The Fear of Presenting to Senior Leaders

Many people we coach will express concern and, in some cases, even fear at being challenged by senior people while giving presentations at work.

This can be stultifying in terms of a person trying something a little different from the 'norm' when designing, preparing and delivering a presentation for fear of encouraging criticism.

However, our experience has revealed that many senior leaders in organisations like to be presented with new ideas and innovative solutions. In fact we often hear similar phrases to the following from most CEOs we work with:

"I would prefer it if my people would come to me with more ideas for potential solutions as well as their research and questions."

"I'm always interested in seeing and hearing how passionate someone is about the content of their presentation."

"I want my people to be authentic and honest with me and not just do and say what they 'think' I want them them to do and say."

"I want to be surprised."

Sometimes senior people will challenge us, not because they believe we are wrong or because they want to put us off our stroke or intimidate us, many times it's simply so they can test our response. This can be both conscious and unconscious.

So, next time you find yourself presenting in front of senior execs, re-frame the reason for the challenges you might receive to your ideas as the leader's test for the strength and resolve of your commitment to a message and your ability stand by what you believe.

If you've ensured that you are connected to your message by preparing and integrating the delivery and performance of the presentation in all 4 dimensions, then any challenge can be welcomed as a chance to demonstrate your confidence in and commitment to an idea, strategy or proposition.

2 Pies of Creativity

I think I’m creative. I’m not creative. What is creativity? My creativity has disappeared. I’m not feeling creative.

The mystery of our own creativity can drive us nuts. How can we tap into it when we need it?

The very action of making creativity ‘mysterious’ or confusing removes it from us and immediately makes it appear less accessible. So how can we de-mystify creativity. Well creativity is fundamentally about energy and brain connections. We have our own unique set of brain connections based on our experience, our learning and our understanding. These unique neural connections form our very own creative lucky dip – that we can add to anytime through further experience, learning and understanding.


That brings us to the question of energy. Those creative neural pathways need firing up. So then it’s a question of how we source that energy and this doesn’t necessarily mean going for a five mile run every time we want to get our creative juices flowing. In fact there are 6 potential sources of creative energy. And your ideal source might be different from a colleague or collaborator. So it’s important to recognize where you draw your creative energy from. Otherwise creative blocks result and it can begin to feel frustrating or in the case of a collaborative situation – both frustrating and personal.

So here are your six potential sources or what you might like to think of as Two Creative Pies :

Physical – this might well mean going for a five mile run, or simply going for a walk or removing the chairs from a brainstorming session and getting everyone on their feet. I was recently working with a rock climber who always solved his creative problems hanging by a finger nail from the sheer face of a cliff. If you’re a kinesthetic creative – removing a creative block might be as simple as removing the furniture.

Intellectual – if you draw your creative energy from the intellect then any new information could fire up your imagination and problem solving drives. This might mean taking a moment to read a page of a book, have a conversation with someone and share ideas, read the paper, watch a Ted talk, do a Sudoku or a crossword. Or even intersperse your creative meetings with learning a new language. N’est-ce pas?


Emotional – perhaps your creative flow depends on how you feel. Do you feel more creative when you feel happy, excited, in love? Or maybe your ideas come to you when you’re angry and work yourself up into a heated debate? What emotion do you need to feel and how can you stimulate that? A funny film? Buying a lottery ticket? Eating indulgent food? Hugging a friend? Phoning home? Telling a joke? Recounting a story? Meditating? Playing a silly game? Your emotions are an incredibly powerful source of creative energy. Think of the beautiful poems written in the name of love or loss.


People – some people will make you feel more creative than others. Do you know who they are? And do you consciously seek them out when you need to feel creative? Also – are you aware of the people around you or in your life who make you feel less creative? Are you conscious of limiting your exposure to these people when you need to be creatively fired up? If you feel blocked on a project think about who you can meet or who you can call, text or tweet to immediately feel more creative.


