Claudia Raab's Blog

We all know these moments of uncomfortable silence. And yes, we don't like them. Some of us even feel the urge to break the silence, start a new topic to talk about or just comment on the silence and voila - it's gone. What a relief!

However, there are moments of comfortable silence, too. Yes, comfortable silence. Moments of silence that give you time to adjust to a new situation for example. Or moments of silence that allow time for you to contemplate or even just take a breath. We live in a fast-paced word, we need time to slow down, to catch up. In our daily routine as well as in a presentation we either give or listen to.

Pause! Take your time when presenting! Give your audience time! And give yourself time! Allow yourself to take a deep breath when presenting. It will not only calm down your nervousness. It will also give your audience a chance to think about what you've just said. The result: Your audience will remember your presentation much better after you've finished. Isn't that exactly what you want?

Don't rush! Remember: Great presenters plan for pauses. The faster you talk the more your audience will perceive you as nervous. Someone who appears nervous is perceived as unsure of himself and the topic he or she talks about. You want to be professional. Professionals are calm. They are confident and competent. Keep in mind: The speed of your presentation reflects your level of professionalism.

Pause during your presentation and you'll impress your audience even more. A pause might seem lasting like hours to you. Your audience will perceive it as just a fraction of a second, however, a very important one.

Pauses make all the difference! Make the most of them!

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Even if you have an aversion to networking – as many people do – it’s imperative to form connections with other people in particular if you want to increase the number of your clients or customers, if you had just start a new job or had a promotion.

Research shows that the first 30 to  60 days after a promotion for example, ist the time when people in a new department or even new company make their judgement about you: Can I trust him? Can I work well with her? Will I share insights and informatioin with him or her – or is he or she just a loser who should never have been been hired.

Sit down and make a list of people who should be in your network. It shouldn’t be just the people who eat lunch at the same time and in the same place you do. Look for adivisors, people who can help or who know exactly what is going on. Someone who knows short cuts, who is a very important link in the information chain of your company.

It's just a matter of introducing yourself. Usually people are quite receptive when you tell them you're new and try to get to know people you work with.It takes a bit of courage - and sometimes a bit of coaching - but it is definitely worth it!

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Would you like us to reveal a secret? Here we go: It's a myth that having excellent communication skills only implies being able to speak brilliantly in public. Having excellent listening skills is equally important.

Here are some tips to devolop better and effective listening skills:

1. Ask questions and repeat what has just been told to you. If someone tells you a story or provides you with important information repeat what they have said to be absolutely sure you understood their message correctly and also because if you repeat it you can remember it more easily.
2. Take notes! Write down what you have been told - preferably shortly after your conversation! You'll be amazed how much you'll forget without having it written in black and white. You'll also impress others with your knowledge who will not remember as much as you in a couple of days or weeks or months to come.
3. During your conversation maintain eye contact. I always tell my coachees "Eyes are the windows to the soul". Finding the "soul" of the person you are talking to will make it easy for you to connect and establish rapport with that person and vice versa.  Maintaining eye contact will convince them you are really interested in what they say and will help you keeping focused on the person who talks to you which is utterly important for an excellent outcome.
4. Lean slightly forward when you are seated. This will also signal you are interested and helps you concentrate on your conversation partner at the same time.
5. Eliminate distraction. Dedicate your time and yourself to the person who is talking and show authentic interest in it. Turn your mobile phone off. Multi tasking is no no when it comes to a listening. I'm convinced you are great at multi tasking but it's simply not on the agenda when you should be listening to another person that is face-to-face with you.
6. Practise your listening skills. Start focusing on improving you listening skills today in any conversation you may have: With your colleague, the post man, your daughter, etc. Every conversation counts and will prepare you for important conversations. 

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Emails are great and have triggered one of the biggest changes in business communication in the past two decades! Many business people ‘speak' to their clients, colleagues and suppliers mostly via email. They are fast, you can write and send them any time of the day without fearing they'll disturb the person adressed. Plus they are quick to write since they are much more informal than a proper paper letter!

Or are they not? Well, yes and no! There's a range of faux pas we can commit when being too informal. Here are a couple of tips if you want your email to be a success and show you've mastered the email etiquette:

• Start your emails with a greeting (Dear Chris, Hi Susan, etc.) and end with a sign-off. Even if you have a mail signature, make sure you add ‘Regards' or ‘Thanks' at the bottom and I suggest you still and your name - it's just much more personalised.
• Treat your email like a mini letter. Be sure to use correct grammar, punctuation and spelling rules you would in a letter, especially in an external email.
• Use the ‘Cc:' field and ‘Reply to All' sparingly. Only send emails to people who need them. We all get enough emails without inbox filler about things we're not really involved with or details we don't want to know. They are time robbers!
• Be careful to use the ‘high priority' option. If you overuse it, you'll get ignored when it really is urgent.
• Compress large attachments, and only send when they are necessary.
• Be selective about personal emails that you forward on to others.
• Be specific in the subject line. An email saying "Monday, May 25, Marketing Meeting Agenda" is much easier to recognise and find in a crowded inbox than one called "Meeting."
• If you have to respond to a confronting email, don't do it straight away. It's easier to write than to speak to someone face to face; you'll regret it! Take 10 minutes to do something else and let off some steam before replying.
• And don't forget that it's sometimes simply a nice chance and gesture to walk across the floor to speak to a colleague in person or pick up the phone - we are all humans and love a chat from time to time.

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If you want to become a better speaker you certainly need to concentrate on improving your communication skill. However, increasing your general knowledge will help you to achieve your goal too.

A great way to do that is to find out more about the history and origin of words you use. Not only could that become an interesting anchor point for one of your speeches, it certainly gives you a cutting edge in any private or professional conversation when you can occassionally let your knowledge sparkle through and earn respect from who ever you talk to.

