Cheese here, is not cheese as it sounds, but a metaphor that stands for things we pursue in life. A job, a relationship, money or any material for that matter. Cheese can even be an activity which we cannot do without doing. The cheese having disappeared implies change. Change of a routine which hits us right in the face when we least expect it to.

Sniff and Scurry are mice with a smaller brains than humans. Naturally, we tend to think they are less intelligent than human beings. But in reality, smaller brain implies lesser complexity; fewer rules to follow; faster decisions. Sniff is good at “sniffing out” cheese, and Scurry excels at “scurrying” after the cheese once he knows where it is. The two mice don’t really think about things. They just react to them. They find cheese; they eat cheese. They don’t find it; they go places, looking for it. Unlike us, they don’t over-analyze and waste time doing paperback calculations. They don’t plan. They act. Spontaneously act. And most of the time, it is what works well. Sniff and Scurry are ready to handle the cheese crisis. They, without second thoughts, get back to looking for more.

Hem and Haw, you could say, are a little bit too complicated than the simple mice. They can’t help using their brains more because they have them. Hem, in particular and as the name suggests, is someone who is afraid of change; One who cannot take a break from the routine. Is this not the situation in which we find ourselves most of the time? It might even be too late before the estimation and other careful planning are done. The hesitation to move on and the lame reasons we state in defense are also brought out pretty well.

The two little people, however, mope around, blaming someone for moving their cheese. They claim they don’t deserve to be in such a situation because they worked hard through the maze to find that cheese. They are not prepared to look again for more, even though it is their only source of survival. At an instance, even after Haw came over his fear, laughed at himself for being so foolish and moved on without Hem, Hem stays stubbornly put, insisting that someone will put his cheese back. Haw, on his way, scribbles on walls for Hem to know the way, just in case he changed his mind and decided to follow him. These scribblings are the goods the author wants to deliver.To make a long story short, (I know I could have done it in the first place, but still…)

Price: $8.41 in Amazon and  Rs. 109 in India at Landmark outlets.

Spellbinder
Editorial Team
GSG

If you ask for a definition of a Team, I would say, “Together, Everyone can Achieve More”. This is absolutely proven. Team work definitely pays, and pays more. Here, we present Team Skills, which is one of the very essential soft skills. It is best cultivated right from school days, where you will form a team for the first time, be it competition or companionship. Workplaces are where Team Skills play a major role.  You become a member of a team, need to co-ordinate with them and stand by them in every success and failure. This article will be helpful to students as well as working professionals in understanding the motive of playing as a team.

How to form a Team?

Well, team building really depends on what you want to achieve; a target you are concentrating on. Let us consider an example. You are a marketer and are working towards an important marketing strategy, say a video campaign. You would need a good designer and developer in your team. So, choose a good designer who can transform your thoughts easily and effectively into a layout. Developer should be able to provide a good theme, edit the design and also put your words to good use. That’s how team formation should go about.

Transformation as a Team.

Now you have formed a team. Let’s see how you can work together and get more as a team.

1.       Make a plan

2.       Assign Roles to team members

3.       Find and get the required resources.

4.       Fix the target date and schedule it

5.       Implement

Make a Plan. Get together with your team members and set a plan or path which will help you find where you can start. Find the responsibilities in every phase of the project. Ask questions to clarify things. There is nothing wrong in asking lot of questions in a meeting. Even Einstein asked lot of questions. When more questions are asked, more ideas will come up. Once you’ve made a plan, assign roles to team members and let them know their responsibilities for the project. Make it clear, so that your team members get the gist of things.

Now it’s time for each member in the team to find and acquire the required resources for their roles. As Will Smith once said, every problem you face would surely have been faced by someone else and the solution would have been written down somewhere. Search online, refer books and people who have done similar projects before in order to get more ideas. Fix the delivery date and schedule to release your project. Schedule it based on the requirements, team capability and resources so that you don’t have to postpone it as you near the deadline. This schedule should be feasible for everyone in the team. Now Implement your plan according to the schedule. Have a team gathering at regular intervals and whenever necessary, so that you can bookmark your progress and follow the schedule to implement the project efficiently.

Hope this article has thrown some light for Team Skills in you. Feel free to drop your comments and suggestions.

