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"Brent Filson doesn't just teach you how to lead. He inspires you to do it!" —Duncan Maxwell Anderson, Senior Editor, Success Magazine. "What Brent teaches is simple yet profound in its implications. We need to motivate people to choose to be our cause leaders, not have people simply do things. Instead of telling people what you know and want them to do, we need to understand their motivation, tap their emotion, and enlist them as cause leaders to share a dream. I keep Brent's card in my wallet to remind me of the steps in the process. Every Leadership Talk that I give follows this process. I recently used this process to enlist the support in a campaign for corporate giving. As a result we increased the employee participation and realized an increase in the giving rate per employee by 10%. His approach had a positive impact on the results." – David Goodnight, Vice President, Asia/Pacific & Latin America "I've been using Brent Filson's methodologies for more than seven years. And they get results! They not only get results on a tactical level but a strategic level too." – Richard Brown, President & Global General Manager, Fortune 100 Company. |
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Summary: Most leaders communicate through speeches and presentations. But there is a much more effective means of communication: that's The Leadership Talk. The Leadership Talk not only communicates information as presentations/speeches do, but it does one thing more: It establishes an all-important deep, human, emotional connection with the audience.
Dump Your Speeches For Leadership Talks!
by Brent Filson
The CEO of a worldwide business asked me to help him develop a talk he planned to give to several hundred of his top executives. He said, "I feel as if I’m Daniel going into the lion's den."
Indeed, it was the business equivalent of a lion's den that he was entering. Hired from a competing firm, he was a stranger to the company, a company hobbled by declining market share and bad morale caused by the arbitrary actions of the previous CEO, an isolated dictator.
"This is the first time most of them will see and hear me," he said. "I'll give a presentation on the state of the business."
"Hold on," I said. "Don't give a presentation. Give a Leadership Talk instead."
There is a difference, I explained, between a presentation/speech and a Leadership Talk. A presentation/speech communicates information, but a Leadership Talk not only communicates information but makes a deep, emotional, human connection with the audience.
Most leaders give presentations and speeches most of the time when they should be giving Leadership Talks.
"You're facing an important leadership situation," I said. "The old saying, 'You never get a second chance to make a first impression' applies here in spades. You've got a great Leadership Talk opportunity. But to have people believe in you and follow you, they must be emotionally committed to you and what you say. So understand what their emotional needs are."
I went out into the field and talked to a number of his managers and found out that they were feeling intimidated by the demands of increasingly sophisticated customers. I found out that they feared not being supported in the decisions they made in the field. I learned that they were angry at having to meet what they considered unnecessary reporting requirements. I learned that they didn't trust the top executives.
Intimidation, fear, anger, distrust . . . those emotions described the state of his audience and, in truth, the state of the business.
The CEO gave a Leadership Talk that spoke to and answered the needs of those emotions, a talk based on the single idea that he was a person that they could trust.
That Leadership Talk marked the beginning of a turnaround for that company.
The lesson: Analyze and speak to the emotion of a situation, and you can become a dramatically more effective leader.
Make that analysis happen this way:
* Know the difference between a presentation/speech and Leadership Talk then view every speaking situation you encounter as either a presentation/speech situation or a Leadership Talk situation.
* Know that you rarely give presentation/speeches and that The Leadership Talk should be your primary leadership communication tool.
* Analyze the emotions of your audience by asking what they feel at the time you speak, what they fear, what angers them, what inspires them.
* Structure your talk around emotional-talking points. For instance, list three things that angers your audience. Make those things the main headings of your talk.
* Speak to them about their emotions. Tell them, for instance, that you realize they are angry and what they are angry about. Tell them what you realize they are feeling.
Speak thus, and you are revealed in powerful motivational ways. Furthermore, they are revealed to themselves.
These revelations can create strong bonds between speakers and audiences.
Understand the speaking situation in terms of its emotional content, and you understand that situation in new ways. Understand it in new ways and you speak in new ways. And when you speak in new ways, your audience acts in new ways.
Copyright 2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and has worked with thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years helping them achieve sizable increases in hard, measured results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a free guide, “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at www.actionleadership.com
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