Each of us is a unique person with a distinct collection of values, beliefs, needs, and desires that describes who we are and defines what is important to us. We are all complex individuals whose lives consist of many aspects which demand our daily focus and attention. To live productive, goal-directed lives, we need to be acutely aware of what really matters to us today and what we ardently desire for the future. This awareness forms the basis for setting short-term and long-term, tangible and intangible goals for each important area of our lives.

 

Setting goals, however, is only the first step for living a successful, rewarding life. Identifying what really matters to us today and what we ardently desire for our future is only the blueprint or prescription for achieving the outcomes we desire. Our personal growth depends greatly on our ability to examine the parts of our individual lives to see if they add up to the total person we each want to be. The next critical component is the development of an effective action plan listing the specific actions to be taken, the challenges to be overcome and the deadlines to be met. Without a detailed, written plan for goal achievement, any approach toward achieving personal success amounts to little more than a wish list. more about goal-setting 

 

Since our time is limited, it is critically important that that we allocate our thoughts and energy in a manner that is appropriate to our immediate needs and concerns and to be confident that our daily activities are aligned with our immediate and long-range goals. Furthermore, we should continually assess our daily activities to ensure that we are devoting appropriate time and effort to those aspects of our lives that we hold dear and are on track to achieve our life objectives.

 

But how can we be sure that our daily activities are indeed on track for achieving what we want to achieve in the various areas of our lives?

 

While there can be any number of approaches for categorizing the key areas of life that blend together to form a total person, the "Life Wheel" model shown below can be a useful tool for identifying what is important and whether we are allocating our time and energy in an effective manner.

 

This "Life Wheel" depicted below is divided into six life areas: Financial/Career, Family, Social, Ethics & Beliefs, Mental, and Physical. It is presented here as a suggested model for organizing the major aspects of one's life. If you don't particularly feel that it represents an effective model for categorizing the important areas of your life, then revise it as you see fit. The important thing is that you come up with some form of schematic to graphically display your primary areas of focus.

 

This life wheel has the six areas equally divided reflecting an equal emphasis on each life area. While this allocation might be considered to be an ideal arrangement, it is probably not a realistic or practical representation of most people's lives and it is not intended to convey that idea. It is only presented as a starting point for discussion. Clearly, different people will place greater or lesser value and importance on different life areas. At different points in our lives, our focus will probably be more on some areas and less on others reflecting our circumstances at the time, and our long range goals will also likely reflect a life wheel that is puts a disproportionate emphasis on certain areas.

 

The life wheel concept is most useful if you create a series of them with one reflecting your current goals and others reflecting your focus at various future points in your life. By creating these life wheels you will have a powerful visual tool for organizing your personal success efforts that will help you crystallize your thinking and make it easier for you to visualize your desired outcomes. This visual image will also help reinforce your commitment to your goals. I find that Microsoft Excel is a relatively simple tool to use for creating these life wheels. Feel free to contact me if you would like assistance in creating a life wheel.

 

The following graph is an example of what a personalized life wheel might look like.

 

Time and Effort Allocation

 

In addition to helping you more effectively visualize the key areas of your life, a personalized life wheel provides a clear guide to your planning and organization. The time and effort you devote to a particular life area should be directly proportional to the importance of that area and the goals associated with it. An accurately constructed life wheel, then, answers the question posed above, namely: "How can I be sure that my daily activities are on track for achieving what I want to achieve in the various areas of my life?

 

Assuming that each of us has about 110 waking hours available every week, this particular life wheel includes a 40% focus on financial/career reflecting about 8 hours a day 5 days a week at a job or profession, four hours a day (25%) devoted to family and about one and a half hours a day (10%) allocated to physical conditioning. If this were a life wheel of a college student, it might include a very large chunk of time and effort devoted to mental and little or none to family.

 

Take-Away

 

By creating a life wheel, especially for your current circumstances, you will significantly clarify your current intended areas of focus and will then be able to continually assess your daily activities to ensure that you are devoting appropriate time and effort to each of those areas of your life you hold dear and are on track to achieve your life goals.

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The ability to speak effectively in a business setting is an essential and highly-valued communication skill. Being able to present ideas in a confident, persuasive manner is often just as important, if not more important, than technical expertise, and can be a critical contributing factor to professional success. How one speaks shapes how one is perceived. Everything that other people come to believe about each of us is based to a very significant extent on what we say and how we say it. One's ability to effectively present ideas to others can even make or break a project, product or career.

