Since Autumn of 2021, I've taught a course for the Stanford Continuing Studies Program (CSP) designed for people who work in tech to make their ideas spread. The below resources are for alumni of the class to revisit my slides and to explore additional readings beyond the course content.
Overview
I designed COM 88: High-Impact Communication to Advance Your Career in Tech with two major goals in mind (both of which are stated in the title of the course): 1. to increase communication effectiveness, and 2. to move a career in tech forward. The course covers a wide range of topics from non-verbal communication to storytelling to cross-cultural leadership in the workforce. All of the lessons were focused around strategies specific to careers in tech--and many of the class principles were illustrated through stories of tech industry giants.
Below you can find the course syllabus, the slides I taught from, and a large number of additional resources for exploring the course concepts in greater depth.
I offer my sincerest appreciation to the 50 students committed to their growth who enrolled in the most recent iteration of the course in Autumn, 2022. The course went over so well that CSP has already expressed interest in continuing the course into the future--I'm excited to work with the next cohort of students. Thank you for your continual engagement and your commitment to your own growth--I found myself inspired by you every single week.
Contents
- Syllabus
- 1: Delivery Techniques
- 2: Building Confidence, Delivering Feedback
- 3: Elevator Pitches, Talking Tech (Interesting & Informing)
- 4: Design Theory
- 5: Tapping into Creativity, Brainstorming
- 6: Storytelling
- 7: Cross-Cultural Leadership, Sparking Peak Performances
- 8: Bringing Your Best
Syllabus
Week 1: Non-Verbal Communication
Concepts Covered:
Virtual Presentations:
Posture - often (but not always) seated. Sitting straight up. Shoulders back. Open body position.
Gestures - be aware of the rectangle of your webcam. Make big gestures within this space. Gestures often have to be higher than we're used to (at the shoulder, neck, or even head level). You may need to slow down your gestures because of a slow frame rate from Zoom.
Eye contact - make eye contact with the web cam. Periodically break eye contact to avoid a perception of "staring down" the audience.
In-Person Presentations:
Posture - often (but not always) standing. Feet shoulder-width apart, weight evenly distributed, hands either at the side or folded at about the midriff level when not gesturing.
Gestures - Make gestures BIG. If hands rest at side, then gesture above the waist. If folded at the midriff level, imagine a bubble around your body and pop the bubble with each gesture.
Eye Contact - 2-4 seconds per audience member. Make eye contact seem random.
Both types of Presentations:
Voice - Use Power, Pace, Pitch, and Pauses to be a dynamic speaker. Power (volume) should be set to mood, you may err on the side of being slightly too loud. Pace also adjusts with mood of the speech. Pitch should be dynamic and if you notice your pitch creeping up due to nervousness, bring it back down. Pauses can be for dramatic effect--get comfortable using non-verbal pauses (rather than filler words) during formal presentations.
Resources:
Articles
Delivery Strategies (Note: this is a fuller description of the outline of the strategies above)
Delivery Strategies (Matt Vassar, 2011)
Nonverbal strategies pertaining to presentation
How to Look and Sound Confident During a Presentation (Carmine Gallo, Harvard Business Review, 2019)
A Review of Big Data on Presentation Success Confirms The Importance of Stance/Gestures/Voice/Eye Contact
A Big Data Approach to Public Speaking (Matt Abrahams, Stanford Graduate Business School, 2016)
Strategies for virtual presentations
How to Give a Webinar Presentation (Dorie Clark, Harvard Business Review, 2018)
Books:
Building confidence so you naturally exude confident nonverbals
Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges (Amy Cuddy, Little Brown Spark, 2015)
Nonverbals used for influence (chapter 2, in particular, gives good advice on how nonverbals are perceived)
The Like Switch (Jack Schafer & Marvin Karlins, Atria Books, 2015)
Week 2: Building Confidence, Delivering Feedback
Concepts Covered:
Three quick tips for overcoming anxiety:
NOTE: Of course, there are many more strategies for overcoming anxiety. If you'd like to discuss even more strategies, just reach out to me and I'm happy to share even more. But these are the three we practiced during class:
1. The Illusion of Transparency: because we are so attuned to our inner-state, we tend to think the audience can pick up on it too. In truth, many of your signs of nervousness are invisible. The audience can't see your faster-than-average heart rate--nor your sweating palms--nor the butterflies in your stomach. Just being aware that the audience cannot see your nerves can help you feel more confident in your presentations.
2. Visualization. Joe Ayres and Tim Hopf of Washington State University wanted to find a way to calm pre-speech nerves on your own without need anybody to intervene. They found it through visualization. When visualizing, make it vivid and positive.
