The Presentations Japan Series

How To Rehearse Your Presentation

Every performance is better when practiced beforehand and presenting is no different. We don't do it for a multitude of "good" reasons, none of which abrogate the need to make the time and put in the effort. We have the time, we just need to allocate it. We are putting ourselves out there when we present, so don't miss it, there is a lot on the line. We need to ensure we are a triumph rather than a joke. The way to do that is to practice beforehand. How do we do that, what are some best practices to help us?

We cannot start with the slides, which is what most people do when putting their presentation together. Instead, we need to design the whole presentation first. We need to start with the close. Yes, we need to plan how will we finish the talk. What is the one key message we want to get across to our listeners.

Getting the whole thing down to one key point is no easy task, but the mental effort to do so will pay big rewards when it comes to ensuring clarity and getting the talk's structure correct. When we distill that one point, it becomes the beacon on the hill around which to arrange the preparation of the data and the flow of the talk.

We now design the sections of the talk. What are the key points we will make and what is the evidence we will marshal to sustain the argument in the time allotted to us. These should flow together nicely, like in a good novel. Each part leads seamlessly into the next.

We are also going to be introducing personal stories of our successes and failures and those from highly regarded experts, to flesh out the points we want to make. Stories are easy to understand and remember, so don't make our audience work hard, give them the information in story form for maximum effect. So each section has some key point, supporting data, told in a story format.

Finally, we design the opening – how can we break through all the competition for the mind space of our audience. How can we grab their complete attention? How to get them away from those addictive mobile devices, hidden under the table? We need to design how we will us our voice at the start in particular. How much volume will we need to gain control of the room?

We should avoid reading the presentation. We are going to be aiming at talking to points on the slides or in bullets format in our text or recalled from memory. This is free form folks, no harness and no safety net, so it needs practice. What may sound great as text, can sound a bit stilted when spoken out loud. This is important, we must "voice" the presentation. We can't just mentally run it through our mind, as a personal exercise.

Using a mirror, video camera or a coach are good ideas, to get feedback on how we are coming cross both visually and verbally. The coach may be a colleague, family member or a professional. If a colleague or a family member only ask for two pieces of feedback – "what am I doing that is good?" and "what can I do to make it better?". Untrained coaches are quick to tell you everything that is wrong – in great mind numbing detail. They will kill your confidence early, so don't allow that to happen, give them some guidance.

Every five minutes we need a change of tempo to keep our audience interested. We need to switch our energy or speed up or down. We need to hit or soften key words. These crescendos and lulls are not left to random chance, this is all preplanned for maximum effect. We need to hear it out aloud to understand how it will sound to our audience.

We can't be too strong all the time or we will wear down our audience and lose them. Alternatively, if we are too soft, they are lured away by the internet and are soon gone from us.

There is no one there, but we must involve eye contact with all in our imaginary audience. We practice looking to the left, center or right, also close and far. We also need to practice the congruency of our gestures with our words. Match a powerful gesture with a point you want to drive home, to give it strength.

Expect to do a number of rehearsals, not just one. We need to a full rehearsal from start to finish, at least three times. Now if it is a thirty minute talk, the time soon adds up, so we have to plan for that. Separately, we also need to work particularly hard on just the opening and close. The first impression and last impression decide our impact.

Don't forget to practice the Q&A. Remember, the audience can ask us anything, no matter how rude, off topic, irrelevant or impertinent, so we have to be ready to go. We can go from hero to zero quick smart, if we don't practice answering difficult questions before we go live.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Pizazz Baby, We Need More Pizazz When Presenting

Pizazz is one of those unusual words, that sounds kind of cool, but is a bit vague. In presenting terms, we are really looking at being more interesting and engaging and doing that in a sparky, non-anticipatory way. Droning on when presenting is a pretty strong norm for many people. They talk at us, not with us. They are lifeless and low energy. This may be fine for having a cup of tea with your friends, but if you want to present, then you have to switch it up.

A workman like, by the numbers, presentation is fundamentally boring. A recent presenter did a painting by numbers job with his effort. The talk had completed the exercise in the allotted time and he had spoken about a number of key points. The delivery was wooden though, the voice tone was flat, the whole thing was a lifeless shambles really. The snapper though is that the speaker represents his organization to the world at large and he did a poor job when up on the podium.

When you are in a high profile role, like being the CEO, then you simply have to perform. Never forget we judge your whole organisation on you. If you are mediocre, we assume everyone is the same. We don't say, well that guy or gal was the exception. The rest of the crew are all dynamite. Nope, we say they are all duds down there.

So engaging your audience is a requirement. This is easy to say, but not so easy to do. Energy is a key component of this process. Somehow we all know that enthusiasm is contagious, but miraculously manage to forget this, when we start speaking in front of groups. The low energy insult became a trademark of President Trump when disparaging his political opponent Jeb Bush.

