Browsing through a number of blogs the other day, I came across a presentations based blog that was giving advice on choosing your presentation topic. Now this grabbed my attention. Not because of a catchy headline, or great picture; it grabbed my attention because I wasn’t sure how necessary the advice was.

In my experience, the great majority of presentations have a pre-determined presentation topic. You are presenting your findings from a research project you have undertaken; presenting the benefits of working with your business in a sales context; talking about specific friends and family at major events such as weddings, significant birthdays or retirements; you may be talking about a hobby or passion. Whichever way you look at it, I believe it is pretty rare to be asked to prepare and give a presentation to a group where you have a completely free hand on the presentation topic. You will normally know your subject well and deciding what to say, how to say it and keeping it simple will be the main challenges.

I also happen to believe that the presentation topic is not really that important. What I mean by this is that you can give a really good presentation on most topics providing you prepare well and use good presentation techniques. Of course, it will also depend on the context and the audience. I would not feel comfortable being asked to do a presentation on Government fiscal policy to an audience of senior economists. It would be hard for me to add any value for them, unless they wanted a layman’s impression or a more humorous take on the subject.

Choosing a presentation topic

If you do find yourself with a free hand, here are a few simple tips to help you choose your presentation topic.

• Determine the purpose of the presentation. Are you seeking to influence a decision, inform, persuade, entertain, demonstrate, or challenge?
• What key points are you wanting to make?
• How easy is it to gather data, stories and information on the topic?
• How could you grab audience attention?
• Is it something you are passionate or very interested in?

If you do get really stuck then you can do a demonstration type topic along the lines of ‘how to ……..’

Alternatively, you can give an informational presentation ‘Why I’m passionate about ………’

Generally, the topic is much less important than preparing well and knowing how to get your key messages received and understood.

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Linking the recent turmoil in Greece to employee engagement and leadership styles may seem a little farfetched at first. However, it does provide a thought provoking backdrop, albeit an exaggerated one, on how leadership style impacts employee engagement levels. It is very likely that the answers the Greek people gave for these 5 questions were very different when they joined the Eurozone, to the answers they would currently give.

Hopefully, you have not had to resort to using teargas on your people yet, and if you have, something’s gone very wrong, but reflecting on how your people would answer these questions is time well spent. Better still – ask them.

Engaged employees add value to your bottom line

People want to engage. They will constantly assess how engaged they feel (although they may label it differently) by either directly or indirectly asking themselves these simple questions:

 Do I fit?

Nobody likes to be the square peg in the round hole. People turn down job offers when they are not sure if the company is right for them, or their potential new manager made them uncomfortable in some way. Much like Greece, they may believe they fit at first, but things change and events happen. No prizes for guessing the current answer to this question.

 Am I clear on what’s expected of me?

Do I have clear objectives and do I know how my performance is being measured? Are those measures consistent and fair? Do I understand where I fit in the bigger picture? What sort of feedback do I receive on my performance and what opportunities do I get to give feedback to my managers and leaders, or does it feel like rioting is the only option?

 Do I feel supported?

The key word here is ‘feel’.  Not all actions taken by leaders, and claimed as support, are recognised as support by those on the receiving end. Too many leadership decisions are taken from a frame of self interest or self preservation. People tend to see through this very quickly. You may achieve some form of compliance, but are unlikely to have high levels of engagement.

 Do I feel valued?

How easy is it for me to contribute and are those contributions recognised and appreciated?  Am I happy to go the extra mile and proud of my work and the team/company I work for? When I speak, am I listened to?

 Am I inspired?

Do I look forward to going to work and have a spring in my step, excited about projects I am working on or simply keen to do my best each day. Am I constantly coming up with ideas to improve products and services or thinking of other ways to add value?

 Ask yourself these questions. You may be surprised at the answers you get.

Think about the answers people in your team would give. Consider asking them.

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When working with groups or individuals around the subject of leadership or leadership styles, it seems inevitable that I will explore the importance of values. Leadership is about influence and persuasion; and finding ways to inspire others to follow. Employee engagement is high on the corporate agenda at the moment and good leadership is an essential element in supporting engagement strategies. However, I find myself concerned that there is a growing disconnect between the espoused values of business leaders and actual expectations and behaviours.