3. "I am excited." Research from Allison Wood Brooks at Harvard University found a remarkably simple intervention to overcoming nerves. Just say "I am excited" before your presentations. Not only did speakers report feeling less nervous after saying these three simple words, but audiences reported the speaker as more excited, less nervous, and giving overall higher quality speeches.
Three quick tips for delivering feedback:
(Note: a lot of the research below was done in America and with American participants. Norms may differ country by country and culture by culture--and even just within different personality types--we'll discuss this more a little later in the quarter. But for now, here are some generalizations on what will work for delivering feedback that gets results in American workplaces.)
1. Frame feedback in a growth mindset. In both praise and criticism, make sure that you put the recipient of your feedback in a growth mindset (or a belief that their skills can be improved if they put in the effort). For instance, if delivering praise, instead of saying "You naturally are a good programmer," you might say "I can tell you worked hard to make your code so elegant." If delivering criticism, instead of saying "You are a soft speaker," you might say "You spoke a bit softly when you delivered your speech, but you can make yourself easier to hear if you remind yourself before the speech to speak a little louder."
2. Pair criticisms with concrete steps to improvement. Once you deliver your criticism, the recipient is hyper-attentive to what you say next. Make sure that your next words are actionable steps they can take to grow. For instance, if you say "Your code is hard for your colleagues to read," you might follow it up with "Could you leave a few more comments in your code to make it easier to understand?"
3. Remember that praise motivates--and should outnumber criticisms. There's no exact praise-to-criticism ratio and different studies have found different results. But most have found that for optimal performance within a team, the ratio is around 3 or 4 pieces of praise for every 1 piece of criticism. Remember to offer praise in addition to criticisms. Your praises don't have to be lengthy--just quick compliments to colleagues in passing can help to keep your praise outnumbering your criticisms.
Resources:
Overcoming anxiety:
Transforming stress through pre-speech reframing, breathing, and visualization:
The Upside of Your Public Speaking Jitters (Allison Shapira, Harvard Business Review, 2020)
Strategies for overcoming public speaking nervousness:
How to Conquer the Fear of Public Speaking (Theo Tsaousides, Psychology Today, 2017)
"I am excited" can reframe nervous energy into powerful speaking
Can Three Words Turn Anxiety Into Success? (Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, 2016)
Tips for overcoming the illusion of transparency (and its close cousin, the spotlight effect)
The One Reason You Shouldn't Obsess Over Your Mistakes (Melody Wilding, Forbes, 2016)
Giving Feedback:
Giving feedback that reduces stress and promotes growth
Make Getting Feedback Less Stressful (Ed Batista, Harvard Business Review, 2014)
Pairing constructive criticisms with concrete steps for improvement
Actionable Feedback Is Essential for Growth (Starr Sackstein, EdWeek, 2016)
Making your feedback SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Time-Based)
Giving S.M.A.R.T. Feedback to Millennials (Karl Moore, Forbes, 2014)
How framing feedback from a "growth mindset" motivates improvement
How Your Mindset Determines Your Success, Well-being, And Love Life (Drake Baer, Business Insider, 2014)
Making praise outnumber criticisms
5 morale-boosting strategies to try right now (Molly Hellerman-Atlassian, Fast Company, 2020)
Recommended Books
Overcoming Nervousness
Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges (Amy Cuddy, Little Brown Spark, 2015)
Giving Feedback and Coaching
HBR Guide to Coaching Employees (Harvard Business Review, 2014)
Growth Mindset
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck, Random House, 2006)
Week 3: Elevator Pitches, Talking Tech
Concepts Covered
Elevator Pitches
First, think about the BIG vision of your pitch.
We examined how Theodosius Dobzhansky took the field of evolutionary biology by storm when he published in the 1970s: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." While the quote itself may not be entirely accurate, the boldness of the statement catches attention. Would it have had the same effect if he had said "Hardly anything in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution"?
We played around with making our visions sound bolder through following his template. Fill in the blanks "Nothing in _____ makes sense except in the light of _____." (Example: Nothing in the tech industry makes sense except in the light of strong communication.)
Once you have your big compelling vision, you can think through how to craft the larger pitch. The ABT (And, But, Therefore) framework is one way to put together a compelling pitch in just three short statement. The "And" sets the context of where we are. The "But" introduces tension. The "Therefore" brings resolution. (Example: People in tech have big ideas AND these ideas can change the world. BUT a good idea by itself is not enough to get people to pay attention. THEREFORE, learning effective communication can get you and your ideas the recognition they deserve.)
Both crafting the vision then the elevator pitch can take time. Tinker around with the wording of your big vision and your elevator pitch until you have it just right.
