Coaching Archives - Greatness Magnified

5 Misery-Making Things At Work We Accept (But Don’t Have To)

March 7, 2019 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

As a recognition expert, I often find that following a keynote, or when coaching leaders, there are a few common things mention that annoy, frustrate and roadblock their productivity, yet they’re so commonplace they haven’t put steps in place to change them. What if in fact, you could make your own workday and others more enjoyable, satisfying and productive? Wouldn’t you try it?

You may be thinking, if the solutions were that obvious, why wouldn’t we be fixing them? As I begin to share this list, you’ll probably realize they are deeply embedded in workplace behaviour and culture – your workplace and many others! Yet, with some help and commitment to tweaking things, you may find you can take more of your time, focus and energy back, redirecting it to what you do best and enjoy most.

1.Emails

There’s some research now that’s showing that emails are becoming one of the biggest stressors that people deal with. Not being caught up, having to check it while you’re on vacation, arriving to 50 more after just one meeting (that you notice on your way to your next meeting). Ring a bell?

Some people think email is inevitable. A necessary evil. However, there are lots of things you can do to reduce email traffic. Check out systems like Slack and Click. Tools like these and others are helping work teams contain conversations around projects so that your communication stays focused, productive and updated. Say goodbye to long never-ending lists of emails in your inbox!

2.Committees and Meetings

Death by committees and meetings! Patrick Lencioni wrote a great book on this a number of years ago. Sitting in meeting after meeting, 8 am to 5 pm, it occurred to me we didn’t have to be this overscheduled. Furthermore, I began to notice how many things we discussed just to feel like everyone was included because no one read the written communications (perhaps because they were always in meetings), and as the only means to keep a project on track. Some meetings didn’t even have a structure such as an agenda! Oh, the pain!

When a new CEO came in and he said, “What is with all of these meetings?” I, perhaps unpopularly said, “Why don’t we put a hiatus on all meetings that are not absolutely required? Only support meetings that are legislated and mandated, but every other meeting is on hold for three months. Let people get their time back. And that after three months, people need to pitch to bring back the meeting.” He agreed. Initially, people said, “Oh my gosh, we can’t do without these meetings!” But it is incredible how focused, productive, and collaborative people were able to be when their calendar was not blocked during their most alert hours. You can probably imagine, many fewer meetings came back. Could you try a meeting holiday, even meeting free Fridays?

3.Task Delegation

When support departments delegate tasks to busy middle managers who are already overwhelmed to do work that is very specialized, not only will they feel anxious that they can’t do it as well as a trained professional, but also, they don’t have time to do it. Consider your processes and determine if there’s something that we’re asking people to do that isn’t really reasonable and, frankly, is causing them undue stress.

Also, consider what tasks people are doing that aren’t necessary. Plan your next group meeting with Doodle or purchase a scheduling software system like Calendly or TimeTrade. You are too busy and it’s painful to go back and forth setting up meetings (it just compounds problems 1 and 2 we discussed above). Let technology do the work for you.

4.Corner of the desk phenomenon

When we add projects, we may have great reasons why we want somebody to do it, and yet, they cannot get it done because they already have a full-time job. How much do you ask people to do without having a conversation about what’s coming off their plate? Why don’t you initiate that conversation?

5.Annual recognition only

Failure to recognize people in a meaningful way on a regular basis leaves people to feel less motivated, energized or clear if what they’re contributing is making a difference. Leaving it to annual (or worse, only at 5, 10 or 25-year marks) is even worse than infrequent recognition!

I can’t tell you how many people have still had large amounts of email in their inbox, sat on many committees, and still have tasks that haven’t made it off their plate yet. However, when somebody takes the time to acknowledge and appreciate how hard they’re working, the strengths and the skills that they’re bringing to the organization, how they know that there has been an extra push lately and that it is valued and appreciated, when it’s specifically, authentically, meaningfully acknowledged, people are willing and able to work for you; that much harder, that much more focused, that much more productively. You won’t get your best from people if you only make a big deal of them once they’ve been with the company for 25 years (and believe it or not, the main investment Canadian organizations make in recognition is this!)