–
Balaji,
Editorial Team,
GSG

]]> http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/09/team-skills/feed/ 2 http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/08/telephone-etiquette/ http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/08/telephone-etiquette/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:57:58 +0000 Admin http://www.getsetgrow.org/?p=1247

Soft Skills

Having mastered every art under the sun except the one your employer expects is futile. On the other hand, how would you know what he wants out of you? The key to this hassle is to treat employment as a dear relationship. It is synonymous to any other relationship in everyday life. If you stay true and don’t cheat, it is more likely to be reciprocated. This holds good in organizations too. With that being said,  what you would expect out of a relationship is just what your employer expects from you; Honesty/Integrity!

You might be very open-hearted and treat everyone with the same degree of affection. But you surely will hold a very few close to your heart. These are the few who get to know your darkest secrets and deepest sorrows, no matter what. What in them pushes you to such an extent of trusting them so much? It is “Integrity” that they exhibit. They are trustworthy, and they have proved it to you. This is exactly what any employer would anticipate from a job-seeker.

So, what’s the big deal about honesty? Why not technical expertise? It is simply because expertise can be developed without compromising on anything, but if Integrity is compromised, all is lost. That’s why!

Everyone knows which is good and which is not. Then why do we falter? The consequences of any act will surely influence your decision. But if you ask, “Do we think of the after-effects before we act?”, then the answer would be a “No” most of the time. Practically speaking, whatever you say is true until you get caught. But what if? What if you are caught? Take a moment away from reality to foresee. That should put you back on the path you should rightfully be treading.

Do what it takes for your employer to say you are dependable to such an extent that you don’t have to be watched. Integrity is not much about being true when your boss is around. It is much about how true you are behind his back. If he doesn’t see me being true, how is it going to help in getting a pay-hike, you might ask. Trust us, it works!

Spellbinder
Editorial Team
GSG

]]> http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/08/why-honesty-pays-more/feed/ 0 http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/07/10-tips-for-effective-time-management/ http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/07/10-tips-for-effective-time-management/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:42:47 +0000 Admin http://www.getsetgrow.org/?p=1203

“Today, be aware of how you are spending your 1, 440 beautiful moments and spend them wisely.”
- Anonymous.

Imagine going to bed at night with the thought of having completed all tasks that you had planned in the last 1440 seconds, how will that make you feel? Needless to say, it would give you another reason for a sound sleep. Unfortunately, in real life most of us might not get so lucky, given the multitude of activities in the day we run into. For sure, you might have already tagged your boss or supervisor as “A Poor Time Manager”. But have you ever given a thought about your time management skills?

Self Assessment to know if you are suffering from time management problems:

a.       Are you always on time for most of your work e.g. – going to college or office, completing assignments, attending meetings?
b.       Do you always complete 100% of your work or you always have a bit pending?
c.       Can you find everything you need quickly?
d.       Do you start your work on time and leave work too on time?
e.       Do you have time to do what you really want to do, for example –going trekking, fishing, travel?

If the answer to most of these is “no”, then this article is for you.

80/20 Principle: Pareto law: Do you know that 20% of your time produces 80% of your work, or that 20% of your work achieves 80% of results, or that 20% managers do 80% of the work? We can find examples of this everywhere. This also means that 80% of your time you should be productive and the remaining time can be for low priority work.

Here comes the ten tips.

1. Your daily activities need to be prioritized based on your goals and personal values.

2.  Maintain your Time Balance Sheet Everyday:

Example:

It will be a good idea to monitor your Time Balance Sheet Every week and reduce your “Deviated hours”

3. Set target for your time for all tasks:

• It is recommended to make a daily “To do” list and set target for each activity in your “To Do” list.
• You may even consider doing two things at a time wherever possible. However, make sure you don’t end up doing neither of the two.
• For complex and tedious tasks it may be a good idea to break tasks into minutes of ten.
• Leave time for correction, review and collation at the end.
• Learn to say “No” before committing to a task if needed.

4. Use Time Management tools: Setting alarms in Mobile Organizer, diary planner, Calendar etc. It may be a good idea to use checklist and split up jobs into “important”, “urgent”, etc. Despite all planning, sometime we may come under critical situations. In such cases we need to be clear and know what is at stake and change our plan accordingly.

5. Make use of transition time

What is a transition time? Transition time is the time between end of one activity and beginning of another. Example could be – waiting time for a doctor with whom you have an appointment, waiting time for a friend at the bus stop, etc. In our everyday life we may come across several such transition times. We may use the transition time to do other pending work like making a call to an important client, or replying to some email.

