You’ve got them in the room.  They are mingling with each other.  Old friends are catching up.  Old rivals are checking each other out.  It’s time to begin.

Set the tone

We the people perform best in a “high energy, low tension” environment.  Your advisors are people, so create energy and relaxation at the start.

This means that before you get to the serious issues surrounding your compound in development, rearrange their internal molecules by getting them to smile, laugh, interact, or do something unexpected.

For instance, I recently attended a symposium on American poetry where, at the start, the host sang a ridiculous song about Cape May, NJ, the site of our meeting, and encouraged us to sing along with him.

When we finished, our fearless leader said, “If I can sing in front of 200 people, you can certainly express your opinions with vigor at this meeting.  I urge you to take chances.”

You may think such an approach is not appropriate for you or your situation.  However, consider this:  we laughed, we breathed deeply, we relaxed, we connected with our facilitator and each other, and I recall the meeting with fondness.

Ask yourself:  Do your advisors feel the same way about your meetings?

Lay the ground work

Now comes the housekeeping—the objectives, agenda, and ground rules.  If a list of all attendees is in front of each person, complete with bio and CV, skip the usual personal introductions and ask them to tell the group something about themselves that the group can’t read on the paper.

I’ve had success asking people in our workshops to speak about pet peeves, pet passions, or to tell a story about a time in their lives when they “should’a been dead.”  Everyone’s got one of those stories.

PS.  You might even do the “should’a been dead,” exercise instead of asking them to sing.

PSS. Yes, your audience is time-pressed, content-driven, and results-oriented.  But so are you, and the results you want include a relaxed, honest, and spirited group.

Poke them in the brain

Now we’re getting serious.  What makes people think is a really interesting question, or a puzzle—a problem that needs to be solved.

Think about the most popular shows on TV:  House or Law and Order.  They start with a problem that needs to be solved.

Frame the discussion around a problem. Make it sound fascinating and complex.  They’ll start pondering right away.

If the group has met before, than recap briefly what transpired previously, and then proceed to re-frame the remaining questions or problems that need to be solved.

Ask precise questions

We all know that the way questions are phrased determines the answers we get.

For example, two priests who, being unsure if it was permissible to smoke and pray at the same time, wrote to the Pope for a definitive answer.  One priest phrased the question, ‘Is it permissible to smoke while praying?’ and was told it is not, since prayer should be the focus of one’s whole attention; the other priest asked if it is permissible to pray while smoking and was told that it is, since it is always permissible to pray.

Be careful how you phrase questions.

Now that you’ve brought them together, laid the ground rules, framed the topic in an interesting way, and introduced your well-phrased questions, let’s look at the importance of sequencing.

Sequence questions

Sequencing questions is like constructing a good survey instrument.  You have to anticipate what the possible answers might be, and then generate a unique follow-up question, or a whole branch of questioning, for each possible outcome.

It could be instructive to frame a single question as a Yes/No, then as a multiple choice, and finally as an open question.  This would be especially interesting if you had an electronic audience voting or tally system on hand.

For instance, “In the design of this protocol, do you think investigators will be able to determine which patients are on therapy (vs. placebo) because of side-effects?  Yes or No.”

Following the answers being tallied on the screen, you could ask individuals on each side to explain their choice.

Then, you could put up this question: “Investigators will be able to determine which patients are on active therapy and which are on placebo.  Very likely.   Not likely.  Highly unlikely.   Impossible.”

Again, you could ask them to explain their votes.

Or, you could ask them this open question:  “What are your thoughts around the issue of investigators being able to ID patients on active therapy vs. placebo by observing side-effects?”

Finally, you could ask them: “To what extent will this issue influence the credibility of the data with the regulatory authorities?”

If your advisors begin to change their opinions when they consider the due diligence of regulators, you may have your answer.  Actual bias, and the perception of bias in a protocol, can result in the same outcome.

Take breaks

Nice long ones, with food and coffee and access to sunlight. Maybe even some brief calisthenics and some lively music.  Mens sana in corpore sano.  (A healthy mind in a healthy body!)

Also, they hunger for their cell phones.

Display the questions

This may be obvious, but you should have your well-phrased and sequenced questions displayed on the screen, so that everyone can remember what the question is.

Listen to their answers

Listen.  Don’t pretend to listen.  Really listen to what they say.  Ask follow up questions for clarification.  Point out inconsistencies between contributors.  Or ask someone else what he or she thinks about what was just said.

I find it gratifying when, after I have spoken, the facilitator or another advisor summarizes what I said, as if to make sure he got it right.

If as the facilitator you space out, say so.  If you think they’re wandering off the subject but you’re not sure, say so.  And if you’re sure they’re off the subject, stop them firmly.

They want a strong leader who will ensure the meeting is orderly, energized, and successful.

