Preparation Is Key

The more specific and credible the business speaker's message is, the more likely it is their audience or client will believe it. But this takes preparation and focus. Just like a painter must prepare their paints and canvas, just as a coach must prepare a team for the big game, someone who wishes to influence others with his or her message must take the necessary time to prepare. Without preparation, it is much less likely that a speaker's message will hit its mark and accomplish its objective—whether the goal is instituting a policy, detailing a program, or describing a process. The more prepared you are for your presentation or interview, the more comfortable you will be and the easier it will be to relax and focus on the objective you have set for yourself. By knowing your material, your transitions from one point to the next will flow more smoothly and allow you to focus on your audience and their reactions to what you are saying rather than on what you are supposed to say next. Without adequate preparation, your delivery will lack smoothness and certainty. One example of embarrassingly inadequate preparation took place in 2013 with one of the most recognizable brands in history, a debacle that ended up costing this particular company more than $14 billion.

Stephen Curry, the star point guard for the Golden State Warriors, is an international sensation. As a younger athlete, Curry had worn Nike shoes growing up and also as a college player at Davidson. When he was drafted by the Warriors, he signed a sponsorship deal with Nike and was wearing their shoes in 2013 during his breakout 54-point game at Madison Square Garden. Coming off a great season, Nike owned the first opportunity to keep Curry on their roster and extend his sponsorship. “I was with them for years,” said Curry, before admitting, “It's kind of a weird process being pitched by the company you're already with.” According to Forbes, Nike accounted for 95.5 percent of the basketball sneaker market in 2014. They were the undisputed heavyweights in the battle for market share—which perhaps played into the lack of preparation given to their meeting with Curry to re-up his deal. Often, when people get complacent or overconfident, they get sloppy and fail to put in the time needed to ensure proper preparation.

The meeting between Team Curry and the Nike representatives took place at the Oakland Marriott, three levels below Golden State's practice facility. To the surprise of Curry and his team, Nike power broker Lynn Merritt didn't show up for the meeting and instead Nico Harrison, a sports marketing director at the time, ran the meeting. The pitch itself did not begin well, with one Nike rep accidentally addressing Stephen as “Steph-ON.” Said Curry's father, Dell, “I heard some people pronounce his name wrong before. I wasn't surprised,” but added, “I was surprised that I didn't get a correction.”

The presentation by Team Nike only got worse as it went along. A slide was shown that featured Kevin Durant's name instead of Curry's—a result of someone repurposing slides from a previous presentation without taking the time to swap in Curry's name. “I stopped paying attention after that,” said Dell. Though Dell and the others presented poker faces while they listened to the rest of the pitch, the lack of detail on the part of the Nike executives showed sloppiness and a lack of respect toward Curry and his team. Team Curry never got a strong indication that Curry would ever be seen as a signature athlete for the shoe giant and, as a result, the decision to leave Nike was in the works. Famously, this is where Under Armour swooped in and snagged the Curry endorsement. Stephen Curry went on to become a two-time NBA MVP with two championship titles to his credit. His relationship with Under Armour paid off handsomely for the athletic gear maker as they saw a 57 percent jump in footwear sales—a whopping total of $677.7 million. Curry has become such an integral part of the Under Armour brand that the shoe company recently agreed to a contract extension for Curry through 2024, including an ownership stake in the company.⁹

Like a building that rises from the ground one brick at a time, the material for a presentation must be constructed and prepared in much the same way. By organizing your content with a focus on the benefits it will provide to your audience, you will have strong material from the beginning of the process. Be just as judicious with the information you choose to include as the material that you leave out. Less is more. Research shows that people can only remember around five to nine bits of information at a given time, so it helpful to limit the information you are providing so as not to overwhelm or confuse your audience.¹⁰ It is also helpful to divide your material into “chunks.” By breaking your presentation into smaller sections, it will not only be easier to understand and follow, it will also be easier for audience members to remember. When preparing, work one chunk at a time. Once you feel confident and comfortable with one, you can begin linking each chunk to the next until you are ready to run the presentation in its entirety. As the old saying reminds us, “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.”