6. Concentration is the key! It is better to be alone for tasks that are complex and require complete attention.

7. Conquer procrastination! Remember, if you do not start, then you do not finish.

Self assessment to check if you suffer from procrastination syndrome:

a.       Do you start only when deadlines are near?
b.       Do you find it hard to get started?
c.       Are you always short of time for getting things started?
d.       Does the thought of trying to complete anything make you nervous?
e.       Have you done lots of things to be done that have been carried over from previous week?

8. Use proper space management!

It is estimated that 20% of a person’s daily time in a month are wasted for searching, rearranging and filing things. Do you recall how much time you spent in searching for “that email” from your supervisor? Try to reduce paper work and duplications wherever possible. Keep your working table or study table organized. It is better to keep things most important nearby and keep a log of location of critical files.

9. Avoid information overload, Remember too much information is “overkill”. Better to focus on limited information at any point of time.

10. Last but not the least; remember to apply your common sense at all times.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” – Buddha

Author
Rajat Pal
Editorial Team GSG & Project Manager in a reputed software company.

Fear is humane! Especially when you allow a job interview to decide the next five years (hopefully more) of your life, fear is one acceptable attribute. What more, it is the fear of failure that keeps many of us rebels going, doesn’t it? Here is to the ones who think job interviews are come-true nightmares.

Pulling off an interview can be made very simple. It all depends on how you look at it. Broadly classifying the notion of candidates,

a) Lethargic
b) Life or death

Taken in order, if you are one of those spoilt heirs and this job means nothing to you, then you perfectly fit into the first category. Life or death: typically middle class and you know this job is going to make a huge difference to your career and family. The first kind may do well without reading this. For the latter, this article will be very useful.  Interview patterns vary from technology to technology, profession to profession and company to company. Below are a generic set of guidelines for a personal interview. You may customize them based on suitability. We have given our views which are likely to be correct because we have gone through this not very long ago.

You could memorize them, that’s all about it. There are only certain questions and certain ways to ask them. But if you start studying for the interview, you will be tired long before you get hired. Provided that you want this job very dearly, here is a checklist that, if followed, would be an advantage. Interviews are so predictable, hence controllable.

1) Resume standards

A resume is the first impression the interviewer gets; They see it before they see you. An ideal resume has no complex words. Don’t use words which you are not familiar with. Avoid grammar and spelling mistakes which are surely bound to let you down. Too much capitalization and crowd of data will make your resume look like rags: avoid that too.

Read in detail about our resume/cv preparation guide.

2) Don’t be timid.

In an interview, always hold your head up high. It is your confidence in yourself that you should exhibit and not your weakness. Don’t let the interviewer take advantage of your desperation for this job. The only way to avoid this would be not being desperate. You know you need this job very much, but you don’t have to go down on your knees for that. Don’t try to gain his sympathy. Most employers themselves will not appreciate that.

3) Be confident, not arrogant.

It is widely misunderstood that being polite and being unassertive are the same. Likewise, arrogance and confidence too. If you stand for what you think is right, that is arrogance. Doing so without disrupting the interviewer’s point of view is confidence. Defend yourself with a smile, which should do the trick.

4) Show them you are capable:

Don’t oversell by boasting what you can do. Don’t undersell either, by failing to emphasize the fact that you have related skills.

5) Integrity/ Honesty

Here is the best part! Would you believe if I said I got hired because I said “I don’t know” to most of the questions? You would not, I wouldn’t either. What if I say “I don’t know, but I am willing to learn”? The point here is not only the willingness to learn, but accepting the fact that you don’t know something. Don’t waste the interviewer’s time by drooling over a question you can never answer. Tell him that and get over with it. If you are asked an awkward question, stick to the truth. Do not, at any cost, tamper the truth. You might end up screwing your opportunity.

6) Body Language

Body language is equally important as verbal communication; perhaps more. You might be watched even before you enter the room. A few tips to look good are:

Sit/stand/walk upright. Be relaxed with a neutral expression. Handshake should neither be a dead-man’s handshake nor a bone-crusher. It should be firm and vertical which denotes neither domination nor suppression, but respect. Most significantly, do not initiate the handshake. Wait for the interviewer.

Don’t clench your fist or teeth. You do that only at a battle, not at an interview. Wear clean, simple and pleasantly colored clothes. Don’t be too conscious about your tie if you are wearing one. If you know you will not be comfortable with a tie, don’t wear one at all.

