November 2007 Newsletter
Halloween has been and gone but you may be still facing some scary work situations. This month’s newsletter may help.
Shaking in your boots at the thought of presenting to your team or clients? Take a look at our case study with Endemol to get an idea of how to face your audience with confidence, we offer you the opportunity to join us on our latest taster event where you’ll learn useful skills to help you improve your relationships with challenging individuals, and finally take a look at our top tips for dealing with the tricky people you work and play with.
Oh and you get to meet Linzi the newest member of the you:unlimited family. She’s here to help support our trainers and she’s not in the least bit scary.
Having effective presentation skills is a core component of corporate life.
We give you a 'fly on the wall' recap of our training with TV production company Endemol.
What did we do for Endemol?
Presenting is something that makes a lot of us quiver in our boots. The thought of standing up in front of a group of people and engaging their interest is enough to increase our heart rates a notch, even more so if they are important clients. We visited Endemol, one of Britain’s largest producers of TV and digital media content, and spent the day delivering our presentation skills training to some of the team.
How did we do it?
Styles
In order to actively engage the participants and assess what each individual wanted from their training, we began by getting everyone to describe their presentation styles and consider how they could gain from the workshop.
Key Points
A great presentation must have core points that structure its content, so we got the team to begin building their own presentation, focusing on key aims and objectives. This allowed them to consider the main issues they wanted their audience to walk away with, and how they could make sure their presentation emphasises these points.
Verbal Impact
The next stage of the day focused on how the presentation would be delivered. Participants were given helpful advice and tips on how to hook their audience’s attention from the outset, and maintain it throughout. Then they were asked to use the information they had received to map out the verbal content of their presentation.
Visual Impact
Body language is vital in gaining your audience’s respect. We helped participants to build up a confident and approachable style in a number of ways to ensure that their key points landed while they maintained a healthy rapport with the audience.
Vocal Impact
Moving on to the voice, we assessed participant’s vocal technique and grouped together to think about how enunciation, use of words and pauses could be improved to ensure a smooth presentation. We also looked at what to avoid, including getting sentences off to a bad start. Again, participants mapped out how they would use these in their presentations.
Moment of Truth
The best way to learn how to present effectively is to DO IT. Practise makes perfect and there is nothing like repetition to take the edge off any pre-presentation nerves. To this end, we got participants to stand up and perform the presentation they had been working on, whilst being assessed by their team members. After receiving their feedback, they were then asked to list down what points they needed to work on.
Where are you now?
To finish off the day participants took time to go over their feedback and personal responses to assess their own progress.
Buddies
Finally as with all our workshops we arranged peer coaching pairs. Participants partner with a "buddy" who they arranged to meet 4 weeks after the workshop. Setting up this simple support structure with a pre arranged meeting time to ask questions and swap experiences promotes action, holds individuals accountable to each other and helps to embed the learning.
If you would like to talk to us about Presentation skills training please contact:
john@you-unltd.co.uk or call him on +44(0)20 7407 0044
Jane Shaw, HR Officer at Endemol tells us what she and the team gained from our presentation skills training....
....and gives some advice for anyone who has a big presentation coming up.
What was it that motivated you to arrange this powerful presentations course for your team at Endemol?
There was an established need in the team. We often have to present in our day to day jobs and several staff members had voiced a need for presentation skills training so we decided to run a course to help them improve their skills and confidence.
How would you describe the training experience that day? The training course with you:unlimited was well organised, interesting and inspiring. It addressed our need and delivered the right content to fit our brief.
What was the most important thing that you personally got out of the training? The course really helped to build up my confidence. The interactive exercises gave me the opportunity to practice the techniques we’d learnt earlier in the workshop and that helped build my confidence. Feedback from colleagues was also valuable as it helped me focus on any areas for improvement.
How do you think the enhanced skills have been useful to your staff in their work?
These skills learnt on the workshop have proved to be very useful. Attendees have used their new skills in presentations since the training and have felt far more confident about it.
From what you saw, how would you rate your staff’s presenting skills before and after the training?
I’d say half the people in the group already had good presentation skills mostly due to confidence, natural ability and experience but the other half gained in confidence throughout the day. It was interesting to see how people progressed in the group in just one day.
