What's Your Objective

Those of you who know me well know that I have just completed my second marathon. For those who have never done one I am here to tell you the training is almost harder than the 42.2k run itself.

I have been thinking about what got me through this crazy thing called a marathon and why do I want to do another.
Firstly I had an outcome. A specific objective. I wanted to run a big city marathon so I chose New York and entered it. Secondly I prepared my training programme and stuck to it always knowing that it was what was required to reach my outcome.

So how does this apply to you?

A few weeks ago I was doing presentation skills coaching with a client. I walked into their office and the white board was  full of notes of what they could do in their upcoming presentation.  The white board was so full I think it was fair to say it was confusing. As I listened to all the information on the board being explained I found myself stopping them and asking the question - What is your objective? From there even more questions were asked. What do you want to happen after this presentation? What do you want your audience to do after it? In answering these questions we all had clarity of purpose and everything we did from that point on was done to fulfill the ultimate outcome.

Now some of you maybe thinking yeah yeah that's pretty basic. Well I agree. I  have worked with so many people though of late who are sooo busy that they just start putting together a presentation or a training programme and they fail to "stop and think" what their objective is - they just do.

My encouragement this month is for you to take a few moments to "stop and think ". Why are you sending that email? Why are you doing that presentation? Why is that training session so important.? What do I want my audience to learn, to take away, to become aware of?

If you don't plan where you are going how will you know you have reached your destination.

Know your outcome!!!!

Don't Fight It Adapt To It

When you have attended a training session with me you may have heard the phrase "don't fight it - adapt to it".  Recently I read an article about the Facebook phenomenon and how much time people are spending using it during work hours. Companies all over the world are blocking it on their internal computer systems except one major company - IBM.

IBM figured the 'don't fight it - adapt to it' concept out months ago. They wondered how could we use the concept of Facebook internally. So they have built an internal community interface that enables everyone in the business to interact with each other - no matter what their title or position. Staff are able to ask questions about their product range of the whole IBM community and receive replies from staff they may never have even met. The outcome, a greater knowledge base then could ever have been imagined. 
So how could this concept of "don't fight it - adapt to it" apply to us?
Let's keep it simple. If you hand out information in a presentation or training session the first thing people want to do is read it - so let them read it. If you show a PowerPoint slide people want to read it - so let them read it. If people are not going to be able to see something clearly, don't apologise and still show it. Find a different way to present that information e.g. put it on a poster in a different part of the room.
Think about your next presentation or training session. Consider how a person might react to what you are asking them to do and if you can second guess what they will do "don't fight it - adapt to it".

Check out this article on how other Aussie companies are adapting to Facebook usuage