Watch them like a hawk.  Pounce on them when they roll their eyes, or scrunch their mouths.  They’re trying to signal something.  Ask them what’s going on.

And don’t let a highly influential advisor dominate the meeting.  Be the boss.  Tell them that you want to hear from everyone.  Call on the less experienced, the junior members.  Compliment them on their contributions.  Sprinkle your approval around the table wisely, and your disapproval as well.  You are, more than likely, herding cats.

They will appreciate strong, diplomatic leadership.

Use names

Nothing is as sweet to us as the sound of our own names. And nothing makes a meeting better, in the eyes of an attendee, as having been acknowledged as a valuable contributor.

When referring to something said earlier, include the speaker’s name.  You might say, “But as Dorcas said earlier, time to progression is not an end-point.”  When you do, a little pilot light in Dorcas’ chest will ignite her self-esteem.

And she will be grateful.

Summarize

To talk much and arrive nowhere is the same as climbing a tree to catch a fish.  Summarize the journey that the group has taken.

Do it alone with your prodigious recall of the entire conversation.  Or engage the group in reconstructing where the conversation started and where it ended.

Or take a mini-break before you wrap up, and have a colleague (who has been acting as the secretary and note-taker of the meeting) present the record, or review it and present it yourself.

Gain the approval of the advisors that what you have captured is accurate.  Promise them a copy of it in the mail.

Plan next steps.

Thank them and say good-bye.

Follow up with a personal letter, or a phone call.  Get more feedback.

Be endlessly curious.  Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it has preserved the life of many compounds in development.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

If you read this blog about presentation skills and your signal to noise ratio, you can make more money, save money and time, reduce your uncertainty and anxiety, and look good in the eyes of others.

When I was in college, I drove a truck full of modern art from a New York gallery to a museum in Tennessee.  It was October.  The World Series was on the radio. My team, the Mets, were playing, and the signal was irregular and full of static.

It was raining.  It was dark. I was on a two-lane mountain road. I had to deliver the paintings by morning. The windshield washers could not keep up with the downpour.  The road was twisting and I was fiddling with the radio dial desperately trying to tune in through the static to hear how my Mets were doing.

I was an audience of one in the cab of that rented Hertz truck, fighting to hear the signal through the noise.  And I don’t think I’m reaching too far for a simile to say that our audiences are in a similar position when they listen to our presentations.

Our audiences are on a mission to achieve their business objectives.  The market is dark and unpredictable.  The staff cannot keep up with the constant demands.  Our listeners worry about hitting their numbers, managing the budget, and positioning themselves for a promotion.  Plus, their tummies might be rumbling with hunger, or their kids are home alone and they’re worried.

They try to tune in to what we’re saying, but it’s hard.  We may take too long getting to the point.  They get bored or frustrated. 

We may start talking about ourselves, or our product, or our company, and fail to relate the information to what they care about.

They will have to fight through the noise of our talk to hear the information that they care about.  And they only care about information because they have an emotional interest in what it could mean to them.

Does the information you offer make them more successful at their job?  Is it simple and clear?  Does it solve a problem?  Does it save them time, or help them make more money?  Does it make them feel more secure, or less uncertain?  And could it make them look good in the eyes of others?

These are the signals that most of us want to hear.  Your job as a presenter is to boost your signal to noise ratio. 

Do so, and you will make more money, be more successful, reduce your anxiety, and look good in the eyes of the world.

When bacon fries, it makes a crackling, bubbling, splashy sound and smells delicious.

When young women fry their voices, they make a grinding sound in the back of their throats, and regardless of how they smell, they are undermining their stature and impact by doing so. 

I am going to call the Center for Disease Control to announce that I have detected a dangerous new epidemic of The Vocal Fry. (Please see the bottom of this posting for a definition of Vocal Fry.)

It has mostly infected young women, and it makes them sound as if they’ve run out of air, and are generating their voices by grinding their vocal chords together.

It manifests itself mostly at the ends of sentences. To me, it makes them sound tense, cerebral, and unappealing. I do not want to listen to them speak about anything.

No doubt this is a failing on my part, but I am confessing now, in public, that The Vocal Fry is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

I think it’s mostly educated young women, maybe even educated young women from a certain background that have developed this as a fashionable way to talk.

I am going to capture recordings of it and put them up here on the blog, or on my other blogs at www.simswyeth.com/blog or at executivespeechcoachny.com

The human voice must stand guard over the content of a spoken message, or the content will evaporate, no matter how precious it was in itself.

The Vocal Fry has to go.

Definition:The vocal fry register (also known as pulse register, laryngealisation, pulse phonation, creak, glottal fry, glottal rattle, glottal scrape or strohbass), is the lowest vocal register and is produced through a loose glottal closure which will permit air to bubble through slowly with a popping or rattling sound of a very low frequency.