Good leaders inspire followers

Business leaders have been in the news a lot recently: bankers over bonuses, Knighthoods being rescinded, high profile businesses collapsing due to mismanagement. There is public outcry about ‘fat cats’ and protests are growing about capitalist excesses.

Why the leadership concerns?

We live in an age of sound bites. The focus is on a short, snappy messages and the phrase ‘spin doctor’ has somehow developed an element of respectability. It seems to me that sticking to a message, until found out, is now a commonly used strategy.  We then move back to the next line until that is also breeched; then we edge back again – ‘I didn’t know anything about that’ to ‘I was not copied in on that’ to ‘I can’t remember doing that’ etc, etc. It is driven by self preservation.

Many business leaders are rewarded handsomely for short term performance and so, understandably, skew strategic decisions in favour of hitting agreed targets. The reward gap between those at the top of an organisation and its average employee has grown massively over recent years. It isn’t just business leaders. Politicians appear to work in similar ways saying what they think people want to hear and getting those quick sound bites out there. In the UK politicians have been up in arms about banker’s bonuses and strikes over employee benefit and pension reductions, yet they consistently vote themselves increases in allowances, salaries and pension payments. Let’s not even mention the expenses scandal (whoops! – I just have).

In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) practitioners look for congruence between values, beliefs and behaviour.  That is what seems to be lacking.

What can be done?

The good news, of course, is that we tend to hear about the high profile cases and good news is not what sells. It may be my concerns are unfounded. Equally, it is nothing new. Civilisations have been undone in the past due to the excesses of their leadership.

In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about Level 5 leadership, which he describes as a blend of personal humility and professional will; leaders who channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It may be that we simply don’t hear enough about these people. I would be very interested to hear about any research that correlates level 5 style leaders to high levels of employee engagement.

What do you think?

Has there been a shift of style or has it always been so?

What will it take to shift the focus?

For strategies to develop leaders in your organisation;

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We make decisions all the time. Some of them are almost instant requiring little, if any, thought. Other decision making moments are much more important and can have far reaching consequences for many other people. In business, many of the decisions we take have a direct impact on our employees or colleagues and so clearly, decision making does impact employee engagement.

It almost goes without saying that poor decisions, or decisions that have adverse effects for employees, will also negatively impact employee engagement levels. However poor communication about decisions taken can also have a negative impact.

Two of the key steps in decision making are to:

 Clearly and objectively define the problem or situation and the decision need.

A poorly defined situation can lead to either bias, or a narrow band of possible solutions which significantly increases the risk of a poor decision being made.

Establish the criteria that will be used to determine the best decision.

Ideally, these will be divided into must have criteria and desirable to have criteria. In short, any possible decision that does not meet all the must have criteria is likely to be the wrong decision, or sometimes, the must have criteria are either unrealistic and should really be desirable or simply biased towards a preferred outcome.

However well reasoned the decision process may be, the moment of decision is really an emotionally driven one, and logic can get derailed at this point. Likewise, immediate responses to decisions are often emotional rather than rational, and it is here that an employee engagement trap waits.

People require meaning in order to make sense of what is happening around them. In the absence of a clear meaning, we will tend to create one and, for some reason, often default to the doomsday scenario. So, how does this impact employee engagement?

Two key questions employees ask themselves on the way to being engaged are:

Do I feel supported?

Do I feel valued?

Poorly communicated decisions impact employee engagement

It is important that when key decisions are communicated, the criteria used to make the decisions are, wherever possible, made clear to all involved. Failure to do this frequently results in people making their own judgements about the probable criteria, and rarely will they go for a positive interpretation.

The decision by Stephen Hester (CEO of royal Bank of Scotland) to waive this year’s bonus is a case in point. I have written about the fat cat link to employee engagement before, and I have no idea what the real criteria were behind Mr Hester’s decision. The fact that the decision was taken somewhat late in proceedings, and no clear and positive criteria have been forthcoming (any criteria I have seen reported tend to be very defensive), lead me to believe it was a forced decision. The interesting question is – what criteria will thousands of RBS staff facing possible redundancy and wage restraints decide were used to make the decision?

It has been suggested by the board that Mr Hester has made a significant impact on turning the business round. He will find that job much easier if he has a high degree of engagement from his people. I wonder how much harder he has made his task by the timing and communication of his latest decision?

