Originally published by Steve Knight on LinkedIn: Get your Message across with Clarity and Conviction

I have written this article with the sole purpose for you to use it for yourself and to pass it on to as many other people as you would take great joy in helping. It is 100% inspired by a message of thanks that I just received. My team and I do what we do with a from the heart passion to help others shine. As such, it is a deeply satisfying reward when we hear first-hand examples of immediate, hot off the press, tangible results.

Karthik Pitani is one of our amazing INSEAD MBA participants. My team and I just had the privilege and honour to work with Karthik and 84 other bright minds on our Art of Communication MBA Elective on our Fontainebleau, France, campus. Just after the course, I received a LinkedIn message from Karthik, which went like this (and yes, I absolutely asked Karthik if he was happy for me to share his learning journey and insights that he was able to very quickly put to the test)...

Hi Steve, I would like to thank you for an amazing course. It was really helpful to see where my colleagues and I can improve. I had the opportunity to present on a tech-related topic this week and I received a great set of comments from the group on the engagement and connection I was able to establish on a topic that could have been communicated in a data-heavy and information-heavy manner and as a result completely lost people. All thanks to you and the team. As you said, it’s a journey and I will keep working on it. Thanks again!!

Below, I will share the topic of Karthik's presentation, but before I do that I would like to share the answers that he gave to the questions I asked him after I received his thank you message, because this is where the learning is for all of us, and we should never rest on our laurels in the fast-moving arena of communication and leadership. So here we go...

1: What did you do differently this time for the presentation, before and during?

Before:

Structured the content first and the slides last, to ensure that I had enough time to speak and deliver the right message (keeping it crisp).

Filmed myself doing the presentation several times and reviewed the footage. Each time making notes of what to improve: structure and clarity of message, posture, facial expression, voice visualisation and word enunciation.

Practice, practice, practice: I did multiple dry runs until I felt confident.

Made a list of anticipated questions and prepared my answers (structure, clarity and delivery), with the same focus as for the actual presentation. The Q&A is an integral part of the presentation. No point doing a fantastic job in the main presentation and then bombing in the Q&A.

During:

Breathe Diaphragmatically: be grounded and calm, so you can fully connect.

Be the Captain of the Ship: own the stage, own the space, enjoy that sensation.

A split second before I begin, remind myself of what I need to be in control of and watch out for during the presentation: posture, strong and clear voice, etc.

Fully focus outwards to the audience during the presentation. Observing the visual feedback from the audience on my level of engagement and connection and adjusting in the moment accordingly.

2: What impact did each change/evolution have on you and why?

It allowed me to be me, more confident of my content and focused and disciplined to practice multiple times.

It enabled me to focus on how to deliver the message, as opposed to using an information firehose. I did the "Radio Test" and listened back to the audio only of the video footage I recorded of me rehearsing. I then condensed the content down to three main points.

I was able to connect with the audience using logic and emotion through my presence.

I was able to bring my enthusiasm to life through my voice visualisation, breathing life and meaning into my words.

I heard Steve say that there is no such thing as the perfect slot to present during the day and that everyone is convinced they've been given the worst slot. I can certainly vouch for that... I was given the very last 15 minute slot of the 5 hour workshop, so the 20th speaker of the day!

However, to Steve's point, because I was disciplined in the preparation and rehearsal, I was able to really step into the shoes of the audience to get a strong sense of their needs and requirements in the moment... that last slot of the day 15 moments! Knowing the audience enabled me to be focused on the people in the room, and be flexible to make adjustments to the way I presented accordingly. This enabled me to feel energised, confident and to keep the audience engaged.

3: What areas will you continue to work on in order to keep evolving?

Structure and Clarity of Message

Voice

Facial Expressions

Body Language

All four of the above, by filming myself practicing and viewing/listening back to the footage, and thus improve and evolve over a period of time. My goal is to be focused and disciplined in this approach until it becomes a way of life, a shift into the gear called "Second Nature", as opposed to the gear that rather robotically says, OK, I have now shifted into "Public Speaking" gear.

4: If you were now coaching someone else, who has not attended The Art of Communication, on how to deliver a great message, what are the top key areas that you would share with them and work with them on?

Film yourself rehearsing. Playback the footage. Watch your body language. Listen to your voice. Ask yourself, is my body language, my facial expression and my tone of voice congruent with my message and my intention?