To be properly prepared, it is helpful to do a dress rehearsal—an informal run-through of your entire presentation—for a spouse or coworker. This gives you a chance to practice it on your feet so you can feel the flow as you move from one section to the next and identify which sections or transitions need attention. Transitions help to create a clear and logical journey for your audience. How well you master the transitions in your presentation can often make or break it. By physically running the presentation in an informal, no-stakes setting, you will become more comfortable with the material and this familiarity will boost your confidence. The more time you can spend practicing out loud, the better prepared you will be during the actual meeting or presentation. Interestingly, a recent survey found that only 2 percent of executives practice their presentations out loud.¹¹ This is a missed opportunity for the 98 percent who don't. Once you've finished your dress rehearsal, get feedback from those who watched it. Ask them which sections dragged or lacked clarity. Solicit honest feedback about your voice and body language and use these observations to refine and sharpen your performance. Also, anticipate ahead of time what difficult questions your audience might ask and practice your answers so you are ready for them.

The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.

—RAY KROC

According to Megan Bruneau, a mental health therapist: “Anxiety feeds off uncertainty, and confidence feeds off familiarity.”¹² All the more reason to prepare so you can make your unknowns known. If you have put in the adequate time to prepare your material and delivery, you will be more confident on the day. Remind yourself that no one knows this material better than you. Audiences look for confidence and a relaxed presence from speakers so do your best to enjoy the experience. Dorothy Sarnoff, a professional actress who coached numerous presidents and world leaders over her career, often advised speakers that every audience should get the feeling from a speaker that communicated: “I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad you're here. I care about you.”¹³

A common phenomenon that can plague even the best leader is something called imposter syndrome whereby a person feels their achievements are “undeserved” or that they will somehow be exposed as a fraud by an audience, despite possessing accomplishments and achievements to the contrary. According to one study, an estimated 70 percent of people will experience at least one episode of imposter syndrome in their lifetime.¹⁴ While this distracting (or crippling, for some) feeling of inadequacy was originally believed to mostly affect women, research has revealed that leaders from both genders, across a range of backgrounds and industries, suffer from it. Even the most powerful leaders experience insecurities and doubts about their abilities. Being prepared and silencing your critical inner voice through positive thought and creative visualization will go a long way toward managing feelings of insecurity or inadequacy in your abilities or power.

In his book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell posited that someone learning a skill or trade needed 10,000 hours of practice before they could truly master something—whether it was playing the cello, writing computer code, or speaking in front of an audience.¹⁵ According to Anders Ericsson, the psychology professor at Florida State from whose work Gladwell drew the 10,000-hour benchmark, it is not natural-born talent that makes someone exceptional but rather the time that the person invests to achieve mastery through preparation and “deliberate practice.” For preparation to be effective it has to have specific goals that are well-defined. “You don't get benefits from mechanical repetition,” says Ericsson, “but by adjusting your execution over and over to get closer to your goal.”¹⁶ And billionaire Mark Cuban agrees that proper preparation is essential when communicating in a business setting. “When you walk into a room, if you don't know more about your industry, your customer, your business than anyone else in the world,” he said, “someone like me is going to come in and kick your ass.”¹⁷

By stepping up as a leader and promoting your ideas, you are putting yourself forward for judgment. This can be scary as it opens us up for criticism, negative feedback, and, potentially, rejection. This type of exposure can make us feel judged and vulnerable. Additionally, we all have the inner judgments we contend with every day, that critical inner voice that can trip us up or cause self-doubt in the moment. But speaking up and advocating for our ideas can also be a place of great power for a communicator as all eyes and all ears are on you. One of the reasons people are nervous when speaking in front of others is that they fear the unknown. What if the audience asks me a question that I can't answer? We fear looking foolish or appearing uninformed. This is a common reason people have speech anxiety. To help calm your nerves, remind yourself that no one is expecting you to know everything there is to know about a topic. You only have to be the expert with regard to what you are prepared to present in that particular meeting or presentation. If a question comes up that is outside the scope of your message, simply ask the person if you can research the answer and get back to them with the information they seek.

Truly great technique has the generosity to vanish and take no credit.