Intention – this stimulus is all about the core values that drive and motivate you in life. In other words the ideas and beliefs that create your day to day as well as your creative intention. This might be question of reminding yourself what you stand for or why you are doing something. Is the problem you’re trying to solve deeply important to you? Is the creative project you want to drive forward something dear to your very being? Or are you part of a creative team and care about doing a good job for your colleagues? Will there be a reward at the end that will hold value for you? Or is it simply too important to risk failure? Tapping into your core intentional self can be a super speedy way to fire up your creativity at the deepest level.


Environment – you may well be someone who needs to be in a creative and stimulating environment in order to feel creative. This can often be the case for highly visual people like artists or designers. Our environment also gives us a sense of how much we and our creative ideas are valued. Being placed in a dark, windowless room and asked to come up with brilliant ideas can feel like severely mixed messages. Our ideas are valued but not our environmental well-being. Some people like colourful, busy, stimulating environments, others will find this distracting. All the research on creativity and environments have one common theme – that people are more creative in environments they have had some say over rather than enforced environments. This doesn’t necessarily mean we all need to be picking out carpet samples for our offices. It might be as simple as deciding where we can place your chair and your Starbucks ginger latte.


So if you feel your creative flame has gone out or find you are at loggerheads with colleagues on a project, take a couple of moments for a couple of pies and run yourself (and them) through the PIEPIE checklist.


Who said pies weren’t good for you?

What's the real difference between human being and human doing?

I was working with a client yesterday on a presentation they were planning.

The key thing I noted before we began working was that my client continuously used the words do, doing and done in phrases like:
"I have this presentation to do." and "I'm doing this presentation next week." and " After I've done talking through the presentation."

As many people are inclined to 'do' my client had written the content of the message first and then brought me in to help with the style, form and performance.

The challenge for my client during the session was that having written the content first, he had now learned it like a script and during the rehearsal kept stopping because he'd got a word wrong or missed out a sentence.

After a few minutes of this we stopped and talked about the difference between human being and human doing in the context of a presentation. When we 'do' a presentation we are generally going through a process of delivering a structured message
which opens with specific and relevant points of interest and ends with a finale that reinforces the key messages.

At the end our audience should be in no doubt about the reasons and benefits of having sat or stood, watched and listened to us present. And if we've 'done' that well, we will feel we have achieved our objective.

But what if something goes wrong with the 'doing' of the presentation?

Perhaps the venue has been changed, or maybe the environment where we planned to stand or sit has been shifted around.

Maybe the technology is different than we had planned, or worse, has crashed altogether and we can't show our amazing slides, play the funny or moving video, or dazzle them with our innovative use of audio.

What about if when we arrive and there are more or less people than we expected, or we are faced with an unexpected audience?

All these factors and more can undermine you and be the un-doing of a presentation.

However, when we are 'being' the presentation we totally embody the message in 4 dimensions.

This means that the first aspect we have to prepare is the 4th dimension - the 'INTENTIONAL' - expressing our intentions.

Why are you giving this message rather than someone else?
What does it mean to both you and your audience?
Why do you care?
What do you know about the content even without looking at notes?
What do you intend the audience to feel, think and do after hearing, seeing, experiencing you being your message?
What need does your message serve in your team, your organisation, the world?
What are the central, values, drives and guiding principles behind the message and how are you connected to them in 4 D?

In order for you to 'be' rather than just 'do' when presenting, not a word of content should be written, not one slide should be built or video selected before questions like these have been answered.

After your INTENTIONAL exploration, you should be able go to speakers corner in Hyde Park and deliver your message with nothing but the clothes you stand in.

That's human being rather than human doing.

So, if someone gives you a pre-prepared presentation to deliver, ask them why they want YOU specifically to deliver it.

If they say that you are the only person who is available, then ask them if it's an important message that needs to land with people.

If they say yes, then just politely hand it back and explain to them why it's best if you don't just 'do' it.

On the other hand if they say because you are the only person who can make this message stick, then tell them you will write and design your own version.

There is a real difference between being connected to a message and doing it with energy and conviction.

