Bring Out the Talent: A Learning and Development Podcast

The Power of Presence: Strategies for Effective Leadership Communication

• Maria Melfa & Jocelyn Allen

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In a world where effective communication can make or break a leader, mastering the art of presence and message crafting is more important than ever. In fact, according to a Forbes study, 85% of job success stems from well-developed soft skills, with public speaking and communication being paramount. This underscores the critical importance of not just what you say, but how you say it.

 In this episode of 'Bring Out the Talent,' we welcome Christina Butler, President and Lead Facilitator for Speak Training Development. Christina brings a unique perspective, drawing on her extensive experience as a television news reporter to connect with and engage her audience. Join us as we discuss the importance of presence in public speaking, effective communication strategies, and practical tips for managing anxiety. Christina will also share her insights on why presentation skills matter and how leaders can adapt their messages for different audiences, from boardrooms to large conferences.

If you want to refine your presentation skills, boost your confidence speaking in public, or learn how to craft compelling messages as a leader, this discussion promises to be incredibly valuable.

SPEAKER_03:

Deep breath. Bring out the talent. Bring out the talent.

SPEAKER_01:

Bring out the talent. Welcome to Bring Out the Talent, a podcast featuring learning and development experts discussing innovative approaches and industry insights. Tune in to hear our talent, help develop yours. Now here are your hosts, GTA's CEO and President, Maria Melfa, and Talent Manager, Jocelyn Allen.

SPEAKER_03:

Hello, Jocelyn. Hi, Maria. How are you? Great. How about yourself? I hate that I just said it like that. Maybe our guest today can teach me how to communicate better than that. I didn't think you said anything incorrectly. No, thank you. I just added an A-H at the end of the word you. Oh, okay. Yeah, extra

SPEAKER_04:

syllable, extra letters. Doing my thing over here. It's been a minute.

SPEAKER_03:

That could happen. And you know what? It's okay because we'd rather speak naturally and comfortably. and try to sound, we don't want to sound like a robot. Right. That would be boring for our audience. No fakes. Exactly. No fakes. Genuine. No fakes allowed. I can count on you, Maria. Thank you very much. I agree. That was actually what I was going for.

SPEAKER_04:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

Goodness gracious. Can you tell what kind of episode it's going to be today, guys? No. Okay, so excited for our episode today on a very important topic that we all have to like it or not, or deal with communication, right, and effective communication. In a world where effective communication can make or break a leader, mastering the art of presence and message crafting has never been more important. In fact, according to a study from Forbes, 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills with public speaking and communication being considered one of the most important. This highlights the critical importance of not just what you say, but how you say it. In our episode today, we're very excited to welcome Christina Butler, who's the president and lead facilitator for Speak Training Development. Christina brings a unique perspective, drawing on her extensive experience as a television news reporter to connect with and engage her audience. So she certainly has great experience in that. Christina is certified in emotional intelligence and dysbehavioral styles and also with certificates from the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University. Christina is a recognized authority in professional development and soft skills training. We will discuss the importance of presence in public speaking, communication strategies, and practical tips for managing anxiety. Christina will also share her insights on why presentation skills matter and how leaders can adapt their messages for different audiences, from boardrooms to large conferences, and why wearing your Speedo with a cropped shirt while smoking a cigarette might not always be a good idea. Welcome, Christina. Well, thank you. Thank you. Can't wait until we start talking about crop shirts and fetos. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. People need to know, Christina. People need to know. Exactly. We wouldn't want anybody to show up to an important presentation wearing that. And you know what? There's probably somebody out there in the world that is doing that today. Somebody learned something just now. Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