—DECLAN DONNELLAN

People get nervous when communicating in front of others because of something called the spotlight effect, whereby they feel like they are seen and judged and noticed more harshly by an audience than they generally are. The spotlight effect—a phenomenon first coined by Thomas Gilovich and his colleagues—involves the tendency to overestimate the extent to which one is noticed by others.¹⁸ For example, someone may feel nervous when pitching a new product to a client but generally overestimates how nervous they actually appear to the client in that moment. The key for someone who struggles with the spotlight effect is to first acknowledge the stress and feelings you are experiencing and then shift your focus away from yourself and direct it outward to your audience and onto the objective you are attempting to achieve. The message you are delivering is not about you, it is for the benefit of your audience. By taking the focus off of you and focusing your message on others, you transfer the glare of the spotlight from you to them.

Get Comfortable Saying No

Advocating for your ideas and asserting yourself in the workplace is an important leadership trait. While in previous chapters we have extolled the virtues of avoiding the word no as it relates to collaboration and brainstorming, we now want to offer a slight exception to that advice. Being able to assertively say no to a request from someone is also an important skill for a leader to master. No holds power. No saves time and money. No is a verbal brick wall that stops the forward movement of a request or inquiry in its tracks. It has the power to end a negotiation or conversation in a split second. Sometimes no can be used for convenience while other times it can be used out of necessity. We sometimes struggle with saying no because we worry we will disappoint or upset people. We may be afraid of how our relationship will change with the other person if we deny their request or don't grant the favor. Saying no can be scary and stressful. Research done at the University of California in San Francisco shows that the harder it is for someone to say no, the more likely they are to experience stress, burnout, and depression.¹⁹ Conversely, it can also be liberating and can allow you to better manage your time or work more productively by not taking on extraneous work or committing to something for which you don't have the time or the interest. Saying no is unambiguous with regard to intent. It is clear and direct: “Are you available for a conference call next Tuesday?” “No, I'm not.”

Getting comfortable saying no can be a powerful weapon in your communication arsenal. It is definitive and unwavering. Warren Buffett once said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no' to almost everything.”²⁰ According to research, women generally have more trouble saying no than men.²¹ Author Jessica Turner has done extensive research about the challenges women face in the workplace and discovered a common theme: “For women,” said Turner, “this ‘disease to please' can wreak havoc on every area of our lives. We are nurturers by nature. We want to help and love others. But sometimes our actions are not an outpouring of love but a result of wanting to please someone else. This phenomenon is closely related to the disease of perfectionism.”²² It is important to get comfortable with your personal assertiveness when it is easy, so you are ready later on when the pressure increases and the stakes are high.

To be clear, when we advise you to get comfortable saying no, we are not talking about legitimate requests from your boss or client. What we are actually referencing are requests of your time and energy that are out of scope, above and beyond, or simply not part of your job description. Being approached to head up a committee at your child's school. Your neighbor asking you to feed their cats while they are on vacation. Or a coworker asking you to read their unfinished novel. All of these requests, if you accept them, will make demands on you and consume large chunks of your time. As Steve Jobs once advised, “It's only by saying ‘no' that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”²³

Here are some tips to become more comfortable saying no:

Analyze the audience and the request

1. Start by making sure you understand clearly who is making the request and why they are making it. If the request is coming from a senior leader, consider your answer carefully. Is the request reasonable? Is it even within my job responsibilities? Is the deadline to make it happen even feasible with my current workload and responsibilities? Ask yourself: Do I even want to do this?

Set boundaries and stick to them

1. If you are a compulsive people-pleaser, chances are you don't set boundaries. By failing to establish clear boundaries, you devalue your time and effort and people end up taking advantage of you or you end up feeling resentful or overworked. Clear boundaries that have been clearly communicated will keep everyone on the same page.

Take time to reflect before answering

1. A big trap people fall into is committing to a request immediately or before they have taken the time to give it careful consideration. Tell the person making the request you will review your schedule and get back to them with an answer. This takes the pressure off in the moment and buys you some time to consider all of the moving parts.

Understand what happens if you say yes

1. If you say yes to this proposal or commitment, actions and effort will flow from that decision. It will require your time, energy, and focus. Take a piece of paper and write down exactly what this commitment will mean to you if you answer yes. Create pro and con columns to help you sketch out an honest roadmap of what will happen if you agree to the project or request.

