How to Make Powerful Presentations by Manoj Sharma
April 30, 2007
Many years ago, I came across, what seemed an unproven and strange fact (as I am sure you too have) that the majority of people fear giving a speech or making public presentations more than they fear death. I must confess, at one time, I too fell into that category. Today however, I have no problem with getting up on stage and speaking to thousands at a time. Exactly what changed and what happened, is something I myself find difficult to put a finger on. What I am clear about is that understanding what makes a wonderful presentation made a huge difference and gave me extraordinary confidence, with practice, over time.
Here is a brief outline which will assist you immediately to make compelling presentations too. Put it into action and let me know how it went.
1) Start by getting to know your audience
Who are you speaking with? Why are they here? What are their general thoughts on the topic? What are their likely points of view? Are there any sensitivities to avoid? What is the situation at hand?
Ask these questions and do your ground work in advance. These are just a few of the main questions you should be asking and gathering answers to in your process of crafting your presentation. This is part of a process I call active questioning and listening (It is a misnomer that great communicators are simply great speaker as they also need to be great listeners). Every great speaker in history understood his/her audience well enough by asking questions and listening carefully first to fully grasp the sentiments of what was happening on the ground. They did this before they spoke. This is regardless of whether he or she agreed or disagreed with what they heard. Knowledge through listening, in this sense, leads to powerful presentations.
2) Identify the key points you would like to get across
After listening start to identify the highlights of your presentation. What are the main points you would like your audience to recall? What do you want them to walk away with? What is the impact you would like to have? Write these down. Put them in order of importance. Work these point and rework them again and again. Anticipate pitfalls, loop holes, objections, misinterpretations and possible confusion too. Be open minded, not one track minded. Think about your points in great depth. Research extensively. Feed yourself with enough information and knowledge to become an expert in the subject matter.
Listen to the perspectives of others who are knowledgeable in the field, but at all times formulate your own opinion based on your experience and your conviction.
3) Write out your presentation word for word
Organize your presentation into a beginning, a middle and an end. It never hurts at the beginning to start by identifying or illustrating a problem, challenge or difficulty and promise a solution (if you have one). It is always wonderful to start with a quote from a notable person that blends in with your main points and the topic of your speech as it will give credibility to what you have got to say. It is even more impactful to tell a brief personal story that is related to the subject at hand. However please remember that it may hurt you irreparably if you try to be artificially funny in a desperate attempt to break the ice.
Follow the “tell them, tell them, tell them” structure and use it as a template. It is one of the simplest and best structures I have come across. This structure is as simple as…
a) Tell them what you are going to tell them.
b) Then tell them what you said you were going to tell them.
c) And finally tell them again what you just told them.
This structure not only keeps you on purpose, but also creates a context for people to be cued in to listen.
It is highly recommended that you interlude your presentation with a series of thought inducing questions. Many people have the misconception that a speech or presentation has to be a one way process. Turn your speech or presentation into a dialogue. Ask questions, get participation! Questions are very effective at maintaining attention as they force people to actively think about what you’ve just said. Some examples would be, “What other ideas came into your mind based on what I’ve just said?” “How could you take these points and apply them to your advantage immediately?” “What other variations can you think of?” Notice how even in the context of this article they have the same effect of making you think about the answers and thus keeping you engaged.
Also, don’t be afraid of throwing in small doses of brief exercises. They would be written exercises for people to identify the main points they are taking in or could apply as the result of your presentation. Or they could be conversational exercises in which one party gets another ’s opinion of things and so on. Use your imagination on this.
Consider using audio and visual aids, flip charts do demonstrations, even create small game like exercises. This is an art form and done well will distinguish your presentation, especially if you think it though well enough to use the aids, demonstrations and games to bring out key points. I like to burn a piece of tissue to demonstrate irreversible change. And like to do a demonstration I call “hit the target” to show the audience the inner workings of their mind and how we create obstacles that prevent us for acieving our goals. These are simple demonstrations that drive home powerful points in a simple to understand, highly impactful ways. President Reegan incidentally, was a master at this.
Invest a lot of time in writing down and rewriting down your presentation again and again. If this takes you days, so be it.
This is not wasted time, as in writing it down you are starting to rehearse it in your mind and slowly commit it to memory while exploring various ways to deliver the message. I used to do precisely this. It sometimes took me days to write and rehearse simple conversations I wanted to have with my bosses, the points I wanted to get across at meetings and the impact I wanted to have as a result. It was a frustratingly long process, but well worth it as it is though small efforts like this that huge competencies are built.