But on to the real stuff, Christina, of course, like this topic is incredibly important. And I know recently we've seen a huge uptick in the types of requests we're getting around this subject because you're right. It's not even just about like effective communication. It's it's how you make an impact with your communication to like I one of the things that you have said to me before you like you're talking like who's listening. Right. And that's really what is so important about this today. So before we get into all that, could you start by giving us like your definition of presence and why we are leading this topic of how to communicate clearly with the idea of that it starts with presence? Why is that important when it comes to leadership and public speaking? Sure. Thanks, Jocelyn. And we hear presence. So often in the professional development world, we have executive presence, we have professional presence, we have leadership presence. When we look at it from a public speaking angle, presence comes when you are what I call a clear, concise, and confident communicator. Audiences want somebody who has a clear message. They don't want somebody who's wasting their time. Time is valuable. They want somebody with a clear message. who is concise when they deliver it. Again, their time is valuable. Be concise. But also somebody who appears confident when they communicate that. That's what we mean, excuse me, by presence. Thank you, because it is. It's their presence. I think it's lumped in sometimes to these ideas of like executive presence and presentation skills and then facilitation skills and then concise communication and then influence and all of these things that really kind of hone back in on that subject of like how do you appear? when you are communicating to others and therefore what is it doing to your messaging? I love your approach because it just makes so much sense. So let's talk about your approach. Like how should a leader's or the approach in general, I guess I should say. So how should a leader's approach differ when presenting to different types of teams? And where does the idea of presence come into play when we're talking about that? Sure. And Jocelyn, we've talked about The most important thing when it comes to presence and presentation skills, when you are delivering that message, the most important thing is knowing your audience. And when I say knowing your audience, I don't mean what can you find out about that person when you look them up on LinkedIn? What can you find out about them when you do a Google search? That's not what I mean. I don't even mean what can you find out about them when you look about their history with the company, what their role is, what their experience is. But what do you know about your audience from the standpoint of what motivates them? What do they already know about the subject? What do they have against the subject you might be trying to deliver a message on? Knowing those things that aren't surface level. That's where you have to start with anything related to communication and public speaking. Your presentations need to be about your audience so they can reach them. Can you share some practical tips that you give to leaders on their presentation skills? Sure. Well, if we stick with right there about knowing your audience, and then we can get into some of the other ones. But if you stick with knowing your audience, and how you design that communication. I like to give this example, Jocelyn, you can't play along because I think I've done this for you before. But Maria, I'm going to ask you to think of a person in your head. And we have just found out that we have to deliver an eight minute presentation to someone. Here's what we have been told about this person. They live in a castle. They are very wealthy. They're in England. They have two children. They like dogs. They're a male. A male. Very, very wealthy and famous. Lives in a castle in the UK. Maria, who are we designing a presentation for? Who pops in your mind? King Charles. King Charles, right, of course, he checks all those boxes. So Maria, let's start designing that communication and that presentation for King Charles. We better be very fancy. Do we have tea? Do we have crumpets? We better have our best language and manners. But really, Maria, the person I was describing was not King Charles. It was Ozzy Osbourne. But she checks every single box. So that goes back to how we prepare to connect with that audience is by really knowing them. Once we know that, then we can say, okay, this type of listener or this audience or this person I'm having a communication with prefers this type of communication based on what I know. It always will go back to knowing your audience. I love that example so much because like I remember when you asked me that I was like, this is a trick question. tips. So knowing your audience is one of them, where's the next place that you take people as far as the more practical tips for making an impact on this subject matter? Sure. Should we dive into delivery dynamics, how you look and how you sound? We can't talk about presentation skills without talking about how we look, how we sound. I want to be very, very, very clear that when I say how you look, I am not talking about your attractiveness. I am talking about your appearance. Do you appear confident in your communication? Do you feel like you want to be there having that conversation? You used the word authentic earlier. People can sense authenticity by looking at somebody, by looking at their body language, how they're holding themselves. Are they making eye contact? So that's the how you look part. The confidence, if I could give you one tip for how to appear more confident in the realm of public speaking when you have a large audience in front of you, or let's say you're even in a smaller setting, a small conference room, but you were in that standing position. We are told growing up that if we want to stand, think about choir, of course, stand feet next to each other and knees slightly bent. And that's how you'll, you won't pass out and you'll stand confidently. I want you to shift your feet. And I know our podcast listeners can't see it, but if you can imagine your feet and instead of having them right next to each other, have them maybe two to three inches behind each other. So one foot, let's say your left foot is in front facing forward and your right foot is going to be about two to three inches behind that. That position locks you in to appear more confident instantaneously because what happens is you can't rock back and forth with it. It's harder to bounce up and down. It's harder to give off all of those nervous tics that we have when we are speaking in front of a group. So even thinking about how we are standing can help us appear more confident. So that's one way that you can adjust your body language to appear more confident. And there are several other things you can do, even down to how you are holding your notes. And I want to mention this about notes because there's this idea that if you're a good public speaker and you're a leader of a company, let's say, you should never have notes. You should have everything memorized. But I say throw that away because it's more important to be accurate and to be correct than to force yourself to memorize things and get so stuck in that memory, that memorization zone that you're not connecting. So you can have notes when you are presenting. Please do not try and shuffle index cards. We're not talking about index cards. They're going to go flying like a deck of cards. You can't recover from that. There are a lot of things you can recover from when you are presenting. You can't recover from that. Instead, Jot down your bullet points. Maybe there are specific target sales numbers that you need to remember. Jot them down on a piece of paper. Take that piece of paper, fold it lengthwise, not in half. Vertical, is that the term? But instead, fold it lengthwise and jot your bullet points on it. What happens then is it doesn't rattle if you do have those nerves. And it also is a a better visual to look at. It prevents you from staring at it and reading word from word. So don't be afraid to have notes with you, but make sure you're using them in the right way. No index cards. That's my rule with that. I love that idea as far as folding the paper in half. I have never thought about that. It's so much easier to hold in your hand. It is, and it does. I have one. I don't know if our mic will pick it up, but if you're holding it flat, a traditional 8x11... If you have any nerves at all, people are going to see that and they're going to hear that paper. But if you do that lengthwise, nice and neat fold, it won't show those nerves.