If you find that people are not performing at their best, and that includes you, perhaps burnout has set in from the very things we can change in organizations. Isn’t it worth trying to shift? Wouldn’t a small improvement make a huge impact when you consider your whole workforce?

There are many easy things you can do about each one of them, which is why I invite you to spend 15 minutes chatting over a virtual cup of coffee to strategize how I can help you.

5 Ways to Bring Meaning and Joy Back to your Career

March 7, 2019 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

Do you feel meaning and joy every single day from the work that you do? Do you love your career? If Oprah invited you to be a guest on Super Soul Sunday, would you have so many stories and examples to share you would not know where to start?

Well, if you’re not sure or if you’re worried the answer is no, you are not alone. A small percentage of us are actually satisfied and engaged in the very place we spend most of our time – our workplaces. The good news is, we have found it elsewhere; 67% of Canadians say they’re very happy. Imagine how many more would be happier, or happier for a greater part of our day, if we could find that joy at work too? I believe it’s possible.

I want to share with you five powerful questions to clarify where you can find more joy and satisfaction at work:

Are you proud about the work you do and who you work for?
Do you have a close or even best friend at work?
Do you have joy and happiness at least once every single day at work?
Do people see and honour your greatness – your talents, passions, and virtues?
Are you recognized for that greatness every single day?

If the answer is no to any of those questions, just ask yourself, “What would Oprah inspire you to do? Would she settle? Nope. So why should you?

What is one thing you could do to bring greater joy and happiness into your workday? Here are a few ideas:

Speak positively about your job, employer and accomplishments in your role
Spend time socializing at work or outside of work with coworkers you respect and share common interests with
Before you finish work, write down, note in an app like WinStreak, or simply think about one thing you that worked well or was positive about your day
Recognize someone’s else greatness (they’ll be more likely to recognize yours and others)
Find a way to bring recognition into your workplace such as in team meetings, stand up morning huddles, a kudos board or random acts of recognition (e.g., thank-you notes)

No matter how much control you feel you have at work, there is always something you can do to regain joy and contentment at work. And isn’t it worth it? You spend enough time there…

Want ideas every day of how to keep doing this? Listen on your Amazon Alexa device or podbean app to Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness.

Worried social media is robbing you of your greatness?

January 10, 2019 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

In my line of work, I find many people ask about prioritization and time management. It’s something that all busy professionals and business owners struggle with.

Adrian’s no different. Consider his question which I am sure will resonate with you.

“I want to be blatantly honest with you Sarah, I struggle with priority setting and time management, but priority setting in particular. It’s true, I do say yes to a lot of things because you know how I give you all trouble about saying yes to too many things. But especially work that I love. I love to say yes to freelance photography. And it’s not that I have no time. I have perhaps too much time. I have a great team that also works with me at the gallery, and I will pass things over from them from time to time. I’m doing more outreach these days, and I just don’t know if what I’m doing is effective and paying off. I use about 15 different forms of social media, and I do occasionally get people in the gallery saying they found me there. But again, not that many people, and I’m not sure if all my efforts are effective. Any ideas?”

Do you have the same question? Can you relate?

There is so much pressure – on individuals, organizations, and entrepreneurs – to create content and to be out there on many social media platforms. But many feel they don’t have the time or can quantify their efforts to create ROE (return on effort). Not to mention the worries about your privacy, impact on your lifestyle (e.g., cutting into fitness time), and attention taken away from family and friends. These can leave you feeling depleted, frustrated and ineffective but it doesn’t need to be.

Social media has many benefits. It builds and reinforces your brand so you’re ready for the next opportunity (e.g, prospective employers, clients, and relationships). It is free and easy to use with almost no learning curve to get started. It’s also millions to billions strong (depending on the platform) so guaranteed, it can help to build your credibility if you’re putting valuable content out there.

Here are three tips to be sure, like Adrian, your efforts get you results:

1. Choose the social media platforms

Rather than try to be on every social media platform, decide which ones you feel most comfortable with and adds value. For example, I don’t serve youth, so you won’t find me on Snapchat (much to my teens’ glee!)

