Receiving frank assessments about ourselves from others is often not easy and can be an emotional experience. Here are a few tips on how best to prepare yourself to receive feedback, to be receptive and to leverage the value of the comments you receive from others.

·  Relax:  Feedback is an adventure of discovery into yourself. Be willing to entertain new ideas about yourself.  Some of the comments you receive might be useful, others not. Even if all that is said is not accurate, you just might learn something from the small part that is.  

·  Be a sponge:  Resist the urge to explain.  Just listen respectfully, acknowledge the comments and avoid explaining your actions.  When you explain, you are likely to be perceived as defensive or unwilling to listen to feedback.

·  Ask for clarification:  Ask if there were certain words, gestures or expressions that created the impression he or she received from you. Listen carefully to these details.

·  Write down the comments:  This information will be even more valuable after a couple of days and you might find it easier to get past any emotionally-charged words or issues you had at the time the comments were made.

·  Practice Kaizen: “Continuous improvement.”  Embrace the philosophy that has made Toyota the world’s premier auto manufacturer.  When you practice this mindset, you will begin to see that all feedback is an invaluable gift – an invitation to examine one’s self with fresh eyes.

Let us heed the words of poet Robert Browning: “Oh what a gift he could give us; to see ourselves as others see us.”

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"They'll remember your story after they've forgotten your name."

A client and friend sent me a link to the article The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn from Scientific American Mind.com a few weeks back, prompting me to revisit the importance of storytelling as a public speaking skill in our blog.

The article notes that as a social animal, our brains seem wired to enjoy stories.  One of the many questions explored is how do the emotional and cognitive effects of a narrative influence our beliefs and real-world decisions?

 Empathy is part of the larger ability humans have to put themselves in another person’s shoes: we can attribute mental states—awareness, intent—to another entity. Theory of mind, as this trait is known, is crucial to social interaction and communal living—and to understanding stories.

As psychologists probe our love of stories for clues about our evolutionary history, other researchers have begun examining the themes and character types that appear consistently in narratives from all cultures. Their work is revealing universal similarities that may reflect a shared, evolved human psyche.

Perhaps because theory of mind is so vital to social living, once we possess it we tend to imagine minds everywhere, making stories out of everything.

The power of stories does not stop with their ability to reveal the workings of our minds. Narrative is also a potent persuasive tool, according to Hogan and other researchers, and it has the ability to shape beliefs and change minds. 

- Scientific American Mind, The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn by Jeremy Hsu

 How do we utilize storytelling as a presentation skill? 

In our workshops at The Henderson Group we know that stories help you get into the “zone” of presenting.  You are intimately familiar with the material and it’s easy to be more animated with an energetic, expressive voice and gestures when telling a story. 

Weave your background and resume into a story.  You will get to tout your experience while also gaining attention and building rapport.  Use personal stories to make points.  Carefully selected, vivid details are always more powerful than vague, general adjectives.  These are the elements that can make a story effective:

• Common reference points
• Characters
• Recognizable archetypes
• Conflict
• Details
• Dialogue between characters
• A good segue back to your topic

Fashion personal stories that show you in a vulnerable light (when you were struggling as a young sales rep, at your first job out of college, etc.) They will help you gain empathy and get the audience rooting for you.  Come up with 2 – 3 stories that you can develop and plug into different presentations. 

Practice telling the story to friends and family members in informal settings.  Continue to refine it to its most compact, crystallized form by selecting the pertinent details and then letting those details vividly delivered with expressive non-verbal behavior do the work.  I GUARANTEE that you will find that storytelling will transform your professional and personal communications in powerful and pleasurable ways.  Part 2

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"Knowing your own mind" is a common expression. But how many of us really do?

Are you open or close-minded? Do you believe your mind is fixed? Is it limited and unchallenged? Or are you a person who hasn’t given up? Do you believe your mind can still grow? Is fluid and open to learning and improving? What is your Mindset?

The Oxford American Dictionary defines Mindset as "an established set of attitudes held by someone." It turns out, though, that these attitudes needn’t be so set. In Mindset, The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck posits that intelligence is not fixed, but changeable. At some time in our lives, we’re the ones responsible for setting limitations. So if we think we can improve, we will. If we don’t, we won’t. Dweck likens the brain to a muscle — ever capable of stretching and learning something new.

But in order to learn, you have to believe you can. Your approach to life works best with what Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi calls a beginner’s mind. In his book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, he tells us that, "In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few." Your mind must be open.

The child’s mind, for example, is always open and always ready to grow. Think of how a child approaches life. Full of curiosity and wonder. "I wonder what this is?" "I wonder what this means?" Wanting to be able to do it, to learn it, to play with it. Without a fixed Mindset or prior judgment, the child just asks, "What is this? "What does it mean?

More on Mindset: Psychology of Success

"Dishonesty is sanitized in a world of spin."