SPEAKER_04:

Isn't that funny?

SPEAKER_03:

I know. Excellent. TV. Those are TV tricks. Yes. Even the way you're holding it like it did on it. Like I totally saw you go into that mode and I'm like, I've seen this before. Where have I seen it before? It's the news station like it does. It has a very polished look to it that adds like a level of confidence and I think preparedness to to that and to the appearance that they're giving. So it's like it's so funny. It's so funny on these episodes where we realize the simplest things make the hugest change. Well, Jocelyn, it's funny you say that because when you said that about news looking polished, I was thinking in my head, how does that happen? Because it's not like I went to some newscaster 101, this is how you look polished. Really what it was when I think about it is I got constant feedback. I got feedback certainly from news directors, producers, other reporters, which was fantastic, anchors. If I would proactively say to them, hey, what am I doing? Where can I grow? Also, of course, from viewers who would write in and give you feedback on anything, whether it was warranted or not. But that idea of constantly getting feedback immediately and very effectively improves your communication style. Now, I know that 99% of the workforce is not on TV every day to get feedback in that manner, but you can still constantly be asking your leaders, your colleagues, trusted clients even, after a presentation, What worked for you there? What sounded really good for you there? On the other hand, where did it lose you? Feedback is one of the best ways to improve your presentations. So how important is the tailoring of that message based on your audience versus the tailoring of kind of like yourself, I guess, when it comes to that audience, which is more of what we've talked about. And do you have an example of this that you could share that would maybe make a bit more connection for the listeners? Sure. Thank you. I want to make sure I'm understanding correctly. So how do you tailor perhaps the same message to different audiences? Thank you. Well, first of all, I love that we're even considering that idea because we have to. We might have... I'm thinking of an example professionally. You have new data that you have to share. You're going to deliver that data and share that information one way with executive leadership or with the CEO and completely differently with people on your team and even more differently with people who report to you. So the first thing is you think about how you have to know that and realize it and deliver it differently. You asked for an example there and I automatically, I go back to my news examples. I use a lot of news examples because after 20 years reporting, there are a lot of them that transfer so perfectly into public speaking. And we would have the same story but we would deliver it, let's say, in the morning newscast at 5 a.m., and then again at 7.30 a.m., then again possibly at noon, then again at 6 o'clock, and then finally, if it was still in the news cycle, by 11 p.m. Each time, we had to deliver it for a different audience. We knew our 5 a.m. audience was also brushing their teeth, trying to get kids out the door, half paying attention, so we had to be very clear and concise and give it a forward motion. OK, noon, a bit more relaxed. 5 p.m., the same thing. There's that rush. So we had to tailor it each time, keeping in mind who is that audience? What do they know about it? And how in depth do I have to go? I never realized that, that you would do that differently. Right. Different times of the day. Or the effectiveness of it, too, because, like, I mean, it makes me think of school. Right. And like how much better I would be at a certain time of a day versus another time of the day. And if you got me right before or right after lunch, like good luck to you. Right. So all of those things are super important. What are what do you see that are like more common mistakes that people are making when they are trying? Like so this is the way to do it. Here's what we consider. What are the mistakes people are making when they're attempting to do that? The biggest mistake by far that I see is is when somebody has to deliver a message or a presentation, they hear that, you need to give an update. Whatever the presentation is, you have to give this presentation. And they immediately think, okay, And they think about everything they know about it. And then they get up, whether they're seated at a boardroom, standing in front of a large group, or