Stand up and speak!

Communication skills are essential in today’s business world. No matter what your area of expertise is: finance, IT, engineering, medicine: operating successfully in a community requires that your communication skills are top notch.

“Good communication skills outrank other core business competencies as the number one skill for corporate recruiters looking to hire MBA graduates” according to The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which runs GMAT testing for MBA applicants. They also report that this requirement has been ranking in the top three for the last few years: it’s not a fad. It shows how important this is; MBA’s are hired for their business education and whatever discipline they specialised in, yet the number one requirement is that they can stand up in front of a crowd and communicate. Because although communication knows many different aspects – ranging from the written word to video messages etc. all the way to oral presentations – but nothing is as powerful and has such an immediate impact as someone standing up in front of people to share their views with the audience, and to enter into a dialogue. People base much of their opinion on the person, and yes, on the whole organisation he/she represents, depending on how well they communicate.

Communication knows both form and substance. The best communicators master both. Sure, for a lecture one can prepare contents in advance but if you have to answer questions or defend a position in a debate you need to master your subject well enough to go beyond prepared statements. You have to address the audience, read the mood, pick up on issues that need further clarification, and rephrase and reformulate until you get the message across, and be credible and convincing. As to the form: in his book “Body Language: 7 Easy Lessons to Master the Silent Language” (Prentice Hall life, 2008) author John Borg argues that human communication consists of 93% body language and paralinguistic cues, while only 7% of communication consists of words themselves. Mastering “form” is therefore an essential part of successful communication.

Associations and non-profit organisations thrive on communication: it helps them to build their communities, to engage their members and to inspire people into action. Many of these organisations hold periodical meetings and congresses, where the activities of the organisation come to life and where the key people of the association interact, network… and communicate. Train your leadership in this essential skill. Look for staff that have this talent and assess communication capabilities during the recruitment process. The future success of your association depends on it. That speaks for itself…

Jurriaen Sleijster
Executive Vice President

Economic Recession Leads to Re-thinking Events

Economic recession leads to re-thinking Events
 
Economic recessions are tough times for everybody, including for event planners. One of the first budgets to be cut is meetings & events, and this might make sense to a procurement officer. However, everyone in the company should see the value that meetings can bring.
 
I found this great article from the Harvard Business Publishing titled “Don’t Cancel That Meeting.” The added value of meetings may at times be overlooked. As stated in this article, corporate staff need to hear about direction and guidance of their corporation from senior managers, and business people representing a product or service need to hear how the company is planning for the coming year.
 
“Don’t Cancel That Meeting” focuses on how to make events more successful during dire economic times.
 
Be focused – Meetings can be an important platform to convey to employees the companie’s economic situation. Moreover, meetings can also convey future plans of a company, and the vision and direction senior staff are taking.
 
Tell stories – People relate more to stories. Tell stories that anyone can identify. Keep them simple and short, yet as entertaining as possible. 
 
Hear from the field – Create platforms for people to share. Break-out sessions and discussion panels are a great way to involve people and have them speak their opinions and ideas.
 
Meetings are far from just a collection of people. We believe that the meetings and events industry make real contributions to organizational and personal success for companies and employees. Meetings are platforms to share knowledge, build community, and connect people. Tough times are great times to bring your message across, and meaningful connections and win.
 
What do you say?
 
Sebastien Tondeur
CEO – Corporate Division

How to make effective presentations? PowerPoint is dead

Last year, we won a project for a global Financial Institution client. We won based on a concept of not making any PowerPoint presentations. I recently came across this very thought provoking leader giving a class to Google executives about making effective presentations. Quite inspiring.. what do you thing?

Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communication expert Garr Reynolds, gives his Presentation Zen to Google employees.

Sebastien Tondeur
CEO – Corporate Division