The title of this Leonard Pitts’ column, written for the Miami-Herald in 2007, tells us what we probably already know: that what we see (and what we hear) in today’s world is not necessarily what we get. Because on the other side of honesty we often find "spin."

When you decide on which words and facts to use to communicate with others, do you make a practice of incorporating the techniques of "spin"? Most likely not – unless this is how you want to be known. As a "spin doctor."

"Spin": Not giving out blatantly dishonest information, but communicating information with a very strong bias, a bias that favors the speaker or the situation. It’s a manipulative technique that no doubt most of us are familiar with today — one which seldom involves authenticity. When "spin" is used, some facts may be correct, but placed outside the original context and inside a presentation meant to sway the public, the result is not necessarily authentic or credible.

In a recent Liz Kelly column in the Washington Post, she spells it out for us: "Pay close attention to what comes out of the mouths of celebrities. They may not always mean what they say. They probably didn’t actually come up with these words (remember, most are paid performers) and in most cases their utterances – whether on Entertainment Tonight or surrounded by salt-of-the-earth villagers in Namibia – are calculated to add value to their brand. Imagine them henceforth very carefully manipulated by an able band of helpers."

So when did "spin" begin?

More on Spin Versus Authenticity and Credibility

The Working Class Three

There were a trio of speakers that were clearly intended to carry the message that Obama cares about white collar workers, the voters that identified with Hillary Clinton's campaign.

 The first was Gloria Craven from North Carolina whose story about being laid off from a textile factory is compelling.  Her plain, unflattering dress and stiff, nervous demeanor are examples of authenticity.  In her case, not appearing to be slick or polished helps establish her credibility. 

The second was Lilly Ledbetter, Ledbetter sued Goodyear because she learned that they were paying significantly less than her male counterparts.  Her case went all the way to the Supreme Court.  They ruled that she did not file her suit within a suitable time frame, which was 180 days "after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred" according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

 The third was Anna Berger who worked for the Service Employees International Union.  Though her story may be compelling, her speaking skills are so poor, my wife and I didn't hear it.  We were so distracted by her style that her story was lost on us.  Examples:

Other Notable Speakers

More on DNC Presentation Report: Day 2

When the customer comes first, the customer will last.    -Robert Half

Every sales person has a process. One they’ve learned or created on their own. One they have enhanced or dully repeated time after time.

Generally, six steps make up every sales process:

• Prospect
• Contact
• Presentation
• Proposal
• Close
• Transaction

This varies slightly, sometimes uses different words, yet basically each sales person needs to find a client and sell something to them. But the success of the sale results from a strong underlying philosophy of integrity.

In Selling With Integrity, international speaker and entrepreneur Sharon Drew Morgen outlines a unique sales process – the "Buying Facilitation" process – based on the idea that buyers have their own answers. She explains that a potentially adversarial relationship between buyer and seller can become one with genuine collaboration and consideration. Honesty rather than manipulation.

"Selling with Integrity describes the first new paradigm in sales. It offers a model for how to bring soul into sales, and teaches the hands-on skills to do it."–Jack Canfield

Morgen urges sellers first to pay attention to buyers' buying patterns rather than new ways of selling. In her book, she offers step-by-step guidelines, practical how-to's and numerous examples of her revolutionary approach to the sales process. A sales process with integrity.

She developed this new sales process by accident. After she and her husband took jobs in England for an international computer services firm, she found hers just wasn’t working for her. When she offered to resign, the company wanted to keep her so they allowed her to create her own job. What she came up with: a job to support her husband’s work. His highly technical position worked for him but he complained that various companies had no place to go for systems design or training in the 4th Generation Language arena he was working in.

Although she didn’t understand the technical details of his job, she did understand the interrelationships between people and their computers. What she wanted and needed to create was a service to meet people’s needs in those relationships. Since her husband was supporting both of them in a comfortable style, she didn’t take the "job" seriously at first, but just as something to keep herself busy.

Her first call was to American Express (She started with the "A"s.) She began by asking the receptionist for help: "I’m sure you’re busy but I’m wondering if you’d have a few moments to help me." Evidently a good opening, as the receptionist agreed to help her by giving her the names of several people who took care of their computer support needs.

One was named Jim and her first call to him made him laugh: "Hello, this is Sharon Drew Morgen. This is a sales call. Is this a good time to speak?" He was intrigued and let her ask more questions, probe him for what his needs were. Because she didn’t have a service to sell yet, she didn’t really need to close any business. Instead, she was searching for holes in service and solutions to mend them. Through a question and answer process, and not a hard selling process (since she didn’t yet have anything to sell), Jim discovered that he was missing some specific technical support. Though he was able to solve his own problem internally, he referred her to others and she was on her way. Selling solutions without manipulation

Here’s how the process works:

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