Positive Leadership: Building a Winning habit with the Golf Boys

Positive Leadership: Building a Winning habit with the Golf Boys

Positive Leadership: Dealing with Pressure

In today's VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, we're surrounded constantly by stress and pressure.

Some people always enjoy pressure. Pressure situations to them are the very essence of life. They are a privilege to enjoy. When you are feeling the pressure it means you are in the game and you must be close to achieving something very important.

This advice about pressure is relevant to life, sport and business. 

1. Work, work, work and focus on the fundamentals

You should always believed in controlling what you can control and not worrying about what your competitors might do. In a new business pitch you should never bother with who else is pitching. All you should focus on is doing what you do best and ensuring you deliver your best on the day. To do this usually means you have to work harder than those you are competing against.

2. Keep it simple

Ignore the politics, the possibilities, the past, and what might happen. Don't over rehearse, don't get into too much detail, just push yourself to be great and deliver the winning outcome.

3. Every game is the same. 

The only thing that changes in the final pitch is the importance of winning or losing. If it's a huge new business opportunity, then the stakes are high. But the game is no different than the game we play every day. The rules are the same. So focus on the game plan, not on the consequences.

4. Play in the now

Our brains crave control and certainty. Therefore, focus on the controllables. It is what we can do that counts, not what the other people might be doing.

5. Don't fear losing

You should have no fear of failure. Winning never comes easy, is rarely predictable, and never follows a straight line. Setbacks always happen. Accept it and you will reduce the stress when they occur. Your energy should then be refocused on the task at hand and handling the problem, not on increasing the stress levels. Setbacks should be converted into passionate feel and belief.

Sean Fitzpatrick, the former All Blacks rugby captian once said that when his team lost a test match, they gathered together and absorbed the pain together. Sean told them to hold that feeling so they knew how badly it felt and they would do anything to avoid it in the future.

Pressure. Bring it on.

Positive Leadership: Dealing with Pressure

Positive Leadership: Memories of #TheMasters

Positive Leadership: Memories of #TheMasters

Positive Leadership: Happy Easter!

Positive Leadership: Happy Easter!

Positive Leadership: What is Character?

"Good character is the quality which makes one dependable whether being watched or not, which makes one truthful when it is to one's advantage to be a little less than truthful, which makes one courageous when faced with great obstacles, which endows one with the firmness of wise self- discipline."  - Arthur S. Adams

Positive Leadership: What is Character?

Positive Leadership: Attention to Detail

One of the most persistent myths about great coaches — who are, of course, interchangeable with great teachers and great leaders — is that their primary job is to come up with Big Ideas. You know, those creative, last-minute, improvised bursts of genius that change everything: the revolutionary strategy, the brilliant 11th-hour gambit, the heart-lifting pregame speech. This myth, born in Hollywood, is built on the governing idea of the coach/teacher/leader as visionary artist — a special one who sees something no one else can see. In other words, the coach as wizard.

It’s a tempting view — because from a distance, it seems to be true enough. The problem is, when you look closely at great coaches/teachers, they’re doing precisely the opposite. They’re not thinking like wizards. They’re thinking like construction workers.

For a revealing glimpse into this mindset, check out the Belichick Breakdowns, a weekly video by the man currently regarded as the greatest living NFL football coach, Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots, who have just played in their fifth Super Bowl in 11 years.

In the series, Belichick analyses half a dozen or so key plays from the previous game. The remarkable thing is what he considers to be key plays — and what he doesn’t. The coach doesn’t focus on the big moments we notice — he skips over all the amazing athletic moves, the key turnovers, and pretty much anything that you might remember from the game. Instead, he focuses exclusively and obsessively on Little Things — the perfectly executed block that turned a 3-yard run into a 5-yard run. The way a defensive player sealed off an end that led to an incompletion. He focuses, time after time, on small moments.

This is not an accident — this is, in fact, his construction-worker mindset in action.  This mindset focuses on three qualities, which can be approached as questions. Think of these questions as the filter in a great coach’s mind, governing his attention and action.