 

Speaking in business can take many forms including one-to-one conversations, small group interactions and large group presentations. When it comes to speaking to groups many of us enjoy it and look forward to it. Others of us dislike it and may even dread it. The reality, however, is that we all need to do it, and because we need to do it and because it is important, it makes sense that we should strive to be the best we can be at it. Most of us are usually pretty comfortable in a one-to-one interaction, but that doesn't mean that we are necessarily always effective in such situations.

Regardless of the business speaking format, there are three key elements to speaking confidently and persuasively: knowing your audience, effective delivery and preparation.

 

Knowing Your Audience

 

To succeed with the members of an audience, a speaker must establish an "emotional connection" with them. Therefore, before presenting to an audience whether it consists on one, a few or many, it is important to know who they are; what they are expecting; their attitudes, biases and concerns; and if you are talking to more than one person, what if anything the audience has in common. This will help you tailor your talk to the audience. The following are some questions you can ask yourself in analyzing your audience:

• Is your audience there because they want to be or because they have to be?
  If the participants have showed up to listen to you voluntarily, they will likely be looking forward to what you have to say. If the audience members are there because they were told to attend, you may need to focus more attention on building rapport with them and on why what you have to say may be of value to them.



• Is your audience receptive or hostile to you personally?
  If audience members like and respect you, they will tend to be open and receptive to your message. On the other hand, if they have an unfavorable impression of you, you will probably have to take some steps in your presentation to offset, alleviate or overcome their feelings and concerns.



• Will your audience be open to or resistant to your message?
  If the audience is likely to respond positively to your idea or proposal, then you have common ground to build on. However, if you anticipate that the audience will be opposed to your message, then you should plan on including persuasive techniques and strategies in your presentation.

Effective Delivery

 

Most of the time when we are speaking with or to others, we are primarily conscious of the works we speak, but when we are presenting, we are also usually communicating through our facial expressions, the characteristics of our voice and our body language. For convenience sake, we can categorize the impact of our message into its verbal, vocal, and visual elements.

• Verbal
  Verbal elements include the actual words we use in communicating along with any pauses and crutch or filler words such as "ums" and "ahs" we tend to mix in among them. We should always strive to use concise, precise language devoid of a lot of potentially annoying jargon or complicated phrases. Filler words are usually used by speakers to buy time while they are thinking about what to say next. If overused, they can become a distraction to the listener and convey a lack of speaker confidence.



• Vocal
  Vocal qualities include a wide array of non-verbal vocal behaviors such as voice pitch, rate, volume, inflection, and tempo as well as the pronunciation of words. Vocal qualities can lead listeners to form a variety of impressions about a speaker based on their interpretations of what certain vocal qualities mean. Vocal quality can have an especially powerful influence on a listener's perception of a speaker's feelings, emotions or even state of mind. How often have we heard others comment to the fact that someone sounds happy, angry or confused? The sound of what a person says can even indicate the exact opposite of what his words are intending to convey. He may be saying "I'm O.K," but the tone of his voice and the hesitancy with which he expresses his words may clearly indicate that he is definitely not O.K.



• Visual
  Regardless of the situation or circumstance, every time we interact with others whether individually or in a group, we also communicate non-verbally a great deal about who we are and what we are by how we use our body during the communication process. While we are usually not consciously aware of it, we are almost always involving our bodies in our conversations, and while our bodies speak silently, they communicate profoundly nonetheless. Our facial expression, hand gestures, posture and behavior in general send signals that can contribute significant meaning to a listener about the nature of the message and the mind-set and feelings of the speaker. Body language can either add (a warm handshake) or detract (lack of eye contact) from the positive impact of a particular message.

Preparation

 

No business communication is likely to be effective if you do not properly prepare for it. Most of us wouldn't send out a written memo without organizing it appropriately and carefully reviewing it before sending it out. It should be the same with spoken communication. Here are some key steps for effectively organizing and preparing a presentation:

• Define the purpose of your presentation
  Determine whether the purpose of your talk or presentation is to inform, persuade, or entertain. If your purpose is to inform, then you must prepare your information in a clear and easy-to-understand manner and plan to deliver it in a format conducive to learning. If your purpose is to persuade, plan to use convincing arguments to appeal to the listeners' ethics, emotion, or logic. If entertaining is your focus, try to include a humorous anecdote to amuse and engage your audience. Many times a business speaker may find the need to focus on more than one purpose in his or her presentation.