Make sure you ask for feedback from your colleagues. Include those from outside of your team as well; those who don’t have the prior knowledge that you and your team have, because they can advise you if it is making sense, or not. Ask yourself, is the feedback I received congruent with my message and my intention?

Watch out for filler words (erms, errs, so, and, like, you know) and consciously eliminate them with silent pauses and breathing diaphragmatically.

Watch out for vague words that dilute your leadership and authority (perhaps, maybe, sort of, kind of). Instead use words and phrases such as; it is my firm belief, I am 100% convinced, without a shadow of a doubt, it is crystal clear to me, I am fully committed, etc.

At INSEAD Business School, like so many organisations today, we are a truly global and multinational organisation, which provides the setting for an amazing and positively inspiring environment in which to learn. As such, each and every one of us has an accent, including the native English speakers ;-). So enunciate your words clearly by being fully committed, focused and purposeful with every single word and every syllable within each word. Train your brain to be disciplined and make sure you really stretch each word as you speak, as opposed to clipping words and melding them together. Make it easy for people to be able to sit back and fully understand your message. Pause to plant your points.

The time spent in rehearsal means that you will be connected to your content. That enables you to be feel more confident and more relaxed and ensures that your delivery style is both structured and conversational. That creates a great environment of connection between you and your audience, because when that magic happens, you are not presenting, you have made the shift into having a conversation with the people in the room.

Here is the feedback that Karthik received from those very people in the room...

“Really great job. Tremendous improvement. Engaging and definitely used ethos (an appeal to ethics) pathos (an appeal to emotion, encouraging and creating space for an emotional response) and logos (an appeal to logic, persuading by reason). You connected well with us in the audience and we felt emotionally connected with you. You made a very technical topic “touch us.”

Here is what Karthik spoke about during his 15 mins...

Know your Subject: Introducing the TRICORDER XPRIZE and talking about the immediate need for change in the tools and systems we use to diagnose, assess and manage healthcare. Highlights about the future of healthcare and personal diagnostics. Innovations currently in the market and how we are closing the gap with technology, but need to do much more.

Know your Audience: 45 MBA participants. 42 of them have a non-healthcare background. Mostly engineers and some of them are very tech-savvy. They have little information/knowledge of healthcare systems, existing technology in this space and the jargon used. Most importantly, with very few exceptions, they have a neutral to negative perception of technology in healthcare diagnostics.

Know My Approach: Based on the info I had on the audience, I knew the content could not be domain specific. To connect with the audience, I needed to be closer to what they are likely to have experienced in their own lives, so I included examples such as waiting times in Emergency Rooms, Costs associated with healthcare, distances people walk or travel to get access to basic healthcare even in developed countries.

Provide a contrast: I shared how bad the situation is in developed countries and then asked them to imagine the situation in developing and under-developed countries.

Grasp their interest: I showed a picture of the world’s first blood pressure monitor (over 120 years ago), the design and workings of which look pretty much the same today. Whilst portable hand-held blood pressure monitors are available in developed countries they are not accessible to people in developing and under-developed countries. I raised the question, why 120 years later, have we not been able to improve the design and make it much more accessible for the poorer parts of the world.

Give examples: I discussed the deskilling of technology, i.e. the example of the world’s first computer in 1946, ENIAC, that was operated by a team of highly skilled engineers, whereas today your smartphone, which is 100,000 times more powerful and complicated, can be masterfully operated by one 6-year-old child. That is the level to which we have evolved computers.

Call to Action: I closed with this question: As we have been seemingly able to distribute computers and smartphones in such a way that they have become accessible in parts of the world where many of us would not necessarily expect them to be, “Why are we not able to do that with technology in healthcare?”

So, a final note from me, Steve Knight; thank you again Karthik for sharing your learning journey. I truly hope that this article has encouraged you all to step up to the mic as often as possible, research the needs of your audience, be fully focused in your preparation and rehearsals so that you create a structured conversation that has a clear goal, purpose and intention, and that you enjoy the connection and chemistry as you fully connect with your audience, sharing your carefully crafted message with confidence, style and passion.

I invite you to share your thoughts and comments below and I wish you every success in the arena of communication and leading with positive influence. Voice is Power