• 1) Is it Replicable? Is this a one-off fluke, or is it an action that can be applied in a variety of situations? Blocking technique matters on every single play. If Belichick were a guitar teacher, he wouldn’t care about that great solo — instead, he’d obsess about thumb position and finger angle, the stuff that matters on every single chord you play.
• 2) Is it Controllable? Is this something that has to do with effort, awareness and planning? If you watch the breakdowns, you’ll see how he makes heroes of players who pay attention, who anticipate, who get to the right spot at the right time. If Belichick were a high-school English teacher teaching Huckleberry Finn, he’d make heroes of the students who are first to spot the themes and connections in the text, because that’s about awareness and effort.
• 3) Is it Connective? Is it related to a successful outcome? Belichick understands that every big play is built on a scaffold of solid technique. So he focuses, like any good construction worker would, on the foundational things that made success possible. Each of those small moves (the perfectly executed block) is in fact vital, because without it all the good luck (the big pass play) never happens. If Belichick were a sales consultant, he’d focus on the first ten seconds of the sales call — because without a warm emotional connection, the sale would never happen.

It’s no accident that Belichick’s Super Bowl counterpart was Tom Coughlin of the NY Giants, who’s cut of a similar construction-worker cloth. If you watched this year’s Super Bowl you saw the Giants win with an overtime field goal in wet conditions. It turns out that the Giants practiced all week snapping and kicking wet balls — they soaked them in a water tank. It probably seemed silly and small and obsessive at the time. But in fact, they were building toward a win.

Positive Leadership: Attention to Detail

Positive Leadership: Becoming a Champion

Challengers and champions. Runners-up and front-runners. Pedestrian and pandemonium. Often what separates these things happens in a moment.

Positive Leadership: Becoming a Champion

Positive Leadership: Writing a Start-Up BusinessPlan

Before you send your start-up business plan ideas to a prospective funder, you should think about the Elements of Sustainable Companies and Writing a Business Plan.

Elements of Sustainable Companies

Start-ups with these characteristics have the best chance of becoming enduring companies. Investors like to partner with start-ups that have:

Clarity of Purpose

Summarise the company's business on the back of a business card.

Large Markets

Address existing markets poised for rapid growth or change. A market on the path to a £750m potential allows for error and time for real margins to develop.

Rich Customers

Target customers who will move fast and pay a premium for a unique offering.

Focus

Customers will only buy a simple product with a singular value proposition.

Pain Killers

Pick the one thing that is of burning importance to the customer then delight them with a compelling solution.

Think Differently

Constantly challenge conventional wisdom. Take the contrarian route. Create novel solutions. Outwit the competition.

Team DNA

A company’s DNA is set in the first 90 days. All team members are the smartest or most clever in their domain. "A" level founders attract an "A" level team.

Agility

Stealth and speed will usually help beat-out large companies.

Frugality

Focus spending on what's critical. Spend only on the priorities and maximise profitability.

Inferno

Start with only a little money. It forces discipline and focus. A huge market with customers yearning for a product developed by great engineers requires very little firepower.

Writing a Business Plan

Investors like business plans that present a lot of information in as few words as possible. The following business plan format, within 15-20 slides, is all that's needed:

Company Purpose

·         Define the company/business in a single declarative sentence.

Problem

·         Describe the pain of the customer (or the customer’s customer).

·         Outline how the customer addresses the issue today.

Solution

·         Demonstrate your company’s value proposition to make the customer’s life better.

·         Show where your product physically sits.

·         Provide use cases.

Why Now

·         Set-up the historical evolution of your category.

·         Define recent trends that make your solution possible.

Market Size

·         Identify/profile the customer you cater to.

·         Calculate the Total Addressable Market (top down), Serviceable Available Market (bottoms up) and Serviceable Obtainable Market.

Competition

·         List competitors

·         List competitive advantages

Product

·         Product line-up (form factor, functionality, features, architecture, intellectual property).