So, next time you hand over a presentation on a USB stick for loading onto a laptop, just say:

"Here are the slides for the presentation I'll be being later."

Coaching Questions - from 4 perspectives and in 4 Dimensions.

If you need to explore a situation or issue in life or work, why not try looking at it from the following perspectives?





• What do you believe about the current situation or issue? ( assumptions, ideas and intuitions)

• What do you feel about the current situation or issue? (think in terms of specific emotions - despair, anxiety, joy, optimism, enthusiastic- etc)

• What do you know about the current situation or issue? (tangibles, details, facts and figures)

• What have you done about the current situation or issue? ( actions taken, results, consequences-etc)

Then explore your future objectives from the following 4 perspectives:

• What do you need to believe about the current situation or issue that is different from what you believe now?

• What do you need to feel about the current situation or issue that is different from what you feel now?

• What do you need to know about the current situation or issue that is different from what you know now?

• What do you need to do about the current situation or issue that is different from what you've done so far?


Now think in terms of the 4 dimensions:

What are the obstacles in the way of where you are now and where you need to be?

1- Physical obstacles – Behaviour, environments, systems and processes.

2- Emotional obstacles - EQ, States of mind, emotions imagined and real.

3- Intellectual obstacles – Thinking styles and types. Multiple Intelligences and individual cognitive strengths.

4- Motivational obstacles – Values, Ideas, Beliefs and Experiences. Shared culture.


Once you've identified the obstacles you can begin thinking about what action you can take.

What is possible now?

What seems impossible? Why?

What is possible in the near future?

What seems impossible in the near future? Why?


Keep chipping away at the obstacles until you discover which dimensions need to be addressed and in what order.

Feel free to contact us anytime if you need any help.

The Secret of Success

“Success is not something you pursue it is something you attract by the person you become.Become a person who is attractive to success.” Jim Rohn

I really love that quote. It has informed my personal perspective on the secret of success since I first heard it some eight years ago.

However, not everyone shares the same secret.

Many successful entrepreneurs we speak to are often more motivated by the idea of the process and the journey towards a goal rather than the result. For these people achieving their ambitions is less satisfying than the struggle to get there.

It is interesting that we’ll almost, always hear a different definition for success from everyone that we ask to define it.

Some people will gauge success based on the amount of money they make, others the amount of friends they have. Maybe your success is measured by achieving skills at a sport, or simply being able to do things that make you happy.

Perhaps you've never even considered what success means to you, let alone thought about whether there's any secret to it.

Well, if you are interested in discovering your own secret to success the first step is to define what success looks, feels, sounds, smells and tastes like to you.

We're all aware that we are living in challenging times so at 4D we've recently thought long and hard about what questions might help a person to discover the secret to their success. The following set of questions are our first attempts.

Give them a go and let us know if they worked for you.

• If you were as successful as you think you want or ought to be, what would you be doing differently?

• Where would you live that is different from where you live now and why?

• What would you eat that is different from what you eat now and why?

• Who would you have as friends and why?

• Where would you go for pleasure and leisure that is different from where you go now and why?

• How would you be different as a person and why?

This line of self questioning can continue until you get to a point where you reveal the gap between what you have and who you are now and who and what you want to achieve in the future.

The suprise is that sometimes the gap is smaller than you might have expected.

Thinking about the gap between what you have now and what you want, the next question is this:

• Which things do you really 'need' to achieve in order for you to genuinely feel successful?

Make the list and focus on these final two questions:

• What and who do you know already that will help you get what you need?

• What and who do you need to know to get what you need?


Despite the many different ways people measure their success our research has revealed that there are four common elements shared by every successful person on their journey.

• Self Belief - They expect success.

• Creativity- They try and bring something into being in a way that has never been seen, heard or felt before.

• Persistence- They don’t fail at a task, they just stop or give up.

• They stay prepared so they can exploit even the flimsiest opportunities presented by random events and coincidences.

So...What's the secret of your success?