BY MOJE RAMOS-AQUINO, FPM

I am heartened to receive two boxfuls of books (79 glorious books!) from my friends at the American Society for Training & Development to help me replenish my own library that was damaged by Typhoon Ondoy. Noted editor, author and Human Resource professional Elaine Biech sent me 29 books earlier. Wow, having friends is a wonderful thing!

One book that particular attracted me is Presenting Learning: Ensure CEOs get the value of learning by ASTD President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Bingham and Mr. Presentation himself, Tony Jeary.

So let’s continue discussing presentations that persuade with the help of the two amazing Tony’s. These are some new ideas I learned from them about presentations, learning and human relations.

• Interactions (presentations) with other people are not isolated, separate events; they are touch-points in a continuous, self-reinforcing cycle of communication. They have everything to do with “relationship building,” “sales,” “marketing” and “bridge building”, which are common organizational terms for presenting to and influencing other people.

• Presentation Masters are constantly looking for ways to negotiate win-win situations in which both parties feel as if they got something valuable. This feeling is important because people hate being taken advantage of. Conversely, they love feeling that they got a good deal. If you win a negotiation but the other party feels manipulated or outmaneuvered, you end up sending a ball of negative energy hurtling throughout the organization, one that can gather force and come back to haunt you. In the long term, it is much more advantageous to have allies than enemies, and negotiations of all types are opportunities to solidify personal relationships of all types that might pay off in the future.

• Although people may feel an impulse to reciprocate when they receive something from someone, the reciprocity rules doesn’t mean that people will actually do something in return, but it does mean that given the opportunity to reciprocate, they will try to do so. Presentation Masters use this principle to their advantage by sending goodwill whenever they can. They have faith in the principle that “what goes around comes around.” The more alliances you build—that is, the more people who support you, especially at the higher levels of the organization—the more power you will have to influence outcomes.

• One of the most persuasive ways to communicate the value of learning is to involve people, especially executives, in the learning and development process either through direct participation or teaching as a subject matter.

• Make a priority of knowing what your value to an organization is and how to communicate what you’re worth. Creating and communicating value should be strategic imperatives.

• Build your presentation arsenal with stories, anecdotes, magazine articles, book references, data and charts. But don’t fill them and forget them; practice using this material, especially stories and anecdotes, in front of different audiences to see how they react.

• Strong personal relationships are paramount, but it’s not just whom you know that counts—it’s how you cultivate, nurture, and maintain relationships that matter.

• Always listen for opportunities to help someone else achieve their goals.  Help them if you can, even if you aren’t getting anything directly out of it.

• Listen to your toughest critics; they can usually teach you something.

Get a copy of the book and learn more.

ASTD 2010 ICE: The ASTD annual conference and exposition will be held on May 16 to 19 at the McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois. Join our delegation to avail of big discounts on registration fees (Delegation code 201002038) and travel package (Jennie Martin 536-0414).

One of the three keynote speakers is Daniel Pink. He is the author of four provocative, best-selling books on the changing world of work; namely, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need.

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