·         Development roadmap

Business Model

·         Revenue model

·         Pricing

·         Average account size and/or lifetime value

·         Sales & distribution model

·         Customer/pipeline list

Team

·         Founders & Management

·         Board of Directors/Board of Advisors

Financials

·         P&L

·         Balance sheet

·         Cash flow

·         Capitalisation table

·         The deal

Positive Leadership: Writing a Start-Up BusinessPlan

Positive Leadership: Management Lessons from a Triumphant Olympics

Members of the U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team won gold and silver in the sport’s final Olympic event in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. It was the culmination of an amazing winter games for the team, which won medals in all three of the sports’ competitions. It was also one of the more amazing turnaround stories of the Olympics.

How Nordic Combined went from dead last in the world in 1988 to regular trips to the podium is a lesson in slow, deliberate growth managers at struggling companies might take a page from.

Tom Steitz took over as Head Coach for the team in those dark days of 1988, inheriting little money or athletic talent to work with. But he set a methodical approach to turning the team around, and set ambitious goals that put it on the path that would lead to Vancouver.

How do you get from dead last to dominating at the most important contest in the world? Steitz seems some lessons in the team’s transformation that can be applied to business.

Here are some of the lessons he learned from Nordic Combined that he thinks apply to businesses looking to win:

* Move the unproductive out quickly - Right away Steitz overhauled the coaching staff and started to hunt for promising athletes who had good team spirit, who wanted their teammates to do well.

* Set big goals, and plan to build to them - Just attending an Olympics couldn’t be anyone’s goal, Steitz says. They had to want a medal, and every athlete had to be improving whether they were already easily going to make the team or not. Steitz tied those goals to fundraising. He asked sponsors for modest contributions up front, but a promise that they’d give more if the team rose in the world cup rankings. That strategy took them from the worst funded team to the best competing in the 2002 Games.

* Spend time together — Steitz relocated the whole team and all their coaches, nutritionists and medical staff from all over the country to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He lost a third of his athletes and staff, but he knew those who stayed were committed.

Positive Leadership: Management Lessons from a Triumphant Olympics

Positive Leadership: The Effects of Lack of Sleep

One in three British workers suffers from poor sleep, research shows, with stress, computers and taking work home blamed for the lack of quality slumber.

"British employers should be very worried about these findings," said Dr Tony Massey, medical director of Vielife, the health and productivity firm that carried out the assessments between 2009 and 2011. 

"Organisations that have employees that sleep better perform better in the marketplace. Staff who sleep badly say they don't feel good, can nod off at their desk, have trouble concentrating, and are more prone to viruses and infections."

"These are very worrying findings because lack of sleep is a risk factor for a whole range of serious health problems, such as stroke and heart disease," said Massey.

For more, see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/01/chronic-sleep-deprivation-uk-staff

Magnotherapy may help some with sleep problems. For more, see:  

http://www.bioflowsport.com/info-Press

Positive Leadership: The Effects of Lack of Sleep

Positive Leadership: The Secret of Enduring Companies

While it's fun to be the flavour of the week, eBay's top executive, John Donahoe looks up to companies that manage through the tough times as well. 

(For the full interview, see: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/03/01/most-admired-ebay-john-donahoe/)

‘Enduring companies do the "basics" really well: They listen to their customers, have strong cultures with a clear sense of purpose and well-defined values, and have highly engaged employees. But I think great enduring companies also have organizational "character" -- and exhibit this by not being afraid to face up to adversity and embrace difficult change……… But how companies win matters, too. Enduring companies are great because of their purpose, values, culture and leadership.’

Positive Leadership: The Secret of Enduring Companies

Positive Leadership: #gostanford Pre-Game Speech

Good luck to the Stanford Men's Basketball team in tonight's NIT final.

With pre-game speeches like this they should be in good shape!