Talking Tech:
NOTE: This is not a checklist, nor an exhaustive list. Just a few methods of interesting and informing to get your brain moving. You may use any of these as tools in a toolkit for your presentations. You may use some of the tools at different times, depending on your audience and goals for each presentation.
Energizing the Elephant (inspiring people to want to listen):
Delivery: if you don't seem interested in your own talk, what's the chance your audience will be? (See last week's optional resources for more on delivery and nonverbal communication.)
Look to the One: just as Mother Teresa was more motivated when she looked not to data but to a single individual, you can motivate your audience toward action by explaining your concepts through the lens of how a single user of your product/technology might benefit.
Benefits vs. Features: remember that people buy benefits, not features. For instance, 15 Mbps is a feature. Being able to watch your favorite TV show on streaming without annoying pauses for buffering--that's the benefit.
Background: supplying background information in just the right way can build a mystery (e.g., rings of Saturn).
Bring them on the journey: actively engaging the audience through live demos, role plays, or discussions can make them a part of the speech.
Rousing the Rider (making information clear and understandable)
Organization: research by the neuroscientist Carmen Simon has found that only about 10% of our presentations are remembered just 48 hours later. Take some time to determine what 10% of the speech do you really want the audience to remember--then use repetition to ensure that that's the 10% they do remember. Simon found that a minimum of six repetitions are needed to get people to remember the key message. What about the remaining 90% of the presentation? It should be in service of the core 10%--that is, the 90% provides supports and reinforcements of the key idea that you want the audience to remember.
Visual Aids: we'll cover visual communication in a future class, but for now, be aware that certain technical details are more easily understood with a visual. If you're teaching me how to repair a car, showing a visual of the parts of the car that I should pay special attention to will make it easier for me to follow along. Even better? Bring an actual car and have me work on the actual parts of the car that are of interest.
Break down components: describe the whole of a process or object and what its overall function is. Then break it down to the key parts that contribute to that function (e.g., a tunnel boring machine creates tunnels for us to drive through on the road. The head of the tunnel boring machine drills into the surface of the Earth, while the body of the tunnel boring machine solidifies the Earth around it so that the tunnel won't collapse when the tunnel boring machine withdraws.)
Materials: showing real life materials used in your technical work can help in understanding. Showing a suturing device with a finer point helps me to understand how it differs from one with a broader point (stitching a patient after surgery with smaller holes means faster recovery time, e.g.)
Concreteness/examples: abstractions (diagrams, blueprints, models, etc.) work great when everybody is familiar with the abstraction. If not, break everything down into concrete terms. (Beth Bechky's research on engineers and assemblers: communication breakdowns were most likely to break down when engineers used abstractions such as blueprints instead of concretely coming down and showing which screw to turn to fix a broken machine.)
Analogies/comparisons: it's easier to teach an audience through something they do know than something they don't. (e.g., a crwth is like a violin, but rectangular-shaped and with rounded corners. By drawing on something you do know, a violin, I can get you to better understand an instrument you don't know, a crwth. You can now better picture how a crwth might sound and how it's played.)
Resources:
Talking Tech:
Strategies for interesting and informing your audience
Talking Tech [28-minute podcast] (Matt Vassar, 2019)
Interesting and informing your audience
Technical Information (Matt Vassar, 2012)
Considering Your Audience/Making Your Talk Relevant to Your Audience
Scientific presenters need to consider their audience when presenting
Prioritize the needs of the audience when giving a presentation (David Rubenstein, Nature, 2018)
Connecting your purpose with your audience
A Road Map for Preparing Your Next Tech Talk (Melissa Marshall, Society of Women Engineers, 2018)
Building a Mystery/Situational Interest:
Technical and scientific communication is more interesting when it builds a mystery
What's the Best Secret Device for Engaging Student Interest? The Answer is in the Title (Robert Cialdini, 2005)
Why Gaps in Our Knowledge Provoke Curiosity
The Itch of Curiosity (Jonah Lehrer, Wired, 2010)
How to Provoke Curiosity through Knowledge Gaps
How to Stimulate Curiosity (Annie Murphy Paul, Time, 2013)
"Look to the One"/Choosing a Single Person as the Star of Your Story
Why we're moved to act when a story is told about a single individual (and not broad data trends):
Save the Darfur Puppy (Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, 2007)
Features vs. Benefits