Don’t have that cheeky and intriguing smile spread at all times. That can be very annoying. When speaking, lean slightly forward to say you are involved in the conversation, but do not rest your hands on the table. Remember that the table is put up only for the interviewer.

8 ) Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is all about spreading your vibration to all around you. Certainly, it does not mean you should be jumping around holding hands, NO. You speak with genuine interest that your intonations send out the positive vibrations. If the interviewer is weak enough to raise his eyebrows, then you know you have impressed him. It is very easy to get carried away when you have a natural interest. Ensure at all times that you are speaking and not yelling.

9)Be Spontaneous

Spontaneity comes naturally with experience. It is not something you memorize and you can’t be spontaneous just by having all the answers at the tip of your tongue. Not worrying too much about it, and not stammering when you go wrong somewhere is more than enough to start with. Non-verbally, when you come in eye-contact with a person of the opposite sex too, don’t tend to turn away hastily. Don’t give them an impression that you are staring at them either. Turn away gracefully with a mild smile.

We strongly believe this will be of help in handling interview stress. I am sure you will have your own share of experiences. Do share them for the benefit of other readers. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions you might have. GSG team will be happy to answer them and help you in your career journey.

Spellbinder
Editorial Team,
GSG

Here Networking is defined as find people, join together, communicate with and within a group.

Network building will help you for getting a job/business / fund raising / Entrepreneurship / product marketing etc

How to start networking?

Building a network of people forms a vital role! It should start along with your academic activities. When you go to other educational institutions for tech festival or sports etc. get good friends, get their contact details and be in touch always. Don’t expect people to come and talk to you. You go and talk with them. Be a beginner, take ownership and that brings leadership. I personally know lot of good friends in this way who helped me in many ways and still helping. This is the time where campus interviews in colleges conducted and somewhat coming to end. If you do not get a job then you have to search for it once you completed your graduation. At that point of time this network of friends will be really helpful. You can forward your resume and ask them to refer you and forward to their friends. It will spread like retweets.  When you go to other institutions for interview, try to get make contact with lot of people.

How to get connected to new friends and stay in touch?

Create your personal blog and write some stuffs that you are interested. Visit other blogs and make friends, form a healthy network. Who knows? someday blogging could bring a job for you!! It happens!  Social networking sites like Linkedin, Orkut, Facebook, Twitter etc. will help you to find new friends and communicate with people who have similar thoughts and views. For eg: In facebook when an exam results are out people create a community and starts discussing about their career/higher education. They get suggestions/answers from new people.These social networking sites may distract you in someway. It is all depends on how you use it. Barack Obama’s Tweets played an important role in his election campaign which is a good example of how wisely one can use Twitter.

Transformation is going on. All the communication is being transformed slowly to cloud and people are getting ready for web 3.0 so you go ahead and start networking.

Questions/suggestions are welcome!

Happy Networking!

-Balaji

Goal Setting

“We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.”   -  Woodrow Wilson

Everyone of us have a dream, but did you know that only about three out of every 100 people ever actually decide on their goal? Some of us have some form of Goals to start with. But very soon our goals get diluted and we lose focus. It is equally important to check if we are focused on our goals and seriously trying to achieve our goals. At the same time our objective should be to review and refine our goals so that they become more effective. This article provides you the basic guidelines on how to set focus on your life and your goals.

These can be done in three simple phases.

Phase 1: Goal Setting Phase

Goal setting usually covers 4 dimensions for every individual:

a)      Academic Goals: This defines the academic level knowledge you aspire to achieve in your life time. Your aspiration could be to complete MBBS, BE, MBA, Phd etc.

b)      Professional Goals: This defines the goal you may have when you join in your professional life by starting to work in a company. Your aspiration could be to build relationship and be acceptable among all team members, to master certain technologies and business , to get promotion and an award etc.

c)       Personal Goals: While we focus on our Academic and professional goals its important we do not forget our friends and family as they are the building blocks in our ecosystem without whom we cant survive . Our goals here primarily will be to build friendship, establish trust and love others and seek guidance and constant motivation.

d)      Social Goals : No goals are complete until we think of the society , It is our duty to contribute to the society in whatever small way we can, it could start of with helping our immediate neighbours and friends who are in great need of help and can extend to protecting environment, safe drinking water etc.

