Who speaks from your body?

When listening to talks and speeches by managers of mid-size and large corporations, I sometimes get the impression that somebody else is speaking from their bodies.

It is as if a “corporate virus” has taken over the manager’s brain.

Indicators:

• Meaningless corporate buzzwords are added to each sentence. “We will achieve these strategic goals by focusing relentlessly on our employees as our most important resource.”
• The presentation slides all look the same, with way too many words per slide or all compressed into the corporate design.
• The presenter does not connect at all personally to the audience.

The consequences for most organizations are messages that do not come across and missions that are not shared by the staff—in short, people who don’t understand each other in anything beyond pure technical facts.

Underperformance is the result.

Consequently, if you as a leader want to change this issue for the better, then take these steps:

• Clarify for yourself which corporate messages connect to you personally and then present them personally to your audience. Example: If you want to talk about the new customer centricity in your organization, then you might want to share a personal story about your latest bad treatment as a customer.
• Skip the standard PowerPoint presentations. Instead, tell more stories, use a flip chart, or use innovative slide templates (no problem for internal use).
• Align the presentation content to your style. If you are in introvert, then you should avoid jumping on a table and screaming, “Let’s all rock now!” Inauthenticity is the first thing everybody will notice. It undermines trust.

By applying these techniques, you will become an authentic person to whom people like to listen, instead of just a corporate message transmitter.

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