It is cutting, because it implies you don't have what it takes to be a leader. Whether you agree with Trump or not, the point is valid. If the leader is low energy, we somehow doubt they can do the job properly. We don't get to meet that many CEOs or politicians in person, so we draw our conclusions from seeing them on television, in videos or at public presentations. Remember we are all on show when presenting.

The podium is one area of difficulty, but with the prevalence of YouTube videos and business social media, presenters are starting to really branch out. This was brought back to me not so long ago, when I saw a video on LinkedIn of someone I know and the delivery was fundamentally funereal. The whole atmosphere was dark, bleak, lifeless. This guy is a smart guy and if we read the transcript we would think what he had to say was valuable. The voice however was a monotone, the energy was totally insignificant and the exercise was absolutely dreary, not motivational.

Sadly, the message while actually pretty good, was just destroyed, totally killed by the poor delivery. Now if you are going to put yourself out there, especially in the crowded alleyways of the YouTube video world and broadcast through social media, then you have to step it up. There are so many windows to the world now and everyone can see us. Once upon a time, you could be fairly hopeless and only a few poor souls would know. Not anymore. This is where the pizazz idea comes in.

If you want your message to cut through the white noise of a squillion other presenters, then you need to have an attitude that says, "I want to stand out and be heard". Casey Neistat did that with video blogging. There were plenty of other well established video bloggers out there, but he brought a movie style approach to his vlogging. He would set the camera up, so that it recorded him entering the room, for example. A simple but very effective idea. All the other vloggers were one dimensional – they were pointing the camera at themselves, as they held it at arms length. He made a small change that set him apart. He brought some movie making style pizazz to the exercise and the rest of us are happy he did that. Now it is much more interesting for us the viewer.

Gary Vaynerchuk did that with his Daily Vee vlog. He combined reality television style presentation, with motivation and information. Nobody had done that before. He created some pizazz and is getting close to a million subscribers for his show. He gets a lot of work speaking, sells his books and gets business for his digital agency off the back of his notoriety. All he did was make a small innovation in a crowded space, so he could stand out and he has been incredibly successful doing that.

This then has to be the mantra. Set yourself apart when presenting. If you want to move into video, then you really need to compete. This is not just you presenting while being recorded. Yes, you can do that, but if you are going to blast yourself around the world via video on social media, then add pizazz to the mix and make it interesting. Be that little bit unexpected, have something that differentiates you from the pack.

You don't have to be handsome, beautiful, deep bass DJ voiced or tall. You just have to be interesting, engaging and relevant. Use voice modulation, tell stories, speak with, not at your audience and bring your full energy to the task.

Okay, let's all go back to the drawing board. Let's stop doing what we have always done and think about how we could add some pizazz to our presentations and start experimenting, to find what works best for each of us.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Own The Space And Work The Room

Getting up in front of people is confronting for a lot of speakers. Beady eyes are boring into you, a sea of serious faces is scary, the lights are painfully bright and the pressure feels intense. You start to doubt your preparation was sufficient for the occasion. You throw up the laptop lid and then try to mount the podium such that it provides a safety barrier between you and the great unwashed. You studiously avoid confronting eye contact, by staring down at your laptop screen or your notes. Or to leaven things up, you read the screen to the audience, presenting a nice view of the top of your head. If you have a partly bald pate, like some medieval monk, then that makes it all the more gripping. It doesn't have to be so pathetic. In fact, you can "own the space and work the room".

By properly designing your presentation in the first place, you can release yourself from the laptop. The main screen will be composed of little text and mainly images. These are images designed with the object of conveying the key points in two seconds. This means you are replacing text on a screen, with oral word pictures delivered by you. This is so much more powerful. The slide advancer technology is pretty good these days and this frees you from having to be physically chained to the laptop.

Now you can move to the audience. Depending on the size of the occasion, the approach will be different. Let's assume a 30 person plus venue. You divide your audience space into six sectors, like a baseball diamond. Left, Middle, Right Field. You then cut it in half, so you have an Inner Field and an Outer Field. If the audience is smaller than 30 people, then you probably have just left, right, front and back to work with.

The point is to "work the room" by engaging with your entire audience. Make around six to eight seconds of eye contact with each individual, in all of those sectors. Do it randomly, unpredictably, to maintain interest. If you do it a predetermined order, the audience will leave you, because they are able to anticipate where your attention is focused. Once they know, they switch off and are easy prey to distractions, like their phone and the internet.

In a larger audience, one individual seated toward the back receives your eye contact but the twenty people sitting around them, all think you are making direct eye contact with them. In this way, you can continuously engage the entire group.

Don't pace across the stage while talking. You see nervous speakers doing this and it becomes highly annoying, as they keep traipsing across the stage from left to right, left to right, left to right. Don't do that. Here is Dr. Story's Iron Rule: "Don't talk and walk. Move in silence, land on a spot and then speak".

Certainly move to the extremes of right and left of the stage. Make sure you engage with those seated on the side of the venue. From the center, walk across to the left and use your eye contact to connect with these audience members. Move back to the center and do the same with the center group, then repeat the process for those on the right. Then back to the center. I think you get the idea.