Positive Leadership: #gostanford Pre-Game Speech

Positive Leadership: Why Clients Work With Us

Clients use Positive Leadership to help execute business strategy and corporate transactions successfully in situations of high pressure, where proven leadership is the key to optimising results.

We have developed a proprietary values led approach to optimising business results. For us, it is the interaction and close synergy between leadership values and business strategy that optimises results. The Values of Positive Leadership™ are the result of our extensive research and many years of business experience.

We help leaders throughout the organisation excel under pressure.

For more information, please contact: graham.watson@positiveleadership.co.uk

Positive Leadership: Why Clients Work With Us

Positive Leadership: Freedom

Today, The George W. Bush Presidential Centre launches The Freedom Collection – a ground-breaking effort to document the struggle for human freedom and democracy around the world. In anticipation of the launch, Dr. Condoleezza Rice talks about the importance of the Freedom Collection and what freedom means to her.


 

Positive Leadership: Freedom

Positive Leadership: Attitude Matters More Than Skill

“Most new hires do not fail on the job due to lack of skill,” says Mark Murphy. Attitude is a bigger issue than skill. 

Consequently, most of our approaches to selecting the right people for the job are dead wrong. 

In Hiring for Attitude, Murphy lists the top five reasons why new hires failed:

1. Coachability (26%): The ability to accept and implement feedback from bosses, colleagues, customers, and others.
2. Emotional Intelligence (23%): The ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions and accurately assess others' emotions.
3. Motivation (17%): Sufficient drive to achieve one’s full potential and excel on the job.
4. Temperament (15%): Attitude and personality suited to the particular job and work environment.
5. Technical Competence (11%): Functional or technical skills required to do the job.

Naturally, we should be concerned whether or not a candidate can do the job, but it should not be the main focus. “Because even the best skills don’t really matter if an employee isn’t open to improving or consistently alienates co-workers, lacks drive, or simply lacks the right personality to succeed in that culture.”

What attitudes work in one culture may not work in another. Attitudes are culture specific. So you first need to discover your organisation’s unique attitudes. Think about the “attitudes that separate your high performers from your middle performers and your low performers from everybody else. You’re not trying to create a laundry list of attitudes but just the—three to seven—“important critical predictors of employee success or failure for your organisation.”

Murphy talks about the kinds of common questions you should never ask—the “tell me about yourself” questions, the behavioural “tell me about a time when” questions, the hypothetical “what would you do if” questions, and the oddball “if you could be any superhero” questions—and how to create the questions and evaluate the answers that differentiate people by the attitudes that are the most important to success in your organisation.

A benefit of determining the attitudes that work best in your organisation is that you can begin to clearly communicate those attitudes to your current employees and develop high performers throughout the whole organisation.

Positive Leadership: Attitude Matters More Than Skill

Positive Leader: Becoming a Global Leader

For aspiring leaders who want to become global citizens and increase their global fluency, here are some suggestions to get started:

1. Target at least one fundamentally different culture. While it may be tempting to live in a culture similar to your own — for example, Britons working in America — the most compelling learning experiences come from living in cultures that are sharply differently from your own. Chinese professionals working in South Africa, for example, will find their existing cultural assumptions challenged as they gain increased humility by learning local languages and coping with different norms.

2. Spend time studying overseas. Studying in different cultures enables young leaders to understand cultural nuances and become actively engaged with global organisations. Global organisations prefer candidates who have studied abroad because these early experiences will broaden your perspective about seeking fascinating global opportunities throughout your life. Look for opportunities, and if you're already out of university, ask if your organisation offers programmes to give you experience abroad.

3. Learn the local language. As English becomes the language of business, it is tempting to get by with limited knowledge of local languages. That's a mistake. Learning local languages enables you to appreciate cultural nuances and develop more personal relationships. Being fluent in multiple languages makes it easier to learn new ones and opens up career opportunities.