Be firm and don't waver

1. Once you say no, make your answer firm. Don't apologize or give excuses. Resist the impulse to defend your decision and don't let anyone make you feel guilty for turning down their request. It can also be helpful to use phrases that allow you to say no without saying no, such as “My schedule is simply too packed right now to take on additional jobs,” or “This isn't something I am able to help you with at this time,” or “I can't commit to this right now.”

Know your personal limits

1. By taking the time to understand how you work under pressure, how much time you generally need to complete a request, and how you prefer to collaborate, you will be better able to know how to respond to a request. If the answer is no, don't apologize or express regret as this will communicate uncertainty in your answer and provide the person making the request with an opening to keep asking.

Choose Your Words Carefully

“Letters, syllables, words—these are the musical notes of speech,” said Constantin Stanislavski, “Out of which to fashion measures, arias, whole symphonies.”²⁴ The words you choose have the power to elicit specific emotional responses in your audience. For example, research has shown that complimenting or positively reinforcing the decisions of customers often results in larger tips, better evaluations for products, and higher sales commissions.²⁵ Andrew M. Carton addressed the power of language in the Harvard Business Review, writing, “Leaders must communicate strategies for growth that employees can clearly envision. Instead of invoking abstract ideals, the most effective leaders communicate their visions using image-based words.”²⁶ Words like “daring,” “hero,” “unheard-of,” and “stunning” make us feel something—specifically, something positive—when we hear them. Part of what made Steve Jobs a compelling speaker was the language he used. Jobs frequently peppered his presentations and product launches with words like “amazing,” “unbelievable,” and “boom.” When delivering information to larger, more diverse crowds, simple language is the key for a leader to get their message across in a clear and compelling manner. According to Jon Favreau, former speechwriter for Barack Obama, “A leader's job isn't to educate the public—it's to inspire and persuade them. That requires meeting people where they are, and speaking in words that are easily accessible to the broadest possible audience.”²⁷ And a message with image-based words has been shown to enhance performance significantly over messages with abstract statements. One study found that hospital workers who used image-based words when communicating with patients triggered better outcomes than those who communicated ideas more abstractly.²⁸

Sensory language can be a powerful tool for a communicator because it is simple and relatable to anyone hearing it. “Talk to customers the way you would friends,” advised Rework authors Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. “Explain things as if you were sitting next to them. Avoid jargon or any sort of corporate-speak. Stay away from buzzwords when normal words will do just fine. Don't talk about ‘monetization' or being ‘transparent'; talk about making money and being honest. Don't use seven words when four will do.”²⁹ As author Herman Melville once observed: “A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.”³⁰ When attempting to persuade or influence someone, you won't be successful if they are bored or confused with the information you are presenting. A great leader will use words that help them communicate passion and vision to drive their teams.

For anyone presenting information that is meant to influence others, words like “value” and “opportunity” can spark a fire in the mind of your listener and quickly capture their attention. Winston Churchill loved words, specifically their musical quality. “There is no more important element in the technique of rhetoric,” Churchill once said. “Than the continued employment of the best possible word.”³¹ Salespeople are taught to use the word “you” and are encouraged to use a person's first name to help them build trust and rapport with a potential customer.

Another way to persuade someone is to demonstrate that you have things in common and that you are both part of the same in-group. By showing you share common traits or interests, you create a bond and build rapport. Simply using words like “we” or “us” will help reinforce the idea that you have commonality in the way you think and act: “We will have to go out and celebrate when this contract gets signed,” or “This is going to create some exciting new opportunities for us,” or “We've come a long way since this project first began.” These are all examples of how you can use words to create a feeling of inclusion with a client or team member. Research has shown that including pronouns when delivering a pitch or proposal like this can actually create a feeling of pleasure for the other person because your words have conveyed to them a sense of commonality.³²

Influence is like a savings account. The less you use it, the more you've got.