Phase 2: Goal monitoring phase keeping momentum and staying on track

It is important that we consistently check our goals and make sure we are on track with them. We also need to assess them every now and again and check to see if anything has changed in our long term goals. If so, no big deal, just rearrange a little.

To keep on track, you will need to follow these tips to ensure success:

1. Be specific: Make goals with numbers. This helps to know when you have achieved these goals, which will motivate you more.

2. Be positive: Stay positive when determining your goals. Stay clear of words such as stupid, dumb, etc. What you focus on expands.

3. Make them attainable. “Chunk” down larger goals into more manageable pieces. It will make you feel like you are getting somewhere with it.

4. Prioritize: Figure out which goals are more heavily weighted and time sensitive.

5. Write them down! Keep track of your goals by writing them down constantly! This will serve as a constant reminder and allow you to see and measure progress.

Once set , the goals need to be monitored once every fortnightly just to make sure that we have made some progress in our goals. If we have not achieved some of the goals we need to find out why we have missed some of them, what needs to be done to achieve them , was the define goals was too complex? Was it beyond our control?  Etc.

Phase 3: Sharpening our goals and focusing on them

Sharpening of the goals is the next more important thing. Sharpening starts from looking at yourself and having a clear understanding of the goals. Sharpening your goals and focusing can be done in 3 steps:

1. Try to gain a full understanding and know in detail about the Goal e.g. what are the sub parts of the goal, what tasks you need to do, how to measure your goal: ask yourself the questions, what are the tasks I need to do daily in order to achieve my goal, if you are not sure of the answer, ask your friends or seniors.
2. Once you have done a detailed study of the goal, the next step is refining your goal into simple easy to understand and easy to measure and setting a committed timeline to achieve it in % e.g. if your Goal is to become a financial market expert , the sub goal can be to read at least 4 financial magazines per week.
3. Know your energy levels and reserve specific amount of energy to achieve your goals. Change you energy patterns by beginning to allow yourself extra time to get to activities linked to your goal, finding activities to renew your energy, building these energy-renewing activities into your schedule,  strengthening your personal foundation, finding ways to build time and energy into your life and creating  reserves for yourself and reduce energy drains. Overall you need to make a critical analysis of your lifestyle and make change wherever suitable.

To conclude let me quote Sir George Bernard Shaw

“You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?””

Indeed when you set your goals and focus all your energy in making it happen it is bound to make miracles happen in your life.

Written by Rajat Pal, project manager in a IT company.

Presentation plays a  important part in everybody’s life . From winning a successful election campaign like that of Barack Obama to the street vendor next door selling ice-cream everybody needs to present his ideas and his thoughts to the audience. Its how other people often judge your  effectiveness.  We are doing it every minute from the moment we are describing to our friend of a movie or giving a speech post-lunch after parent teacher.  In the corporate world it is perhaps the bread and butter of most of us. This article tries to provide the key factor students and beginners of presentation needs to take care.

A good example of a good presentation can be found at http://www.identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/.

Purpose of a successful presentation : Where you can apply this skill ?

To start of lets outline the reasons why  the ability to present well is treated as a special quality:

It will help you to be persuasive,  It can be useful in the following : Briefing a group, Conducting a training, Customer Care, Making a speech, Obtaining a job Interview, Leading a team, Problem Solving, Making a decision, Running a meeting, Selling a product or service, Getting  action, using phone, teleconference, Pitching for a business, Getting a rise, promotion etc.

The five P’s of Perfect Presentation:

1. Preparation
2. Purpose
3. Presence
4. Passion
5. Personality

Preparation: This concerns everything about being ready for delivery and includes :

i.        Research of the audience

ii.        Devise the presentation

iii.        Organize presentation aids

iv.        Check the venue

v.        Rehearse

vi.        Ready yourself

Purpose:

Every presentation has a purpose , sometimes there may be more than one purpose.  Ideally it is used to explain a new product or feature, report, or achieve a decision. There may be various other purposes like:

i.        Grabbing attention

ii.        Explaining who you are

iii.        Establish Credibility

iv.        Make people smile or laugh

v.        Reassure them

vi.        Alert them into something

vii.        Manage expectations of people.

Presence

By this we mean being present at the moment. One need to make the session lively, interactive, a quality of “being here” that’s generates interest and seeks attention from the audience.  One need not be a charismatic leader to make this happen, but by tinge of humour, interesting graphs, witty reference to stories and other interesting topics you increase the ability to convey your presence.