Ensure the ones that you choose are matched up to where your prospective employers and customers are. Get really good using the ones you choose and you’ll find not only do you enjoy it more, but you’ll also be able to find ways where you can maximize it, such as sharing from one site to the other, rather than creating organic content for all of them.

2. Monitor your analytics

Have you looked at your analytics lately? What posts get the most interaction? How many people follow you? What followers’ level of engagement is with you over time? If you find certain social media platforms have low engagement, maybe you can take a “holiday” from them. Or, try to boost those analytics such as having a call to action on your posts (e.g., share the post, tag someone). You can even try giving away free, valuable content or encourage in-person visits (such as in Adrian’s business he wants more foot traffic).

Take note of what posts tend to get the most interaction and by knowing this will help you make some really conscious choices about how you spend your time on social media.

3. Delegate to your team

Social media posting is time-consuming and requires diligence, persistence, and consistency so your audience comes to know and expect your content and your brand. But the good news is, you don’t have to do it all yourself.

My virtual assistant, Caroline, handles all of my sharing and posting of these weekly posts (in fact it’s part of a broader system of connecting with you weekly that I spoke about in last week’s post). Because of her system, she is super efficient and more effective at it than I am, therefore I can work on other aspects of my business given she has that covered.

I hope you found these three productivity and time-saving hacks really helpful. If you have other questions or comments about how you can maximize this, jump over to my Facebook group, Greatness Biz. It is especially helpful if you are considering starting or expanding a business. In this community, we discuss many aspects of business because productivity and time management is essential to your success.

Should I have a VLOG? How to Spread your Greatness Through Video

January 10, 2019 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

In January 2017, I released my first VLOG (video blog) and it was bad! The lighting, the rambling, the sound quality, well, let’s just say I have striven to improve.

As I’ve shared before, perfect is the enemy of progress. So, it’s still up there and rather than take it down, embarrassed and beating myself up, I remember anything new needs work. And, I go back to the original intent: add value every week to my connections to elevate their greatness in work, family, and life. In other words, VLOGing is not about me. So, pushing ego aside, the VLOGs stay…all of them.

You may have the same intention of adding value to those you serve, and want to break into VLOGing but aren’t sure how. I get it. It can feel daunting, that only people who speak for a living or communications professionals can do it. Or maybe you feel the investment in equipment or to learn editing is too great. Or maybe you’re just worried, “what if no one watches?”

What if I shared with you that people don’t necessarily want perfection? They want to listen to people they know, like and trust and are actually not as caught up as you might think on wordcraft, sound, lighting, etc. They just want to learn and be inspired, and you have that in spades (however if you don’t offer it, they can’t receive it!) What if you could find people to help you produce the videos so they don’t take more time and energy? What if the right people watched and you made a huge difference in their lives?

Leaders, what if your employees watched your VLOGs and felt more connected to you? Support departments, what if your internal stakeholders watched your VLOGs and were less confused, more consistent and felt more supported by you? Sales professionals, what if your clients watched your VLOGs before you got on the phone, making those sales an easier conversion?

Do you see how VLOGing is for everyone?

So, if you see VLOGing may be for you (or your team or organization), the next question you may be asking is how? I’ve learned a lot from trial and error as well as learning from experts. Here’s six tips to allow you to serve in a way that is fun, sustainable and credibility-building:

1. Plan your content

What is at the core of what you do? What topics and questions do your clients have related to that? What processes, tips or advice could you provide that would make their work and life easier? What do people ask for repeatedly that would allow you to serve them immediately without filling up your calendar answering the same question repeatedly?

TIP: Keep a list of tips/hacks, frequently asked questions and trending information you could turn into a VLOG.

2. Consider if it’s actually an investment

Sometimes I hear, “I don’t have the money in my business/department to invest in this.” Maybe so, however, have you also considered how VLOGing is also an investment, such as saving you time answering the questions? Is it a way to generate the right pipeline of clients, enhance your organization’s reputation, or build your credibility? Is it a way of saving money in another way if folks have timely access to a library of VLOGs?

TIP: You don’t have to do the production and distribution yourself. Hire a videographer to film and edit and have an assistant share it to the relevant groups. In fact, batch film VLOGs to maximize your time and the professionals you work with.