The iPhone succeeded in part because of its focus on benefits and how it could solve problems for the users
Features Versus Benefits: Why The iPhone Succeeded—And Google Glass Failed (Chuck Swoboda, Forbes, 2020)
Strategies for approaching with benefits rather than leading with features
Why People Don’t Buy Products–They Buy Better Versions Of Themselves (Belle Beth Cooper, Fast Company, 2014)
Bring Them on the Journey (Audience Involvement)
Strategies for engaging the audience in group problem-solving
How to Get People to Actually Participate in Virtual Meetings (Justin Hale and Joseph Grenny, Harvard Business Review, 2020)
"Bobby McFerrin Plays the Audience" is a fun TED Talk that uses audience involvement to teach about music theory (pentatonic scales)
Watch Me Play... The Audience (Bobby McFerrin, TED, 2009)
Speech Organization Strategies:
Organizing your speech
Organization Strategies (Matt Vassar, 2012)
Making your speech memorable (controlling the 10% your audience remembers, using repetition)
How to Influence Your Prospect's Memory and Decisions (Carmen Simon, Entrepreneur, 2022)
Concreteness (and Using Analogies to Make Unfamiliar Ideas More Concrete)
How concreteness and analogies can make your talks more accessible
Effective science communication deconstructed (Letitia Henville, University Affairs, 2020)
How a well-placed analogy can inspire
Scientists Need to Talk to the Public (Esther Ngumbi, Scientific American, 2019)
What is the Higgs boson? Some fun analogies that describe this building block of the universe
The Best Analogies Scientists and Journalists Use To Explain the Higgs Boson (J. Bryan Lowder, Slate, 2012)
Elevator Pitches
The one-sentence elevator pitch
Elevator Pitches (Matt Vassar, 2012)
Crafting your one sentence
The Art of the Elevator Pitch (Carmine Gallo, Harvard Business Review, 2018)
ABT (And But Therefore) Framework
A New Tool for Humanizing Medicine (Randy Olson, Scientific American, 2020)
Recommended Books:
Technical presentations
The Craft of Scientific Presentations (Michael Alley, 2013)
^ And if you are curious about technical writing, Michael Alley also has a book on writing, too: The Craft of Scientific Writing (Michael Alley, 2018)
ABT (And-But-Therefore) Framework
Narrative Is Everything: The ABT Framework and Narrative Evolution (Randy Olson, 2019)
Scientific Narrative
Houston, We Have a Narrative (Randy Olson, 2015)
Week 4: Design Theory
Concepts Covered:
Considering Your Audience
Just as you consider your audience for your content, you should also consider your audience when crafting visuals
* For specialized audiences, you may put relatively denser information on a slide knowing that they can parse through familiar information quicker.
* For general audiences, you'll want to simplify.
Five principles from Richard Mayer's multimedia learning theory to increase your design effectiveness:
Multimedia learning: people learn more when they hear a message with a visual accompaniment.
Modality principle: people learn more when they hear a message than when they read a message. Put another way: if you have an opportunity to give a speech, take it! Your message will be better remembered.
Redundancy principle: people learn less when there's a textual duplication of what you're saying. Why? The brain gets overwhelmed when it's reading and hearing two slightly different versions of the exact same message. It's more effective to remove as much text as possible from your slides. Consider the difference between these two slides from real life venture capital pitches:
(Text heavy: via LinkedIn)
(More visual: via OpenDoor)
Coherence principle: people learn a lot more when there's a lot less on your slide. Nancy Duarte, the brilliant designer behind Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth recommends that the audience should be able to take in the entirety of your slide in only 3 seconds--then return their attention to you, the presenter. Consider these two slides:
(text and diagram overload: via Square)
(simplicity: via Trym)
Segmentation principle: you might object, though, that you have a lot of information to cover--and that's totally fine. Just separate it across multiple slides. People learn more when information is chunked rather than delivered all at once, so stick to one idea per slide. Consider these two slides:
(Many ideas all crammed into a single slide, via Moz)
(One crisp idea indicating potential growth opportunity (total addressable market), via Airbnb):
Keeping visuals simple and efficient:
Diagrams are often better than bullet points. Consider the logical relationship among the ideas expressed and you can design visuals people can take in quicker. Consider these two slides:
Cyclical relationship expressed via bullet points:
Cyclical relationship expressed with a diagram:
Charts should be easy to take in. Consider the following two visuals:
No colors, too many lines, not clear what data to pay attention to:
Color added, lines removed, key data point highlighted:
You might also create a slide around your key recommendation:
Graphs should also be simplified to help audiences take in data quickly. Consider the following two visuals:
Skewed perspective via 3-D (57% takes up far more space than 57% of the graphic, and the 17% looks smaller than the 13% right next to it). Four shades of blue is hard to read. Legend off to the side.
