Here’s what I believe is a great piece of advice for kicking off any presentation, meeting, or other business conversation:
Start with the common ground.
In an online meeting with Drive the Collaborative Network, the mighty Jo Twiselton was talking about climate change, and made me think (well done, Jo!) with a quote from Katharine Hayhoe: ‘So I’m not talking about taking a fight. I’m talking about beginning with something we agree on, like the place where we live or what happened to our family the last time a hurricane hit the Gulf.’
Now, this is a technique specifically addressing how to have difficult conversations about climate change with people who don’t share our views. In this situation, there’s no point in ‘starting a fight’ (if anything, you’ll discourage them even further from taking action).
So, you find common ground to enable a conversation (which then may lead to them taking some kind of action to help save the planet).
This resonated with me strongly because I realised that that’s what I do in every business conversation:
1.) An online meeting: “Where are you? What’s the weather like there?” Then something about our kids, our cats, running, TV, and so on. Hooks, to find something that the other person/people can relate to. Common ground, relatability.
2.) An in-person meeting: anything about the immediate situation e.g. the furniture (“Are you comfortable sitting there?”, the tea/coffee, how you travelled here, the weather (again, always good, especially for the British). A little empathy.
3.) A presentation to a large audience: anything about the room, the slides “Can you see these OK?” “Wow, my face looks huge”. More empathy and connection, and perhaps some humour.
Stories are a fantastic way of establishing common ground, although they’re not interactive.
A deeper piece of common ground on which to base the communication is the context: “What would you like to achieve from this interaction?”, “Here’s what I would like to do, does that work?”
My advice, then:
- Speak to your audience.
- Consider the common ground.
- THEN deliver your message.
You’ll make an impact, forge meaningful connections, and you may even save time!
[Image by Alex Alvarez on unsplash.com]