Once you’ve written down your presentation, then practice in front of the mirror. Use your facial expression, tone, gestures and body language to bring all of you into it. Get passionate and enthusiastic about what you want to get across and allow your passion and enthusiasm to move people.
Also, if you are a senior leader and the quality and impact of your presentation has high stakes attached to it you are welcome to seek our Professional Coaching to assist you. It will be well worth your money. It still astonishes me how poorly some senior managers make presentations.
4) Deliver your presentation knowing you have prepared the best you could
Once you start your presentation, do it with confidence, put in the effort and surrender the results. The outcome will be what the outcome will be. And if you invested time on point 1), 2) and 3), it is virtually guaranteed your outcome will be great.
5) Get feedback and put it to good use
At the end of your presentation get feedback from as many people as you can. Ask them what they liked and did not like. What they recall. What they would liked to have heard more of. What you could do to improve. You probably won’t want to hear criticism, but be mature about it and listen openly to it, as it is most likely to be the basis for your greatest subsequent improvements.
Ultimately, it is by making continuous adjustments that you will develop the competency to make powerful presentations. So, volunteer to do so and actively improve towards being a great presenter.
There will be many more finer points to learn along the way such as creating a positive visual image, the effect of your choice of words and making positive emotional impact. But for now, invest actively in building the foundation of…
1) Start by getting to know your audience,
2) Identifying the key points you would like to get across,
3) Writing out your presentation word for word,
4) Delivering your presentation knowing you have prepared the best you could, and
5) Getting feedback and put it to good use
…because you will need this foundation to move up to the next rungs of the ladder. And remember while these are great rules and guidelines you should only consider breaking them after learning how to do them exceptionally well first. Do not cut corners. First learn how to walk a beaten path and then learn how to create a path where a path doesn’t exist.
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!
Standard of Living and Quality of Life by Manoj Sharma
April 29, 2007
“What makes the work DifferWorld does distinct?”
This is a question I got asked recently by a Managing Director of a technology company from Singapore, while giving a talk on how to address the future human resource challenges of organizations to a gathering of international CEOs in Australia.
The question caught me off guard as it had no relation to the speech I was giving. As I realized later, he was actually asking me the question as a favour for me to touch on a point that he felt was quite unique in the work we do. I have been working with the senior management of his organization for almost 10 months now in a strategic business consultancy and executive coaching role and the exceptional results we are together producing are self evident. He was just as aware as I was that in the last quarter his overall sales figures had increased by 41% (after an initial dip of 8% in the first 3 months that I worked with them) and the level or comradeship among his different divisional heads and their respective teams had never been better. So, I explained to the audience a point I feel very strongly on and is at the core of what we do here at DifferWorld.
Here is the essence of what I said…
At DifferWorld the work we do is highly focused on assisting people, organizations and communities to live wealthier lives. And when we speak of wealth in the DifferWorld context, we speak of both financial and non-financial wealth.
We define financial wealth as the quantity and quality of products, services and ideas, transacted for money, that the individual, organization and community we work with have the ability to acquire. This is a rather straight forward, almost scientific process of assisting them increase their financial wealth through our range of custom designed professional coaching initiatives. This usually involves objectively assisting them, with a high degree of social consciousness, increase their ability to make, retain and grow their financial assets with the intention of it ultimately being a contribution towards collective gain. The above is the basic level of what we do and mostly what our clients hire us for. To deliver excellent results.
What makes us truly distinct is our simultaneous focus on non-financial wealth. We define non-financial wealth as the overall well-being of individuals at work, home and at play. While this may involve their standard of living, it may also be mutually exclusive from it. While improving financial wealth can be a straight forward process, improving an individuals quality of life is anything but straight forward. It is more an art, as quality of life includes esoteric elements such as levels of fulfillment, happiness, freedom, harmony, belonging, contribution, integrity expression, achievement and purpose, which are not just highly subjective, but for which there are few quantifiable measures.
Our philosophy at DifferWorld is that financial and non-financial wealth should be improved in tandem for the individuals, organizations and communities we work with. We imbue every initiative we run with this philosophy, so you get more long-term value while wonderfully meeting your short-term needs.
If you are looking for just results at all costs without a long-term holistic view there are many organizations you can engage. But, if you are looking for excellent results with a holistic long-term people and communities factored view we are your people. This is what I feel makes us most distinct. Our clients I am sure have their own take but this is an additional value we bring to the table.
I have since decided to ask some of our past and existing clients as I am quite curious to hear their take. So, partners if you are reading this, do drop me a personal note.
