Know your Audience!

Public Speaking!

Two words that stress out some as much as it excites some others! Learning the skills that help one to speak effectively before an audience is one of the most sought after courses in today’s world.

From students to teachers to executives and politicians, every single person has to face an audience at some point in time and needs to know how to manage the talk at that time! So this run for learning these techniques is neither unforeseen nor inappropriate. Not many however realize that a major part of succeeding in public speaking also lies in what to do before the talk, in the planning and preparation stage of the talk. It is in this stage that knowing one’s audience comes into the picture.

What should one know about one’s audience? Apart from their demographics, culture, diversity and expectations, there is one another factor knowing which plays a pivotal role in helping one deliver a successful speech/talk. This is the knowledge level or expertise of the audience in the topic that the speaker is going to talk. Without this knowledge there is always a danger that the speaker will either talk on too basic fundamentals that everyone already knows or else may end up talking about too complicated details which not many understand. Let us look at this from a simple matrix of audience knowledge level and talk content.

Knowledge level of audience vs. talk content

• Low knowledge level and high talk content: When the knowledge level of the audience is low, if the speaker starts to discuss detailed concepts of the topic with them, most of it would go overboard. It would be like discussing the contents of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged or Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace with students of classes 3^rd and 4^th when the topics are far too complicated for them and they would find it extremely difficult to comprehend the same. When this happens, the audience naturally tends to feel anxious as a result of which they start feeling restless and fidgety, cannot connect with the speaker and cannot learn. Thus the talk becomes unsuccessful.

              

• High knowledge level and low talk content: When the knowledge level of the audience is very high, if the speaker starts to speak from the basic concepts of the topic with them, most of it would be ignored. It would be like trying to teach doctoral candidates of Literature the basics of ABC when their competence levels are far beyond the same. When this happens, the audience naturally tends to get bored as a result of which they start feeling restless and fidgety right from the start, cannot connect with the speaker and cannot learn. Thus the talk becomes unsuccessful.

• Low knowledge level and low talk content: This is one of the 2 scenarios wherein both the audience and the speaker are at the same level and can connect as well as discuss so that the audience can learn. This is like teaching the basics of reading to the Kindergarten students where the speaker needs to come down to the level of the audience and talk on the topic so as to connect with the audience, stir interest, generate interaction, and help them learn.

  
• High knowledge level and high talk content: This is the other of the 2 scenarios wherein both the audience and the speaker are at the same level and can connect as well as discuss so that the audience can learn. This is like creating interactive and participative group discussions on various advanced topics in the concepts of literature or history within a group that is already conversant in the same. By simply facilitating the discussion and throwing in the knowledge where required, the speaker can take the audience up to the next level by connecting with them, stirring interest, generating interaction, so that everyone can learn and grow together.

A speaker needs to his/her homework and check where the audience is in their knowledge levels even before starting to think about what to speak... This helps him/her to make their talks more interactive, participative, relevant, fulfilling, and successful.

Think from the audience’s perspective...  

You have the power!

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Revathi Turaga is an International Trainer & Inspirational Speaker

Revathi can be reached at http://www.revathionline.com

Published in ‘The Hans India’ on 18th July 2011

Time Management: Breaking Down Tasks

From business leaders who run billion dollar organizations, to executives who operate an enormous number of projects, to housewives who are involved in a multitude of daily activities, to students who have lots of studious and recreational goals – for every one of the above, there is one factor that helps accomplish more and more. That factor is ‘managing time’!

Has it ever happened that you know you have to finish a task that loomed so large in front you that starting it seemed your worst nightmare?
Has it ever happened that while working on a task after hours, you step back, look at it and feel de-motivated by it being nowhere near completion?
Has it ever happened that you were seriously working on just the one thing the whole day and at the end of the day feels like nothing’s accomplished?

For learning to handle ourselves better those times when we encounter more of the above situations, today we shall look into the aspects of effectively accomplishing huge tasks in the time available.

Completing a huge task is like eating a watermelon. The most time consuming activity is before even beginning to eat it, i.e. to cut it into sizeable pieces. Similarly, to successfully complete a huge task, we need to be able to break it down to more manageable small sub-tasks and systematically plan to accomplish the same.

Given below are 8 steps that will help you to achieve the same:

1. Give yourself time to plan sub-tasks
Many presume that when a task at hand is huge, it has to be started immediately without wasting any time. This is however not true. Research shows that, giving yourself a little silent time to virtually run the task in your mind step by step helps in increasing the overall speed while performing the task.

2. Hierarchy of essential sub-tasks
Every task can be divided into a lot of sub-tasks, some big in themselves and some small. The bigger sub-tasks can further be divided into sub-sub-tasks! It is important to keep the number of sub-tasks at any level to at most 4.

3. Know how much close each sub-tasks takes you to the end goal
Simply knowing that completing the sub-task is essential for accomplishing the huge tasks is not enough. It is important to identify the importance each sub-task has in relation to the main task, so that you can feel the satisfaction of accomplishing something at each step.

4. Identify timelines for each sub-task
Deadlines are set by external factors, and timelines are set by the individual. Set your timelines a little longer than what you believe the sub-task would take, yet within the limits of your deadline. This helps in working methodically towards completion.