The key is pause speaking, move to a new position and then start speaking from there. Having a pause is a good thing in a speech. This gives you time to take up your new position and it allows the audience to digest what you just got through telling them.

There are also six speaking positions we should be using:

One, is the middle part of the stage, separated equally from the screen and the stage apron.

Two, in this center location, our chin should be held up at a ninety degree angle to the floor. This is the neutral position of having no particular emphasis attached to that location.

Three, if we want to make a macro point then back away from the audience, toward the rear of the stage, where you can be seen most widely.

Four, in this back of the stage location, hold your chin up at a slightly higher angle than ninety degrees.

Five, if you want to make a point of emphasis, then move to the front of the stage apron, as close as you can get to the audience.

Six, in this front of stage location, drop the angle of your chin down slightly to be less than ninety degrees.

By the way, be careful about going to the edge of the stage so you don't fall off. Don't laugh. I have almost done this a couple of times in my enthusiasm to get close to my audience, while trying to drive home a particular point. Falling off the stage will make you a memorable speaker, but it is not advisable.

If the stage area is smaller and the screen occupies a good portion of the real estate, then don't walk in front of the screen, if there is a projector involved. In very short order, you become the screen and that is totally distracting for an audience. Now you would think this was such an obvious point. However, we have all seen speakers do it. They are not aware of the projector in front of them and they have lost the attention of their audience.

In this case, stand on the audience left side of the projector. We read from left to right, so we want people to look at our face first and then look at the screen. I would say that 80% of the time the room is set up for the speaker to stand on the opposite, the audience right side, so it is best to let the organizers know in advance where you want to stand.

We can still use our middle, back and front distances on the audience left side of the stage but we can't use the audience right. That is unless you hit the "B" key on the laptop and black out the screen. In this case, you won't be in the way of the light beam from the projector and you can move around freely. By the way, to bring the screen back up again, just press "W".

Take control of your speaking environment. Do not rely on clueless people to set it up for you. Get it properly organized beforehand. The speaking spot is a physical environment. We don't want to just turn up there like a spectator, we want to dominate it. Make sure you "own the space and work the room". If you do, your audience will buy your message and they will remember you as a powerful and confident presenter – someone they would like to hear from again in the future. Remember, this is how you build your personal brand.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Hard and Soft When Presenting

It is so easy to become "Johnny One Note" when presenting. We get locked into a modality of voice and body language power. We just keep hammering away with that mode throughout the whole talk. That might be fine for us, but for our audience it is killing them. If we are all massive power and bravado, after about five minutes, people want a break. If your "aura" is too strong they worry about radiation. If on the other hand, you are a mouse at the microphone, then they feel all their energy being drained from their body, as they shrink into the chair.

If we have a lot of energy, are excited about our topic and eager to share the goodies with our audience, then we can easily find ourselves to talking to our audience, rather than talking with them. The best presentations feel tremendously personal. The speaker has hit on a theme or topic that really resonates with us. The way they deliver it, feels like they are speaking only to us in the room. When we are at full power, it can feel like those cartoons where the audience member's hair is being blow waved back off their head from the full force of the assault. Not a good idea. They quickly tire and lose interest in our message.

If we are very quietly spoken, modest, perhaps shy and by some supreme misfortune, find ourselves in front of an audience, we struggle to get through the content. We make no attempt to engage with the audience. We are scared of them and want this over as quickly as possible. Our voice whimpers low confidence, we deny our vocal chords the necessary air to project our voice and our body language is in shut down mode. The audience doesn't feel we are sold on what we are saying and rapidly conclude they are not sold either.

It is easy to get locked into one mode and difficult to break out of it, to inject some vocal and body language variety. We need that variety to keep our audience engaged and also to cover all the bases with the variety of people sitting in front of us. Some will be rambunctious and love the loud. Others will be timid and prefer the low threat environment of the softly spoken presenter. Being in one mode only means we lose a part of our audience. We don't want to lose anyone when we are speaking.

I found this myself in Kobe. I was speaking in English to a group of departing American University exchange students. I gave a General Patton style power play of motivation about how they should take all the things they had learned in Japan, go back home and really shoot the lights out.

Man, I was powerful, energized, committed, on a complete roll. I was also one single stop on the volume control - loud. It was a twenty minute speech and it was full on, from start to finish. There was no dialing the power up and down. I was pretty happy with it. I thought I had been so wonderfully motivating, giving these young people the full benefit of my many years in Japan and my broad and deep perspectives on life and success. A true tour de force, or so I imagined.

Immediately after me was a Korean Professor, who was teaching at that host University. When he spoke, it was clear, but a little bit soft. I found I had to lean in to hear him and had to concentrate on what he was saying. I had to work a bit to get the message. Now the interesting thing was the complete contrast to the full force gale these students had been subjected to by me. Here we all were, really concentrating on what the good Prof was saying.