Today, let's find more about SUDOKU - one of the most popular number games, not only in Australia but the rest of the world. Invented in the United States in 1979, it was originally called "Number Place". Its popular name SUDOKU dates back to 1984 and derives from its Japanese version called "suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru" meaning "a number can occur only one time." As you can imagine the name was too long for a game that can quickly be played and therefore was shortened to SUDOKU.

With so many financial reports to be given these days how about making a splendid entry refering to SUDOKU and a number that can occur only one time? Try something different, dare to be better! Good luck!

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"You can have brillant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere."

Lee Iacocca

As the former CEO of Chrysler, Lee Iacocca knows exactly what he is talking about. Having to lead and manage an entire emporium you not only carry the responsibility for thousands of people and their families, you need to motivate and activate them to persue and achieve a common goal while being permanently pressured by time and money. That's when you need excellent communication skills and not only your technical expertise.

The secret? Your message has to be clear and precise. You need to have  a plan for your company and your people in place and you need your team to know this plan. Successfull execution of this plan depends on your ability to clearly communicate your ideas. Only then will you and your team be successful.

What is true for people and organisations like Lee Iacocca and Chrysler is equally true for you and your team in a small business or practise: If you have an idea of how to become even more successful, you need to be able to pass this message on to your team so they understand. You need to chose the right words, the right tone and send the right message using perfect body language.

As much as you have to be up to date when it comes to your technical expertise you need to be up to date when it comes to your communication skills.

It's easy, doesn't cost much time, doesn't cost much money! Invest in yourself! Get in touch with Claudia by calling 0425 785 413 or get in touch with Celine via email celine.dubois@raabconsulting.com. We'll help you to get ideas across and be successful.

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Alfa Romeo - isn't that the incarnation of speed, elegance, power and perfection?

We all know that a great name can make all the difference. Alfa Romeo is a perfect example for it. Although 'alpha' is the first letter of the alphabet in Italian, the famous Italian carmaker didn't name his company after it. The name is actually the acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili, meaning "an unnamed automobile factory in Lombardy". Can there be anyting more boring? Hardly!

In 1915, Nicola Romeo bought the ALFA plant and added his name. The result? A name even more exciting. Just like the cars!

So, get your wording right, eliminate any "unnamed automobile factory in Lombardy, and your speech will end up being an Alfa Romeo every one is talking about. Go for speed, elegance, power and perfection and you'll get it!

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Each year the "Harvard Business Review" publishes a list of Breakthrough Ideas, ideas - or "cool new thinking" as HBR calls it, that are most useful for business, companies or individuals for achieve new succes in the year to come.

This year's list, that has just been made available in the magazine's February edition, features a couple of ideas that are of strong interest and benefit for you if you thought about acquiring new communication and public speaking skills.

They'll prove to you how important communication and public speaking skills are for you if you want to move on in your career and achieve new and better results. Let's take Amy J.C. Cuddy's contribution with the catchy title "Just because I'm nice, don't assume I'm dumb, for example.

Recent psychological research involving thousands of people from 24 nations show that when we meet some one for the first time within seconds we run two questions about these people through our brain: "What are this person's intention towards me?" and "Is this person capable of acting on those intentions?"

The criteria we apply are totally intuitive, so the our first impression of a new person may be right or wrong, but our snap judgement about the person warmth and competence are burned into our mind.

The interesting thing about the research results are, so Amy J.C. Cuddy, who has undertaken studies in that area herself: "People tend to see warmth and competence as inversely related. If there's an apparent surplus of one trait, they infer a deficit of the other. ("She's so sweet ... She'd probably be inept in the boardroom.")"

Of course, we all know that warmth and competence aren't mutually exvlusive. However, we also know how hard it is to fight stereotypes. Don't we?

 One succesful way to do show that you can be warm (which basically means you are sociably very competent) and competent (technically wise) at the same time, is to be utterly clear and precise in your language. Ask yourself whether the way you speak, talk and present reflects your professional expertise and a certain and imparative degree of authority. Are you as eloquent as you should be for the job level you are aiming at. Are you able to communicate to your peers, people you supervise and your superior clearly and competently so they recognize your potential.

 If there's any doubt, get help. We are happy to give you more information about to speak and present wit authority and competence. Simply call Claudia on 0425 785 143 or email celine.dubois@raabconsulting.com.

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I'm an avid advocator for increasing your General Knowledge. Keep up with the news - whether you listen to the radio while driving in the car, watch television  or read the newspapers.

Sometimes little funny facts will come in handy when you have to write a speech and are desperately trying to find a great beginning for a talk. Take this for example: Have you ever wondered why a technical defect on a computer is called a "bug in a computer"?

Here's why: The word 'bug' in a technical sense is often attributed to Grace Murray Hopper, who invented the first large-scale computer for the U.S. Navy in 1945. When the machine stopped working, she found a moth in the works and taped its body to her lab report, captioning it "a bug in the computer".

However, although a beautiful story, Thomas Edison had used "bug" almost 50 years earlier to describe the "little faults and difficulties" that drive inventors and engineers batty.

Anyway, don't forget: Stories are a great way to get your audience involved right from the start! Use them!

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A quick tip for the beginning of the week: In any conversation you might have during this week, make sure your palms are clearly visible. Since centuries this is a sign for your conversation partner that you are non-threatening and open to him or her. They'll immediately respond to you in an open, positve way too.

Body Language is a powerful tool to control not only your own nerves and appearance. It is also very powerful when positively influencing others. Give it a go today: Be aware of what you do with your hands in any conversation, don't fiddle around, don't clinch and keep your palms up! It's worth the effort! Enjoy your week!

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