• Identify Presentation Dynamics
  This has to do with the expected flow of your presentation. Will there be questions or other audience participation? Will you be talking to an individual or a group, and if a group, will it be large or small? Will the atmosphere be intimate or formal. Will you be speaking individually or as part of a group? Will the audience be receptive or hostile (see knowing your audience above). These are all factors that will determine the dynamics of your presentation and should be factored into your preparation.



• Organize Presentation Content
  Determine the length of your presentation and organize it into beginning, middle and closing segments. Prepare any visuals as well as any notes you intend to use. Pay special attention to your opening (critical to gaining audience attention) and your ending (to emphasize the take-away message).



• Practice, Practice, Practice
  Practice is the best way to become comfortable with your presentation content and confident with your delivery. The more you practice the more effective you will become and the more you will enjoy business speaking. Furthermore, often times you will only have one chance to make a point, advance an idea or impact an outcome. The best way to prepare for possible eventualities is to pre-play in your mind situations that may arise during a presentation and plan for how to handle them. This way you will be prepared when such situations arise and won't be challenged by them.

Contact us to learn about our presentation skills development programs.

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People often associate the topic of persuasion primarily with the concept of selling, but the importance of effective persuasion skills really pertains to every one of us regardless of our individual vocation. Every day each of us is involved to some degree in influencing the thoughts and actions of others. In fact, the path to success in life lies to a very large extent in gaining the cooperation of others. In this edition of Insights, we continue with our ongoing segment dedicated to the topic of persuasion.

 

Walk a While in the Other Person's Shoes

 

A basic principle of effective persuasion is that people tend to trust, believe and align with individuals who think and feel as they do. It is natural for people to accept the ideas and positions of others if they perceive those thoughts and positions to be their own. On the other hand, persuasion can become a very tough challenge when the person or persons you are trying to persuade believe that your views and opinions run counter to their beliefs. Furthermore, it can be even more difficult to persuade another if his or her position is the direct opposite of the one you are proposing. In selling, this would be like trying to get a potential customer to use your product or service exclusively when up to this point; the prospect has not used your product or service at all.

  

Find Common Ground

 

Effective persuaders tend to exhibit certain personal qualities that contribute to their success, one of which is that they are generally excellent listeners and observers of others' behavior. This allows them to gain insights into the thoughts and feelings of those they seek to persuade. Then by adopting some of those same positions in a subtle and inconspicuous ways, a bond or connection begins to form between speaker and listener. This doesn't mean conceding on the main point of your argument, but rather, simply agreeing with some of the less relevant views held by those you are speaking with. This causes others to perceive that you are more like them, and tends to make them more receptive and accepting of your ideas.

 

Set a Reasonable Persuasion Goal

 

When setting out to persuade another, you are essentially attempting to get someone else to change his or her current position, and we are all aware that change is usually quite difficult. For more on change, review Four Critical Steps to Change from November's Insights. Therefore, it may make sense in some situations to try to get agreement on some interim or lesser point instead of going for the total end objective. In the sales example mentioned above, suggesting the prospect try your product or service one time or getting him or her to accept a free trial might be a more reasonable goal (and require a less dramatic change) than asking the prospect for a full and complete commitment.

 

Adapting to Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic Communication Styles

 

It is generally accepted that people prefer one of three communication styles when interacting with others. These styles are visual, auditory and kinesthetic. People with the visual preference tend to incorporate visual-oriented phrases such as "I see," "that looks good," and "I view it differently." They also tend to speak rather quickly and maintain an erect posture.

 

Auditory people use hearing-oriented phrases. They will be more likely to say "I hear you," "that sounds right," or "that rings true." Auditories have an almost musical quality to their voices and often tilt their heads to the side when listening. Kinesthetic people tend to express themselves through feelings-oriented language. They are likely to use phrases such as "I feel," and "I sense." In addition, kinesthetics tend to speak in a deeper voice and exhibit a more slouching posture.

 

By observing your listeners communication style and matching yours to theirs, you will connect with them more effectively and create the perception that you are like them. The end result will be that they will be more inclined to accept what you say and, ultimately, act on it.

 

Ask us a question about persuasiveness.