I was sitting there thinking to myself, "ah, so soft can also work when presenting". As I got more experience and knowledge, it became clear that our talks need to mix it up. Now that sounds easy to say, but when you are confident in one mode, it is not so easy to just switch gears and go to the opposite mode.

The secret is in the planning and the rehearsal. Here we hit two major stumbling blocks. Most people do zero planning about the delivery component. They spend all their time putting together the power point visuals. They score another big zero too when it comes to rehearsing. They practice their speech live, for the first time, on their audience. Uh oh!

When we are planning, we need to look for which parts of the speech we are going to accentuate with power – including voice, facial expression and body language. We also look at where we are going to drop the energy and voice, to draw our audience into us.

The telling of stories in speeches is very powerful. They lend themselves well to harmonizing the ups and downs of the delivery, with the flow of the story. Break the speech into 4-5 minute blocks and see where the tempo needs raising or lowering. Make sure you practice to make the switch, otherwise you will find yourself on one power control point throughout.

The result is we can keep the attention of everyone in the audience and get our message across to all.

Action Steps

1. Recognise where your personal power switch is set – high, low or medium
2. Plan the speech for the delivery component not just the visual presentation
3. Inject points of change, from either high to low or the other way around
4. Make the power mode consistent with the content, so it is congruent
5. Break the content delivery down to 4-5 minute blocks and then determine the power mode needed at that point in the talk
6. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations.

Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Boris Johnson's Lessons On Public Speaking

As the Foreign Secretary for Britain, Boris Johnson gets a lot of practice giving speeches and fielding tough questions. There is the temptation to say, "Well of course he is a good public speaker, he is a politician after all, isn't he". That is true, except that very few politicians are any good at public speaking and amongst those who are good, he is certainly up there with the best. Being an Aussie, I have no well informed views on Boris as a politician. I use him as an example, because I want to draw out some lessons for all of us, on how to become better public speakers. If you do or don't like him as a politician, then fine, but let's limit our discussion to his speaking abilities.

At the British Chamber event he spoke at, he gave a short address and then took previously submitted questions from the audience. We talk about some people being larger than life and that is the feeling we get when we see him in action. He radiates energy and confidence. He grew up in a wealthy family, had an excellent education at Eton and Oxford and then worked as a high profile journalist. We may have none of these things in common with him, but we can take heed of the power of projecting energy and confidence.

Even if we are not particularly confident, we can raise our energy levels and this will make us appear more confident to the audience. For various emotional reasons, some speakers wish to share the information with us that they are not feeling confident, that they are poor at public speaking and that they are scared of the occasion. They do this in the belief that this will elicit a certain amount of sympathy and understanding from the audience and we will go easy on them.

This is a false dawn of hope, because that is not what the audience is thinking at all. The audience is already totally distracted by the time we get up to speak and what they are expecting is to be entertained and informed. They see our role as to provide that. If we kick things off with this confessional approach, we will have large swaths of the crowd quickly whipping out their hand held device and escaping to the internet.

Boris has enough confidence to derive humour at his own expense. He is comfortable to talk about his inadequacies, because he knows people have trouble identifying with Mr. or Ms. Perfect. We can't feel close to people like that, because they are so alien from our experience. He also knows that his ability to connect with the audience will balance those self-confessed failings out. This is different from telling us you are hopeless as a speaker.

What he is doing is finding ways to connect with the audience and not come across as a smarty pants type we won't like. With his intellect and elite education, he could quite easily display his mental acuity, but that won't connect him with his audience. He has a good capacity to seem like the "common man", albeit one educated at the best academic institutions the UK can provide. Now we might be an expert or an authority in our own field and it is quite easy to slip into the mode of Professor teaching the great unwashed. Not taking yourself too seriously requires confidence but it worth adding in some examples of this here and there. Don't overdo it though, because it can come across as totally manufactured.

He has a style of speech which is full of connectors. He incites us to feel part of his crowd. He had a very good understanding of who was in his audience that day and encouraged us to feel he was making some remarks to family. Know your audience before you speak is a golden rule in presenting. Research who will be in the room, so you know how best to connect with them. This inclusive style of speaking is very effective. It is the feeling of being let in on a secret, of being brought into the fold, of being one of the in-crowd, we are all in this together, etc.

He does this with words, but also physically. He leans in, he makes constant eye contact with his audience, he projects his energy toward us. He also cleverly relieves the tension or any complexity, by playing around with that unruly mop of blond hair sitting above his cranium. We may lack the coif, but we can lean in, we can look individuals in the eye for around six seconds and encourage each person to feel we are speaking directly with them alone.

He is very good at making us all feel that, despite any differences, we are all on the same side. He does this by looking for points with which it is easy for us to agree. This is something we should be planning for our talks. How can we phrase ideas in such a way that it is very easy for the audience to support that construct. This is not dumb luck or random chance. This is a result of careful planning at the speech design stage. We look for common outcomes, which we will all feel are beneficial and we relate what we are saying to provide that context. Design "Buy In" and your chances of getting connectivity go up dramatically. Most speakers spare not a second for this in the planning and wonder why they can't connect with their audience.

