There is one sentence that’s always guaranteed to annoy me in the context of leadership it is “We’ve always been good!”. This sentence encapsulates poor leadership in so many different ways. It can also be condensed into a single word … complacency. Complacency in all its forms is often the gatekeeper of poor leadership. What … Read more
Very often these days I am asked to deliver a speech at very short notice. Sometimes, I have some notice and a little bit of time to prepare. Some other times, I only have minutes before I am due to go and stage and speak. These situations happen all the time and will happen to … Read more
As I sat listening to some speeches recently, I realised that most speakers fail to impact an impact when they speak. Their speeches might be fairly interesting and their central idea may even be unusual enough to garner interest. However, the impact on the audience, either entertainment, persuasion of information ends-up being quite limited. So, limited that … Read more
When people ask me if I enjoy being a senior leader in my organisation, my answer is a consistently ‘Yes I do.’ Leadership is an amazing experience as it allows you to shape and influence an organisation and perhaps more nobly to turn a vision and a dream into reality. Nevertheless, I’ve said before that leadership … Read more
How does your speech title impact how others perceive your speech? Your speech title matters more than you think and can impact how your audience perceives your speech, even before you’ve said a single word. The broken promise I sat through a public speaking competition a few days ago and one of the speech titles … Read more
This post is part of a series of posts aimed at PMO professionals ahead of my keynote Public Speaking Demystified at the Future PMO Conference on October 17th in Hammersmith. A fortnight ago, when discussing informative speeches, I also mentioned that most speeches or presentations either seek to inform or persuade an audience. Persuasion immediately triggers images of … Read more
Impactful public speaking is made-up of well-structured content delivered in a strong and confident manner. Eye contact and body language are key elements of a strong delivery. However, the one that can make the difference between a weak speech and an impactful one is the speaker’s voice. Your voice is a muscle One thing that … Read more
Last week, a review of data for the Toastmasters district I lead revealed that we were doing better than expected on a range of indicators. The scale of the success surprised me and I immediately set gears in motion to start celebrating this success. But why does this matter you might ask? Recognition works wonders … Read more
This post is part of a series of posts aimed at PMO professionals ahead of my keynote Public Speaking Demystified at the Future PMO Conference on October 17th in Hammersmith. In earlier blog posts in this series, we covered the importance of basing your presentation around a single idea and additionally why you should be clear on what … Read more
During the many conversations, I’ve had about leadership over the past few years. An interesting theme cropped up many times amongst senior leaders within my organisations. It is best summarized as “Why do people always expect more help on this topic, when large quantities of information are available online about it.” I’ve previously explained that … Read more