by Alan Fairweather

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Avoid pain

Which would you prefer - root canal dental surgery without an anaesthetic or a bit of public speaking? According to people who research these things, most of us would prefer former. Public speaking is still one of our greatest fears and it turns grown men and women into nervous wrecks. The mere thought of it turns our tongue to cotton wool, causes our internal plumbing to act up and our kneecaps to start knocking lumps out of each other. The problem is that Public Speaking catches up with many of us at some time both in our business and personal life. You're asked to do a short talk at Fred's "leaving do". The organisers of your business club want fifteen minutes on why you make "kafuffle" valves. A potential client wants a presentation on why they should give you contract. Of course there's always confident people who think "I'm real good at this, lead me to podium." The only thing is that some of these people could bore your socks off and do more for insomniacs than strongest sleeping pills. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to be sent on a Public Speaking course by your enlightened employer. But more likely, when asked to make a presentation you'll get hold of a book on speaking, start writing speech and lose sleep until event. Well, there's no need for all of this because help is at hand. All you need to remember are your P's and Q's. Let's start with P's

Preparation When you sit down to write what you're going to say, bear in mind who you'll be speaking to. Will they understand what you're talking about; will they understand technical stuff and jargon? If in doubt remember old saying "Keep It Simple Stupid". To quote Aristotle - "Think as wise men do, but speak as common man". Make sure that what you say has a beginning, a middle and an end. Think of some anecdotes that help reinforce your story. People think visually so paint verbal pictures for your audience. And always remember, people want to know what's in it for them - so make sure you tell them!

Place Have a look at venue before event if you can. It's not always possible, however, even if you get there half an hour before, you can check out where you'll be speaking. Stand at point where you will deliver from, imagine where audience will be and check that they can see and hear you. You may even wish to place a glass of water where you'll be able to find it. Personal Preparation Before any speaking event, think about what you are going to wear; when in doubt dress up rather than down. You can always take things off for a more casual look. Men could remove their jacket and their tie. Women could remove items of jewellery. Part of your personal preparation should include some mouth and breathing exercises. Practise saying some tongue twisters to give your speaking muscles a good work out. Take a deep breath and expand your diaphragm. Then breathe out, counting at same time, try and get up to fifty and not pass out. As part of your personal preparation, write your own introduction. Write out exactly what you want someone to say about you, large font, double-spaced and ask person introducing you to read it. Believe me they won't object and will probably be pleased and impressed.

Poise and Posture Whenever you're called to speak, stand up or walk to front quickly and purposefully. Pull yourself up to your full height, stand tall and look like you own place. Before you start to speak, pause, look round your audience and smile. You may even have to wait until applause dies down. Remember, you want audience to like you, so look likeable. Practise this in front of a mirror or your family; I've heard that children make pretty good critics.

If you're an employer or a manager then work place absence is costing you money, inconvenience, and upsetting your customers. And as we all know, not all days taken off work are due to genuine sickness. Many employees "take a sickie" because their morale is low and they just don't like or can't do their work.

The challenge for employers and managers is to make people happier at work. And if people are happy at work then they are less likely to take a day off every time they wake up with a stuffy nose. Some bosses think that paying more money, improving job security or working conditions is answer. It isn't and it's also something that can be very hard to achieve.

People who employ or supervise other people need to become more tuned to their employees' emotional needs and find out what really motivates them. This is also much easier to achieve than paying more money or improving job security, however there is no quick fix. Some years ago I inherited a tele-sales operation with low staff morale and poor sales results. It took nearly a year to fix. The long-term benefits were of course worth it in terms of fewer days lost due to sickness and an increase in business. To reduce number of sickies there are four steps you need to consider. Firstly, pick right person for job. There's a television advertisement running at present for a recruitment company. It highlights fact that many people are in wrong job for their skills and attributes. The daft thing is that it was an employer or manager who put them in job in first place. We need to get better at interviewing and selecting people. Take more time over it; pay more attention to applicant's human side rather than their qualifications or experience. Get to know them better. Find out what makes them happy, how well they get on with other people and how much energy and enthusiasm they have. Make sure they know what they're getting into and be sure job suits them.

A manager in telecom industry was telling me about an engineer who was taking too many sickies. He was being blamed for a poor attitude to his work. His job involved working in tunnels under city repairing and installing equipment. Eventually it was discovered that poor guy was claustrophobic and was trying to deal with it on his own. He still works for same team but in a job that doesn't involve small spaces. It's not always easy to move people, which emphasises importance of getting it right in first place.

Secondly, you need to believe in your people. If you've interviewed well and picked right person for job then you need to trust them to do that job. You need to constantly demonstrate to your people that you trust and believe in them by what you say, your tone of voice and your body language. If you believe that your people are not to be trusted, that they're unable to make a decision without checking with you. That they'll turn up late and go home early, then that's exactly what they'll do. If on other hand you believe that they'll do their job well, that they can be trusted to make decisions and they will give you a fair day's work, then it is more likely this is what you'll get. As with all theories there is no guarantee that it will work every time, however majority of employees are reasonable people and if you treat them as such then they are more likely to behave in a positive manner.

The third and probably most important thing you can do to motivate your people is to give them feedback and coach them. This is where so many employers and managers fall down in dealing with their people; we are hopeless at giving feedback. Many managers are uncomfortable telling staff how they feel about their work performance.