At the very end, he restated his key points, so that the last thing we remembered was what he wanted us to recall. We should always make it our habit to do the same with our audiences. Also, when he finished, he finished. He didn't dilute the key messages by trying adding anything or take us off on a tangent. He said what he wanted to say and left the podium. We should do the same. Resist the urge to add too much. It only detracts from the core content we want to get across.

Action Steps

1. Show you are confident (even if you aren't).
2. Project energy, lift for the occasion
3. Don't begin by apologising for any of your speaking inabilities
4. Don't be afraid about talking about your mistakes
5. Don't take yourself too seriously but do it sparingly
6. Look for speech and physical connectors to be able to bond with your audience
7. Create points of agreement for your audience
8. Sum up the key points you want to leave with your audience and then shut up, don't keep adding and adding!

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Knowledge + Skill + Attitude

Highly knowledgeable people are often at a big disadvantage in business. They have expertise and experience. Their opinion is sought after, they have high personal levels of credibility. They often went to prestigious schools, elite universities, completing challenging degrees. They have paid their dues and have worked they way up the greasy pole to the upper reaches. Yet, they have feet of clay when it comes to representing their section, division, department, company or industry. They are a dud when presenting.

There is a skill to presenting. We talk about "born salesmen", "born leaders", "born presenters". What we are doing is acknowledging that the roots of their skills have been long in the making. They showed some capability at a young age around being confident when talking in front of others, or persuading others to follow their lead or selling their suggestions successfully to their peer group.

Success breeds success and so as they grew up, these attributes became more and more refined and polished. By the time we meet them they seem the complete package. The idea that you had to be born with these skills becomes entrenched in the popular mind. Usually, it is an excuse for the observer's own shortcomings. They haven't done the work, so they misname the condition as wrong genes rather than wrong attitude.

The education of the highly specialized person means many years of diving deep into the nitty gritty of their area of expertise. This is done at the expense of developing other skills. The reason we have an MBA or Master Degree in Business Administration is because engineers were so hopeless at everything other than engineering. At school, they were avoiding English classes in favour of science and mathematics. They never bothered with fluffy soft subjects like debating or philosophy or history or the social sciences. They were hard science types. Then they got promoted.

Now they were having to do tasks way outside the engineering realm for which they were woefully undereducated, so they had to be sent back to university for some remedial education. This became the MBA and as the professional consulting firms started hiring them, the degree became a brand and a road to higher pay and positions in companies. Now with so many mediocre folk running around with MBAs, the playing field has been leveled again and people are being judged on their ability and not the degree brand.

So here we have high knowledge/low skill/low attitude constructs for some leaders who find they need to present. The low attitude, in this example, doesn't refer to their commitment, dedication, engagement or enthusiasm for their work. It refers to their dismissal of the importance of presenting, as part of the total professional's toolbox. They see it as froth on beer, fluff, smoke and mirrors, style with no substance.

It is hard to master presenting when this is your starting point. So, they bludgeon their audiences with boring, heavy, data laden talks, devoid of stories, delivered with a stern face and a serious air. These days, within seconds, they have lost their audience. First impressions are the basis of our decision to continue to listen to the speaker or to escape to the internet, secured in our hand, hidden under the desk. We know that audience distraction is at a level never been experienced before by human kind. We had better have a killer opening to the talk, because we have between 3 and 30 seconds to capture the attention of our audience. We can deliver facts without emotion or we can deliver them with passion and belief.

"Knowledge is all I need" speakers with this mantra don't get it. It is not enough anymore. We need to be able to communicate with people across all levels of understanding of the subject, with various interests and biases. We need to be memorable, to be building our personal and professional brands. People won't recall all the detail of the talk but they will walk away with either a positive, negative or non residual impression of our talk. Conviction and confidence sell our messages, build credibility for our argument and convince others of our point of view.

In a world awash with information, alternative facts and fake news, being remembered as trustworthy, knowledgeable and reliable is more important than in the past. The trustworthy and reliable bits come from our ability to marshal our knowledge and deliver it in such a way that the audience is attracted to our key messages and to us as speakers. These soft skills are required more than ever. It is time to switch attitudes, add skills and become the complete package as a presenter. This means being knowledgeable, skillful in delivery and having the right attitude toward wanting to win the audience over.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

The Power Of Passion When Speaking

Formulistic presentations tick the boxes, but don't ignite much enthusiasm in the audience. Yes, the key points were covered, the time was consumed, people heard the presentation about the topic previously promulgated but so what? When we attend a mediocre or even bad presentation, we are reminded that a great opportunity has gone begging. When we stand in front of an audience, we are representing our personal brand and our firm's brand. People will evaluate our whole company on how we perform. So why not perform well and really build fans for our business and ourselves?