Removed 3-D. Colors changed. Legend directly on graph:
Make sure to highlight your message. If your argument is that money should be shifted toward fun activities for team morale, you might point out how currently relatively very little is devoted to this now:
Resources:
David Hooker, lead creative at Prezi and former technical writer, makes the case for why the right visual at the right time makes ideas flourish
The Importance of Visual Literacy [17-minute video] (David Hooker, TED, 2017)
Quick tips for crafting compelling visuals
3 Steps to Better Presentation Visuals [2-minute video] (Harvard Business Review, 2015)
Summary of Richard Mayer's Multimedia Learning Theory
How to optimize students' learning? Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning [5-minute video] (DiscoMedia, 2014)
Why your PowerPoint slides should be simple
Do Your Slides Pass the Glance Test? (Nancy Duarte, Harvard Business Review, 2012)
Strategies for presenting data
Present Your Data Like a Pro (Joel Schwartzberg, Harvard Business Review, 2020)
VA Presentations
VA Strategies [40-minute video] (Matt Vassar, 2019)
VA Presentations
VA Strategies (Matt Vassar, 2011)
Recommended Books:
Multimedia Learning Theory
Multimedia Learning (Richard Mayer, 2009)
Nancy Duarte design principles
slide:ology (Nancy Duarte, 2008)
Week 5: Tapping into Creativity + Brainstorming Creatively
Concepts Covered:
Creatively Brainstorming:
Creativity is something that anybody can tap into. Two different types of creative thinking:
- Generative thinking: coming up with a large quantity of ideas
- Analogical thinking: approaching a familiar problem from an unfamiliar angle
Generative thinking:
- Generate a large quantity of ideas
- Dean Simonton found that those who achieve creative success in the arts and sciences (Edison, Einstein, Mozart, Picasso, etc.) aren't necessarily any better at coming up with creative ideas--they are willing to pursue a large quantity of ideas.
- Mind mapping is one tool for increasing your quantity of ideas:
* Write your topic in the center of the mind map, then create branches from into ideas that spring into your mind. Keep your pen moving the whole time. Do not judge any ideas. Freely associate.
* You may mind map in words or images.
Analogical thinking:
- Use your thoughts or knowledge from a completely different domain and apply them to the current problem
- László Bíró, the inventor of the ballpoint pen, got the idea while watching a wet soccer ball roll across asphalt
- Steve Jobs's inspiration for the Genius Bar at the Apple Store came from observing the concierge desk at a Ritz Carlton hotel.
- Random object technique:
* Choose a random object. You can just look around the room for one. Or pull up a random object generator such as: https://perchance.org/object
* Once you've selected your random object, do an entire brainstorm around this topic
* After completing your brainstorm, put your mind map and your "random object" brainstorm next to each other. Look for associations between the two brainstorms and let your brain wander to find connections between your current problem and the brainstorm.
Generative thinking and analogical thinking can combine to be even more powerful than either strategy alone. When we had participants randomly assigned to four groups (control group, mind map group, random object group, and combined (mind map + random object) group) to brainstorm a speech, judges asked to select the most creative speech chose participants from the "combined (mind map + random object)" group more than any of the other three groups... combined.
Resources:
Creativity:
Creatively Selecting an Intriguing Angle for Your Speech Topic
Choosing a Topic + Tapping into Creativity [27-minute podcast] (Matt Vassar, 2019)
Summary of Dean Keith Simonton's findings on how creativity comes from generating a large quantity of ideas
Why Creativity Is a Numbers Game (Scott Barry Kaufman, Scientific American, 2015)
How approaching a problem from a different angle spurs innovative insight
Great Innovators Think Laterally (Ian Gonsher and Deb Mills-Scofield, Harvard Business Review, 2013)
Strategies for choosing a new angle for examining something familiar
The Most Valuable Skill In Difficult Times Is Lateral Thinking—Here’s How To Do It (Phil Lewis, Forbes, 2020)
A fascinating look into how the artist Christopher Niemann uses random objects to spark creativity
How Does Christoph Niemann Make Art Look Effortless? With A Lot Of Work (NPR, 2016)
Strategies for mind mapping, with software packages listed at the end if you prefer digital mind mapping
Tools of Creativity: Mind Maps (RobinB Creative, Medium, 2017)
Three quick strategies both to spark generative and analogical thinking
Three New Ways to Solve a Problem (Rob Sheffield, Chartered Management Institute, 2019)
Group brainstorms (brainwriting):
Why traditional brainstorming crushes creativity
Brainstorming Doesn't Work; Try This Technique Instead (Rebecca Greenfield, Fast Company, 2014)
Brainwriting as a solution to traditional brainstorming
The Demons Of Traditional Brainstorming Are Slain With Brainwriting (Will Burns, Forbes, 2016)
The "no talk" meeting as a solution to brainstorming
A professor who's spent years studying effective management says some of the best meetings involve almost no talking (Shana Lebowitz and Sherin Shebu, Business Insider, 2019)
Strategies for collecting ideas and voting after completing brainstorming as a group
Solving Brainstorming's Loudmouth Problem (Drake Baer, Fast Company, 2013)
Recommended Books:
Dean Keith Simonton on creativity and genius
Origins of Genius (Dean Keith Simonton, 1999)
More from Simonton, but specifically on creativity in science
Creativity in Science
Mind Mapping
The Mind Map Book (Tony Buzan, 1996)
Week 6: Storytelling
Concepts Covered:
Why tell stories in technical presentations?