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!
The Differences Between Good, Great and Excellent Professional Coaches by Manoj Sharma
April 29, 2007
There are many certified coaches out there in the world today. Many of the certifications are not worth the paper they are printed on. (But that is another story) Most of them do not actively coach. Out of the active ones, the majority are nothing more than average. Some are good, few are great and fewer still are truly excellent.
Where a coach stands and the quality of results a coach produces are dependent on many factors. One thing which holds true is that…
The Good are Passionate
Good professional coaches exhibit the best traits of passion. The love what they do intensely. They are warm, personable and the enthusiasm they generate is contagious. Their passion is a like an internal fire that keeps them going regardless of the circumstances. This is also a prerequisite for professional coaches who stay the course and keep developing within their profession.
The Great are Compassionate
The great build upon their foundation of good and compliment it with the traits of compassion. They feel a genuine kinship with their coachee. They relate to their coachee’s problems, issues, difficulties, obstacles, concerns and adversities as if their own. They sympathize and elevate themselves to assist in finding workable solutions to the challenges and do not rest till the objectives have been met. Compassion in the world of professional coaching is what differentiates the good from the great.
The Excellent are Dispassionate
In a strange irony, the very best professional coaches are highly passionate, exude compassion and at the same time are absolutely dispassionate. Their ability to be totally attached and totally detached, at the same time, is a unique mental feat that takes years to inculcate and is an indicator of great maturity. It allows them to be objective, even cut and dry, but with a sharp focus, fabulous empathy and great warmth. They walk a fine line, are impartial and unbiased. This allows them to be brutally honest and truthful, while working in the best interest of the coachee.
Being dispassionate, after the foundation of passion and compassion is what differentiates the excellent from the rest. It allows a clarity of mind to surface that the average, good and great even have trouble appreciating. And ultimately this translates into huge benefits for the coachee. It is a rare professional coach who is passionate, compassionate and dispassionate at the same time. If you find one who is or you feel could be, hold on to the person as the person will be a priceless asset across your life. They are just as rare as truly excellent doctors, and accountants.
If you are a professional coach or are thinking of stepping up to be one, do a self check as to where you stand on these three traits (and remember there is no value in deceiving yourself) and strive to keep improving.
If you are looking for a professional coach, engage someone who is obviously supremely competent and also at the very least, incredibly passionate. After all you deserve the best.
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!
Organizational Systems, Leadership, Human Resource Consultancy and Executive Coaching by Manoj Sharma
April 28, 2007
An organization, your organization, is a system. And the thing about systems is that the quality of a system is hugely dependent on the quality of its leadership.
Systems pivot around leadership. Every system is a subset and has subsets of its own, each with their own leadership. How efficiently and effectively a system as a whole operates is in direct co-relation to the efficacy of its leadership. And leadership, regardless of its past successes and failures, always has the potential to be enhanced.
Stagnant leadership equals stagnant systems. And stagnant systems die out.
Even the best leaders get to a point where inertia and the feeling of being jaded set in. They need a boost and training does not necessarily provide it. One-on-one Professional Coaching however does. Leaders in key positions of responsibility more than anybody else need to be heavily invested in. It is interesting to note that the best organizations in the world invest generously in their leadership, while the also-rans almost never do.
Professional Coaching in its myriad forms from Executive Coaching, Leadership Coaching, Corporate Coaching, Strategic Coaching, Competencies Coaching, Performance Coaching, Results Coaching, and so on, is an extraordinary customized leadership enhancement tool (But only in the hands of highly experienced professionals with a 360 degree appreciation of the challenges and a high level of competency to inspire appropriate solutions). It is a vital professional education, training and development asset that organizations need to pay serious attention to, understand in greater depth and engage purposefully towards achieving concrete objectives.
Your leaders and potential leaders need assistance (especially those who are already good or have been identified as having high potential) to get even better. It is the responsibility of Human Resource Practitioners (By the way, the best Human Resource Practitioners are those who step up to become Human Resource Professionals who embrace their roles as the architects of their organization’s future) to get them the best possible assistance for their leaders at every level, so that the organizational system works at its most optimal. And there is nothing more potent out there than Professional Coaching to produce desirable results.
Your organization needs an excellent leadership development system that is inclusive of leaders at every level. A leadership development systems that factors in people and organization potentialization, organizational strategy, performance management and enhancement, recruitment processes, professional development, compensation, rewards and recognition incentives, leadership succession planning programs and on-the-job professional coaching.