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Over 20% of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. We put off doing things we don’t like, or find uncomfortable. Preparing a presentation is a good example of this. Our mind goes blank when looking for presentation ideas and the pressure builds. In the end, we quickly throw lists of bullet points on to our presentation slides (so we know what to say) and stumble our way through. Luckily, we have comatosed most of our audience members, so we all end up numb from the experience. The downside is that messages get lost or confused.

Presentation ideas to keep your audience awake

Good news. It doesn’t need to be like that. Here are three simple questions that will kick start your thinking and start the flow of presentation ideas. One quick tip: capture your answers to these questions on paper – NOT straight onto your slides.

1. If you only had 20 seconds to make your presentation, what is the one point you want to leave with your audience?

Write this point in the style of a newspaper headline.

Let’s say you want to make clear the link between engaged employees and customer service. Your headline might read ‘Engaged employees triple customer satisfaction’

I hope it goes without saying that your headline does need to be true. You can then make a short list of the key points and evidence that supports your headline.

2. If you had an extra 20 seconds to make your presentation, what is the second point you want to leave with your audience?

Write this point in the style of a newspaper headline.

Now you want to highlight the value of a customer to your business. How about – ‘Average customer worth £5,000 over three years.
Again, list your key points and evidence.

3. If you had another 20 seconds to make your presentation, what is the final point you want to leave with your audience?

Guess what! – Write this point in the style of a newspaper headline and list key points and supporting evidence.

Finally you want to highlight the great referral value of satisfied customers. What headline would you use?

By now, you have the bare bones of your presentation and can start looking at ways to engage your audience. At the end, start thinking about what visuals you will use to support your key messages and you’re done.

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Many managers are not very skilled at giving effective performance feedback, and often either seek to avoid giving any feedback, or save it all up to be given in some performance feedback bubble (often called an annual/quarterly review).

Discussing our F3 model in previous blog posts (what is performance management? 1, 2 and 3) we have considered the importance of focus and performance metrics. In many businesses the performance data is readily available, but confusion still exists due to the poor performance feedback skills of managers.

In reality, managers are not able to avoid giving feedback. Many managers believe they are in some sort of feedback vacuum, only giving their people feedback when they choose to. They are wrong, and here’s why. What is feedback?

Feedback is any communication, verbal or non-verbal, which offers a person some information about how he or she affects situations or others.

In other words, you are constantly giving and receiving feedback and it is impossible not to. The people around you are receiving that feedback and they are interpreting what it means – and that’s the difficult bit. It is highly unlikely that their interpretation will be the same as the message you really want them to receive.

Who is in control of your feedback messages?

This has two very important implications for managers and individuals alike, who either seek to avoid giving feedback or fall back on a poor ineffective strategy. It also has a significant impact on performance.

1. In the absence of any good quality feedback others will ‘make up’ what they believe you think/intend. It is not in any way malicious, it is simply inconceivable to the human mind that a communication vacuum exists, so in the absence of quality information we make it up in order to make sense of the things happening around us and the intentions of others. For some reason, many people seem to default to the doomsday or conspiracy scenario rather than the – I’m sure they were trying to help me’ scenario.
2. Many managers find giving feedback difficult, especially if it is about poor or under performance. Instead of giving clear, explicit feedback, they try to soften the risks (to themselves) by throwing out hints and hoping that the other person gets it. They think it gives them a get out clause if someone gets upset, as they can always fall back on ‘that’s not what I meant’. Unfortunately, it means we are back to the interpretation being left to the feedback receiver, and we know the problems with that approach.

Providing high quality performance feedback is an essential skill for any manager; in fact it’s your day job.

 How good are the performance feedback skills of your managers?

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I heard the knock on the door and knew that it had finally arrived: later than I had hoped, but still within the time range promised. I happily signed to accept the package and went off to look at my new toy – a shiny new flat screen TV that my wife and I decided we would treat ourselves to as a belated Christmas present. No more old-fashioned huge grey monster in the corner. A happy customer - or so I thought.

We had been planning the purchase for a while and I had decided on a particular Samsung model that appeared to be very good value for money. The best deal was from a retailer who is ‘never knowingly undersold’ and has a good customer service reputation, but we decided to wait until after Christmas as better deals could appear in the sales. To my surprise, my first check after the festivities revealed a price rise of £50. We visited many local stores to find similar price rises, out of stocks and long waiting lists for purchasing. Clearly it was an even better deal than I had realised.