3. Speak to your audience

Who needs to consume your content? Have a very clear picture in your mind, perhaps even speaking with your target client/audience about what they most want to learn from you. If you’re not clear, wait until you are, but this is the perfect time to get clear as to whether you work for yourself or in an organization, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not being crystal clear who your primary customer is.

TIP: Make a list of the 10 things that keep your target audience up at night, and make those the focus of your first VLOGs.

4. Share Valuable Resources

You are the expert, and whether it’s an internal process, hack you’ve come up with, or a trend recently published in your field of expertise, share the wealth through your VLOGs. The more unique value your audience gets from watching your VLOGs, the more they will come back for more.

TIP: Keep a folder with relevant articles, hacks, and resources you would like to cover in future VLOGs.

5. Use a Template to Plan Content

So that you organize your ideas and create compelling content, use a template to organize your thoughts. In one page, you can map out a brief VLOG (and brief is good if you want to keep busy people’s attention). If you’d like a copy of my template, just email me info@greatnessmagnified.com; I didn’t start from scratch (thanks Martin Latulippe and Dan Martell for sharing yours with me).

TIP: Start with a template then make it your own so it feels fun, authentic and makes sense based on how your audience likes to consume content.

6. Maximize the Investment

When you create and work so hard to produce these videos, make sure that you’re really maximizing them. We have our videos transcribed using Rev.com, so for a dollar a minute, we have them transcribed into a written blog post and LinkedIn post. Or you can modify it to be a newsletter article, all-staff announcement, PR release. Here’s another opportunity to leverage experts (for example, my wonderful virtual assistant, Caroline Davidson uploads all VLOGs to YouTube, tags them, creates the weekly newsletter, publishes a post to LinkedIn, and shares to social media). You don’t have to consider this just to be one 5-minute video, but rather the start of valuable content you can share in a myriad of ways to serve your customers.

TIP: To truly maximize your investment, ensure the end of your VLOG has a call to action, meaning what you want people to do as a result of watching this video. Is it to sign a petition, book an appointment with you, follow you on a particular social media site, book a health exam, cuddle their kids more? When they do something as a result of your VLOG, now you have ROE (return on effort)!

Have you found this helpful? If you have, why not subscribe to my YouTube Channel so I can add more value to your life every week.

But I’m Exhausted: How to Recognize Yourself and Others’ Even in Overload

October 24, 2018 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

An interview with special guest, Christine Laperriere, owner/founding partner of Leader In Motion and Executive Director of Women of Influence Advancement Centre. Christine is passionate about Women’s Advancement and helping them learn how to stay happy despite being so busy. Learn more about the mindset and strategies needed to get through it all.

Sarah:

Today, I’m pleased to introduce you to my amazing colleague Christine Laperriere, the head of Leader In Motion. We were going to talk about something that we’re so passionate about- women’s advancement and the lack of recognition – but here’s the thing; we’re both showing up at 4:30 in the afternoon at the end of the week exhausted and we’re exhausted! Instead, we’re going to have a real conversation here about what it’s like when you are fatigued and the lack of recognition that comes when that happens.

Christine:

We can definitely have a talk about that because that is top of my mind right now. Doing all this work with the Women of Influence Advancement Centre is a big part of my day job. I coach women through their careers to help them move into promotions. It’s amazing because here I am; I’ve got a screaming toddler and an eight-month-old baby who’s teething right now. Basically, I’m juggling it all. Sometimes the idea of advancement in the first place is just exhausting.

Sarah:

It’s fleeting moments when we consider: why would anyone want to advance?

Christine:

True, When you are thinking, you have more than I can possibly handle. Please, I don’t need anymore! I see this a lot when I’m coaching women. I see them struggle with being exhausted and under these incredible demands and feeling like they don’t want any additional responsibility. They don’t want any additional leadership. I just got off the phone earlier this morning when a coaching client went from an individual contributor to over the last year and a half she was given a team of 10 and then another team of 10 and then another team of six.

