by Schristia (busy with my daughter’s exams)
The Most Compelling Leadership Vision:
[Via HarvardBusiness.org]

A distinguished woman rose to speak in the front of a room of 40 fellow employees during a Total Leadership workshop I was conducting earlier this week at a large pharmaceutical company’s headquarters.

“Joyous laughter — this is the sound I hear throughout the home I have built and now maintain for mentally ill women in Puerto Rico. They are surrounded by people who love and care for them. They are enjoying life.”

Juana, let’s call her, was telling the brief (one-minute) story of her personal leadership vision; a description of the impact you’re having on your world and the legacy you’re creating 15 years from now. When Juana sat down, one of her close colleagues said, “I’ve known you so long yet I never knew about this part of who you are. Wow!” I couldn’t help but ask Juana how I could support her pursuit of her vision. All of us were moved, and felt inclined to contribute.

People will not follow a leader if it is only to the leader’s benefit. We are social animals, using networks of interactions for live our lives. The most invigorating visions are those that lead people to a better place. Not to one that simply makes the leader wealthy.

After hearing a set of examples, I then ask the whole group to describe what was inspiring in what was just said and heard. Invariably, it is the people who speak not about their own achievement but, rather, about how they’re helping someone else who draw the most powerful emotional responses and pronounced support.

Having heard many personal vision statements in the last few days, in different groups (including, through an interpreter, securities industry executives visiting The Wharton School from China), I was struck, once again, by the power of this very this simple, yet critically important idea. Serve others and others will want to serve you. This paradox is often difficult to grasp, especially in your early years. Yet is seems to be a universal truth: People are more likely to pay attention to you — and they are more inclined to help you — when you declare yourself committed to serving others.

It is a paradox of a social animal – simply doing what is best for the individual is not as successful as doing what is best for the group. The chances for survival are much greater when the power of the group is brought into play. That is why we developed this way. Group dynamics determine what gets done.

So, an effective leader is one that can harness the group but the group evolved to really like what benefits the group, not just the leader. Thus, an effective leader is one who works for the group not just for themselves.

This is not to say that leaders can not utilize the group needs in order to create benefits for the leader. It does suggest, however, that the best leaders are those that at least appear to be serving the group. In most cases, the more the leader appears to just be gaining power purely for self-aggrandizement the less likely they are to maintain the interest of their followers.

Technorati Tags: General, Web 2.0

Frame It Bigger:
[Via chrisbrogan.com]

What would you say some of the biggest communication challenges your organization faces? How would solving or improving any of these better your business (or organization)? What does your customer (even if that’s a b2b customer or an internal customer) need the most from you, and what does your organization need from your customer? How can you improve your customer’s life (in any way)? What would simplify any of your customer’s challenges?

And from these bigger questions, can you find a smaller action? Can you find the miniaturized first step that would bring you in any of those directions?

Photo credit Jurvetson

So often, social media are portrayed as a bottom-up phenomenon. The individual take control of their own needs using these tools. This is certainly one approach that is hard to stop because the tools are so easily implemented and used.

But a larger, more strategic approach can also be extremely useful. This takes a longer, more top-down view to see where the holes exist. Bottom-up approaches can leave gaps between what the user wants and what is also useful for the organization.

Answering these ‘big’ questions can be as useful as answering ‘little’ ones. The organization just has to make it part of their process.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

by FaceMePLS
Nonprofit Presenters: What are your best tips for preparing presentations?:
[Via Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media]

Humans often deal with a complex world by using simple stories, simple rules of thumb (or heuristics for the technobabblers). We use stories to teach us how to behave, how to react, etc. Almost any ad tells some sort of story.

The presentations that stick with people long after the talk are almost always based on a storytelling tradition. The same tools and tricks used by the teller of the Iliad still work, even in front of a small audience using a digital projector.

Beth Kanter gives a lot of presentations every year. Here are some of her thoughts:

Earlier this week, I was inspired by my good colleague, Alan Levine (aka Cogdog), I visited Save the Words. It’s an interactive flash site that lets users find and adopt words that are in danger of being removed from the dictionary.

I adopted the word archiloquy. It’s the first part of a speech or presentation. That’s the most important part of your presentation because you need to grab the audiences’ attention. I use a variety of techniques to do this, but one of my favorites is to create a story. I learned this from Andy Goodman — I’ve taken his workshops and read his books.

Andy is a master at storytelling. In his workshops, he offers the following formula for a storytelling based on Hollywood script writing:

• Introduce the central character
• Inciting moment: something bad happens to the character that will prevent them from achieving a goal related to the goal of your presentation
• Barrier to resolution #1: Character tries to solve the problem, but can’t
• Barrier to resolution #2: Character tries to solve the problem, but can’t
• Resolution: What you’re going to share in your presentation
• Widen the Lens: The bigger picture

I’ll have to help revive archiloquy. There are only 41 hits or so for the word on Google but it is a really useful term. The beginning of a presentation is the most critical to get people on board for the story you are about to tell.

Putting real thought into the start of a presentation, and to what sort of story you want to tell, are very important items to check off when preparing a talk.

As with any story, if you can make it personal, and make the audience connect with the narrative, you have engaged their attention. But remember PASS – Present A Simple Story.

You do not need to make the presentation a Shavian critique or a Swiftian satire. There is a nice legend (another way of saying story) that suggests there are only two types of narratives: a hero goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town.

Andy uses the former mode – the hero goes on a journey to achieve a goal that has been stymied. The latter also works quite well because the stranger coming to town almost always brings change. Here is one mode of this story:

• Introduce the town (perhaps in Iowa), which does not realize it yet but it is about to change forever
• The stranger arrives, bearing the tools of change (say 76 trombones, or perhaps only a novel way for communicating with others)
• Describe how the town reacts to these tools (perhaps by thinking the stranger is a fraud or by not understanding why they have to change)
• Show how a member of the village, perhaps a previously neglected member of the town with a lisp, finds the new tools open up avenues of success unseen before
• The town is changed forever by these new tools and the stranger moves on (or he can stay and marry the town’s librarian/piano teacher)

Which of these two stories you use really depends on whether you want the audience to adopt the viewpoint of the hero or of the town. But using just one of only two archiloquies helps you Present A Simple Story.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0