Deborah Khan -- Creative Inspiration: From design to meaning: a whole new way of presenting?

What my clients say about me

John Birch - BA
“I was really impressed with the way Deborah Khan delivered training on the subject of communication skills to us at BA Pensions. She took time to fully research and understand how we worked and what our specific concerns were. She designed a programme that matched not only our collective requirements but was also flexible enough to cover individual development needs. Her methods, being performance based, ensured that even the most introverted of us participated in the programme and our subsequent delivery in formal presentations has improved significantly"
Tom Powell - DLKW
"I participated in a one-day session with Deb Khan last year and would strongly recommend it for both novice speakers and those looking to hone their skills. She (gently) picked apart our strengths and weaknesses and by the end of the day, the results were tremendous. Everyone left with a range of practical skills and it's been a huge benefit for presentations"
Kai Vacher - Specialist Schools Trust
"Deb has incredible foresight, emotional intelligence and a razor sharp focus on specific outcomes to plan programmes/workshops of outstanding quality. Her ability to work with a group of people so that very quickly they feel at ease with each other is unsurpassed in my experience. Deb uses a varied range of interactive strategies to provide the prefect balance of challenge and support for workshop participants. Post event, course participants often contact me to express their overwhelming sense of achievement having worked with Deb, and want more; for themselves and colleagues.”
David Mikhail - RHM
Deborah is fantastic. I’m afraid she had to suffer both of our last pitches – but after her input we just flew, winning really important work from both of them. She is practically our fourth partner now. In spite of all our training (7 years at architecture school) I realise now we were taught nothing about presenting. Deborah helped us to communicate successfully, but she is about much more than communication skills. She goes straight to the heart of what we are trying to say, what are our best ideas, and feels her way into the audience. She works us hard but she’s great fun and our business is booming thanks to her.
Simon Beckett - Five TV
"..this morning was most useful – so often in my experience creative workshops are all enthusiasm and no substance but yours was a refreshing change and I actually had to work at thinking about what you were saying and what I was thinking (I love metacognition)"

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Like Garr Reynolds, Dan Pink’s A Whole new mind was one of my favourite books of the year. This excellent post makes explicit links between Pink's lexicon and excellent presentation. Pink has defined the essential attributes we all need to develop to succeed, attributes that are predominantly right brain directed thinking.

I tend to turn off at the mention of anything left or right brain- it is a fascinating area of neuroscience that has sadly been hijacked, overused and reduced to incorrect application. But Pink’s research and detailed narrative illustrates how the brain functions can be a useful metaphor to help us understand the skills essential to flourish and succeed in the 21^st Century.

Relating this work to right brain directed functioning, he identifies the six key concepts that we will need as design Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. A beautiful lexicon.

Garrs summation of the book is erudite, provocative and above all else, extremely useful if we are serious about how to use this information to really connect and persuade our audience to adopt our point of view. Like all profound reads, Pink’s can make us feel humble and the temptation is to say so what. Garr has answered the so what question for you.

How can we apply this information to our organizations whose structures, ethos and operations appear to be the antithesis of Pink’s high concept world? Of course Pink realizes that the left brain directed qualities of logic and analysis are still essential but, fundamentally, we are going to need more if we are going to compete, survive and flourish.

In a world of PowerPoint overload I know that it is a presenter’s grasp of how we really connect to an audience that will have real long term discernible commitment.

I love the Art of Presenting as a metaphor and Garr is specific in his descriptions of how those six high concept attributes help an audience to listen and remember. Presenters need to understand the need for clear objectives, beautifully designed slides that augment what they say (not slides that are what they say…) and use evocative, emotional visuals to transfer an idea. It is about understanding how and why people listen, learn and remember.

Garr’s advice on Design and Story are particularly illuminating. I would deconstruct some of this as being inextricably linked to voice, intention, authenticity, energy and presence. These things are harder to define on paper but we know them when they see them. Richard Olivier’s book Peak Performance Presentations is the best I have read at suggesting exercises develop those skills.

Read the blog. And read Pink’s book.

Comments

Hi, I am an English teacher from Jordan, Middle East. I was so hapy to read your notes on creative minds.
I am preparing for a workshop about presentations, and your notes came out so useful to my workshop. Thank you so much.
Suzannah
P.S. I will try to order your books to read "whole new mind" sounds wonderful

Posted by: suzannah | May 02, 2008 at 12:56 PM

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