whether they're giving a virtual presentation. And what they do is they push everything that they know about that topic out. Here's everything I know because I know I need to get this all out before I lose your attention. I know you're all very busy and somebody's shopping on Amazon behind there. So I'm going to push everything I know out of you. That's where the mistake happens because to be an effective communicator, we need to be pulling as much as we're pushing. That involves check-ins. That involves strategically looking at your content ahead of time and not just saying, oh, I'm going to be interactive, but saying, here's where I'm going to stop and do a check-in. Here is where I'm going to pause and ask for some feedback in people's thoughts. It has to be strategic. I'm a big fan. Another behind-the-scenes tip when I'm doing a training or a facilitation I print out all of my slides. It doesn't matter how familiar I am with the content. I print out all of my slides, and I will circle the slides where I know I want to pause. Pausing is what lets our audiences catch up with us. There's power in a pause that lets them catch up, and then that's when we go into pause. What thoughts do you have right now? Who has the first question? If you have salespeople, the joke is if you have salespeople, say who has the first question and their hands will be up before they even have their question. But who has the first question? Where can I explain this better for you? What is landing well with you? We're not saying any questions, but we're pausing and we're saying, what questions do you have? Who has the first question? So Jocelyn, back to your question of what is the biggest mistake? I see it's that. It's presenters who push, push, push, push, push, and they never pause or check in. I 100% validate that. I think that is one of the biggest areas of feedback that I provide to people that I work with in a training capacity is that You the level of engagement that you can create has everything to do with how much time you give the person to catch up to you and get with it and be comfortable with the information that they're yielding enough to be like, this is something that I'm thinking about right now. And I want to ask you because you've given me the space to do so. I think for lack of a better word, unfortunately, I have seen people fail by not doing that who are completely capable, spectacular. Right. But just fell short because in that moment. they missed something. So that's 100% valid. I agree with you 1,000%. And there are some sneaky benefits to that too, that idea of pausing and asking for questions. A lot of times when I'm working with people on the presentation skills, they say, I'm so scared I'm going to forget something or I know I'm going to forget this. When you do realize you forgot it, instead of saying, oh, wait, and I forgot to say this and taking your audience back three slides, pause. What questions do you have? What question I often get is this, and then answer your question and the audience never knows you forgot to say it. Also by doing that, it spurs the audience to say, oh, it's like sending them this subliminal hug, like, hey, I want your questions. I like when people ask me questions and it gets them engaged. And that's what you're looking for when you're speaking is getting that engagement. It's interesting because a lot of times we do give people the feedback that they're talking too quickly and This really is the same feedback as far as pausing. Right. Because people might say, OK, great, I'll slow it down. But that still doesn't mean pause. So it really does make it a very practical and useful tip to just it's more than just slowing it down. It's pausing. It is, and Maria, I love that you are doubling down on that. I am a member of the Quick Speakers Club. 100% I speak quickly. I believe the first newscast I ever did was on at 6 p.m. By 6.20, I was done reading the news because I'm a quick speaker. But people at that point who worked with me and who helped coach me realized they could not slow down every word I said. That would take away all of the inflection and the power in my voice instead. We worked on pausing. And we worked on pausing in between sentences and in between thoughts and in between stories. So I love that you doubled down on that, Maria. Absolutely. There's power in that pause. Very important. I certainly can learn from that because I feel like I'm always talking 90 miles an hour and I don't pause enough. I'm going to be doing like three minute pauses between every sentence.