The things that go missing are often passion and commitment about the topic. Additionally, it may be an already low energy, flat delivery is being further hindered by a poor structure. We enter a room full of pre-occupied people, with microscopically short attention spans, basically entirely distracted before we even start. We need to grab their attention away from whatever it was they were doing before we get up to the podium.

Our opening needs to be well planned and excellent. It must be a battering ram to break through the walls of disinterest, preoccupation and skepticism. It must have a powerful hook to keep everyone's attention. This is how we in the audience are trained. The opening stanzas of newspaper and magazine articles, books, talk shows, the nightly news programming, television dramas, movies, etc., are all carefully designed to grab and keep our attention. This is what we speakers are competing with – a professional class of well paid, attention monopolizing experts.

So our opening has to instantly grab attention and then we need to lead the flock through the wilderness of our topic, so that they can keep up and understand where we are going. If we have some key points, then let's number them because we can follow number sequences more easily – just don't go crazy and make it too many numbers! The 33 key points of any topic delivered in a thirty minute speech are a nightmare the audience doesn't need.

Wrapping it up is a critical component, because this is the final impression for the speaker with the audience. Often, the final words of the talk just fade out as the voice drops away, instead of rising to a crescendo of a powerful hypnotic, embracing call to action to metaphorically storm the barricades.

From that fade out, the ineffective speaker just bumbles their way into Q&A. They don't have any strategy to control the flow of Q&A and so they allow the final question to determine the final impression of the talk with the audience. Don't do that! We need two closes – one for the end of our speech and one for the end of Q&A.

Passion for the topic or for the audience is a requirement. This is not an optional extra, a useful add on we can include or not at will. If we don't feel something for our topic or our audience then we come across as flat. The audience leaves the venue. The speaker, topic and organisation are immediately forgotten. What was the point? The vague impression left over was that the time wasn't well maximised, that no great value was imparted and that if that speaker is up again in the future, it is not anything special to look forward to or greatly anticipate.

You may not have great technique, structure, openings or control of Q&A, but at a minimum, you should communicate your passion. You really want to share this vital information with others. You really want to help those in the audience who have given up their precious time to hear you out. Enthusiasm is contagious and we will forgive a lot of presentation faults, if we feel your energy for the topic. Just talk to the key points, rather than read it all out from your perfectly prepared notes.

Yes, your written speech is grammatically perfect, vocabulary rich, but it is often boring because of the flat way in which it is delivered. The reading cadence doesn't suit the live speaking situation. Have you ever noticed that a flat, boring speech can be followed by a very engaging Q&A session by the speaker?

This is because they are now freed from their self-imposed limitations of the speech draft. They start telling us stories of people to illustrate their points. They pepper us with useful information and data that gives us insights. We see some passion in what they are telling us. We all need to be like this in the main body of the speaking time, not just the Q&A.

Be passionate, enthusiastic, well organised, well structured when you speak. If you do, then your audience will recall both you and your firm with positive regard and credibility as professionals. Now, isn't that what we all want in business?

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Clueless Smart People

Japan is an interesting place. So many things here are ultra modern, high tech, totally nuanced and sophisticated. You take it for granted that your refrigerator door opens from either side and is deathly quiet, that your vacuum cleaner is very light weight and efficient, that your toilet has more control options than most aircraft. So when you hit something out of character you really notice the difference. Presenting skills is the outlier.

We were brought in to consult for and train a very large company's CEO for a key speech he will be making. We looked at the last year's speech by the previous CEO. All attempts to humanise the speech had been deleted by that President and it was boiled down to boiled cabbage. An amorphous lump with no life, passion, energy or interest. The explanation was that the audience was made of Presidents of related companies and boiled cabbage was all they could take. Anything else might be considered too radical. In the banking world, it is acceptable to fail, as long as you fail conventionally. Presenting in Japan would seem to be the same case.

When it comes to communication and persuasion when presenting, this is a big blocker to progress in Japan,. The level is so low here, that the audience has been trained to expect boiled cabbage and if they don't get it, they are unhappy. This sucks even smart people into the vortex of underperformance and even stupidity in some cases.

Watching a very, very innovative, well educated scientist and entrepreneur destroy his presentation really brought home to me the professional gap around presenting in Japan. He is obviously very smart, has become a legend in Japan for innovation and is rightly lauded for the pioneering work he is doing.

His content was very, very good but the delivery was very, very bad. The full message was lost because of the way he presented it. He could have been so much more effective by doing one ridiculously simple thing. Presenters in Japan - don't put everything on the one slide, in multi-colours, creating a screaming screen nightmare.

The slide he had up was a massive jumble of ideas that stole from the key point he wanted to get across. Slides are free. We can have as many as we want these days, so why try to cram all on to one screen? Because it is all up there at once, he had to use differentiating colours to try and help us navigate through the psychedelic fog. You might have thought this wasn't a bad idea and maybe you should do that yourself at the next opportunity? In fact, it makes things a lot worse because the audience now has too much visually to absorb on screen. It is all competing and canabalising against itself.