Makes your ideas 12.5x more memorable: crime statistics vs. storytelling in Chip Heath's Stanford GSB class
- When presented with facts we don't like or find inconvenient, we get dig in our heels, get defensive, and think of how to disprove them. (If my scale doesn't give me a reading I like, I adjust my weight, move the scale around, and try to find any reason why it's wrong.)
- When presented with stories, we don't have the same defensive reaction
- Ignaz Semmelweis came up with a life-saving intervention that was effective and inexpensive--but facts alone couldn't get people to take action.
Makes your ideas more persuasive (storytelling used in deep canvassing was 102x as likely to persuade as traditional canvassing)
Why is storytelling so effective? Remember Jonathan Haidt's concept of the "elephant" and the "rider" and how our brains are persuaded through emotions and logic. Storytelling is an effective way of engaging both the emotional and logical sides of the brain.
Your "vehicle" for technical storytelling (CAR):
* Context - Where are we now? Where is the company? What is the research you were commissioned to do and why?
* Action - What do you recommend based on your findings?
* Result - What do your findings suggest will happen if we take your recommendation? Will you create revenue? Will you avoid losses? Increase efficiency? Customer satisfaction? Engagement? Something else?
A quick review of three concepts you've already learned in the class and how they apply to storytelling:
"Look at the One":
"If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." - a quote often attributed to Mother Teresa.
In a study at Carnegie Mellon, when participants were confronted with statistics on extreme poverty in Africa, they donated less than when they were given the story of a single girl.
Craft your story around individual characters that represent actual data trends. The characters may be fictional for the purposes of making your story more concrete (HP used a fictional family in its pitch to Disney to show how an actual family might interact with HP technology at Disneyland.)
Consider your audience:
Do reconnaissance. Before a presentation with a decision maker, ask people on the same team and others who presented before this person. Some questions you might ask:
What are their priorities for our organization?
What are some current projects they're working on?
How much time do I need to get to the point?
Do they sit back and listen throughout the presentation? Or interrupt with questions?
As a generalization, most decision makers are very busy and need a quick, compelling message that encourage them to think deeper about your idea.
Simplify:
We previously discussed how when you're dealing with complex and technical information, it helps to present it simply (both in your organization of your speech and in your visual aids). But there's one other place where simplicity should be used...
Avoid $100 words--they're often vague with each person having a slightly different interpretation of the same word. Even if they aren't, though, making your audience stop and think about what the word means gets in the way of them focusing on your core message. Instead of "ethnographic research," say "we watched what people did." Instead of "behavioral analysis," say "we measured what got people to download our app."
Resources:
Why Storytelling Makes Your Technical Content More Memorable and Persuasive:
Putting your technical knowledge in a story activates more regions of the brain--making your information more memorable and persuasive
The Neuroscience Behind Data Storytelling (Ellen Lingwall, Medium, 2019)
Why storytelling is among the most sought skills--and provokes organizational change
Data Storytelling: The Essential Data Science Skill Everyone Needs (Brent Dykes, Forbes, 2016)
Why good storytelling moves people to act on your analytics
The next chapter in analytics: data storytelling (Beth Stackpole, MIT Sloan, 2020)
How people react to statistics with defensiveness--but stories with openness
Why Storytelling Beats Statistics, But Only 100% Of The Time (Chris Westfall, Forbes, 2020)
In politics, "deep canvassing" uses storytelling to prevent a defensive response to a conflicting position
How to talk someone out of bigotry with deep canvassing (Brian Resnick, Vox, 2020)
Deep canvassing (which involves storytelling) is 102 times more effective than traditional canvassing (which does not)
The Best Way to Beat Trumpism? Talk Less, Listen More (Andy Kroll, Rolling Stone, 2020)
Example of an actual canvasser using the deep canvassing method to change a voter's mind
Watch A Voter Change Their Mind About Transgender Discrimination [8-minute video] (Los Angeles LGBT Center, YouTube, 2016)
Strategies for crafting your story (finding a compelling message, considering audience, etc.)