Undeterred, I decided to go online and see what was available. I quickly sourced the model in question at the original offer price from a company called MultizoneAV.com. Not having heard of the company I did a quick bit of research into their customer service and found a lot of promising customer reviews. What impressed me the most was that the business had also added comments occasionally either thanking customers for their positive comments or, on one occasion, accepting and apologising for an error they had made. A really good piece of evidence that they cared about their customer service reputation. I placed the order. I received a telephone security check the next day, email confirmations of order and confirmation of traceable delivery arrangements.

Little things mean a lot for customer service

When I started to assemble the TV I discovered that four small screws that hold the screen onto the stand were missing. Now this was very disappointing (boys and their toys) so I called MultizoneAV customer service (4.50pm Thursday) and a very helpful man said he would sort it out and ring me back. Five days later I’m still waiting for the return call.

On the Friday I was out and about on business and decided to try to purchase the missing screws as I knew the correct size. It proved to be much harder than I had imagined as various shop assistants apologised for not having any, but suggested alternative sources. Finally, I was directed to Wessex Fasteners  in Swindon. I found them on a small trading estate and walked through, what felt like a back door, to find a counter with two guys discussing a problem. I explained what I was after and one of them went to look for the screws, double checking the size as he thought they were rather small for the job. I only wanted 4 screws and noticed a £5 minimum charge sign, but thought it was a small price to pay to get to set up my new toy. He returned with the screws and refused to accept any payment saying he didn’t want the TV to fall on anyone.

Three examples of small things making a big difference to the customer service experience:

-          A probable picking error at the Samsung warehouse

-          A failure to return a phone call when all had been going very well

-          An unconditional goodwill gesture to a potential new customer

You will have doubtless heard the old adage that an upset customer will tell 10 or more of their friends about their customer service experience. Well in the social media age, that number is magnified many, many times.

Processes are an important part of service delivery, but never forget that your customers are first and foremost people and any purchase is an emotional event for them.

If you would like help with improving the value of your customers contact us and tell us more or

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The start of a New Year causes many people to reassess things that are important to them before making decisions about their priorities and plans for the coming year. Many businesses take the same approach at their year end.

‘What is a customer worth to you’ is a really fundamental question to ask of your business and the answers you get may surprise you.

A good way to answer this question is to calculate your customer lifetime value (CLV), which is a relatively straight forward calculation and yet so many businesses don’t know this information. Here’s one starting point to get the figure:

1. Calculate your AVERAGE SALE – by dividing your total sales (excluding taxes) by the number of actual sales made.
2. Next calculate the NUMBER OF SALES PER YEAR PER CUSTOMER – take the total number of sales transactions for a year and divide it by the total number of customers. (If you don’t know the number of customers – why not? This is critical information so find a way to identify this data now)
3. What is the LIFE EXPECTANCY of your typical customer – analyse your customer database to establish how long your customers remain active with you and select the figure where they typically stop purchasing.

Let’s assume that you arrive at the following answers:

Your average sale value is £35.00

Each customer averages 4 purchases per year

Typical life expectancy is 4 years

This would mean you have a CLV of £560 (35 x 4 x 4)

Know what your customers are worth

Now this may be interesting data, but it will also provide a basis to expand your thinking about what a customer is worth to you. For example, you might add into the mix that each of your customers, on average, provides 6 referrals over their lifetime and typically 2 of these become customers who, in turn generate £560 of business in their lifetime. This effectively triples the real CLV of your customers making each satisfied £35 customer worth £1680 to your business.

You might choose to segment your customer data so that you can compare CLV’s for your best, average and least active customers. This may yield surprising results that help you focus your marketing and customer service efforts.

What if you added acquisition costs into the mix? It may show that it costs you twice as much to attract some customers who end up either spending less, or staying loyal for only short periods.

What would you add to make the data worthwhile for your decision making?

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Focusing effort and directing employees towards achieving the goals of the organisation is shown to improve performance. However, in isolation, this can result in people simply feeling pressured to achieve results or alienated from the organisation and prone to negativity. Companies need to devise a strategy for investing in their people in order to create an engaged company culture in which employees feel that they have a stake and a personal interest.