Your organization may or may not have some of the above in place. Irrespectively, the questions you need to truthfully ask are…
“What are the outputs and performances of the systems we have?”
“Are they running efficiently?”
“Are they fully fulfilling their functions today?”
“Are they prepared to handle the challenges of the future?”
“What are the gaps that need to be addressed?”
As you answer the questions above, please keep in mind that, while opinions are subjective, measured results are the closest we may get to being objective. And therefore the results you are presently producing regardless of external circumstances today are the best indicators of your organization’s systems and the leadership at the helm of the systems.
And this is where DifferWorld’s Human Resource, Capital and Investment Consultancy will assist you boost profitability, performance and fulfillment.
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!
How to Develop Extraordinary Leaders At Every Level - Part I - by Manoj Sharma
April 26, 2007
HOW TO DEVELOP EXTRAORDINARY LEADERS AT EVERY LEVEL OF YOUR ORGANIZATION AND CREATE A CHAMPIONSHIP WINNING TEAM by MANOJ SHARMA
Part I
Just like every championship winning team has extraordinary leaders who play a vital role at every level, every organization that seeks extraordinary results requires extraordinary leaders at every level. The nature of competition today has dictated that a stellar performer with a cult of personality while of great value, is simply not enough to create a truly consistent championship winning team.
A championship winning team requires extraordinary leaders at every level with a constant commitment to consistently produce extraordinary results.
This is not just about a few people rowing the boat and pulling everyone elses weight, but a whole lot of people punching above their weight, setting new standards, creating breakthroughs and supporting collective progress (Please keep this in mind as you read on). The former and the absence of the extraordinary spirit in the latter guarantees mediocrity. Mediocrity by definition itself, alludes to the average. The “all too common, all too familiar, all around terminal normality” of everyday existence that some call their lives.
So, what is so special about being extraordinary? What’s wrong with being content to be ordinary? Why do I need to strive to set a new standard of excellence? These are (not ironically, but expectedly) the questions of a mass of the population, who resist change and frantically hold on to the false security of their comfort zones and desperate love of the status quo. Through their sheer numbers alone the drowning noise of these questions are only to be expected.
Consider the following to be just one answer to the above questions, that you need to be receptive to, for it to become compelling. (It is said that we need one good reason to move forward and sadly most people will queue up to blow up the foundations of that reason.) Ordinary human being (everyday people like you and I) who are willing to put in an extraordinary effort and live as extraordinary human being are the ones who set a new bar and make what was previously impossible, possible. Not just for themselves, but also for all of us to benefit from.
The identification, creations, inventions and innovations of paper, the printing press, the laws of motion, theory of relativity, pasteurization and helio-centricity by Ts’ai Lun, Johann Gutenberg, Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur and Galileo Galilei / Nicolas Copernicus are excellent cases in point.
Also, a mature mind will easily identify that extraordinary efforts need not be an end solution in themselves. They sometimes serve an equally great purpose by paving the way for other people to build great work upon. You will clearly see this point in the next example and I hope it shifts your paradigm and gives you an expanded perspective on another facet of a “championship winning team”. Please note the extraordinary advancements on extraordinary advancements.
We know that as early as 600 BC the Greeks were aware that “static electricity” could be created by rubbing loadstones against fur and were thinking about how to harness this discovery.
In the 1600s, almost 2,200 years later, William Gilbert experimented with rubbing amber & wool, glass & silk together and realized that they gave rise to attracting and repelling forces that he termed “electric”. He also identified the mysterious “magnetic” force that made a compass needle point towards in the “north-south” line and suggested that the Earth itself was magnetic.
Also, shortly thereafter Otto von Guericke invented a crude machine that produced static electricity.
In the 1720s, Stephen Gray identified that the power possessed by one electrical body could be transferred onto another through direct contact.
In the 1730s, Servington Savery produced the first compound magnet and Charles Francois recognized two kinds of electricity.
In the 1740s, Gowen Knight sold the first artificial magnets for navigation purposes.
In the 1750s, Benjamin Franklin did a life threatening experiment in which he flew a kite in a thunderstorm with a metal spike attached to the string, causing a spark to be felt on his knuckles when he brought them close to the metal spike. He identified “electricity” as a attractive and repulsive force. Independently, William Watson did the same, and gave the forces the +ve and -ve names we are familiar with. Franklin figured the flow was from the +ve to the -ve and he was wrong, as it was the other way round.