SPEAKER_04:

Great, Christina. Thank you. You have no idea what monster you just created.

SPEAKER_03:

And she's going to look at me every time she's pausing because I'll know what she's doing. I'm pausing. I'm pausing. The pauses always feel longer to us, too. Another thing I know from news, I would pause and it would feel like an eternity. And then I'd go back and watch to get some self-feedback and it's barely noticeable. So pausing always feels longer to us. not even to be dark and dreary about it, but if we're thinking about the power of silence and the pause, it's how you get information out of people. It's a tactic that detectives use when you're under the spotlight in the dark room. They're like, until you break,

SPEAKER_04:

right?

SPEAKER_03:

It's literally the same concept. At the end of those hard interviews where we just weren't getting the information we needed, it's exactly what we would do. Just stop talking and They'll volunteer something, yeah. Oh, because I've totally been that person on the other side. I'm like, oh, you're not talking. I've got to fill this. Okay, so there wasn't enough. I've got to say more. What am I going to say? And then who knows where the heck I just ended up by doing that. So, yes, I have also learned along the way. But, again, it's just it brings it all back to real life. Like this is stuff that all makes sense. It's stuff that we've seen. And we've also seen people who don't do it. And we're like, damn, I want to be that person. I see it with you all the time, Christina. Like every time we get on, I'm like, I love her voice. I just want to talk like her. One of those other things that you notice about people, at least that I notice, we notice their pacing. We notice their tone, their inflection, the verbal part of it. That's the vocal, but the verbal part of it as well. The actual words they say and how much power people can either add to their delivery or even worse, take away. from their delivery. And what I mean by that is the power robbers we hear. So power robbers, the just, kind of, maybe, sort of, I think. Those are the simplest fixes to remove from our vocabulary once we're aware of them. If you don't think you have this issue or if this is not something you think you're doing, if you're sitting here listening and you're like, I don't do that. look at your sent emails and see how just in your emails, there I said just, even in your emails, you are possibly using the words just kind of sort of. They cushion what you're trying to say. So even being aware of those, taking those power robbers out of your vocabulary. I certainly use just sometimes. I've actually stopped myself because I'm just in... In marketing, I do get involved a lot in marketing. We're just trying to really get rid of a lot of filler words. It's very interesting looking at that. And that's the concise. Yes. There's a lot of fillers. The fillers. And there is a difference we should point out between the fillers and the audible pauses, your ums and your ahs. And that's something more and more I'm diving into the research on. It used to be, 25 years ago, If you wanted to be a perfect speaker, you better have zero filler words and never say or ah, sound like a robot. But Maria, as you said at the beginning of this, that's not what audiences want anymore. We want authenticity. We want human speakers. Humans say an ah occasionally. They're different from just kind of sort of think. There's some new research out of Vanderbilt University that explores this idea of ums and ahs, the audible fillers. And it says lightly that the occasional use of an R&R can trigger your audience to pay attention. That's something big is coming. So let's say Jocelyn asks me a question and I say, Jocelyn doesn't take that as me not knowing what I'm talking about. I'm assuming, I'm guessing, Jocelyn, if that was a more organic exchange there, you could think, oh, she's really considering this question. So the occasional in awe is not something to beat yourself up for when it comes to presentation skills. It's something to be aware of. And if you are starting every sentence, starting every new slide, if you're in delivery mode, or every paragraph with awe, then it's a problem. But the occasional is not a hill I will die on as a presentation skills coach. I would much rather you focus on the just kind of sort of those qualifiers. A good example. How do you help people that have a lot of anxiety before presentations? What strategies do you give them? First of all, congratulations. I am thrilled. I am so happy. You have some nerves that tells me you care about what you're about to do. It tells me that you have taken the time, that you're aware of what this presentation means. I like to say that if you walk into a locker room on Super Bowl Sunday, you walk into one of the team's locker rooms on Super Bowl Sunday, you better hope there are nerves in that locker room. And I guarantee you there are nerves in that locker room. The difference is... They know at that level how to manage your nerves. The goal is never, ever, ever to eliminate nerves. That's not the goal. It's unrealistic and it ends up working against you. The goal is to manage them. How you do that varies from person to person. One of the first things I ask people to do is to narrow down where are those nerves coming from? Are they coming because you don't feel prepared? Well, you better do some quick run-throughs in your head, or you better make sure you have that folded note card. If they're coming from a place of feeling unprepared, do what you can to fix that. If they're coming from a place of, I'm going to forget something, fall back on that trick. No, okay, well, I'll just ask the audience a question if I'm going to forget something. Narrow it down. Why are you afraid? Are you afraid because there's a lot riding on it? Narrow that down. Oftentimes, What happens when people really do that, when they really spend a couple minutes saying, here's exactly why I'm feeling these nerves? They realize, I really don't know why. I'm just nervous. I don't like speaking in front of people. I don't like public speaking. Then we look at, are you really nervous to deliver this content? Or are you nervous about being nervous? Because our body tricks us. In our body, that first time we're nervous, I'm sure we can all think back to the first time we ever felt nerves, right? Whether we were in a Sunday school play or a class play or something when we were little, elementary school, junior high, we can all think of that time where we first felt nerves. Our body goes back to that and thinks nerves are bad. If I have to be in front of people, I'm going to have nerves. So we examine why we get nervous, narrow it down, think, am I really nervous about delivering this content or am I nervous about being nervous? That's one place to start. And the second piece of advice that I will give about that is the best thing you can do as a speaker, so if we look at it from a speaker role where you have an audience in front of you and you're doing public speaking, is to quit thinking about yourself. You are not there to talk about you. You are there to share a message And share what you know. So there's something called the speaker's triangle. And if you take the attention off of you as the speaker, quit thinking, what do I look like? What do I sound like? What are they thinking of me? And instead think, what does the audience need? How is this message landing with the audience? What's important about this message that I'm forgetting? Think about the audience in your message instead of you, and those nerves will go away as well. I agree with that. I again, it's it's I'll compare it to other real life stuff. It's like your wedding day. You know what I mean? You get so nervous about I mean, obviously, I'm not going to downplay like getting into a business arrangement with a significant other. It's a big deal. But we get really, really nervous about those things. I don't think it's so much because of the act of like committing to that person because we've already done that. But it's about the. Attention. Performance of it all. Right. Yeah. You don't want anything to go wrong. You have to be perfect. You can't like my makeup better not move. God forbid a bobby pin comes out of place. If somebody falls, I'm going to kill them. Like all this stuff. But it's like at the end of the day, I've also attended weddings and I know I don't notice any of that stuff. Nobody notices any of those things. So until you mess up and you make it apparent to everybody else watching you that, oh, God, that was a mess up.

