Skip to content

UXL Blog

“Creating Successful Leaders”

Tag Archives: Personal Branding

October 23, 2013 On Organization: Let’s Learn From The Chefs

“Type A” people are too often misunderstood as overly strict and tightly wound when it comes to organization. Actually, we can learn from the type A’s out there. Their strict adherence to systems of organization may seem strange to a “go-with-the-flow” type of person, but they pay such close attention to sticking to the systems not to be weirdos, but to make things easier on themselves.

A timeless philosophy from the culinary tradition epitomizes the power of a well-organized work space:

Mise en place.

It’s French, and it translates roughly to “everything in its place.”

Going the extra mile in preparation for tasks helps you. It makes you work faster. It minimizes stress. It gives you free time. Imagine you’re a chef and all the things at your desk are different ingredients. Putting all the things in their place makes work flow beautifully, which is what mise en place is all about.

Tags: , , , , , ,

June 27, 2013 How To Give A Presentation People Will Actually Remember

I talked about the importance of telling a story with your presentation a few weeks back.

This week I came across a book that adds more insight to this topic: Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds. Using the principles of Zen, Reynolds calls for an approach that covers the entire process of making a presentation, from preparation to delivery.

Most presentations are neither exciting nor inspiring. “The dull, text-filled slide approach is common and normal, but it is not effective,” says Reynolds. And I think he’s right. I can’t tell you how many presentations I’ve sat through where I had no idea what the main points were even a few days after the fact.

Presentation Zen is a more basic approach to giving presentations, i.e., less is more. Your slides aren’t giving the presentation for you, but serve as a visual reference for you to keep the talk in context and to entice the audience. The moment you begin relying on your slides to inform the audience with content is the moment you can be sure you’ve put your audience to sleep.

Reynolds thinks we should take on a minimal design for our presentation slides. Don’t clutter your slides with colors and pictures and “fun” moving images. All of this just makes visual noise and takes away from the main points. Instead, slides should point back to you, the speaker, for insight and clarification.

Sure, there are some cases where you’ll need to put statistics and data on your slides. But do so in a way that points back to you, the story-teller, the informer, otherwise the audience isn’t bound to remember why your pie chart was that important.

Reynolds three main points in the book are:

Restraint in preparation 

We tend to go overboard in the research and scope of our presentations. Hold back, focus the discussion, and trust the process.

Simplicity in design

Pictures and text are suggestions and visual cues to the main point of the presentation: what you have to say.

Naturalness in delivery

This part takes practice. It has to do with public speaking, with teaching, with telling a story. None of these things come naturally. Yet with practice, you can become comfortable being yourself before others.

Reynolds, Garr. “Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery.” Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2012.

Tags: , , , , , ,

May 15, 2013 Good Writing Matters

Just as any good writer must know the subject they’re writing about, a good leader must be able to communicate well, and this includes strong writing.

You don’t need to become a novelist to write well. Whether it is an e-mail, memo, initiative, or presentation, good business writing follows these principles: clarity, succinctness and authenticity. Here are some quick and easy tips to help you write in this manner.

Write Short Sentences That Mean What They Say

Limit sentences to one idea each, only at first. It’s actually pretty hard to write a short sentence that is both clear and to the point. We tend to add words over weak sentences in an attempt to make them more professional sounding, but this usually backfires and makes us sound like we’re trying too hard. As New York Times editor Verlyn Klinkenborg puts it:

“It’s perfectly possible to make wretched short sentences. But it’s hard to go on making them because they sound so wretched and because it’s easy to fix them. Making them longer is not the way to fix them.”

You won’t need lots of big words if the core of your sentence has a strong idea. Once you feel comfortable with short and sweet, you can begin fleshing out your sentences. But only use words you know…

Use Words You Know

I encourage people to use strong action verbs on their resumes. These are words that follow the first two of our three writing principles in that they describe specific actions (clarity) with a single word (succinctness).  You may be thinking, wait, wasn’t I just told to avoid big words? Well, yes and no.

If you can use action verbs appropriately, then please use them and use them often! The trouble comes with those who use words in ways that do not make sense.

If you aren’t sure about a word, don’t use it until you look it up. Be sure to read examples of it used in a sentence.

Write In Your Own Voice

I think many miss the point that writing is an extension of our communication toolkit, and therefore an extension of ourselves. This may be due to negative experiences in school, where it seemed as if all the writing rules smothered a person’s unique voice.

Well, I’m telling you now that writing should always reflect a part of you. You must always be authentic with your words. Don’t betray yourself to big words you do not mean or big ideas you do not believe. Write what you know and what you believe. Disingenuous writing isn’t convincing and hinders real communication within an organization.

In this way, writing can be pretty empowering. You get to share your views in your unique way.

For more specific writing advice, check out my posts on resumes and cover letters.

Reference

Klinkenborg, Verlyn. Several Short Sentences about Writing. New York: Vintage Books, 2013, page 11.

Tags: , , , , ,