TOO close to your face. Gesturing makes you appear much more dynamic, and helps bring your own energy up.

    You’ve Got It!

    Present from the seat of your pants. Whether you are presenting to board members, City Council, or being interviewed, you look and sound strong, approachable, and confident.

     

  • Your Biggest Gift as a Speaker

    by Guila Muir
    info@guilamuir.com

    Does this sound like you? “I’m a fine communicator one-on-one, but put me in front of a group and I just die!”

    Why is it easier for many of us to present in front of a few people than to a larger audience? Why do many of us believe that some people just “have what it takes” to present effectively, and the rest of us don’t?

    The truth is that everyone has the innate gifts to speak in public. True, few may possess the flamboyance of a professional motivational speaker. But I question the value of this presentation style, which often looks inauthentic. And although it does matter how you use your hands (avoiding the infamous “figleaf” pose, for example) and how you pitch your voice, the real gift you have to offer is YOU.

    Three Tips to Enhance Your Gift

    • Connect.
      It’s important to remember that speaking publicly is a relationship event, NOT a performance event. Your audience remembers what you say because you connect with them, not because you are the smartest or most charismatic person in the world.
    • Don’t speak “to,” speak “with.”
      Think of the event as a dialogue or conversation. Look directly at people and share your knowledge with them.
    • Express yourself.
      Remember that your unique style is better than any set of “stage skills.” Be yourself.

    But Is “Being Yourself” Really Enough?

    All truly compelling presenters use their greatest asset–themselves–to sell their concept and get their message across. All also realize that they can intensify their authentic selves for a more dynamic effect. Don Pfarrer, author of Guerilla Persuasion: Mastering the Art of Effective and Winning Business Presentation, calls this the “Intensified You” persona. It is “a task oriented, turned-on, intensified version of yourself.”

    When I work with clients to achieve their own Intensified You personas, I notice their increased confidence and resilience as speakers. This is particularly useful when they deal with jaded or potentially hostile audiences.

    Elements of The Intensified You

    • Subject Mastery: You must know your subject thoroughly AND know the limits of your knowledge.
    • Steadiness: You must “keep a steady hand on the tiller”–knowing you might need to change course to avoid a hurricane, but not allowing a small squall to deflect you.
    • Empathy: You must remain sensitive to your audience. If you were a member of your own audience, what would you need to hear? To see?
    • Candor: Include in your presentation what needs to be there–don’t hide anything. Show you are aware of challenges or problems; then present solutions.

    So — bring your authentic self as a speaker, but pump it up. This combination is unbeatable!

    Learn about Guila Muir’s Presentation Skills Workshops.

    Guila Muir is a premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com

     

  • How a Hook Can Save Your Presentation

    by Guila Muir
    info@guilamuir.com

    I have discovered that my clients all love a good hook, and are always looking for new ones. Let’s review what a Hook is and isn’t. Then I’ll provide two dynamic Hooks for you to use in your next presentation or training session.

    What a Hook ISN’T:

    Fluff. Never make the mistake of thinking that a hook is unimportant and can be left out. It is an essential part of the learning experience.
    Lengthy. A hook is typically not a full-blown exercise, energizer or icebreaker.
    A pre-test. Don’t use a hook to identify the “smartest guys in the room.”
    A way to fill those nervous first moments of a training session when you feel least confident. A hook has a definite role. Don’t waste the precious first moments of a training session with comments about the weather or unrelated issues.

    What a Hook IS:

    • A way to immediately engage your listeners.
    • Relatively short. Although there is no actual rule about length, the hook should serve its purpose concisely.
    • Connected to the session’s topic or purpose. Although anything can serve as a hook, it should have a relationship to your session’s purpose. Don’t lob out a meaningless joke just to get laughs.
    • Connected to who your participants are. You must know your audience’s concerns. The best hooks relate to their past experiences.
    • Emotional, even if only mildly so. Adults become engaged through their emotions. Good hooks incite almost any kind of emotion, including laughter, groans of recognition, anxiety, or excitement.
    • Inclusive. Use a hook that all the participants can relate to. Again, the best hooks elicit the past knowledge, emotions, and/or experiences of most people in your audience.

    Developing a hook takes careful preparation. However, your participants’ immediate interest and involvement is on the line, so a little preparation on your part is worth the effort.

    Two Dynamite Hooks

    You can use literally anything as a hook. Trainers have used visual aids such as short videos or toys from the local Dollar store. They have used riddles, music, anecdotes, yoga stretches, and many more ways to immediately engage their participants.

    The two Hooks I’ve outlined here have proven to work with a bang every time:

    1. Real-life Questions

    These may be the easiest type of hook to create.  As for all hooks, make sure you know enough about your audience to use topics that resonate. Also, as in all hooks, ensure that your questions elicit an emotional response.

    See if you can guess the topics for these Hooks:

    “How many of you get so frustrated with your computer sometimes that you’d like to put your fist right through that screen?”

    “Raise your hands if you’ve ever participated in a nightmare meeting.”

    “Raise your hands if you’ve ever hit your boiling point around kids—even if you don’t have any!”

    Guidelines:

    • Always ask a minimum of two questions. You need this many to get your participants’ brains moving in the direction of your training session.
    • Create your questions so that nearly everyone will respond in the same way (for example, 99% of hands in the room go up or down.)
    • Insist on a physical response (hands up, stand up, thumbs up, etc.)

    Option:
    Start your questions with the following:

    “How many of you would NOT be willing to…(Remember, your goal is to get everyone’s hands up. Asking in the negative may be more provocative and participatory than asking in the positive.)

    2. “Did You Know?”

    (Provocative Fact or Statistic)

    The world is full of provocative statistics you can use to hook your participants. Just keep your eyes out as you read blogs, newspapers and articles. You can usually make the most unrelated statistic relevant to your participants.

    See how one trainer brought together issues as diverse as strawberries and personal choices:

    “Did you know… that Delta Airlines recently saved $210,000 a year simply by removing one strawberry from salads served in First Class? One little strawberry was removed and passengers didn’t even notice it. Big results can be achieved by little changes. Today, we’ll talk about how little changes in your thoughts and attitudes can have big results in your own life.”

    Here are two other examples, used in actual classes:

    1. “Did you know that in one second…

    • A telephone signal can travel 100,000 miles?
    • A hummingbird beats its wings 70 times?
    • And guess what, in one second, eight million of your blood cells die.

    A lot can happen in one second. This session will give you tools to decrease your response time in household emergencies.”

    2. “Did you know that ‘Generation X’rs’ have watched 23,000 hours of television by the time they are 20 years old? They also believe they have a better chance of seeing a UFO in their lifetime than a Social Security check. In this workshop, we’ll see how generational differences in the workplace affect all of us.”

    3. “Before the rule, more than 50 people here were dying in trenches every year. When you get killed in a cave-in, it’s not an easy way to go. You’re literally crushed to death under the weight of the soil. Soil weighs approximately 3,000 pounds per cubic yard. Nobody deserves to go to work and die that way.”

    Guidelines:

    • Turn a provocative fact into a hook simply by prefacing it with the words “did you know?”
    • Make sure your data is correct.
    • Make sure to integrate emotion.
    • Consider combining your fact or statistic with another hook, such as a Real-life question.

    Always use a Hook if you are serious about immediate engagement and interest!

    Learn about Guila Muir’s Presentation Skills Workshops.

    Guila Muir is a premiere trainer of trainers, facilitators, and presenters. Since 1994, she has helped thousands of professionals improve their training, facilitation, and presentation skills. Find out how she can help transform you from a boring expert to a great presenter: www.guilamuir.com