A LinkedIn interaction from some time back still sticks with me today. Why? He and I connected, then he immediately asked to review my personal finances so he could do for me what he had allegedly done for so many other “thrilled customers.” I told him “No thanks.” He replied back asking me why. Being the direct guy I am, I told him I thought it was insincere to connect with me and immediately want to review my personal finances and try to sell me on his service. He said he never asked me to send my personal finances through LinkedIn. At this point, the discussion was no longer about him trying to sell me a service; instead, I wanted to provide a teachable moment for him. I told him that sending personal finances through LinkedIn wasn’t the issue, but I didn’t want to divulge my personal finances to someone I didn’t even know who connected with me only 30 minutes ago. After another couple of interactions, he told me that “nice people” would agree to meet with him (I guess I’m not a nice person) and that he was rescinding his offer to meet (even though I already told him I didn’t want to meet with him). It was kind of like “you can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you first”. He then wished me the best. He made an impression on me for sure, just not one he wanted.

In a recent phone call I told the CEO of my insurance brokerage that after being a loyal customer for 15 years I had moved all my business to other providers. Given our long-standing relationship, I felt I owed him an explanation; not because I wanted to see someone fired, but because I wanted him to know my reasons for leaving so he could put any lessons learned to use.

It started about seven years ago when the person assigned to my business insurance seemed to lose interest in me. He wasn’t on top of my renewals, made me do work that he could have done for me, and didn’t competitively bid my insurance. I moved all of my business insurance to another agency. A similar issue happened in the past year with my personal insurance; I simply didn’t feel that I was important to my agent. The final nail in the coffin came when my bank notified me that my homeowners’ insurance had lapsed two months earlier without any notification from my insurance agent. I then reached out to another agency, who quickly bound coverage for me at 10 p.m. on a Saturday evening.

Excerpted from The Truth about Getting Your Point Across…and Nothing But the Truth

Within a few months of my open door policy, I saw my own productivity drop and my frustration level rise because I kept getting interrupted by people taking me up on my open-door policy.  My open-door policy soon turned into a series of random interruptions that caused me to not get my stuff done.  I came to recognize that I needed to be accessible to people but that I could control the accessibility through scheduled time.  Open-door means be accessible, not come in whenever you want.

Excerpted from The Truth about Getting Your Point Across…and Nothing But the Truth 

In Part 4 of Persuasion Atrophy, I talked in-depth about securing credibility. Securing credibility is job one when it comes to your persuasiveness. Credibility must be earned and reinforced; it’s rarely just granted. The final installment of this series uses the last of The 4 C’s of Compelling Presentations pillars: being concise.

An organization I belong to holds an annual convention, which includes bringing in several subject matter experts as speakers. I was especially interested in hearing one particular speaker. His credentials were impressive, having written several books on his area of expertise. I got to his session early to ensure I had a seat as I expected the room to be full. His session was right before a break for lunch, so there wasn’t another speaker people needed to run off to.

He took to the stage on time and started his presentation.

His content was a meandering mess. He repeated himself. He didn’t talk about the topics on his slide. He was difficult to follow. And he went way over his allotted time, acknowledging that the only thing people would be missing out on was lunch.

I expected to be inspired. Instead, I was bummed.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

So let's cut to the chase...

You may be a great consultant, one who effectively applies his or her wisdom and experience to help his or her client solve some tough business problem.   That's all fine and well.  When it comes to facilitation, though, it's a different ballgame and a very different approach to problem solving.  I like to think of the difference as follows:

In Part 2 of Persuasion Atrophy, I did a deep dive on the importance of choreographing your content and delivery. Professionals now and in the future need to be intentional about how they build and exercise what I call the persuasion muscle. This will ensure the skill of persuasion doesn’t give way to equating persuasion to shaming—and thinking critical copy/pasting is in and of itself persuasive.

Continuing to use The 4 C’s of Compelling Presentations as the roadmap for exercising the persuasion muscle and avoid persuasion atrophy, my focus is now on connecting with your audience.

In my freshman year of college, I took a class on giving speeches. Aside from helping me meet core requirements, I also thought it would be an interesting class. The instructor was opinionated, potty-mouthed, and yelled at the students if they did something he didn’t agree with. It was required that we prepare and present two speeches to him and the entire class. The class would provide feedback, then he was supposed to provide his feedback.

The purpose of my first speech was to educate the audience on a topic of my choice. I decided to do the speech about musical notes using a pie as an illustration. The entire pie equated to a whole note. I sliced the pie in half to create half notes, then sliced each half to create four quarter notes, then sliced each quarter to create eight eighth notes. Pretty safe topic, right?

Not according to my instructor.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

In Part 1 of Persuasion Atrophy, I introduced how I see social media and artificial intelligence not only impacting how we work and play, but also how they can fundamentally impact the skill of persuasion. Professionals now and in the future need to be intentional about how they build and exercise what I call their “persuasion muscle” to ensure the skill of persuasion doesn’t go the way of long division by hand.

To apply a layer of practicality to my argument, I’d like to use The Four C’s of Compelling Presentations as the roadmap for exercising the persuasion muscle. This installment in the series focuses on choreographing your content and delivery.

The most challenging and consequential talk I’ve ever given wasn’t to a large group of people or a room full of executives, and it wasn’t even a business presentation. It was when I eulogized my sister Lori, who died of lung cancer in 2012 at age 54.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

There are two seismic-shifting technologies that have already changed just about every aspect of our lives, and will continue to in the future. The first is social media. It’s enabled the rekindling of old relationships, the building of new ones, and the end of others. Anyone with a phone, tablet or computer and internet connection can participate in discussions with others anywhere in the world.

The second is artificial intelligence. Using the internet and its 150 zettabytes of information (that’s 150 followed by 21 zeros), AI can search, analyze and present information that is either humanly infeasible or impossible in no time. It’s changing the way we work and play.

Before going further, I am a fan of both technologies and do not in any way advocate a head-in-the-sand position on either one. I firmly believe that, as leaders and project managers, it’s incumbent on us to learn about these technologies first-hand and weave them into what we do.

I do, however, want to sound a warning bell about both technologies and how they can inhibit development of a crucial business skill.

Persuasion.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.