Saturday, July 5, 2008
The Power of Dialogue
Interactive communication or dialogue refers to interacting in ways that build shared meaning, rather than colliding in ways that foster disagreement, frustration and confusion.
Dialogue is a subtle process that may be difficult to understand, and even more difficult to actually create.
Benefits of Dialogue:
Dialogue has the ability to convert detractors into supporters, conflict into consensus, and add depth to business relationships.
A dialogue influences another's perspective by first demonstrating a deep understanding of the position you want to influence. People frequently resist attempts to be influenced by using the statement, "You just don't understand."
In a dialogue, your skills of collaborative inquiry and listening provide others with a profound sense of being heard. When we feel that we are heard, we become more willing to be open to another point of view.
If dialogue is so effective, why aren't more people using it?
The profound efficacy of dialogue requires much of us:
- Listening more deeply and for longer periods of time.
- Inquiring of others and paraphrasing their ideas when every cell in
your body wants to attack, defend or explain.
- Becoming aware of your mind drifting and repeatedly returning it to
the topic at hand.
- Examining our thoughts and separating assumptions from facts.
Dialogue requires:
1. A complete shift in mindset from telling others what you think,
to inquiring of them what they think.
2. A deeper level of listening and a more active approach to
demonstrating that you are listening to others.
3. An ability to penetrate into another's assumptions and mental
maps to uncover the framework that governs their behavior.
What Does Dialogue Look Like?
Recognize it when:
- The business issue develops keen intellectual interest.
- The conversation is suffused with laughter.
- Everyone is involved, and people are listening deeply.
- The conversation becomes animated.
- You become eager to add to what someone else has said; but you are listening more than talking.
- You sense an almost palpable excitement.
- The multiple perspectives create a sense of aliveness and possibility.
- Different viewpoints interest you instead of annoy you.
Dialogue - A Jazz Improvisation Metaphor
A jazz improvisation is a good metaphor for dialogue. Each musician must build on what the others are already doing. The jazz musician can't just begin playing his favorite riff. He must listen to what others are playing, and then build on it. The result is something unique - no one person controls the musical direction. They improvise and initiate, but always in relationship to what others are doing.
Discussion vs. Dialogue
Dialogue Contrasted With Discussion
Contrast dialogue with discussion. Discussion has the same roots as "concussion" and "percussion." The Latin origin of discuss is "discutere" - to dash or shake apart. Hence, to discuss is to shake apart what others say.
In a discussion we break things down, fragment the whole, analyze the pieces, and seek to convince others of our insights. You recognize discussion by its competitive nature. If you are only listening in order to prepare your own counter-arguments, you are involved in a discussion.
Defaulting to Discussion
Often the default in business conversations, is discussion. Each side will lob its viewpoint across the table. The other will then repeat its counter-position. You have a sense of positions being smacked back and forth like a puck in a hockey game.
If your trust of the others involved diminishes along with your patience and good will, you are likely in discussion.
Terry Gault has been a coach, trainer and consultant in communications skills for 14 years. He has trained hundreds of professionals at Oracle, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, PeopleSoft, Visa, EMC, PTC, and hundreds more in other large organizations. Terry joined the Henderson Group in 1997, where he coaches individuals and leads workshops in presentation and communication skills. Terry also develops workshops and has played a major role in the development and delivery of the online communication programs at the Henderson Group. Visit http://www.hendersongroup.com/art_pres_info.asp for more information.
You can change the action settings if a picture, clip art, or button shape has an action assigned to it (such as move to next slide, move to previous slide, go to the last slide of the show, or go to a Web page or other Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentation or file.)2007 Manual Missing Point Power12117
Present Your Business Proposal Effectively With Powerpoint Presentations
Business proposal is important for individuals who wants to set up a new company, or promoting new products and services to your future clients; or selling effective business ideas in a profitable price for your prospective buyers. The most common problem that every presenters encounter is that delivering such a lengthy business proposal could actually turn off audiences' attention. You must deliver relevant messages within short durations. There are several ways to boost your presentation effectively with Powerpoint presentation slides.
You do not have to include everything in your slides.
All of the contents are included in your business proposal handouts. Your audiences might have (or not) read your handouts in advance. Based on the handouts, you need to summarize the contents from every chapter before putting it into your slides. For example, if you want to show your main objectives or mission statement of your company to your audiences, list out 2-3 objectives per slide. On the other hand, you need to improvise for the elaboration of these main objectives beforehand in order to capture your audiences' attention. In other words, it is pointless of you if you include every contents from your handouts into your slides; which produces non-interactive communication with your audiences.
Use simple layouts and suitable fonts in your slides.
Basically, you use any layouts for your presentation. If you want to make it simple and clear, it is advisable to use plain colored backgrounds with black colored Arial or Century Gothic font. Make sure the font size is greater than size 40. Avoid complicated backgrounds that could distort the whole display in your slides.
Minimize the use of complicated multimedia in your slides.
If you are preparing Powerpoint presentation on your own, embedding multimedia such as video and music could be distracting to your audiences. Furthermore, you need more time to improvise for the video contents. This could only make you feel more nervous and therefore, it will affect your speech presentation.
You can import your colored graphs and charts from Excel to your slides if you have related data in your business proposal. Please use primary colors for your graphs and charts before placing it on your white-colored background slide. For effective display, make use of custom animation to present your related graphs and charts to your audiences.
Bear in your mind that these simple steps matter for better slide enhancement, though you find these steps are rather tedious. It is worthy that these steps would increases the probability of your clients could buy from you.
Creating effective Powerpoint presentations for business proposals can be done with ease. If you want to make a simple Powerpoint presentation that can make clients buy from you, learn the basics via http://presentationism.com
An quick and easy answer to a very common customer question: How can I change the color of my hyperlink text in PowerPoint 2007?Power Point 9741719