CIPD research, conducted in 2008, suggested several contributors to high levels of engagement:

• senior management initiatives to directly listen to employee views
• strong opportunities for promotion within the organisation based on merit
• an entrepreneurial culture based around employee contributions to performance and improvement
• fair and consistent HR practices
• focus on traditional management practices such as clarity of objectives, clear performance measurement and trust
• showing employees that they are valued through well-designed and consistent involvement initiatives
• having clear targets that employees can work towards
• maintaining a focus on good work–life balance
• having a friendly and supportive work environment.

Research across 16 high-performing US businesses carried out by the SJF Institute in 2011, revealed a shared portfolio of best practice in leadership, management and HR. They distilled these practices into ten strategies for creating a successful culture of employee engagement:

1. High involvement hiring – choosing employees that not only have the right skills but also are a long term fit with the company’s culture
2. Providing comprehensive benefits and a flexible work environment, including paid time off to participate in community service
3. Extensive training and promotion from within – investing in employees to build their skills and enabling them to take on increased responsibility
4. Fostering a culture of mutual respect and trust, empowerment and shared responsibility, yielding long term loyalty and often valued over rewards
5. Celebrating success – engaged teams work hard and spend time celebrating together when milestones are achieved
6. Ensuring the core values are frequently heard and understood by all, and instigating a comprehensive communications programme of company-wide updates, successes, and employee recognition
7. Sharing key success metrics critical to the company’s financial success with employees and articulating those that employees affect daily
8. Employee participation – making sure all employees have a say over how work is done and have some degree of autonomy
9. Performance-based rewards and compensation – clearly tying rewards such as bonuses to individual and company performance
10. Sharing ownership, for example via stock options, restricted stock, employee share option plans, or co-ops.

Firms that establish a strong engagement culture from the beginning have a greater chance of long-term survival’

If businesses genuinely view employees, not as mere costs but as a key asset for business success, then management must introduce employee engagement strategies, as these are key drivers of business growth and success, and a strong factor in the ability to weather economic downturns.

These strategies increase human resource flexibility, which is crucial in our current volatile business environment for the longer-term survival of organisations. Firms that establish a strong engagement culture from the beginning have a greater chance of long term survival.

Call 0845 2177 071 and discover how we can help you establish a strong engagement culture.

Listening to the radio in the car, I heard the presenter say ‘people are very quick to be enraged nowadays’. He was referring to a news story from the BBC apologising for misleading their customers over a sequence shown in the Frozen Planet series.  The programme, mostly shot in the frozen Arctic, contained some wonderful shots of new born polar bear cubs that it turned out were filmed in an animal park rather than the wild.

The issue came to light when the BBC clearly explained how the item was filmed on the programme’s website. Speaking to ITV1′s This Morning programme, Frozen Planet presenter Sir David Attenborough said: “If you had tried to put a camera in the wild in a polar bear den, she would either have killed the cub or she would have killed the cameraman”.

Good intentions count

He added that an explanation about the animal park footage would have ruined the atmosphere of the sequence.

This story really got me thinking about how we treat our customers. Do we suffer from double standards? Are our expectations of customer care different when we are the customer? Do we now look to complain at the first available opportunity?

It turns out that a very small number of actual complaints were received, so is it all a storm in a tea cup?

The feature on the radio moved to a ‘phone in’ section where many people called to air their views, and whilst some felt mislead, most accepted why the filming had been completed in this way. (I certainly would not want to get between a polar bear and its cub).

So, what is customer service? Well, it is really about that often quoted phrase ‘meeting or exceeding customer expectations’ and most customer’s have simple expectations. They want good quality products and services that deliver what they are supposed to, when they are supposed to and how they are supposed to. They want to be treated with respect and enjoy dealing with you.

It is said that ‘we judge ourselves by our intentions but judge others by their behaviour’. In the case of the BBC, their intentions were good. They didn’t want to cause suffering to the animals, wanted to inform their audience and give them an experience that they couldn’t get anywhere else (including in an animal park). The majority of viewers probably assumed all the film was shot in the wild, but when the issue was raised and the intention explained, the majority of viewers accepted this as reasonable. No attempt was made to hide the fact that not everything was filmed in the wild.

What does this mean for you and your approach to customer services? Well, many businesses put a great deal of effort into developing the behaviours for good customer service. Less effort goes into establishing and clarifying the intention, of both individuals and the organisation as a whole. The organisation must have simple, easy to understand systems and procedures for customer service and individuals need to understand and value the real intention of the organisation.

How do you audit your customer experience?

How do you develop the customer service intentions of your people?

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