Well, you will be when you learn to “Speak Like A STAR”
Yep, here is another acronym. They are easier to learn and remember though.
One of the things you will have to learn to succeed in most jobs is to speak, or at least speak up in teams, and in front of your peers and your leaders and employers. Now I know this might scare the absolute bejeebies (whatever they are) out of some. It doesn’t have to though. Like everything, if you have a plan or a strategy, and practice a little, it can remove the fear of it for you.
Let’s have a look how the DISC profiles are affected by speaking in public. Remember these are natural behaviours and are not right or wrong – they just are. So we don’t pass judgement, and we don’t attribute motivation to anything re- DISC. It is just the way you were born, and that’s ok. So…
Each of us have different challenges when it comes to speaking in public. Equally we all have a lot to give. Do the following exercise to get prepared and a little more comfortable for speaking public.
After you have made a list, for each item make some notes on how you do it. This will give you confidence when you eventually have to get uo and speak in public.
S = Situation T = Task A = Action R = Result
Situation: First state what the situation is, like a summary. Try to keep it to one sentence. Remember a short speech is a good speech. To help with this, ask yourself Where, Who and When. this will give you a good summary.
Task: Next briefly explain or re-cap the task. Again one sentence is enough.To help frame your sentence start with What, and then add the Why if it is appropriate.
Action: State what you did, or are going to do to solve the problem or deliver the result. Use How to frame this part of your statement.
Result: Lastly simply present what happened. To keep this concise, just cover the 4 points in one sentence. As a summary.
Here is an example of STAR in action
Someone asks you what the highlight of your week at work was. As it happens, you had a great week, and there is a lot to talk about. You use STAR to focus your answer so you don’t bore your friends and so that you send a clear message.
You respond: “On Tuesday, I was in a director’s meeting at our head office. I was asked to present last year’s sales figures to the group. I pulled out my laptop, fired up PowerPoint, and presented my slide show. Everyone was wowed by my prep work, and by our great figures!”
Did you get the STAR breakdown?
This format can be compressed for quick conversations, or expanded for lengthy presentations. Practice framing statements with STAR, and see how much more confident you feel when communicating in public.
This process helps you stick to the facts at hand, not waffling on, and importantly not wasting everyones time. Give detail where it is needed, leave it out if its not. Sure, make an appropriate funny if you must, but be very careful of the company culture and remember what is funny to you, is not always funny to others. If in doubt – don’t. Be confident and speak up. If you have practiced then there should be no problem. At the end of this course I will give you some NLP tips ( Neuro Linguistic Programming) that will help here.
For now here are a few simple ones: