Sid (name changed for anonymity) was a young and intelligent mid-level manager responsible for customer care operations with a strength of around 50 employees. Sid loved his job of managing a large team, adhering to the quality guidelines and TAT’s and providing reports to his supervisors along with key insights. But, there was only one thing that Sid disliked about his job, making presentations during the monthly and quarterly reviews and conducting classroom training for his team members. Sid used to be anxious during the presentation and that used to impact his voice and body language – making him appear nervous and unsure.
In fact, this was the only reason that his promotion to next level was delayed as he was unable to articulate his achievements during the promotion panel presentation process. Sid’s manager and his HR team had enrolled him for presentation skill and communication skill workshop, but it didn’t help. Sid’s anxiety continued. He felt he couldn’t grow.
I met Sid through a friend and we struck up an informal conversation. He mentioned about his challenge with public speaking/ presentation skills. During our first session, Sid realized that it wasn’t about the skill, rather it about what was going on inside his mind during/ before the presentation. Sid mentioned that one of the key reasons for him to feel anxious was that English wasn’t the language of instruction in school and he was conscious about it. Sid assumed that the audience would notice this and that made him conscious, thus leading to a feeling of anxiety.
My work with Sid was based on one of the NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) presuppositions that “The mind and body are parts of the same system”. It has been scientifically proven that whatever happens to one affects the other. It basically means that what we think impacts our feelings and how we feel impacts our thinking or thoughts.
Thoughts have significant effects on the physiology of the body. Our thoughts affect our breathing pattern, muscle tension, posture, facial expression, and feelings, in other words, our physical well-being. Similarly, how our feelings impact our thoughts. In his book “The Charismatic Edge”, Owen Fitzpatrick says that “Physiology refers to how we hold our body. It considers whether or not your head is held up, whether or not you’re smiling, how you’re walking, what your posture is like – in short, how your body is positioned and moving. There’s a certain physiology attached to personal charisma”.
With Sid, it was his assumption that was making him self-conscious. During our sessions, we focused on two things that helped him get better at the skill– reference of a successful public speaker who was educated in a language other than English and his intent while delivering a presentation or a speech. We worked towards creating an intent wherein he shifted his focus from what audience thought about him to whether the audience was learning what he wanted them to learn or were getting the intended information.
Does this article trigger any thoughts? Please share in the comments section below.
References – www.mymotivational-nlp.com and The Charismatic Edge: The Art of Captivating and Compelling Communication by Owen Fitzpatrick
