Monthly Archives: July 2020

As a manager, it is essential to be able to deliver presentations. Managers need to be able to communicate with staff and potential clients, and if they don't focus on effective delivery, it can cause issues from staff and potential clients.

Unfortunately, managers can deliver a presentation without understanding the techniques or skills required, and this is where the issues occur. The following are common issues.

No structure - An effective presentation needs an intro, main-body and a summary. In other words, tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them.

Over-reliance on PowerPoint - We have all been to presentations where the presenter reads slides out. This practice isn't effective, and people switch off.

Too busy slides - If you are using PowerPoint, don't make your text too small, people can't read it, and again even if they can it's boring. Slides should be punchy or contain some images.

Appearing underconfident - when you deliver a presentation,

In my coaching and supervision sessions, I hear so much negativity. I do like to shift the paradigm sometimes and ask for the positives if the situation allows this to happen. It seems strange to my clients when I ask a simple question like “What have you got to be grateful for”?

In life, we have plenty to be positive about; it is hugely important in having a gratitude attitude. People find being negative so easy but being thankful seems slightly alien, and when asked what you have got to be happy and grateful for I am met with surprise. If you would like to do something about it, guess what you can!

Here is an exercise; ask yourself how happy you are and really think about the positives in your life, there will be plenty. We don’t tend to focus on the areas we can be happy and grateful for it is all about what we don’t like. If you have a positive mindset and you say to yourself every day what you have to be happy and grateful, you will start to build the habit of positivity. This is incredibly

There is no doubt that PowerPoint is a fantastic tool.  It allows us to reinforce visually a critical message which we are trying to get across.  Whether as a trainer or a manager delivering a presentation, it can be a great tool to get your message across.  Of course, we also know that in the wrong hands, PowerPoint can be the most annoying way of delivering a presentation or training session.  We have done many blogs regarding the overuse of PowerPoint and of course ‘Death by PowerPoint’ syndrome.

When I am delivering our Train the Trainer courses and Management Programmes (online and face to face) where we cover presentation techniques, I am still amazed at how many people think it’s everything.  What also concerns me is when trainers use this statement “I like using PowerPoint, as it helps me”.  A hazardous statement as it reinforces where our priorities are when training, i.e. me or I.

Not only does it highlight our real thoughts and where we are thinking (ourselves),

How important is questioning in coaching? Extremely important is the answer. How does it differ from questioning in training? It is very different.

In training when you question, you question to get to an answer. You drive for the answers you want using open questions or good trainers do. You always know where you are going with your questioning. Coaching is very different; you are not always after an answer; coaches guide the conversation to see what pops up.

In coaching, when you are guiding your client, you still use open questions, and you explore the words and meanings that pop up and notice what gets triggered. There are some coaches out there still telling, pushing a client to a result based upon their own judgement, not really understanding they are doing it and why they are doing it.

Coaching is about sitting with the silences, looking for no particular answer. You can share what you are sensing and what your instinct is telling you, but there is no telling unless you ask to offer

The most enjoyed elements of our PTT Train the Trainer course are the skills that are taught.  One of the most enjoyed skill sets shown is the ability to throw the monkey. For those that aren't aware, the monkey is the negative thoughts and feelings you get when you forget something or when something goes wrong.  It makes you feel anxious and nervous, which makes things worse.  

This monkey causes massive problems, and if we are not careful, it will cause us issues when we are delivering training.  Furthermore, we can create a habit of keeping the monkey and therefore keeping the stress.  This is not a healthy habit to create and it can then become a self-fulfilling prophecy, occurring every time we stand up and deliver training or public speaking.

When we throw the monkey, we are moving attention from us to others, we do this by getting others to do an activity or asking questions.  In other words, we are causing a distraction away from us!

Monkey throwing is an art;

In my experience as a soft skills trainer, I have met a lot of people who ask about assertiveness skills. This has either come about due to previous experiences, which had resulted in being aggressive or passive.

Individuals will often question why they need to be assertive, and many believe that screaming and shouting is being assertive! When we start to scream and shout, we have lost control, and we are probably aggressive. Indeed in my experience, poor management or leadership can be traced back to not being assertive when required, and we have given in and become either passive or aggressive.

What do we mean about being assertive? Well, it's not about being aggressive or steamrolling someone into submission. It is much more than that; it is about being in control seeking and exchanging opinions, developing a full understanding of the situation and negotiating a win-win situation.

As is the case with many of these skills, being assertive can come more naturally in some, and this

Think of the most professional delivery of a training session you have had personally and ask yourself why?  There could be many reasons you think that way but the most common factor will be because the Trainer was exceptionally well prepared and organised!

I once remember arriving at a training session where we were sent to the wrong room, and then when we arrived, the trainer wasn’t even there.  When the Trainer eventually came, they were in a complete panic about everything; then when the session started, it was rushed and ineffective because the audience had disengaged entirely.  So did I go away having learnt what I was supposed to?  Absolutely not,  because all I remember is how badly disorganised it was.  So how can you ensure you are fully prepared and organised?

Here are some top tips:

When delivering online, understand the system.  Whatever platform is being used, ensure you know how it works, and also ensure your delegates know what to do to get on the platform.

What does coping mean? I often hear in my coaching sessions from my clients that they are coping. I always think about what the word coping means to them. I think some people may not even know or realise they are using coping strategies/mechanisms, the word coping is very subjective.

Believe it or not, there are between 400- 600 strategies. They are split into three areas, appraisal-focused with denial being the most common in this area.  Then second is problem-focused, where you may modify your behaviour to cope and finally emotion-focused. This is where you alter your emotions to eliminate stress, e.g. relaxation. Just for a second; there think about you and what you may do?

This may affect your self-esteem. What is self-esteem? It basically means; your personal subjective evaluation of your own self-worth. Self-esteem covers emotional states, beliefs about oneself, despair, shame, and pride. Self Esteem is a vast area, and something I hear consistently in my coaching sessions.

The

The pace of training delivery being delivered online is staggering. Over 30 per cent of higher education students in the U.S. are taking at least one distance course online. This is likely to increase significantly over the next two years.

Many trainers, executives and managers find themselves increasingly confronted with the demand for online training. The delivery can be a very unfamiliar process, and if not handled correctly, the training experience can be detrimental from a delegate's perspective.  

Having had experience in attending webinars and online training courses, I became very frustrated. The trainers involved weren't training they were telling me lots of things (with a desire to sell me something in many cases). Furthermore, many didn't know how to capitalise on online delivery, and I was left with the feeling that I didn't learn anything.

I decided to do something about it and created our very own Train the Online Trainer course. The course incorporates the five pillars