SPEAKER_04:

Here

SPEAKER_03:

I am nervous about this mess up. Look what just happened. It's not a thing. So removing that initially, I think, is what helps us like what you said, getting out of your own head like this isn't about me. This is about my audience. And at the end of the day, like the way I handle it is what they're going to notice more than anything. Absolutely. And I love the analogy there about a wedding day. Yes, your guests love it. They don't notice the things that feel so big to you. Can we dig into storytelling a little bit? Sure. Let's talk storytelling. Again, going back to TV, I had to tell two stories a day every day for over a dozen years. Stories stick. And it's not just stories when, again, when we're looking at public speaking and presentation and presence related to that. not just stories, but examples you can use. Look what we both just did right there. We talked about a bride, a wedding day. That's an analogy. That's sticky. That's something that's memorable. Or the young lady who had the gaff there. Those are stories and examples that are sticky. That's what people remember. And in the soft skills world, storytelling, you can look at two ways. Overall storytelling is a presentation start to finish, you're telling a story the entire time, I certainly support that. I get more excited about micro stories, the little mini stories that you put in your presentation to drive your point home. So the unfortunate truth is so many professional presentations are data dumps. They're data dumps. We need the data. We have to include it in presentations. There's no way around it sometimes. But where can we put stories that explain it or that link it or that drive the point home? So that idea of micro stories, micro examples within your presentations, I'm certainly a fan of. And I know that certainly makes the leader appear much more authentic? Are there other things that a leader could do to appear more authentic or gain credibility with the audience? Again, well, Maria, right there. I mean, that's the first way to start. is to take ownership of that presentation. So often our really high level executives and leaders, they have somebody putting a slide deck together for them. They have somebody perhaps saying, here are your bullets you need to hit. They may even have somebody writing a full state of the company for them. The more they can take that and add their own open, their own close. How are they opening that presentation? How are they closing it? Which is a separate topic we can talk about. But how are they opening it? How are they closing it? Where are they taking their stories, examples, analogies, and putting them? Interspersing? Is that the word I'm looking for? I'm a speaking coach. That's my word. But where are they taking those stories, those analogies, those examples? And putting them throughout their presentation, because that's what makes them own that presentation. That's what makes it theirs. And that's what makes them seem authentic to us as the audience when they're connected to their material. I agree with that. And I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, too. But somebody in a program the other day, the topic of authenticity and credibility came up and they said, what about when they're asked questions they don't know the answers to? I love talking about questions, but I'm curious what your initial instinct is if you're in a meeting and a leader is asked a question and they don't know the answer. What's the best way you want to hear them answer that? I guess. I mean, I envision myself being in that situation sometimes. And I would say, that's a good question. I need to give that more thought and I'll get back to you.

