Talk Like A Leader, Talk Like TED – Monster.com

Carmine wrote the article; Talk Like A Leader, Talk Like TED for the Workforce Management Channel of Monster.com.

Article transcript:

Like it or not, your communication skills at work are being compared to TED talks.
The TED conference [Technology/Entertainment/Design] recently celebrated its 30th anniversary and is widely considered the gold standard when it comes to public presentations.

Here’s why: TED presentations are viewed more than two million times per day while smaller, independently organized TEDx events are held in 145 countries. That means it’s likely your audience — employees, customers, and prospects — have been exposed to the TED style.
As a leader, you may have a great ideas. But in the information age, if you cannot communicate your idea persuasively in a succinct, compelling pitch or presentation, it doesn’t matter.

Based on my analysis of 500 TED presentations, here are five techniques to improve your business presentation skills and to talk like a leader people want to follow.

1)Tell personal stories. Telling personal stories is the single best way to make an emotional connection with your listener. After categorizing 150 hours of TED talks, I found that stories make up 65 percent to 72 percent of the content.
Researchers at Princeton University are finding that when someone tells a story, the same regions of the listener’s brain and the speaker’s brain light up. That means the two people are literally in sync.

TED in Action: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg started a movement called “Lean in.” It all began with an 18-minute TED talk. Sandberg acknowledged that her original presentation was “chock full of data and no personal stories.” A friend suggested that she downplay the data and tell personal stories of her own struggle balancing work and family. She did and it made all the difference.

2) Stick to the rule of three. Simply put, we can only remember about three to five key messages in short term memory. There’s a reason why the Declaration of Independence guarantees the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The rule of three is well established among authors in the academic research on persuasion. Not surprisingly, the rule of three is pervasive across the most famous TED talks.

TED in Action: Civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson received the longest standing ovation in TED history after telling three stories from his life.

Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor delivered one of the most popular TED talks of all time. Her “Stroke of Insight” has been viewed more than 15 million times. She divided the 18-minute presentation into three easy-to-follow sections.
The next time you deliver a presentation try to deliver no more than three to five main points. It will increase the likelihood that your audience will embrace your idea.

3) Obey the 18-minute guideline. No speaker on the TED stage is allowed to talk for more than 18 minutes. It doesn’t matter if your name is Bill Gates or Sheryl Sandberg. Eighteen minutes is all you get. TED organizers have found that 18 minutes is the ideal amount of time to have a serious discussion without putting your audience to sleep.

Researchers have discovered that when a leader speaks for too long it results in “cognitive backlog.” Simply put, when you talk for too long you give your audience far too much information to remember and they’ll forget everything.

TED in Action: I recently learned that one global technology giant is putting strict limits on internal presentations — no more than 18 minutes. They find that employees are far more engaged in the presentation and evaluate the leader’s communication skills much more highly.

4) Use humor without telling a joke. Most leaders are not comedians. There’s a real art to telling a joke. Don’t feel as though you need to make one.

That said, humor is very important to tear down walls and to connect us to one another.
TED in Action: Sir Ken Robinson is an educator and gave the most famous TED talk in history. It’s been viewed more than 20 million times. He was very funny and never told a joke. He used anecdotal humor — personal observations to elicit a smile and not a belly laugh. For example he said, ‘I was at a dinner party — actually, if you’re in education you’re rarely invited to dinner parties…’

Keep it light, bring a smile to your audience, but don’t feel as though you need tell a formal joke.

5) Practice more than you think you should. Most leaders I know practice their golf swing far more than they’ve rehearsed a pitch that can make or break their business.

TED in Action: Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor rehearsed her TED talk more than 200 times. One of the viewers was Oprah Winfrey — it changed Dr. Jill’s entire life and career.

When you must deliver a presentation where the stakes are high, practice the entire presentation exactly as you plan to deliver it and do it many, many times.

You have ideas that were meant to be heard. Don’t sabotage your leadership potential by failing to craft and deliver a business presentation that connects to your listeners and moves people to action.

2013: The Year of the Customer Experience

2013 will be is the year of the customer experience.

Brands that create a better experience for their customers will stand a better chance of growing market share. Successful brand managers and recruiters realize, however, that the experience begins with the right people.

After spending one year researching the Apple Retail Store for my new book, The Apple Experience, I discovered that the secret of Apple’s success goes far deeper than design and products. The “soul” of Apple is its people — how they are hired, trained, motivated, and taught to communicate with customers and one another.

The Apple Store understands that the secret to an outstanding customer service starts with friendly, passionate staff. That’s why the Apple Store says it likes to hire a “magnetic personality” over proficiency. They can teach you how to sell an iPad. They can’t teach friendliness.

Apple Store managers ask three questions about potential recruits to size up the person and to evaluate whether that person is a good fit for the brand. Those questions are:

1. Does the candidate display grit? Grit is the ability to perform under pressure. If the person cannot multi-task and serve more than one customer at any one time, they might not be the best fit for a crowded sales environment. Grit is also intended to measure confidence. Apple wants employees who have opinions and have the confidence to express themselves.

2. Can they offer a Ritz-Carlton level of customer service? Apple wants to make sure that employees are dedicated to making each interaction with every customer as memorable and pleasurable as possible.