4. Don't judge cultural differences or local people. When your new environment is sharply different from prior experiences, it's tempting to make snap judgments about your experiences and stay attached to your own culture. Resist that temptation by observing, listening, learning, and understanding rather than judging. Use your insights to improve local ways of operating, but don't rush to criticise.

5. Share international experiences with your family. Living in new countries brings your family much closer together and will be a time for growth, bonding and learning as a family. Hold parties for your local neighbours join a local church and get involved in your children's school. Host regular visits from parents and close friends. Balance breadth and depth in your travels to explore many different areas and countries, and spend time talking with local people. But don't travel so much that you fail to get deeply involved in your new community and explore its richness.

Positive Leader: Becoming a Global Leader

Positive Leadership: Purpose is Fundamental to Winning

A 'first' from the best university won't guarantee success if you don't have purpose. Purpose is fundamental to winning. Without it, you won't have a clear idea of where you're going and getting to your destination will be much more challenging. At Positive Leadership, our Purpose is: "To help leaders excel under pressure". 

We recently came across a post by a young motivational speaker named Jullien Gordon which got us thinking about the scores that really matter in life. According to Jullien, the first (or 4.0 GPA) that really matters relates to personal, intellectual, social and financial capital. Like an academic GPA, you're in complete control and can increase your score by developing each of these areas:

Personal: Get to know yourself. Here are our three 'killer' questions: What's my five year dream? When am I at my best? What will I never do?

Intellectual: Develop your areas of expertise. Be curious. Be creative.

Social: Grow your social network. This has nothing to do with Facebook and everything to do with the people cheering you on, supporting your professional and personal growth. 

Financial: This is the intersection of the other three areas - when the right people are aware of your skills and strengths, financial opportunities will start appearing.

Positive Leadership: Purpose is Fundamental to Winning

Positive Leadership: Interesting Comparisons Between Positive Leadership and England Rugby

Positive Leadership: Interesting Comparisons Between Positive Leadership and England Rugby

Positive Leadership: Is Ambition Good For You?

People who are considered ambitious attend the best colleges and universities, have prestigious careers and earn high salaries, but they don't necessarily lead more successful lives, according to new research by Timothy Judge, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.

The lead author of "On the Value of Aiming High: The Causes and Consequences of Ambition" forthcoming from the Journal of Applied Psychology, Judge seeks to create a better understanding of ambition--a commonly mentioned but poorly understood concept in social science research-- and its consequences.

Is it a virtue, or is it a vice? Both, says Judge.

"If ambition has its positive effects, and in terms of career success it certainly seems that it does, our study also suggests that it carries with it some cost," Judge says. "Despite their many accomplishments, ambitious people are only slightly happier than their less- ambitious counterparts, and they actually live somewhat shorter lives."

Tracking 717 high-ability individuals over seven decades, Judge uses multiple criteria to measure ambition during periods of participants' lives ranging from childhood to young adults just beginning their careers. Their education ranged from attending some of the world's best universities -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, Berkeley, Oxford, and Notre Dame. – to more modest educations, including high school diplomas and community college degrees.

"Ambitious kids had higher educational attainment, attended highly esteemed universities, worked in more prestigious occupations, and earned more," Judge says. "So, it would seem that they are poised to 'have it all.' However, we determined that ambition has a much weaker effect on life satisfaction and actually a slightly negative impact on longevity (how long people lived). So, yes, ambitious people do achieve more successful careers, but that doesn't seem to translate into leading happier or healthier lives."

Judge's new ambition study tracks individuals born in the early part of the last century and continued to follow them throughout their lives, which is how the mortality measure was derived, however it doesn't address the underlying reasons for the higher mortality of ambitious people.

"Perhaps the investments they make in their careers come at the expense of the things we know affect longevity: healthy behaviours, stable relationships and deep social networks."

Most parents want their kids to be ambitious, attend the best schools and eventually have successful careers, and while it certainly isn't wrong to have those parental hopes and dreams, Judge cautions that we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking they will make our kids happier.