At this point it is important to highlight that even people we consider as geniuses make mistakes. The difference is that truly great minds will acknowledge their mistakes, learn from them, adjust and move on to greater things, while small minds will defend their mistakes for a variety of foolish fears and consequently never move on from them. Case in point was Albert Einstein who declare his cosmological constant to be his greatest blunder. (As it turns out he may have been correct after all, based on experiments done at Cal Tech since 1998.)
In 1780s, Luigi Galvani realized that he could make the leg of a dead frog twitch by touching it with a mental knife. He wrongly thought the “electricity” was being generated from the leg of the dead frog.
In the 1790s, Alessandro Volta correctly identified that the phenomena of the twitching leg was being produced as a result of moisture (found in the dead frog’s leg) that was in the way of steel and tin connection of the knife and the table. It lead Volta to create the first store of electricity; the “electric battery” made from zinc and copper plates separated by a moisture paste. Next he made the electricity travel by wire from one source to another and we had “electric current”.
In the 1820s, Hans Christian Oersted realized that this electric current could influence the movement of a magnetic compass when placed in its vicinity. He identified that “electric current” produced “magnetic fields”. Andre Marie Ampere explained “electro-dynamic theory” and gave his name to the unit of electric current. Current was identified as the link between electricity and magnetism. Geord Simon Ohm noted that sometimes current in a circuit generated heat due to “resistance” (Incidentally, the same is true in human interactions). This unit of resistance we know today to be the ohm. Ohm also discovered a law, showing the relationship between volts, amps and resistance, which is referred to a Ohm’s Law.
In the 1830s, Michael Faraday reckoned that since electricity created magnetism , then possibly magnetism might be able to create electricity. He went on to prove this by moving a magnet inside a coil of copper wire and noticed that it “generated electrical current”. In the process the “electric dynamo” was invented. Faraday was also famous for recognizing that “failures are just as important as successes”. Samuel Morse started sending codes over wires with his dots and dashes electric impulses we know as Morse Code. This has been identified to be the first major case of commercially used electricity.
In the 1840s, Charles Babbage, designed several electronic machines to generate error-free tables that were the precursors to electronic computers.
In the 1850s, Thomas Seebeck generated “thermoelectricity” by twisting two wires, heating them while passing a current though them.
In the 1860s, LeClanche produced the LeClanche Battery also known as the dry cell which consists of a zinc case filled with a moist paste containing ammonium sulfate in the middle of which is inserted a carbon rod coated with manganese dioxide. This dry cell is now used in almost all portable devices in one shape or form.
In the 1870s, Thomas Edison built a practical “Direct Current” (D.C.) generator. Joseph Swans invented the incandescent filament which Thomas Edison also figured out within the next year. They then synergized by setting up a joint company. Edison went on to light up his factories and the streets of New York. All this while other scientist were figuring out how to build upon this extraordinary achievement. Alexander Graham Bell experimented with a Morse Code like system, using a “diaphragm-like” sound coding and decoding components and ultimately created the telephone. A unit of sound and a tenth of the unit of sound have since been called bel and decibel respectively in his honour. (I too am wondering why they are not called bell and decibell instead!)
In the 1880s, Oliver Heaviside, made another major breakthrough and discovered that information was transmitted in between the space between the conductors as a wave and not through the conductors. This is much like the phenomena of the waves simply bobbing up and down in the ocean while they look like they are moving along. This assisted in the design of long distant telephone cables. As the limitations of Direct Current (D.C.) for long distance transmissions became clear, up stepped Nicola Tesla with Alternating Current (A.C.) after discovering the effect of the rotating magnetic field.
In the 1890s, Heinrich Hertz laid the future foundations for the radio, television and the internet too and so on, and so forth.
By now the point should be becoming quite clear. It is literally on the back of these extraordinary human beings and more that technology has advanced such that you are reading these words now. Also, for every one of the names mentioned above, there were thousands of others who worked - sometimes together, sometimes in isolation, sometimes silently, sometimes in the public eye, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes deliberately, sometimes even with no reward and nothing to show for it over a lifetime - to make the impossibility of what we take for granted possible.
This is a vastly different example of a championship winning team that is often lost on people.
Now imagine for a second, if the Greeks in 600BC could have envisioned the difference their little extraordinary effort was going to make. I doubt we could honestly say they could. To them what we have available today would be akin to magic and what we are able to do with it, quite God-like. As Arthur C. Clarke wrote in his 1961 book, Profiles from a Future, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
And that is what those choosing to put aside their pettiness and be extraordinary are creating… A little bit of their own magic, towards the advancement of all of humanity.
End of Part I
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!