How to Tell a Story with Data (Jim Stikeleather, Harvard Business Review, 2013)
Structuring your presentation like a story (note: Duarte uses the Aristotelian "beginning, middle, end." We discussed CAR (Context, Action, Result) as a more descriptive framework)
Structure Your Presentation Like a Story (Nancy Duarte, Harvard Business Review, 2012)
Plot Devices to Make Your Stories More Compelling
Four Storytelling Techniques to Bring Your Data to Life (Nancy Duarte, MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)
Considering Your Audience:
Scientific presenters need to consider their audience when presenting
Prioritize the needs of the audience when giving a presentation (David Rubenstein, Nature, 2018)
Connecting your purpose with your audience
A Road Map for Preparing Your Next Tech Talk (Melissa Marshall, Society of Women Engineers, 2018)
Aligning your story with the priorities of a busy decision maker
Selling to the C-Suite: Why Executives Disengage (Lisa Earle McLeod, Forbes, 2019)
Simplifying Your Speech
Scientific papers with more jargon are less likely to be cited by other researchers
Are You Confused by Scientific Jargon? So Are Scientists (Katherine Kornei, New York Times, 2021)
How to ensure your core message isn't lost in the clutter of a complex speech
How To Simplify And Communicate Complicated Ideas (Ari Zoldan, Forbes, 2021)
Why speeches differ from documents--and how to engage your audience through simplicity
A Speech Is Not an Essay (John Coleman, Harvard Business Review, 2014)
Why your PowerPoint slides should be simple, too
Do Your Slides Pass the Glance Test? (Nancy Duarte, Harvard Business Review, 2012)
Recommended books:
Lead with a Story
Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire (Paul Smith, AMACOM, 2012)
Putting data into story form
DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story (Nancy Duarte, Ideapress, 2019)
Week 7: Cross-Cultural Leadership, Sparking Peak Performances
Concepts Covered:
8 Dimensions of cross-cultural management (Erin Meyer)
- Communicating: how is meaning determined? Low-context communication cultures (such as the US) determine meaning from words, high-context communication cultures (such as China) determine meaning more from context and the hints that are being dropped as the words are being said. The US is about as far as low-context cultures get: many countries from the rest of the world may be more nuanced in their communication.
- Evaluating: when giving constructive criticisms, how direct are you? The US tends to be toward the center of the world here, neither being very direct with negative feedback, nor being subtle. Lots of European countries are more direct with negative feedback than the US, while lots of Asia tends to be more diplomatic in their negative feedback.
- Leading: are leadership structures more hierarchical or egalitarian? Picture your ideal boss. Do you call them by their title while they wear a three-piece suit and drive an expensive car to work? Or do you call your ideal boss by their first name while they might bike to work and come dressed in blue jeans? The US again is toward the center, but leans egalitarian. European countries tend to be even more egalitarian, while lots of Asian countries tend to be more hierarchical.
- Deciding: who makes the decision? Are decisions top-down, quickly decided by the leaders? Or are they consensual with a slower, more deliberate process where many different people weigh in before a decision is finally made communally? The US again is toward the center, but leans toward top-down decision-making. Again, much of Europe tends to be more consensual than the US, while much of Asia tends to be more top-down than the US.
- Trusting: how do you build trust in your professional relationship? Is it through the head, built primarily through tasks you accomplish together? Or is it through the heart, putting the person and the relationship first before you can begin tasks together? The US is again on an extreme here, building trust primarily through tasks. Much of the rest of the world will expect you to build more of a personal relationship before jumping straight into business.
- Disagreeing: how is open disagreement handled? Are disagreements expressed openly and publicly? Or do we avoid open disagreements for fear of it harming personal relationships? The US is toward the center again, but leans toward open disagreements. Lots of European countries are far more open in disagreement--while lots of Asian countries tend to be less confrontational.
- Scheduling: how is time handled? Do you show up on time, schedule things in advance, and stick to the agenda for meetings? Or is time far more fluid where people may show up late, schedules are frequently moved around as things come up, and an agenda is nothing more than a broad guideline? While not on the extreme, the US tends to be sequential and organized when it comes to time. There are a few countries even more sequential and organized than the US (such as Germany or Japan)--but many are more fluid than the US when it comes to time.
- Persuading: we wrapped up our discussion of cross-cultural communication with a few findings by Nisbitt and Masuda on how people from different parts of the world might see things differently. Many Eastern countries are far more holistic than the US. For example, when describing what was happening in the fish image we showed at the end, Japanese participants recalled 65% more details from the background of the image than US participants.