"If your biggest wish for your children is that they lead happy and healthy lives, you might not want to overemphasise professional success. There are limits to what our ambitions bring us- or our children." 

Positive Leadership: Is Ambition Good For You?

Positive Leadership: Leadership Lessons from Coach K

Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski now has most NCAA career victories (903). Krzyzewski has been called “the modern-day John Wooden” by Louisville coach Rick Pitino and “a coach’s coach … a guy I think every coach in America looks to and respects,” by Kansas coach Bill Self. He has led the Blue Devils to 11 Final Four appearances and four national titles. In this extract from an interview with Jerry Kavanagh for Athlon Sports, Krzyzewski showed an appreciation for literature in speaking about his coaching style and leadership.

'In the book Absinthe and Flamethrowers, the author, William Gurstelle, writes that managers who take the greatest risks are the most successful. Do you agree with that?

I think you have to be careful when you say that. Somebody might think that to be a leader or a manager, “I need to take a lot of risks, or else I’m not good.” I think you can’t be afraid to do what’s necessary. Some people would equate that to taking a risk because it goes against the grain or it’s not something that is normally done. But my feeling is that a leader has to take the course of action that’s necessary to produce a positive result after doing an analysis and preparing himself to take a look at that situation. The world might call that a risk; a leader would call that the appropriate action that needed to be taken. I think when you just take that one statement (by Gurstelle), you can make a mistake by saying, “I didn’t take a risk today. I better take one.” I think you go boldly in the direction that’s necessary and in the direction that you’re prepared to go in.

You often talk about leadership. Napoleon defined a leader as “a dealer in hope.” I read where you said, “Leadership can be lonely.” Can you explain that?

Well, leadership is lonely because you don’t discuss everything. Part of it is that in your moments of doubt or in your moments of being nervous or wondering if this is the right thing that you’re doing, you never want to show weakness to your group. And you don’t share that because it’s not the main feeling you have, but because you’re a human being these feelings hit you. Leadership can be very lonely, but there’s a certain amount of time that you have to be by yourself, it has to be yours as you’re looking into it, before you present something to your group. I think that’s a price that you pay.

Some of the statements you have made have an application beyond basketball. For example, “Fear can change you.” What do you mean by that?

Some people are afraid of fear, so they avoid it. They don’t try to do anything. They’re very cautious. And when you get into new situations, there’s an element of fear that can excite you. It can freeze you or stop you from doing something, because it’s new. It can be exciting, but there’s still some fear involved. And I don’t think that you have to face fear. You know, part of being courageous is facing fear and doing what you’re supposed to do. People have different fears — fear of speaking, fear of heights, a bunch of fears — and when you face those fears, you can turn them into your strengths. That’s how you evolve as a person and how a group evolves as a team.'

Positive Leadership: Leadership Lessons from Coach K

Positive Leadership: The Importance of 'Organisational Socialisation'

Positive Leadership: The Importance of 'Organisational Socialisation'

Positive Leadership: 'Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man'

This is an inspiring piece from Henry Winter in The Daily Telegraph:

(For the full article, see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/bolton-wanderers/9154414/Bolton-Manager-Owen-Coyle-has-shown-inspirational-leadership-during-these-troubled-days.html )

"The Glaswegian has been an inspiring leader during these troubled days, not simply in the support he has shown [Farbice] Muamba’s family and the way he has tended his distressed flock.

Coyle has handled the media adroitly, always exuding positivity. In times of darkness, football needs beacons of hope and Coyle has lit them across the land.

A humble character, Coyle will hate this sentiment but it needs chronicling for all time that he has embedded himself so deeply in the affections of the Bolton public.

As a player, Coyle lifted Bolton up once before, helping them rise to the Premier League via the play-offs in 1995.

As a manager, Coyle has now lifted the club off its knees.

The nation has also seen and admired somebody assuming responsibility when most required. So ‘66 was a great year for English football: Owen Coyle was born.

This is a man of principle, a figure who inspires trust amongst his players.

