How to create good presentations?

 There are many tips and tricks of trade that has been taught to people in the corporate world, for creating a "great" presentation. I am happy if we gave "good" presentation rather. Why "good" and not "great" must be a question that you might have in mind....

 Well ... what is the objective of presenting? To put across our point of view and rally people around our "Point of View". Do you think people will rally around you just because you have fancy animations and pictures in your presentation? Or talking at length about it?

The answer is NO. It is much like having a conversation, except that a presentation could be for a larger audience with common or related interests. For others to be able to support you, your first intention must be to have a win-win situation.

What good can you do to others by this "Point of View"? How will it benefit others? Put others' interests before yours. These are what our scriptures have taught us as "golden rules" or "principles" of life. If one sticks to these, we would naturally create a riveting presentation which has the "goodness" in it. And that is what I meant when I said I would rather create a "good" presentation than a "great" presentation.

 In my own presentations I try to stick to 3 ways in which my "Point of View" can benefit the audience. If I can't identify the "goodness" factor, I open up the session to get views on how the audience thinks it can benefit or would like to see. That way even if I don't have the answers, we get to agree on a cause / action, which in essence , is the whole purpose of "presentation".

The conflicts, obscurity and all of it is taken care, when there is "goodness" for everyone. In my opinion, people generally don't agree or don't understand when they don't see the "goodness" factor.

Any thoughts or experiences that you would like to share?
 

Live an Let Live ! – Mantra for Communication with focus on leadership

One of the first instincts of human-beings soon after birth is Communication, and yet,

as mature adults we have a myriad of problems Communicating! Strange! One might

argue that the purpose of communication of a baby is different from that of an adult. It

is multipurpose, multidimensional etc. etc. and hence it is challenging. We go through

some of the best and tested corporate training and grooming to COMMUNICATE. I

would instead take a leaf from our ancient Indian scriptures and make it simple. We can deal effectively with differing social styles in people; Handle problems without harming

relationships; address challenges in collaboration; Cross cultural communication;

communicate effectively to establish and maintain mutual purpose and mutual respect

• with just one mantra - Live and Let Live! Wondering how? Read on ….

What is the essence of this mantra? No matter what technique you use, if the underlying intentions are not noble, it will show through. Noble?? I can already see eyes rolling. What has noble got to do with effective communication? Can we have noble cause and intentions and still survive in this world? I am convinced it is.

Irrespective of the differing social styles, culture, religion, “survival” instinct is the

basis of human race. And anything that seemingly threatens this instinct leads to

conflicts - harms relationships, destroys trust, destroys mutual purpose and mutual

respect.

Self preservation is the behavior that ensures survival instinct. Everyone wants to

preserve their views / opinion, their respect, their interests. It is instinctive to put

“mine” before the others – my views, my opinion, my respect, my interest…

Everyone tries to put theirs first and then think of mutual purpose and interest.

I for example, would start with … I need to finish task A in my project, I can do x,

y, z, but need help with two other activities, which can be done by Betty, so let me

talk to her. Now, when I go with this intention and mind-set, I would try to make it

mutually beneficial, but still my priorities and interests would be placed above Betty’s

and that’s when I will have to try putting it in a way that is attractive to her social

style, and might still sometimes end up harming our relationship.

Communication would become much simpler and effective, if we are

genuinely interested in others. This is the essence of “Live and Let Live”. Live and

Let Live means, genuine, unadulterated interest in people, which lets us grow as a

person and professional and lets others grow as well. This I can promise will lead to a

fulfilling life both personally and professionally.

Let me take the same example above, and walk through it, following Live and Let

Live mantra. I would not talk to Betty just because I need to complete task A, and I cannot complete a few activities. I would ask Betty to help me out, only if it is going to bring some benefit to Betty. Benefit could be in terms of visibility, growth, reward / recognition etc. Here I am being genuinely interested in Betty, while also trying to get my task done. If I do not see anything truly beneficial for Betty, I will not ask her.

But, can this be applied to all situations? What about communicating for your own

growth? Let me walk through this scenario. It is natural to want to grow in the Organization. But, what is the Organization going to get out of it? My thoughts

should be, what can I bring to the Organization if I take up the new role? How can it

benefit the organization and my management? If you can answer these, and then

communicate about your growth, it would be very effective.

Creative Visualization(a Book by Shakti Gwain) - Use The Power of Your Imagination

I have started reading the book titled "Creative Visualization" by Shakti Gwain. I chose this book to understand how she melds Eastern World of spirituality with the Western psychology, and explore how it can be adopted for personal and professional growth.
 After having gone through the first few chapters, I don't feel let down. My own interpretation on the crux of the book is,  "Meditating on good for the greater cause, leads you to success in your own life".   The book while doling out techniques for meditation, dwells on why it is important to mean and do well unto others.

 She recommends that we start practicing it with a simple goal. I started off with the goal of reaching "x" hits within a day for this blog :) And I achieved 85% of  my goal ! Not bad for a start :)

 The lessons learnt from this simple exercise were
1. Though the goal might be materialistic in a sense, it is important that the purpose or end objective be spiritualistic, as in benefit others. It could be as little as benefiting your kin to as big as benefiting the larger world
2. Meditation and other techniques that I learnt from my spiritual leanings helped me get going
3. Affirmations are key. Shakti gives various examples of positive affirmations in her book. I found my source of strength / positive affirmation by prayer. Each of you could hinge on your own instincts.

If each of us as individuals use this in our personal and professional life, imagine what we could achieve as leaders or otherwise. Can it be used to bring us out of economic doldrums? Can it bring harmony between warring nations?

I am setting out to start visualizing for a bigger goal. Will keep you all posted in a later blog.

Until then would like to hear from others who might have / have not read this book, and experiences with visualizing, auto-suggestion etc. I am also looking for neuroscience research in this area, so any insights there would help energize this movement / thought.