The 7 Hidden Powers of Compelling Greatness through Communication by Manoj Sharma
April 23, 2007
It is too often under appreciated that the quality of your communication is at the heart of your power with people and also with yourself. In our massively inter-related and inter-connected world, the quality of your communication impacts both the quality of your life and your standard of living. Interestingly, this is independent of your awareness and lack of awareness of it. Please allow yourself to be acutely aware of this now.
This is simultaneously shocking and not so shocking
It is shocking, how generally oblivious people are to the subtle and not so subtle nuances of communication. And it is also not so shocking, because we are never actually taught the subtlety of communication at home, at school and even at work. I’ve asked myself numerous times, why we are never taught it and have come to the conclusion that it is a combination of a lack of appreciation, mind share and expertise on the part of the powers that be and a lack of demand for it from the rest of us.
It is a marvel to behold, how non-existent the realms of communication are in people’s everyday operating consciousness. And how little people invest to gain a high level of proficiency with it. Most people suffice with learning a language, but are rarely adept at using the language poignantly and therefore by default, allow language to use them instead.
Critical thinking skills requires, critical language skills and critical inter and intra-personal communication skills in combination. These skills are still all too lacking in the corporate world for starters and have an impact on profitability, performance and certainly fulfilment levels too.
I completely understand if sophistication of communication is absent in the everyday lives of most (although everybody can afford to improve their inter and intra-personal communication skills - the whole world will be better for it). But, it is horrifying to note its under utilization and proficiency at the highest levels of our existing structures in a socially conscious manner.
It is especially important for those who value themselves as professionals to pay especially close attention. History clearly shows that the greats have differentiated themselves from the rest by the quality of their communication. (Traversing the spectrum from simplicity to sophistication)
If any of this is difficult to grasp and is a novel notion to you or if you are simply confused, consider that it means you are opening yourself to a new paradigm and possibly learning something.
Do not confuse communication with language
Although of little relevance to this particular article, it is still important for me to state that we should not confuse communication with language, yet recognize the role of language in compelling communication.
The truth of the matter is that the more successful financially and/or non-financially you desire to be, the greater sophistication and/or simplicity you will require, in both your interpersonal and intrapersonal communication. (Chairpersons, Boards, CEOs, CXOs, Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Managing Directors, Directors, General Managers, Senior Managers and Leaders please take special note that you can improve the quality of your communication even more through Professional Coaching in a confidential Executive Coaching environment to gain an even greater competitive advantage).
In the interim, please indicate how you fare on the following 7 Powers.
Rank them from 1 to 10 truthfully, based on what you feel you demonstrate, with 10 being the highest. (We can get into a more detailed FREE DIAGNOSTICS when you drop us an email at Info@DifferWorld.com for us to meet.)
The Power to Influence
To what degree do you feel you demonstrate the power to produce effects through the actions, behaviours and opinions of others?
___ out of 10
The Power to Seduce
To what degree do you feel you demonstrate the power to attract, entice and win over people?
___ out of 10
The Power to Prompt
To what degree do you feel you demonstrate the power to alert, to ready and get people to deliver on targets?
___ out of 10
The Power to Prevail
To what degree do you feel you demonstrate the power of your strength to have things occur more frequently, to be widespread, to dominate and overcome situations and circumstances?
___ out of 10
The Power to Persuade
To what degree do you feel you demonstrate the power to induce others to believe a certain something, to convince by urging, suggesting and/or advising?
___ out of 10
The Power to Inspire
To what degree do you feel you demonstrate the power to breathe life into, to give rise to, to bring about and to cause things to happen?
___ out of 10
The Power to Evoke
To what degree do you feel you demonstrate the power to evoke, to elicit and draw forth through imagination a vivid compelling reality?
___ out of 10
What is your total score out of 70? ___ out of 70.
Please note that this is only an interim uni-directional, one-faceted diagnosis. And a more complete multi-directional, multi-faceted diagnosis will need to be done in more detail to get a complete picture with the aid of DifferWorld’s other diagnostic tools.
Nevertheless, it should awaken some thoughts and ideas as to where you stand and where you could be with respect to your communication potential and its effects.
Please remember your knowledge, competency and proficiency with respect to inter and intra-communication have an major impact on all these 7 Powers. And these 7 powers can be hugely developed consciously through the many varieties of Professional Coaching such as Communication Coaching, Leadership Coaching, Corporate Coaching, Executive Coaching, Life Coaching and so on, over time.
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!
Unraveling Universal Mysteries by Manoj Sharma
April 21, 2007
The following are some extracts from the interview between Charlie Rose and Lisa Randall and some thoughts by yours truly.