Meanwhile, she’s a busy mom at home raising children. She just said, “All I need to do is get as much done as I possibly can in a day so that I can get home and be a mom,” which is another important job for me. Sometimes I think to myself, “How do we do this? How do we do this all?”

Sarah:

I too see with coaching clients that they internalize this: if I can’t get it all done I’m a bad contributor or I’m a bad mom or terrible spouse. It’s amazing how many of us look around and think others must have it figured out. Not only is it rarely true, but it also robs us of the opportunity to recognize our greatness, what we are doing well and what we are doing right.

Christine:

It’s definitely a matter of understanding how to manage the standard that you’re going to hold yourself to when you’re juggling more than one thing. I think one of the things that I was talking to her about was how, before I had kids, it was easy to find four extra hours. Not that my life outside of work wasn’t very important, but there were other things that I could try to delay, move or reschedule. Unfortunately, I can’t reschedule a teething eight-month-old! I don’t get the luxury of coming home from work and finding four additional hours while I’m juggling a teething eight-month-old. It’s interesting how the idea of balance, like the standard that we set on ourselves, it has to be modified for the number of demands that we’re carrying. The bar that I used to jump in my career was much higher. Today, it’s got to be a little bit lower so that I can manage it all. I need to be pretty good at a lot of things versus awesome at everything. I’ll raise the bar again next week when his teeth are here.

Sarah:

Maybe we realize the expectations don’t have to be that high anyway. Maybe we actually have much higher standards than we need to. Because one of the things that I’ve learned through the work you do in supporting women’s advancement and the research is that what holds women back is that we put our heads down, keep working harder, and expect our blood, sweat, and tears will eventually pay off. Not advancing? We do more. Then the bar is higher, not just for ourselves, but others have a higher bar for us too. We expect it’s going to get us noticed, but that’s not what happens, is it?

Christine:

Right. To bring it all together, I’m finishing a book called “Too Busy To Be Happy.” Ironic. Maybe you’ll understand why I feel like I’m an expert on this topic being too busy to be happy, but at the end of the day it’s juggling all of it and let’s say the bar that we put on ourselves, I still come back to, can you answer the question, “Are you happy?”

When we set expectations and standards that are so out of reach and then we start on that treadmill and we’re running, running, running, we end up losing sight of actually just being happy. I’ve made it a passion of mine to figure out how to be busy and happy. Somewhere along the line, the idea of this work-life balance thing came along and it made me feel like I needed to have a life on the top of a mountain and meditate for nine hours a day in order to be happy.

I felt like I was conflicted because I really love my busy life, but there are just moments where I no longer am happy. For me, it’s just trying to find out how do we be busy and happy. Not feeling quite so exhausted all the time.

Sarah:

It’s so important to be both busy, and not feel guilty about that, and happy. When we aren’t, we often aren’t living our greatness and not recognizing ourselves. What are some of your best tips for people to be able to recognize themselves even when they feel like they’re busy and perhaps not getting it all done? How can they still recognize themselves?

Christine:

I think it’s going to sound really simple, but the prioritization of the things is important. When you look at the amount of energy we’re trying to expel on so many different priorities at the same time, the first thing I end up doing when I’m talking to somebody is coming back to, what are the most important things? Such as, “Okay. I need to be an awesome mom and deliver fantastic results at work, but are those are the only two things or do you also want health, friendships, and other things? What are the things most important to prioritize?

If you have a sick parent, over delivering just isn’t in the cards, right? It’s about survival. Understanding what are those two or three most important things that have to get done right now. It’s funny. You can take a look at your day where you’re spending your time and see how well aligned you’re spending your energy and time with the two or three things that are most important. To me, it’s the fastest way.

One of the things I do all the time is I’ll say, “Open up your calendar. Where have you been for the last week or so? Let’s take a look at where you’ve been spending your time.” It’s almost instantly an “ah ha” moment for people when they’re feeling too busy to be happy.

Sarah:

I just want to take a moment to acknowledge, Christine, that in your busy day, you still valued and prioritized our relationship and our conversation.