—ANDREW YOUNG

Sensory language influences the emotions of a listener because it makes them see, taste, hear, smell, and feel something. According to neuroscience, when someone hears a sensory phrase like “cracking the code,” “mean as a snake,” or “stinking to high heaven,” it actually lights up the parts of their brain that control sensation.³³ And since emotional reactions are driven by sensory information, strategically choosing and employing sensory words can wield great power. One study from Purdue University looked at the speeches of U.S. presidents and found that the ones who used more image-based words when they spoke were considered more charismatic than those who didn't.³⁴ Churchill frequently used powerful imagery and sensory language in his speeches to elicit emotional responses, including phrases like “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” For another example, take note of the imagery in this passage from Churchill's 1940 address to the House of Commons:

We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. . ..³⁵

According to Churchill's biographer, William Manchester, “Churchill's feeling for the English tongue was sensual, almost erotic. When he coined a phrase he would suck it, rolling it around in his palate to extract its full flavor.”³⁶ By the way, if you are still on the fence regarding the power and benefit of using sensory language, try reading that last quote again out loud.

Putting It All Together

If you have ever seen a great actor such as Daniel Day-Lewis or Meryl Streep perform or seen an expert such as Tony Robbins or Kelly McGonigal deliver a TED Talk, you will notice how it seems effortless, like they were born to be doing what they were doing. They are relaxed, present, and dynamic. What you are witnessing is a performer in flow, a term coined by University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In the 1980s and 1990s, Csikszentmihalyi studied artists in Italy and observed many of these performers in this state of total immersion. Flow has been described as “a state of effortless concentration so deep that [people] lose their sense of time, of themselves, of their problems.”³⁷ Someone in flow will become so engrossed in the task of the moment that nothing outside of that particular task seems to matter. Athletes refer to this state as being in “the zone”—finding themselves at peak performance in the exact moment when they need to excel.

Actors, musicians, and leaders experience flow as well. Watch clips of Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial or John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and you will see more examples of leaders in flow. With all of these examples we see professionals who are present in the moment, fully prepared, delivering their very best performance for the benefit of others. The feeling generated as a result of seeing someone in a state of flow is immediate and joyful. It fully engages us and demands our complete attention and focus. It makes us sit up and lean in. Flow is not a magical quality that is only attainable for a gifted few. It can occur for any of us, whether our task is playing music, delivering a presentation or interviewing for a job. The goal with flow is to make the exceptional seem ordinary and the difficult seem effortless.

For anyone wanting to experience flow, there are certain aspects of your work that can help you facilitate this state. First, choose work you are passionate about. People who love their job and are passionate about the daily interactions they have with their coworkers exude a positive feeling that is contagious. Finding work that offers you intrinsic motivation (a sense of personal accomplishment or feeling you are making a difference) will make you happier than one that offers only extrinsic motivation (a paycheck or the fear of getting fired). Choose tasks that are not too difficult but not too easy. If a task is too easy or fails to challenge us, we become bored or disengaged and flow won't happen. Conversely, if a task it too daunting or beyond our abilities, flow is disrupted by anxiety. Also, choose the right time to complete your task and be aware of your focus and the amount of time dedicated to the task so you are setting yourself up for success. It will be difficult to achieve flow if you are distracted by a chaotic environment or attempting a task when you are exhausted after a full day of work. By clearing distractions, you will create an environment where flow can be achieved and you can perform at your best.

The more I practice, the luckier I get.

—GARY PLAYER

Preparation is also key to achieve the state of flow. The more prepared you are, the more you know your material, the less mental energy you will need to waste worrying about your content. This frees up capacity to give all of your effort and energy to the task at hand: accomplishing your objective and satisfying the needs of your audience. To achieve a state of flow as a communicator, return to The Pinnacle Method. These three simple steps offer you a framework that will ensure you are prepared and able to deliver your message with passion and purpose, whether that communication takes place in a meeting, presentation, or interview setting.

1. Analyze your audience
2. Understand the reaction your message should elicit
3. Modify your delivery to achieve that result

Because you are prepared and ready, you will be able to deliver your message in a clear, concise, and compelling way that will influence emotion and motivate action. This is the process of effective communication and this is how you will achieve a state of flow—in your next meeting, during your next presentation, or when you interview for your next job. As Amelia Earhart once said, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”³⁸ You now have the tools to influence and inspire others with your communication. How you choose to employ them as a leader is up to you. The journey to becoming a more effective communicate begins now. Enjoy every step.