Lisa Randall :
We are really trying to understand.. what is the fundamental nature of matter and forces. What are the fundamental forces and why are they related in the way they are. So we are trying to understand more about gravity for example, why is gravity so much weaker than all the other elementary forces we know about. That is to say the three other elementary forces we know about…electro magnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces. Gravity is far weaker, I mean if you think about it, you can pick up a paper clip with a tiny magnet, competing against the entire earth. And the fact that you can jump up and down… I mean gravity is not a strong force although it dominates things and it is only because there is a big mass of object.
My Thoughts:
Beautiful perspective of the strength and weakness of gravity. A force that holds it all together on our planet yet provides such a huge degree of flexibility. The sophistication and mystery of its creation is a true beauty of design unparalleled by anything we have invented. The epitome of rigidity and flexibility at the same time?
Charlie Rose :
What are the 4 dimensions?
Lisa Randall :
The 3 spacial dimensions that we know about…. left, right, forward, backward, up, down and time.
My Thoughts :
Since consciousness is, as far as we are aware, a human centric and individual specific phenomena, why not think of dimensions as inside, outside, interrelated and time. Time being a definite variable inside, and possible constant outside?
Have we simplified for communicative purposes and then overlooked the simplification that the spacial dimensions identified by science are simplified maps of reality that serve a conceptual and communicative purpose? For example, we depict space on a piece of paper as the x, y and z axises, which are far more dynamic in reality that the reality we express on a piece of paper. In the same way, these words you are reading are an expression of a reality and a simplification for communicative and conceptual purpose and not the original reality in themselves. The original reality being variable-timed, internally-based and unmeasurable.
The original reality here being independent of the 3 dimensions of space, we commonly accept as up, down, left, right, forward and backward and external clock time as we have come to understand and accept it.
I get the impression we tend to, generally and predominately, think of our world in a very archaic scientific way, which may well be outmoded. There is a real need for new science, new independent thinking and a new depth of thinking about our world and our lives. This is not just true in the world of physics and science, but also from my experience in our personal and professional lives.
As a professional coach many of the extraordinary breakthroughs both my coachees and I have been graced to produce are a result of ‘examining the “unexamined”‘ and ‘rethinking the “already thought for you”‘. Something I call “identifying the set mind”. It is an artful process that opens up whole new worlds, frees up many constraints and shifts paradigms pricelessly, forever. I have even had the pleasure of professionally coaching scientists on this.
Are we doing enough of ‘examining the “unexamined”‘, ‘rethinking the “already thought for you”‘ and “identification of set minds” in science or just building upon the work of others without questioning the very foundations of that thinking and the simplification for conceptual and communicative purposes that might have gone along with it?
Go ahead and allow yourself to think more deeply than ever about it now.
Isn’t the fact that you are reading these words or watching Lisa Randall and Charlie Rose in a video clip a suspension/re-visitation of space and time, in a possibly simultaneously and ever open to new inclusions (every single time someone new tunes in to read or watch), interrelated, variable-time world? This is, as per my earlier suggestion, to rethink the 4 dimensions as “inside, outside, interrelated and time. Time being a definite variable inside, and possible constant outside.”
Also, look at it this way, the interview between Charlie Rose and Lisa Randall is filmed in what we understand to be a “four dimensional world” (the location at where it was filmed) within a particular time span. It has since been compressed relatively onto a two dimensional medium (digital film). Coded and decoded for you to watch from a “four dimensional” world (where you physically are) on a relatively two dimensional medium (your screen) with no reference to where or when it was filmed, but which has become part of your “NOW” reality.
In this, common everyday occurrence, has time and space faded, reorganized and/or warped away?
Also, what difference would it make if you were watching it “live” from a different space or in that studio itself? Ask yourself deeply, “Would it have made a difference for me to watch a repeat telecast of a previous “live” broadcasting, if I did not realize it was a repeat telecast, or a “live” telecast if I had been led to believe it was a repeat?” If you were independent of another human being what difference would it make? Does it only make a difference in the presence of another inter-related human being?
Are space and time only linked as a measure of each other and therefore an artificial ceiling that is inviting the human mind to breakthrough it?
There are many seeming limitations we can get around when we apply our minds or recreate our internal realities in ways conducive to the targets we’d like to achieve (to use a professional coaching parlance). The only thing we seem unable to presently do is reach through the screen and turn up in another reality. We seem not to be able to (well not all of us) go through the “looking glass” or more precisely through our internal realities into other parallel external realities. Or are those simply realities that are presently out of the reach of the masses, but, only for now?