Christine:

One of the things I’ll say on that note, it’s so funny because I’m very particular about where I spend time and energy. But if a relationship is bringing good energy and it actually raises my energy level versus depletes my energy level, I prioritize it. That relationship goes way up in my importance of things to do. I think that’s been one of the biggest things that actually helps me manage my stress levels. Our relationship is energizing for me. It made the top of my list when I did have a free moment to do a VLOG. Thank you so much for being a part of it. And thanks for the great work you’re doing helping people leverage recognition in themselves and at work.

Sarah:

If you want to learn more about Christine and her website is www.leaderinmotion.com. And we’ll be sure to keep you updated on Christine’s new book that’s coming out in early 2019! Christine, I hope you’ll come back for another interview!

Christine:

You’ve got it!

How to Recognize Your Audience: Transferrable Lessons from the Speaking Profession

October 5, 2018 By Sarah McVanel Leave a Comment

Listen in or read Sarah’s interview with Jane Atkinson, a well-respected speaker, and coach. Jane and Sarah discuss how the exponential power of recognition can have a significant impact on your success as a speaker, whether it’s how you deliver your message at work, for small groups or on the main stage in front of thousands of people!

Sarah: I’m so lucky to interview Jane Atkinson, a well-respected speaker, and speaker coach. Jane, you have some great insights and wisdom from having seen speakers progress, or not progress, in their career, and how recognition can have a pretty big impact on that. And I know your wisdom fits both those who speak for a living as well as those looking to have a bigger impact when they share their ideas in a meeting, present at a team meeting, or even present to their board of directors. So, let’s kick it off by me asking you for some words of wisdom about how to recognize those listening to you present.

Jane: Well, I think that there are a lot of things that you can do to have tremendous recognition for your client, so in my world, it’s professional speakers who have a client who has a goal. I think the best thing that you can do to recognize them, sure, you can send them a beautiful gift and a promotional product after the event is done or when you get the booking, but one of the things I think will have the most long-lasting impact is really giving them something of value that they can hang onto, so there might be language in your presentation that can become sticky, and what you might offer them are ways to keep the language alive for a long time after the program is going.

Maybe there are little coffee mugs or something that can keep it going, and I think from our perspective, from a speaker’s perspective, the best form of feedback is to go into a boardroom six months after you have spoken to this company and hear them using your language. Doing a great job and giving them some language that really sticks, that they can hang on to and start to build into their culture in order to make this a thing that goes beyond them, the ripple effect.

Sarah: I really love that, Jane, because oftentimes, we think about recognition in terms of something you have to give to people, that it’s something extra, it’s something different, but I agree. When you do an exceptional job and people can remember what you’ve said, it’s transformative in a way that truly helps people solve a problem. Recognizing their time is precious and you’re there to help make things better for them. What additional specific suggestions can you pull from the professional speaking world to help speakers of every type recognize their audience?

Jane: Well, this is not even just a secret for this audience. It’s a secret for everybody because not a lot of professional speakers are using a specific form of recognition.

Joe Calloway gave me this one and he does it brilliantly in his business. The key is making the audience the heroes of your presentations, and Joe even takes it one step further and he might make the CEO or the leader the hero of his presentation by moving it out of a presentation mode into him interviewing the leader of the organization to pull out the kinds of things that we want the audience to know, so that’s one idea, but also let’s say you have a three-part formula that you’re going to unveil in your presentation.

You can ask ahead of time for the person running the conference, “who are three people who are well-liked and respected that I might be able to interview to get some firsthand knowledge of the audience?” and so they’ll give you three people and you will go and do your research and you will ask them questions that are really specific to your formula, and when you say, “This is my idea,” and you say, “And Susan Jones just used this idea. Stand up Susan,” and then you’re recognizing Susan and Susan becomes the hero of your story. This works if you’re in a small or large group. Whether you’re an outside hired speaker like Joe or an internal speaker.

Sarah: I wish that I had this sage advice back when I was doing corporate presentations! I reflect on how many times I and others would be trying to communicate a burning platform and create that sense of urgency only for it to fall flat. And I’m realizing now it’s because we were trying to convince them of our idea, not bring them in to be the hero and partner in the possibility.