He is a very smart guy, so why doesn't he get such a simple thing right. The issue is that awareness in Japan of how it should be done is so low. There are so few role models here, so everyone winds up copying all the dud examples of presenting duds. This becomes the stock standard approach and everyone fails, but fails conventionally, so no problem. Well perhaps no problem, as long as you only present in Japan and only to Japanese people.

We can all become too screen reliant in a lot of cases. Do we really need to visually support what we are saying with slides? Sometimes, one slide is enough. I saw the Starbuck's head Howard Schultz give a speech in Japan, using one slide with only their logo on it. The talk was very effective, because we had to concentrate on the words. In other cases when the content is complex, then properly ordered and prepared slides help to sort and clarify the information we are receiving.

If we decide to use slides, then the platinum rule is one idea per slide. That is pretty simple isn't it. It doesn't mean we can't use many slides though. If we are clicking through slides every few seconds, we can actually whip through large numbers of slides in a 30 minute speech. There is no legitimate link between the number of slides and the length of the talk. It very much revolves around your objective.

A different slide every couple of seconds may be appropriate, if the idea is we want to reinforce images of the company or the business or tell a story visually. A very limited number of slides may be better, if we want to go very deep into the subject matter. By restricting the number, we force the audience to concentrate on the limited ideas we want to register with them.

When we have one idea per slide, we can dispense with the "coat of many colours" approach. Sometimes a single image on screen, which we use as a backdrop to what we are going to say, works well. It might have the image and a single word and we elaborate on that word and image. I saw a presentation recently where that was the method used. It was one of the highest quality presentations I have seen in a long time. The content was complex, the ideas were mind numbingly large, but the delivery was excellent. The simple image and single word meant that we very quickly understanding the visual point and could open our minds up the ideas in the complex message.

Smart people in Japan, stop doing unnecessary, clueless things with your presentations please.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Lawyers Need To Be Good Presenters, But Don't Know It

Lawyers are smart people, but sometimes do self-defeating things. They are discovering that unlike the "good old days", there are many service alternatives today facing prospective clients. Business development is a common term in most industries, but it has a certain unpleasant cache in the legal fraternity. They are only slowly coming to grips with this is new reality. They know they have to work harder to get and keep clients, but somehow this irks their sense of self-importance. Being very good in the law should be enough, they think. "We are experts and that is all we need to do, as far as attracting clients goes". Wrong.

In any competitive environment standing out amongst a crowded field of competitors is always a challenge. How can you differentiate yourself amongst rivals, especially when there are so many restrictions on how you can promote your legal services? Referrals are the lifeblood of lawyers. This however is a tremendously passive and time consuming approach, more based around luck than good planning. A satisfied client will tell others, but only if they are asked. They are unlikely to go around pro-actively promoting a law firm, even if they were deliriously happy with the service. No, they only react when one of their contacts asks for advice.

Sitting round waiting for the phone to ring or for someone to wander by, doesn't pay the bills. The other method is to publish and display brainpower and expertise. Are potential clients going to read it or even know it has been published? Again, a bit of a hit and miss approach. Giving seminars is another method of advertising expertise, which sits comfortably within the rules of promotion. Sadly, a tremendous wasted opportunity in most cases.

I previously published an article on LinkedIn about how "Lawyers can't sell, but need to". This is another aspect of the same issue. A seminar is a fantastic opportunity to sell the expertise of the firm and the lawyers, but it is not being maximized because lawyers misunderstand what they are doing.

They believe they are there to provide high quality information to the prospective clients. Therefore they believe the quality of the information is the key and that is where their focus lies. In the rest of the real world, this is known as a data dump. Lawyers haven't realised we don't buy the data. We buy you.

Having awesome insights, valid experiences, deep knowledge are not enough if the way the information is imparted is substandard. Being an expert in your field is one part and being an appreciated expert is the more important part. Clients will never have the level of in depth knowledge of their legal experts but they can discriminate between who they can understand and relate to and those they can't. Nerdy lawyers may be sexy within the halls of the profession but not so much with clients.

Clients want people they can understand, who they can communicate with and who they feel they can trust. Here is how the clients sub consciously think about it: "A lawyer on my wave length gets the business over the lawyer who isn't". Having great expertise and communicating that expertise are both important skill sets. Lawyers usually only have the former. Smart lawyers who realise getting the best skills to learn how to impart the knowledge, will win the business over those who don't get it.

The mindset has to shift from "I know a lot" to "I know and can explain complex issues really clearly". This takes training in how to present to clients, be they gathered in small meetings or at large seminars. It is a skill set that the traditional professions, like law, have been slow to work out is needed.