Passion

Passion is about caring , if we have observed different speakers and analysis their effectivetionness one thing that will come out clear is that they really care what they say and they really mean it. This makes others interested in the content of the presentation and the outcome of the presentation . For example if you are listening to Al Gore’s presentation on Climate Change, you can easily make out the amount of passion and energy in his expression. Remember if you are yourself not believing and caring in the content of your subject why should your listeners be?

Personality

Personality is all about bringing yourself into the presentation. If you are a nervous person outside the room you need to motivate yourself to leave your fear outside of the room before entering a presentation room.

Research the Audience:

One need to put himself in the shoe of the audience and ask the questions

Who am I talking to ?  What they want ? How much time do they have ? What information are relevant for them ? How many people are attending ? Who is the speaker before  me ? What are the special factors ?

Based on the answers of the above questions :

Judge audience knowledge

Decide on appropriate presenting style

Identify suitable presentation aids

Few Special factors to note:

1. Who presents before me ? What are they likely to say?
2. What presentation aids will they use ?
3. How will they leave the audience for the follow on?
4. How can I tailor my presentation to built on or anticipate their expected impact.

Devising the presentation

Using POWER

P : Produce something worth by using metaphors, similies, analogies etc.

O : Organize : Structure your presentation into Introduction, Body and Conclusion

W: Write : Allow a writing flow to come, try to continue with the flow

E : Edit : Once written, better to review with someone knowledgeable and review

R : Refine :Based on your feedback from colleagues, friends.

• During writing categorize topics into must know, should know and nice to know. It is advisable not to use jargons and complicated words.
• Don’t start talking if you have nothing to say.
• To start of a presentation start with something about which you feel very strongly and then build on it.
• At the end of the presentation summarize : the top three points you want the audience to know.
• It is recommended to learn your presentation , rehearse it, then you can be free to concentrate in the audience and not get interrupted to the material of the presentation

Energy level during the presentation:During presentation the presenter needs to demonstrate a high energy level. One need to demonstrate a great deal of vigour and dynamism. Be alert continuously.

Voice modulation: This plays an important role. Your voice should show the enthusiasm at the same time it should not sound over confident. The tone should not be monotonous but rather there should be variations.

Face and Body Language : Your body language should give a comfort feeling to the audience, It has to be natural, instinctive and smart. Your facial expression should match your body language and overall generate a positive appeal.

Dress sense: Remember to dress appropriately for the presentation , if you are not sure of the correct dress , please ask other presenters. Generally formals and suits are the common attire used for a presentation.

Timing : The timing of the presentation is important, the audience mood may change according to the time of the day. If your presentation is scheduled before lunch time or end of day, it is suggested to keep the presentation to the point without going to detail and give ample time for question and followup discussion.  A stop watch can be handy during the presentation, you can keep a track of time you can allot for each section beforehand.

Pace of presentation: You may be a fast speaker , but remember you need to give the audience time to assimilate the information and absorb the information. So you need to take pause and keep ample time in between your presentation for questions and summarizing your key points.

Spontaneity: If there are questions you may answer that or courteously inform the audience that you will respond to that at the end or at a appropriate time. But make sure you react to the question in a positive manner. If you are not aware of the answer you can convey the audience that you are not aware of the same and will get back soon.

Self awareness: Be aware of your sense of humour, integrity, drive, intelligence, and level of knowledge and make yourself prepared for the presentation accordingly. Focus on reducing the gaps by periodic review and constant feedback from others.

Conclusion: Once your presentation is over , remember it is important to do a self analysis of the presentation . This will help to improve your next presentation.  Its better to be a self critic and rate yourself in the 5 P’s. Ask yourself the questions, What went well or what went badly? What had most impact ?What was memorable? Was there anything that was confusing ? What annoyed or distracted me ? Did I seem well prepared ? When did I lose or gain people’s attention ? But whatever be the condition don’t get focussed in too much of your judgements, rather focus on the material and the audience.  Take planned risk and make the desired impact on your audience.

Life is either a daring adventure or its nothing – Helen Keller.

It would be a good idea to listen to the speech of Mr Barack Obama on his recent Cairo visit and observer his pace of presentation, voice modulation and all the 5 P’s as discussed above.

Please do post your personal experience during any presentation you have delivered and any questions  if any.

(Compiled by Balakrishnan , Editor GSG)