Shifting gears a little, one of the things I love about what you do is you start your presentations (even your book) with a compelling vision that as an audience member or reader I can feel. It’s for me. I’m the centre of it. You say, “Picture this,” or, “Imagine” and then you put us into this desired future which actually you may or may not know from the solution-focused approach that I write about that is actually a wonderful way to get people super excited, because you’re presenting their best hope. To your point, you have to know them well enough to know what that best hope is and really care about it to create it.

Jane: Yeah, and that comes with your research, with understanding the company or the association (and you have the upper hand if you’re a member of it), knowing their values, knowing what’s important to them, and also knowing their pain points, because if you can help solve their pain points, well, then you’ve really, really done a great job. Honestly, if it was up to me, and I were going to get either a box of chocolates afterward or a really amazing speech or presentation, I would take the really amazing speech any day. So, we think sometimes that trinkets or swag or flash equal recognition, but I actually think it’s the whole package.

Sarah: Yes, that old adage it’s how you make them feel. Have you left them better off? One of the ways you know you’ve done that is when afterward folks say, “Wow, it’s like you were speaking to me” or, “You know what, I never thought of it that way,” or, “I’ll never forget that story of so-and-so.” I think that is one of the best forms of recognition that you can get in return, and that’s the reciprocal part of recognition, right? Is that you recognize and value your audience, and then they recognize you back.

Jane: It feeds you. It keeps you going, and I think that you can ask a question; “Well, how long would you like this message to last?” A lot of people who are putting on an event, they might be thinking just about that event, but what if it’s the cultural shift that they’re trying to achieve? What if they’re trying to make it a culture of recognition? How do we make it last longer than the presentation or speech? What will allow us to go deeper on this idea?

Sarah: It’s really believing that your audience can and will be able to make positive change from what you share. And, to do this, it’s not one-way sharing of information (or worse telling people what they’re not doing right, how they need to do better, what they don’t know). It’s honouring what’s working, what they value, what is working even a little.

When I speak on recognition, I have to be careful not to make the audience feel they’re being scolded for not recognizing enough. Instead, I give them “calls to action” where they can practice more recognition, no matter how much they’re already doing. And the best part, often the people behind the scenes – the bathroom attendant, the registration clerk, the meeting organizer – gets a kudos I’ve given the audience as the call to action. An ED of an association I just spoke for shared, “When I was sitting there listening to your talk, I never would have thought that it was my staff who would get the recognition. I just assumed the members would bring this back to their workplace but you wouldn’t believe how over the moon my staff are being recognized! They’re used to being behind the scenes and everyone forgetting about how hard they work to make everything happen.” The audience feels good, the members feel good. How do we make people in the audience the heroes?

Jane: Oh, and honestly Sarah, I have to tell you, I have to work hard at this. This is something that comes naturally to you because you think about it 24/7, but I am not as good at it. I just ran a meeting, and in the meeting I should have recognized my assistant who had done so much hard work to get it ready more, and you gave me some great ideas on what to do after the fact, but I really felt that and I thought, “Gosh, I think it becomes a part of your DNA when you do it often enough,” and so I could use some more of that recognition DNA rubbing off on me.

One of the fallback positions I have is, “Okay, as long as everybody walks away with what it is that they need, great, then we’ve done a good job and we’ve had a good meeting,” but at the same time there might be that one person who’s going, “You know, I did a lot of work for that and I didn’t get recognized.”

Sarah: Such a great point. And thank you for sharing that Jane. I think it’s always really valuable when somebody who’s really well-respected, professional and poised also acknowledges where they’re working on something, so thank you for that.

Jane: I’m a constant work in progress. No question about it.

Sarah: So am I. Thank you so much, Jane, for your time today. I know this is really, really valuable because speaking is part of every professional’s job. There isn’t a single person who doesn’t have to do a very brief presentation at a team meeting or pitch a new client or speak for the whole organization! I love all the insights about how to recognize your audience, including specific members, making them the heroes and leaving everyone better off by having been in the audience. Super valuable Jane. Thanks so much.

Jane: You’re welcome.

Sarah: If you’d like to connect with Jane, you can reach her at https://speakerlauncher.com/ jane@speakerlauncher.com

Do you have the same question? Can you relate?

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