Recommended Reading

Back cover:

The story of Who moved my cheese? has become a runway #1 International Bestseller with more than 10 million copies in print!

It would be all so easy if you had a map to the Maze. If the same old routines worked. If they’d just stop moving “The Cheese.” But things keep changing.

“I’m giving this book to colleagues and friends because Spencer Johnson’s unique insights and storytelling make this a rare book that can be read and Understood quickly by everyone who wants to succeed in these changing times.” Randy Harris, Former Vice Chairman MERRILL LYNCH INTERNATIONAL

With Who Moved My Cheese? Dr. Spencer Johnson realizes the need for finding the language and tools to deal with change-an issue that makes all of us nervous and uncomfortable.

Most people are fearful of change because they don't believe they have any control over how or when it happens to them. Since change happens either to the individual or by the individual, Spencer Johnson shows us that what matters most is the attitude we have about change. When the Y2K panic gripped the corporate realm before the new millennium, most work environments finally recognized the urgent need to get their computers and other business systems up to speed and able to deal with unprecedented change. And businesses realized that this was not enough: they needed to help people get ready, too.

Spencer Johnson has created his new book to do just that. The coauthor of the multimillion bestseller The One Minute Manager has written a deceptively simple story with a dramatically important message that can radically alter the way we cope with change. Who Moved My Cheese? allows for common themes to become topics for discussion and individual interpretation.

Who Moved My Cheese? takes the fear and anxiety out of managing the future and shows people a simple way to successfully deal with the changing times, providing them with a method for moving ahead with their work and lives safely and effectively.

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Talk your way to the top -

In today’s world where resources and growth opportunities are plenty and available, what is the differentiating factor that can make or break the deal? Five companies vying for a project and at par with each other in terms of resources, potential and expertise , which attribute could be the clincher?

Every business challenge is essentially a communication challenge. One may be tempted to dismiss this statement as yet another axiom commonly used in the business world. Yet if we consider the various facets of business like increasing sales, advertising, cultivating strategic leadership, recruiting and retaining employees, improving investor relations , launching new business initiatives they all depend on effective communication. Today in the business world, it is not just the message that matters but also how the content is delivered. The style of presentation is as important as the content of the presentation.

How to get over the fear of Public Speaking

In a survey conducted across 3000 Americans, 90% of the respondents chose ‘speaking before a group’ as their worst fear. In today’s scenario when communication and presentation skills take precedence over most other skills how does one develop the talent of public speaking. There are 3 specific steps that can help in the same.

- Face Up to it :

Admit to yourself that your fear of public speaking is limiting your opportunity for recognition and is holding you back.

- Examine Possible Solutions:

We learn by doing. Explore programs and coaching sessions on public speaking that provide you to overcome the fear by doing more and more of the activity.

- Make a decision and go :

Do not wallow in the material and indecision of which class/session to go to. Immediately sign up for the one that catches your fancy and go.

Some tips to make you a great public speaker

• Prepare Mentally and Physically
Mark Twain once famously remarked ‘ It usually takes me more than 3 weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech’! Winston Churchill said it took him six-seven hours to make a good 45 minute speech. To feel confident you must know that your message is worth it and this takes time.

• Know your subject
The first step to building confidence is to know your subject . You become an expert through study and experience. The reason you will be asked to speak is that someone recognizes you as an expert or as a person who has experience worth sharing with a broader audience.

• Put it on paper
By all means, write out your talk. It will help you put your thoughts in order. Seeing the talk right there in front of you will buoy your confidence.

• Practice
Read your talk out load over and over again to your spouse, to a friend, to another family member; even to your dog. Read it in front of a mirror while trying to maintain eye contact with yourself as you read. Once you know it well, do the same talk without the script. Make notes if you like. Use them while you rehearse. Rehearse the speech out load until you are sick of it. Then go through it one more time.

When you focus on one person, you reduce the audience to one individual. The situation becomes the same as what you face every day.

How a Speaker Impacts an Audience: Quick fact

a) How you look, accounts a whopping 55% (Includes clothes, facial expression, your hands, the leaning of your body, the way you move your eyes).

b) How you sound, accounts for 38% (Depends more on volume and inflection than the quality of your voice).

c) What you actually say accounts for only 7%

Dealing with the Adrenaline Rush

When we stand in front of an audience we get a great adrenaline rush. Our bodies are supercharged and we get an influx of energy that is more that we are normally used to handling. This is what causes us to fidget, clear our throats, move from side to side etc.

Following are some strategies you can use to make this energy work in your favor.

1) Speak with Energy

- Add visual content to your speech
- Gesture for emphasis or excitement
- Increase your volume to add inflection
- Remember , Energy released by the audience=Energy Received by the audience

2) Using your hands

When you start let your hands hang loosely by your side
Ideally you should gesture with one hand at a time
Hands are to be used to describe and emphasize a point

3) Taking your stance

- Do not walk about aimlessly
- Plant yourself by placing your legs a shoulder width apart
- You will feel more in control

4) Keeping up the volume

- Low Volume indicates you are speaking in a monotone
- Monotones can be excruciatingly boring to the audience
- Low Volume sends out the impression that you are low on conviction
- Ringing out a loud voice will soar your confidence and increase your bodily energy thus helping the message get across more effectively

All the skills explained in the article can be perfected or sharpened when you use them. Hence learn and internalize these skills but do not forget to put them into practice. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said ‘ Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain’. Happy Public Speaking!

Reference: Achieve Global

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