Lawyers, yes, you do need excellent presentation skills. You may not think so yet, but your clients will vote with their feet and beat a path to your more skilled competitor's door. The lesson is simple - we buy you. So get properly trained and stop losing business to others. Especially, when there is absolutely no need to have that happen.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Well Japan, I'm Sorry

Well educated from two top ranked Universities. Undergraduate in Japan and an MBA from the USA. He had a very capable command of English and our presenter did a very good job of conveying the business structure, strategy and results of his publicly listed enterprise. Yet, that presentation could have been so much better with attention to a few simple basics. This difference in polish is both cultural and attitudinal.

Beginning your talk in Japan with a series of apologies is standard practice. First apologise for speaking while standing, because you are towering above your audience implying superiority. Next, tell us how nervous you are about speaking to such a distinguished audience. Don't forget to mention you had no time to prepare the talk properly because you have been so busy. If you are sick, it is always good to get that in there too. If you are speaking in English, then an apology for your poor English is mandatory. At the end, make sure you apologise for giving such a poor presentation.

Why do Japanese speakers go through all of this apologizing? Japanese humility demands a public display of rectitude. Appearing too confident in front of others is not appreciated. Being seen to be a bit of a smarty pants never goes down well. Especially when most Japanese public speakers are untrained, dreadful, boring and killing us with their monotone delivery, it is always good to fit in, rather than stand out.

Public speaking has only a relatively recent history in Japan dating back to early Meiji when Fukuzawa Yukichi established the practice of the public speech. Daimyo or Provincial Lords, were not giving stentorian addresses to the struggling masses or the latter's samurai betters. Public notice boards were erected to inform everyone of what they needed to know. Western civilization on the other hand has been talking up a storm since ancient times and has embraced the idea as a mark of skill and intelligence. Japan has still not fully embraced the power of the spoken word and so it is not as valued here as in the West. Lack of value translates into lack of attention to being excellent as a public speaker. Especially so, when everyone around you is equally hopeless, so why bother?

So what should Japanese speakers do when they are addressing an audience in English made up of foreigners? What do we foreigners do when we are speaking to a Japanese audience in either Japanese or English?

Most talks are not recalled in much detail. What we do remember though is the speaker. We come away with either a positive or negative impression. Linguistic purity is not required in either case. Foreigners are used to non-native speakers giving presentations with accents, grammatical mistakes and unusual or exotic vocabulary choices.

It seems that there are still some Japanese who are basically convinced, that non-Japanese can't speak Japanese, so any attempt to do so is greeted with approval, as long as it isn't too perfect. Foreigners speaking absolutely fluent Japanese worries some older Japanese people who seem to think their protective language barrier has been breeched and maybe this foreigner knows a bit too much. Better be careful of this foreigner. A certain degree of ignorance is somehow more comfortable, although the younger generation are not so much confronted by the concept of fluent foreigners. They have grown up watching them on television, working as commentators or variety show performers.

For Japanese speakers, when it is your turn to speak to a foreign audience, find out who is in your audience. The chances are if it is a business audience, then you are speaking to a good proportion of Japan fans, boosters and supporters. Many will be fluent Japanese speakers or possibly speak one or more additional languages, so they understand all the intricacies of presenting in a foreign argot.

They will also have been weaned on a diet of presentations throughout their education and thereafter will have an admiration for good speakers. For this audience, then follow western tradition and ditch all the cultural paraphernalia around apologies at the start. Instead open with a blockbuster that grabs everyone's attention and cuts through all the competition for the attention of your audience. Even the most riveting speaker today cannot stay the hands of some in the audience as they surreptitiously sneak a peak at their hand held device, while the presentation is underway. In fact, we are becoming bolder and bolder. We are even doing it in full view of the speaker, while they are mid peroration.

Rehearse the presentation and show command of the material. If there is a slide advancer involved, practice with it before the start, so you can show mastery over the technology. Have some rhetorical questions at hand to maintain the attention of your listeners. The audience should not know initially if they are going to be required to actually answer this question or not, in order to keep them locked into the details of the speech.

Have a proper close designed, in fact, have two ready to go. One for before we get into Q&A and one for after questions. Don't just let the speech fade out, as our speaker did, by saying "well time is up and I will finish here". No, we need to leave our audience with a call to action to get them supporting whatever it is we are promulgating. The final close is to take back control of the speech, because questions from the audience are random and often can be completely unrelated to what it is we have been talking about. We need to restate our main message, so that this is what is ringing in the ears of our audience, as they file from the room at the end.

For foreigners, don't copy the Japanese model because you are not Japanese, never will be considered Japanese no matter how long you live here and are not expected to be Japanese. Give the most professional presentation you can and be another speaker who the Japanese look at and wonder why they don't have those sorts of presentation skills. It doesn't matter which language your are speaking in, always make it the most powerful piece of communication you can muster. You represent your personal brand and the brand of your organisation whenever you speak publically, so how you handle yourself is important. Also, let's help create role models of excellence to better internationalise Japan and help it to do a better job of selling itself to the wider world. They need the help, because based on Japan's current presentation skills level, there is still a long way to go.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at [email protected]

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts "THE Leadership Japan Series", THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.