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Owning, owning, I don't have that information. I don't have that answer. Or telling them what I do know. I don't know the full answer to that question, but here is what I know and just list out what I know. And here are some areas where I need to get more information and I will let you know. Love that. Yes, I love that. And Jocelyn, I see you're nodding your head there too. That right there is, it's such a powerful leadership tool. So when you're talking to your company, Maria, I don't have that answer right now. Here's what I'm doing to get it. And I'll get back to you. There's an acronym for it called RSVP. It's what I call it. First, you recognize their concern. I understand why this is an important question to you, or I understand why this is an issue right now. Share the steps that are being taken. Here's what I'm doing to find that. V, the value it will bring. Once I know that, then we can. And the P, promise to update. So Maria, you follow that exactly to what we advised there. I love that tip too, RSVP. That's excellent. Yeah, I agree with everything that Maria said. I think it goes back to my policy. I know it's Maria's policy is that it's like, Good or bad, however you see it, transparent communication is what I do. So like I understand that you have a question, like here's where I'm at right now. I want to let you know that like based on the information that I do have, I can make some assumptions. These are the only assumptions. So something changes, but I at least want you to know where my head's at at this scenario and understand if that sounds pretty valid to you. And then moving forward with like the concretes versus like what's still pending. And we're just relating it to a recruiting role because we're often dealt with in recruiting ambiguous information or a lack thereof. And sometimes we are just vetting in that way. I understand this is a really important piece. Here's where I'm at with it right now. I have this much time to get it done. And I think in between those phases, this is what we're going to do to work together. Are you in? How can we move forward? And it's the same kind of idea. And you can refer to it as process storytelling. If we go back to that idea of storytelling, that in itself is a micro story. It's a process story. administration building. Here's who we asked. It's process storytelling and it's process answering. I've seen those episodes. Yeah. But they're doing that in that process, process storytelling way where when they don't have the answer, but they still need to look confident.

UNKNOWN:

Mm hmm.

SPEAKER_03:

So what advice would you give to new leaders or any leaders who just simply struggle from doing public speaking and avoid it at all costs? Not me, not ever, no way. Do it. Do it, do it, do it. Public speak at your Girl Scout meetings if you're a leader. Public speak if you coach your daughter's field hockey team and be a parent. If you go to a school board meeting, if you have an HOA, any place that you can speak, speak. And don't overthink it. Don't think, oh, I have to deliver a two-minute speech. I'm going to go to this township meeting. In Pennsylvania, we have township meetings that are a big deal where you go and share your thoughts. I'm talking for two minutes at my township meeting. I better sound, this better be better than Shakespeare. Don't overthink it. Speak, have a message, be very clear on what your message and the goal is and know who your audience is and speak and sprinkle in a couple of anecdotes and stories, but do it as often as possible. Just do it. And back to not having an answer and what you're saying as far as these like Shakespeare answers. If you don't have the answer, you could just say, to be or not to be? That is the question. I think I'm going to start answering it that way. I'm just going to shorten it. Pause first. Take a bow. I'm going to shorten it. Did I get this right? I'm going to shorten it any time somebody asks me a question. I'm just going to go, that is the question.