5. Understanding connections between sub-tasks
The sequencing of the sub-tasks is of utmost importance. Not doing this, causes one to jump back and forth their plan thus ultimately rendering the planning useless. Noting the connections between different sub-tasks helps not only in placing them in the order they ought to be done, but also in putting the most related sub-tasks together.

6. Delegate certain sub-tasks
Not every minute thing has to be done only by you! If there are any sub-tasks that someone else can do, then please delegate them! Let people help! It helps!

7. Use available tidbits of time to finish the smaller sub-tasks
Sometimes, an unplanned time gap pops up in the day. Instead of just letting it go by, find a sub-task that can fit into it and get done with it. This will reduce the pressure later.

8. Focus all your energies in the active sub-task at that moment
How many times do you keep thinking about the list of next things to do while working on one thing? That stops now! Once you have planned out the task properly, focus all your energies only onto the sub –task that you working on at that moment, knowing that the rest of the sub-tasks and other tasks are in their own right time.

Breaking down a huge task into smaller, easily accomplish-able sub-tasks not only makes it easier to complete them, but also helps in reducing anxiety and in staying motivated to continue working.

Once you are done with the list, just pick up the first one, and get started!
You have the power!

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Revathi Turaga

http://www.revathionline.com

Published in ‘The Hans India’ on 18th July 2011

Revathi Turaga Profile

Revathi Turaga is an International Trainer, Inspirational Speaker, Happiness Facilitator, Behavioral Coach and Innovation Consultant.

In addition to her corporate experience across India and North America, Revathi is also an accredited and certified Edward de Bono trainer in the concepts of Six Thinking Hats® and Lateral Thinking™.

Currently serving as the Vice-Chair of Indian Society of Training and Development (ISTD)–Hyderabad Chapter, and the Joint Secretary for the Hyderabad Directors/CEOs Forum (HDCF), she is a life member of the International Association of Holistic Psychology (IAHP), NHRD (National HRD Network), & HMA (Hyderabad Management Association).

Revathi is a recipient of several international certifications in behavioral training including Crestcom® Bullet Proof Manager® Programs; Harvard’s Case-in-point Workshops; Dale Carnegie® High Impact Presentations; Emotional Intelligence and MSCEIT™; and all levels of Neuro Linguistic Programming™ Trainer Certifications from NFNLP, U.K. She is certified, trained and licensed by Leadership Guru Arthur F. Carmazzi to conduct international Directive Communication (DC) Psychology workshops accredited by American Institute of Business Psychology (AIOBP) and also in GAMMA’s mind set and skill set certification programs of Meta Mind Management™ for personal and professional excellence for achieving and sustaining a state of Excellence-centered Happiness™.

Revathi has also been certified and is licensed to administer and debrief internationally acclaimed psychological profiling tools and psychometric assessments like PAPI™, DISC™, MBTI®, Thinking Pattern Assessment™, SOSIE, 16PF®. She also writes articles on management behavioral practices for reputed newspapers, journals, and online magazines.

Revathi is also trained in School Psychology from IAHP and is a recipient of a Post Graduate Certification in Behavioral Sciences Training (PGCPBST) from Management Institute of Behavioral Sciences (MIBS), USA. She is also a certified Six Sigma (Green Belt) practitioner from GE, USA. Revathi’s academic qualifications include a Masters Degree in Psychology, a Post Graduate Degree in Management and a Graduate Degree in Mechanical Engineering.

A corporate trainer and consultant, Revathi has been personally trained and coached in various arenas by many internationally renowned trainers. Her trainings are exhaustive and include mindset management and skill sets enhancement training.

Revathi has had over 13 years of corporate training exposure in training more than 1,00,000 individuals from various organizations like Wipro, Satyam, GE, Novotel, Ashok Leyland, Times of India, Visaka Industries, Saint Gobain, NTPC, and NDPL among others and has worked in North America and India. She has also trained for organizations such as Nalanda – Times Foundation (an NGO for nonprofit learning) NHRD (National HRD Network), HMA (Hyderabad Management Association), IAS (Indo American Society), COWE (Confederation of Women Entrepreneurs), ALEAP (Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of Andhra Pradesh), COD (Center for Organizational Development), IIIT (International Institute of Information Technology), SIBM (Symbiosis Institute of Business Management), ISB (Indian School of Business), University of Hyderabad, and ESCI (Engineering Staff College of India).

She has mentored over 400 participants and assisted them through a 6 month period of training on the methodology of cyclic learning and application, through a varied range of behavioral and personality concepts, to enhance their performance at work – aligned with the organization and business needs. One of her pet projects has been to teach facilitation and training skills to managers to enhance their managerial and facilitation capabilities. Revathi has also trained / mentored over 10,000 students across schools and colleges throughout the nation on all aspects of soft skills training to enhance employability and entrepreneurship for the youth through various international personality development programs.

Using unique training methodologies that blend impactful techniques like Improv Theatrics along with traditional role plays, simulations and case studies, Revathi conducts internationally acclaimed training programs cater to various behavioral and competency developmental needs of organizations and institutions in all areas including communication and interpersonal skills, relationship management, personal productivity, customer relationship management, leadership traits, public speaking, personality development, self awareness, and goal setting.