It is astonishing to consider that earlier this season Coyle’s leadership credentials were being questioned. Not now. Not after these past few days.

Whatever fate befalls Bolton this season, and the feeling endures that they could be acquiring the quickening resolve (as well as players like Rio Miyaichi) to scrap their way out of the relegation basement, Coyle’s reputation has been enhanced. His critics have been scattered.

Some men are made for such moments. Again, Coyle will hate the praise. That’s not his style. Never has been.

In company, the former Republic of Ireland international is modest and bright, talking almost too quickly such is the abundance of ideas spilling forth.

Attending one of Kevin Davies’ golf days last year, I suggested a quick coffee with Coyle in the clubhouse and listened spellbound to his espousal of the passing game and of football’s role in the community.

Coyle enthuses people, especially players. It is little surprise that managers like Arsenal’s Arsène Wenger entrust him with youngsters like Miyaichi and particularly Jack Wilshere, who flourished on loan under Coyle.

Chelsea’s Daniel Sturridge also matured as man and player during his spell at the Reebok.

It is also little surprise that Bolton’s dressing-room is home to some of the more thoughtful souls in the game like Davies, Sam Ricketts, Stuart Holden, Nigel Reo-Coker and Muamba.

They enjoy working with such a shrewd teacher as Coyle.

If Coyle has been seen in the right light over the past few days, the game he loves and serves so well has been viewed in a different light…….”

Positive Leadership: 'Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man'

Positive Leadership: Improving Your Presentation

In 2009, Haroon Mirza’s start-up, CognoVision,  was named most innovative company by the Canadian Innovation Exchange. He attributes the accomplishment, at least in part, to the pitch he delivered prior to being awarded the prestigious title.

Shortly after winning, Mr. Mirza’s facial-recognition software business was purchased by Intel for millions of dollars.

The pitch may be an art, not an exact science, but Mr. Mirza has a few simple techniques he says can help anyone improve their public speaking:

Say the pitch out loud as many times as possible in advance

Mr. Mirza always thought Steve Jobs was the best presenter in the world. “He looks so natural. I remember I read somewhere that he spent more than a month preparing for every presentation, and it made me think that if Steve Jobs spends that much time preparing, how does anybody wing it?”

If forgetting lines and feeling self-conscious in front of an audience are two things that make a presenter nervous, go through dry runs to get used to the content, allowing greater flexibility to articulate it, and familiarise yourself with performing.

You don’t know all the answers

And that’s all right. Meticulous preparation is important, and being able to answer any questions from prospective investors, venture capitalists or anyone else for that matter, speaks to a presenter’s confidence and knowledge of a product. However, not knowing all the answers does not mean failure.

“If someone asks you a question and you don’t know the answer, do not attempt to make it up on the spot,” Mr. Mirza advises. “These people can smell BS and as soon as they do, you lose credibility. The best way to handle the situation is to be honest; saying something like ‘I don’t have that information at the moment but I’ll look into it immediately and be sure to follow up.’”

Read

Seriously. Mr. Mirza thinks of it as investing in yourself. When researching the people he thought were the best public speakers – Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs – he noticed one thing they had in common was that they were well-read. Exposure to so much material likely helped them articulate their own.

“So I started reading more, I expanded my vocabulary, I learned how to better articulate my ideas, and I think in this way the presenter earns the respect of the audience.”

Storytelling as a competitive advantage

The audience feeds off the energy of a presenter. When the speaker is nervous, so is everyone else in the room. A confident, measured delivery can help a presenter maintain control. That’s why Mr. Mirza tries to make each presentation like telling a story.

“Say you’re presenting to a venture capitalist. If you’re a great storyteller, you transfer that enthusiasm to the audience and you get them feeling involved in what you’re saying. Excellent presentation skills are an unfair advantage; when you’re really good and you make it look easy, it’s unfair to everyone else who has to present against you.”

Positive Leadership: Improving Your Presentation

Positive Leadership: Attitude

Positive Leadership: Attitude