3. Could they have gone toe-to-toe with Steve Jobs? This is the most interesting question. We all know that Steve Jobs could be very tough, but he valued feedback. The Apple Store works because every team has an active feedback loop between employees and managers. Managers need to solicit feedback from employees — everyday. Employees need to have the courage to give feedback and not be fearful of reprisals.

5 Ways Apple Store Employees Create Great Customer Experiences

Carmine recorded this video that was featured on monster.com

The Legacy of Steve Jobs: Remembering a Master Innovator

A while back, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman challenged the US government to create more jobs — Steve Jobs. He suggested that the only way to emerge from the recession is to foster an environment where business innovation is front and center, as Jobs has done so brilliantly as CEO at Apple.

It’s one thing to say we should create more “Steve Jobs,” but how? What lessons can we learn from the legendary Apple co-founder? Here are five principles that can help you turn ideas into successful products, services, business performance solutions and companies.

Expose Yourself to Diverse Experiences. Steve Jobs once said that creativity is connecting things. The key to “thinking differently” is to perceive things differently; in order to perceive things differently, a leader must be exposed to divergent ideas, places and people. This will force your brain to make connections it otherwise might miss.

Steve Jobs did this his entire life. Jobs dropped out of college so he could “drop in” to those classes that really interested him — such as calligraphy. Those classes would come back to him years later when he designed the Mac, the first personal computer with beautiful fonts. Jobs wanted the Apple II to be the first personal computer that people would use in their homes, so he sought inspiration from the kitchen appliance aisle at Macy’s. And when Jobs hired musicians, artists, poets, and historians on the original Macintosh team, he was exposing himself to new experiences and novel ways of looking at a problem.

Put a Dent in the Universe. Innovation requires a team and your leadership skills cannot inspire evangelists unless you offer a compelling company vision. In 1977 a young software programmer, Rob Campbell, was excited about the emerging class of personal computers and began searching for a position at one of the companies at the forefront of the revolution.

Campbell first visited Tandy Computers. “What is your vision for the personal computer?” he asked. “We think it could be the next big thing on everyone’s wish list for the holiday season!” Tandy executives exclaimed. Uninspired, Campbell visited Commodore, a company that introduced a personal computer in 1977. Commodore’s stock was trading at less than one dollar a share. “What is your vision for the personal computer?” Campbell asked. “We think it could help our stock rise above two dollars a share,” Commodore executives said excitedly.

Still uninspired, Campbell then decided to take Steve Jobs up on an invitation to meet for lunch. “What is your vision for the personal computer?” Campbell asked Jobs. Campbell said what happened next still gives him goose bumps. “Steve Jobs was a magical storyteller,” Campbell told me. “For the next hour, he talked about how personal computers were going to change the world. You couldn’t help but buy in.”

Passion is the fuel that gives you energy to pursue your dreams, but vision gives the rocket direction. Articulate a bold vision with communication skills and give your team and colleagues the direction they crave.

Sell Dreams, Not Products. Steve Jobs didn’t rely on focus groups but he understood his customers really, really well. Yes, sometimes better than they know themselves!

When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after a 12-year absence, Apple faced an uncertain future. Jobs closed his presentation that year at Macworld in Boston with an observation that set the tone for Apple’s resurgence: “I think you have to think differently to buy an Apple computer. I think the people who do buy them do think differently. They are the creative spirits in this world. They are people who are not out to get a job done; they are out to change the world. A lot of times people think they’re crazy, but in that craziness we see genius.”

See genius in your customers and in your employees. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.

Say No to 1,000 things. Steve Jobs once said the secret to innovation comes from “Saying no to 1,000 things.” In other words, Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he is about what Apple did. This philosophy helped Apple introduce products that wow consumers because of their elegance and simplicity.

In October 2008, Apple introduced its next-generation MacBook laptop computer. Apple design guru, Jonathan Ive, told the audience that Apple’s new “aluminum unibody enclosure” eliminated 60 percent of the computer’s major structural parts. Reducing the number of parts naturally made the computer thinner. Contrary to what you’d expect, eliminating parts also made it more rigid and robust — the computer was stronger. According to Ive, “We are absolutely consumed by trying to develop a solution that is very simple, because as physical beings we understand clarity.”

Your customers demand simplicity and simplicity requires that you eliminate anything that clutters the user experience — whether it be in product design, Web site navigation, marketing and advertising materials and presentation slides. Say “no” more often than “yes.”

Create Insanely Great Experiences. There are no cashiers at an Apple Store. There are specialists, creatives — even geniuses — but no cashiers. Although the Apple Stores have no commissioned sales staff, they generate more revenue per square foot than most other widely-recognized brands. Apple created an innovative retail experience by studying a company known for its customer experience — the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. According to Ron Johnson, Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, Apple Stores would attract shoppers not by moving boxes, but by “enriching lives.” Apple would offer customers a concierge-like experience, much like a customer would receive in an elegant hotel. Enrich lives and watch your sales soar.

In a documentary on the making of the film, Jaws, Steven Spielberg said that he was forced to improvise when the mechanical shark failed. He asked himself, “What would Hitchcock do?” The answer: Hitchcock would never show the shark. The global economy is in the jaws of the worst recession in decades. How can your company emerge from the recession stronger, more inspired and more innovative than ever? Look at history as a guide and ask yourself, “What would Steve do?”