What advice would you give to anyone who has a big presentation coming up?
Be aware of how you move your body when presenting, don’t move around too much and be conscious of your arm movements when presenting. Don’t forget to breathe!!
Managing challenging people at work
Join us for a free taster and learn how to “Herd Cats”. Essential strategies for improving relationships with tricky personalities.
Rather than simply tell you about our great training we'd like to show you.
Our Herding Cats event will give you a 90 min taster of what we do every day. You'll meet some of the you:unlimited team, mingle with other training and HR practitioners who are also considering using us and discuss any specific training needs you may have.
If you haven’t worked with us before this engaging and energetic workshop will give you a taster of our training style and will also equip you with proven tried and tested techniques to help you improve communication with important and challenging individuals.
The team were fab and the training was excellent. I have come away very positive and ready to tackle those “big cats”!” Lorraine Shirley, Training Manager, OneBiIl Telecom.
Join us
Our “Herding Cats” taster session will be running in central London from 9am – 11am on Wednesday 21st November or Tuesday 11th December. We’d love you to join us. Spaces are limited, so if you are a Manager or HR & Training professional with responsibility for booking training contact john@you-unltd.co.uk or call him on +44(0)20 7407 0044 and we’ll book spaces for you and / or a colleague.
Meow.
Meet the team
Linzi tells us more about life at you:unlimited HQ.
So, what are you doing here Linzi?
I have been brought in to assist Vanessa, the Marketing Manager, and eventually take over as she goes on maternity leave in the new year. I will also be doing some coordination work with the trainers and keeping our team in check!
Describe a typical day at you:unlimited HQ?
I am not sure if there is a typical day at the moment! I am still learning the roles so every day is different, which is great as it never gets boring.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
At the moment I think the best job has been helping on the October and November’s newsletters. I like taking on my own projects and that was something I could go away with and be a bit creative, so I enjoyed it.
What’s your top tip for avoiding stress at work?
Take a lunch break and eat healthily! I know it’s difficult to think about these things when you have a busy day to deal with, but they make a real difference to your general well-being, and improve creativity too.
In keeping with this month’s offer to join us for our free taster on “Herding Cats” what’s your top tip for dealing with difficult people?
Communication. I always think that honesty is the best policy, so if there is some one you are having problems with I would suggest that the best way to deal with it would be to try it resolve it through a one to one meeting.
Top tips for dealing with difficult personalities at work.
For all of you who are experiencing problems with someone in the work place (or out of work for that matter), these tips should help you to deal with the situation more effectively.
1. Step back. Try to look at the situation from an objective point of view. Do you have certain buttons this person has pressed without realising it? If this is the case, then the problem may not be with this person in general, but rather your relationship with them.
2. One on One. If you are the only person experiencing problems then they can often be resolved with a good old fashioned heart to heart. People sometimes express themselves in funny ways, and this person may need something from you that they do not feel they are getting, in which case giving them a space to air their frustrations may be all that is required.
3. Follow up. Try to determine whether anything has changed by following up your initial conversation with a later meeting. This way you can make sure that promises are kept and both parties are happy with the result.
4. Know what you want. Most people find it very easy to express what they don’t want from a situation, but the clue is in knowing what you do want. Once you have established this, the next step should be easier.
5. Influence. Believe it or not, there are stark differences between influence and manipulation. Learn how to succeed in the former without making anyone feel they have been manipulated and you will find it much easier to get what you need.
6. Know your audience. By getting to know a little bit about the person you are dealing with you are more likely to be able to negotiate a deal with them that will please you both.
7. Body language. Simple tactics such as nodding in agreement when some one is talking can make you much more approachable. If the ‘difficult person’ feels that they can talk to you about their problems they may be more willing to work effectively as part of the team.
8. Voice work. Using your voice in certain ways can also help. Varying the tone throughout your sentences and lifting it up at the end projects a friendly, open manner (learn more about this in communication training).
9. Use a prop. Approaching a difficult person about a hard issue can be intimidating for you and them. Use a separate point of reference such as a piece of paper or flip chart to alleviate the amount of focus put on you and the person in question.
10. Smile! People generally find it easier to act awkwardly with a colleague that does not project an air of confidence – combine the points above with a broad smile and you are on a road to success.
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