As Lisa Randall says in her interview with Charlie Rose, “we are just not physiologically designed to experience or see those dimensions, but will eventually find evidence of them. One of the things that make it really hard to understand an extra dimension is that we can’t picture them. I mean in my book, I say a word is worth a thousand pictures when it comes to extra dimensions.”
I feel we predominantly tend to relate to the world and appreciate it from the “me-external-centric” point of view. The time may be ripe to consider the “me-consciousness-centric”, “collective-consciousness-centric” , “helio-centric” and “center-of-the-universe-centric” view points. This may cause a clearing up of the fog.
And this should not just be left to the good people in the field of science alone.
Lisa Randall’s Book Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions can be purchased on Amazon by clicking here.
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!
Charlie Rose with Lisa Randall & Edward Wilson
April 21, 2007
Focus On Your Future Now by Manoj Sharma
April 19, 2007
In a world of immediate pressures and instant deadlines, the intelligent focus on long term solutions and diligently invest towards making things happen.
The only way to stop playing “catch up” in our speedy world is to project, anticipate, focus and prepare for the future ahead. Do so, so that when the future catches up to your visionary thinking you will find yourself way ahead of the game with respect to everyone else. This is equally true for individuals, teams, organizations, communities and nations.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about focusing on your future at the expense of what needs to be done now. I am talking about creating additional time to attend to the next 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years. (Depending how old you are or far ahead you’d like to project.)
The pressure, overload, distress, discomfort, disappointment and/or overwhelm you may be facing today will pass only if you actively create a new reality for tomorrow, right now. Keep in mind, just as your yesterday has disappeared into today, your today will disappear into your tomorrow.
Time will pass, the future will catch you, whether you are prepared for it or not.
Start investing to educate yourself with respect to the future now and remember the only way to guarantee a great future is to create it.
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!
What is Money? by Manoj Sharma
April 18, 2007
Here is a sampling of what some people have to say in answer to this question.
“Money is a good that acts as a medium of exchange in transactions. Classically it is said that money acts as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. Most authors find that the first two are nonessential properties that follow from the third. In fact, other goods are often better than money at being inter-temporal stores of value, since most monies degrade in value over time through inflation or the overthrow of governments.” — Mike Moffatt
“Money is a token that is widely accepted as a medium of exchange. The token can be tangible like a coin or note, or intangible like a bank deposit. If the token is convertible on demand into a valuable commodity like gold, the token is known as commodity money. The exchange value of commodity money varies, but is normally greater than its value as a commodity. A precious metal coin is simply a token potentially convertible into the bullion that comprises it.” — William F. Hummell
“Money is whatever two people can agree on as a way of exchanging goods.” — Dr. Katie Eagleton
“Money can be anything - Money is human happiness in the abstract; and so, the man who is no longer capable of enjoying such happiness in the concrete sets his whole heart on money.”
– Arthur Schopenauer
“Money is first and foremost a medium of exchange. As human society became increasingly more complex, it became inconvenient for humans to barter one commodity or service for another or to exchange a certain quantity of labor for a certain quantity of some commodity. No one invented money; it simply developed. People who wanted to exchange something found that it was sometimes difficult to find someone who had exactly what they wanted and who at the same time wanted exactly what they had to exchange. In order to make exchanges easier, the circle of exchanges widened from two parties to three or more. A had what B wanted; B had what C wanted; C had what A wanted. In this way, indirect exchanges began to develop.” — Dr. Ronald Nash
“Money is often defined by its function. Money is what money does. Money functions as a unit of account, a store of value and a medium of exchange. The unit of account (or standard of value) function refers to money being used to measure the comparable worth of different commodities. The medium of exchange function has two aspects: money is used as both a means of purchase, in that it can be exchanged directly for goods and services, and as a means of payment, in that it can be used to settle debts. Finally, the store of value function means that money may also be an end in itself, as a means of accumulating wealth.” — Matthew Forstater
So, after reading the above the questions that needs to be explored are….
What is money to you?
What have you made it mean?
And is what it is to you and what you’ve made it mean conducive to your holistic success?
To find out more explore The Principles of Money and if you ever get a chance to attend it, get ready for a life reorientating experience.
And as usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts and comments to Info@DifferWorld.com. And if you’d like a FREE CONSULTATION on how you, your teams and your organization can benefit from the above please feel free to call upon me (by clicking on the above hyperlink), at (65) 6338 5669 / (61) 3 9018 6790 or emailing Info@DifferWorld.com now!