Values affirmation (Geoffrey Cohen & David Sherman):
- Identify your core value or values
- Spend 10 minutes writing on why your core value(s) are important to you
- There's 30 years of scholarly research on the values affirmation intervention and it has been linked with the following benefits (among many others):
Short-term:
- Feeling stronger, prouder, and more in control
- Feeling more empathetic, connected, and loving of others
- Increased pain tolerance, self-control, and decreased ruminations after stressful events
Long-term:
- Some of the following benefits continued even YEARS after a single 10-minute intervention:
- Reduced doctor visits
- Improved mental health
- Boosted GPAs among students
- Helped with weight loss, quitting smoking/drinking, and addiction
- Helped with people to remain perseverant in the face of discrimination
Why are people in touch with their values able to transform stress?
- Being able to connect a source of stress to something that brings you meaning instantly transforms the moment
- If my toddler is screaming (source of stress), but I view it as an opportunity for me to live into my personal value of kindness, then suddenly what started off as a stressor becomes a source of personal meaning
- Leaders who are in touch with their values and demonstrate that they will not compromise on them are rated as better leaders
- Employees who are able to connect their values to their work experience higher job satisfaction and lower burnout rates (e.g., the hospital custodian who saw his work as saving lives)
Resources:
Cross-Cultural Management:
The 8 dimensions of Erin Meyer's "culture map":
Navigating the Cultural Minefield (Erin Meyer, Harvard Business Review, 2014)
Why things may not be as they seem when you travel to another country--and why you should learn about another's culture
Looking another Culture in the Eye (Erin Meyer, New York Times, 2014)
Applying the culture map in business negotiations
https://hbr.org/2015/12/getting-to-si-ja-oui-hai-and-da (Erin Meyer, Harvard Business Review, 2015)
Expressing disagreement across cultures
How To Say “This Is Crap” In Different Cultures (Erin Meyer, Harvard Business Review, 2014)
Cultures who think holistically vs. specific details
The "Michigan fish test" and the Middle East (Sheena Iyengar, CNN, 2011)
Finding Meaning (Transforming Stress):
People who pursue happiness are less satisfied with life than people who pursue meaning
There's More to Life than Being Happy (Emily Esfahani Smith, The Atlantic, 2013)
Emily Esfahani Smith's four pillars to finding meaning
There's More to Life than Being Happy [12-minute video] (Emily Esfahani Smith, TED, 2017)
Finding meaning in your work is also more important than happiness (higher satisfaction, lower burnout)
Why Finding Meaning At Work Is More Important Than Feeling Happy (Jessica Amortegui, Fast Company, 2014)
Hospital custodians who find meaning in their work (e.g., saving patient lives) feel most satisfied
A hospital worker has the most satisfying job in the world — You'd be surprised which one (Becker's Hospital Review, 2015)
You can transform your work into pleasure by how you relate your work to other people and your values
'Job Crafting': The Great Opportunity In The Job You Already Have (David Sturt, Forbes, 2013)
How you can turn your work into something you love
Want To Be Happier At Work? Learn How From These "Job Crafters" (David Zax, Fast Company, 2013)
If you want to transform stress, embrace it! (Kelly McGonigal's research findings)
Embracing stress is more important than reducing stress, Stanford psychologist says (Clifton B. Parker, Stanford News, 2015)
Embracing stress
How to make stress your friend [14-minute video] (Kelly McGonigal, TED, 2013)
Identifying/Naming Your Values:
You cannot live into your values if you haven't yet named your values
Operationalizing your organization's values (Brené Brown, 2019)
List of values to help you find your 1-2 core values
List of Values (Brené Brown, 2019)
Operationalizing Values within a Team/Organization:
Being in touch with your values as a leader
Discovering Your Authentic Leadership (Bill George, et. al., Harvard Business Review, 2007)
Creating a culture of shared values within an organization
6 Rules for Building and Scaling Company Culture (Anthony Tjan, Harvard Business Review, 2015)
Focusing on the "why" of your (organization's) work inspires people to join
How Great Leaders Inspire Action [18-minute video] (Simon Sinek, TED, 2009)
Recommended Books
Culture Map
The Culture Map (Erin Meyer, PublicAffairs, 2014)
Finding meaning and thriving off of stress
The Upside of Stress (Kelly McGonigal, Avery, 2016)
Aligning your core values to achieve as a leader
Discover Your True North (Bill George, Jossey-Bass, 2015)
Week 8: Bringing Your Best
The students killed it this week--and definitely brought their best. Apart from very short introductory and conclusionary remarks by me, the entirety of this class was filled with students' TED-style talks. Every single speech I sat in on stepped up to the plate and gave a performance worthy of the moniker. Many congratulations to all of you on your successful talks--and if ever you are delivering momentous public-facing talks in the future, I hope you'll share them with me.