SPEAKER_04:

That

SPEAKER_03:

is the question. I like that. I'm not wrong. I'm not wrong. See what we learned from you today. We're such good students. We learned everything we were supposed to do of the day. This was a lot of very, very good tips. Don't you love her voice? I love when she gets into her mode. It's like my favorite thing ever. Well, I love working with you. Absolutely. What channel did you work for? I worked for CBS Affiliates, ABC Affiliates, and Fox Affiliates. Excellent. Yes. That's fantastic. We won't ask you which one you like the best. I like them all. Okay. I like them all. There you go. Okay, great. Well, let's see if we can find 10 more things to like because it is at the end of our episode, my friend, and we are ready for the TTA 10.

SPEAKER_01:

It's the TTA 10. 10 final questions for our guest.

SPEAKER_03:

all right christina we talked about this our listeners know what this is it's everybody's favorite part of the show because who knows how crazy i'm gonna get but i've been getting some looks from my team members lately so i dialed it back a little bit guys okay anyway we have 10 questions rapid fire answers come the first thing that comes to mind there's only one math problem so there's only one right or wrong answer and then otherwise it's just whatever you're thinking so if you win By answering in under 90 seconds, David might have something special for you. If you don't, well, then we'll see what happens, but it's all in the name of good fun. So are you ready to play the TTA 10, Christina?

SPEAKER_00:

I am and I'm so competitive with myself that I'm setting my timer for 90 seconds. Love

SPEAKER_03:

you. For those who cannot see, Christina is going to have her own 90 second timer in front of her. Yes, we have to make sure that we don't have any room for error here. All right, David, get us started, please.

SPEAKER_01:

90 seconds on the TTA 10 o'clock starting now. now all

SPEAKER_03:

right christina what's your favorite color

SPEAKER_00:

yellow

SPEAKER_03:

which of the seven dwarves do you most identify with

SPEAKER_00:

oh sleepy

SPEAKER_03:

what is your favorite tv show of all time

SPEAKER_00:

the office

SPEAKER_03:

what is seven minus one sick what about the favorite thing you eat to satisfy your sweet tooth

SPEAKER_00:

like sweets pickles does that count

SPEAKER_03:

sure i'll take it would you retire to the mountains or retire to the beach side yellow beach if you could master one skill any skill at the snap of your fingers what skill would you choose that is the question name any of donald duck's nephews What is the craziest thing that you have on your bucket list? Sailing. I don't like water, so sailing. And give us your best news anchor sign off from the TTA 10.

SPEAKER_00:

Reporting live from TTA 10, this is Christina Butler. Have a good day.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you, Christina. David, that's 10. Can we have the verdict, please?

SPEAKER_01:

This may be a new record. One minute, nine seconds. Well, well, well, well under the threshold.

SPEAKER_04:

She's flying.

SPEAKER_01:

She is indeed a TTA 10 champion. There's a lot of pressure on me to do a salute for Christina because she's a sister in media, but we did our best. We came up with a musical salute on everything that Christina is about. Please enjoy.

SPEAKER_02:

she's got the mic she's got the lines from the news and little stitches in the spotlight with a heart full of passion and a voice so true christina buck is here to bring the news to you breaking news she's on the scene clear concise confidence she's a communication queen and on that podium this is so fantastic Amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

David, that was amazing. And Christina, what impressive shots of you on the TV there. That was so fun there. Thank you. If you had waited two weeks on that keynote speaker reel, Christina, you could have been doing it with all those new taglines about Imodium and

SPEAKER_04:

stuff. Imodium and Podium.

SPEAKER_01:

I had to write something with Podium. So

SPEAKER_03:

awesome. I love it. Thank

SPEAKER_01:

you so much. That was fantastic.

SPEAKER_04:

Christina,

SPEAKER_03:

what a blast. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being our guest, Christina. We truly appreciate it. And thank you for being a good partner of ours. And thank you, David, for that great outro. Yes. For more information on bringing the power of presence and effective communication strategies to your organization, visit us at thetrainingassociates.com. We'll see you later.