“Girl” Used to be Genderless

The word “girl”, in English, was not initially used to refer to a specific gender.  It used to mean “child” or “young person” regardless of the gender.  The word originated circa 1300, from “gyrle”, meaning “child”, or “young person” of either gender, but more frequently females.  The origin is said to be Low German, but that is uncertain.  It is speculated that it came from unrecorded Old English “gyrele”, from Proto-Germanic “gurwilon-“, a diminutive of “gurwjoz”, which apparently also represented Low German “gære”, Norwegian dialectal “gorre”, Swedish dialectal “gurre”, all meaning some variation of “small child”. 

“Girl” does not go back to any Old English or Old Germanic form.  It is part of a large group of Germanic words whose root begins with a “g” or “k” and ends in “r”.  The final consonant in “girl” is a diminutive suffix.  The “g-r” words denote young animals, children, and all kinds of creatures considered immature, of low value, or past their prime. 

It is only from the late 14^th century where it acquires the specific meaning of “female child”.  From the mid-15^th century, it was applied to any young unmarried woman.  From the 1640s, it was used as a term of endearment, meaning “sweetheart”.  As recorded from 1826, “old girl” was used in reference to a woman of any age.

Delivering a Great Business Presentation

Steven Paul Jobs, the late founder of Apple, was the master of the business presentation.  When he spoke, Apple stock surged.  When he gave an opinion, it moved the market.  He was never a Toastmaster.  He delivered like one anyway, because he used the same techniques we use in Toastmasters, only better.

Nothing in a great presentation happens by accident, even when it looks that way.  Every pause serves a purpose.  Every filler, every gap between points, is placed there for effect.  Every hand gesture, every glance, every step, is deliberate.  The best speakers make a presentation look natural because enormous amounts of work go into perfecting the delivery.  That means practice, and then more practice.  Constant rehearsal leaves less room for mistakes.  Jobs proved this on stage in January 2007, unveiling the iPhone at Macworld.  He opened by promising three revolutionary products, a widescreen iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator, before revealing all three were a single device.  Biographer Walter Isaacson later confirmed Jobs rehearsed that keynote for weeks, timing every pause against the audience reaction he expected.  The misdirection felt spontaneous.  It was scripted to the second.

“10x” Beats “10%”

Lawrence Edward Page, co-founder of Google, originated the “Gospel of 10x.”  Most companies settle for a 10 per cent improvement.  Page argued that figure is too incremental to separate a company from its rivals.  He pushed his teams to build products ten times better than the competition, a target that forces a rethink of fundamentals rather than a polish of what already exists.  Google’s own moonshot division, Google X, was built around this standard, chasing self-driving cars and internet-delivering balloons rather than incremental search tweaks, because a 10 per cent gain was never the point of the exercise.

Committing to ten times improvement in a presentation is not about rehearsing the pitch harder.  It is about rethinking how the pitch lands.  It is not what we say.  It is what the audience hears.  It is mastery of the correct rhetorical device, practised again and again until it runs on instinct.  In business, this means closing the deal, securing the funding, moving the share price, whatever outcome the presentation exists to produce.  A convincing performance married to a compelling argument gets that buy-in, whether the audience is a customer, an investor, or a regulator.  If none of that motivates the presenter, he has no business standing up there.

The First Thirty Seconds, and the Last

The first thirty seconds decide everything.  Fail to seize attention, fail to spark curiosity, fail to make the audience want to be part of what comes next, and the rest of the presentation is wasted regardless of its quality.  Open with a strong, compelling statement.  It sets the frame for everything that follows.

The last thirty seconds carry the call to action.  A great deal gets said in most presentations.  Too little of it gets done.  A presentation without a clear call to action has failed, and that call must loop back to the opening statement, reinforcing it rather than introducing a new idea at the last minute.  The opening presents the problem.  The body presents the solution.  The close asks the audience to adopt it.  That structure is the entire pitch.

Fewer Words Carry More Weight

A presentation must sound credible and concise.  Effective communication means saying more with less, not filling the clock with words.  If three words carry the meaning, do not use five.  If five words carry it, do not use ten.  Read every sentence back, and cut any word that can disappear without losing the sentence’s intent.  That includes every filler word crowding the draft.

Embrace the pause.  The uncomfortable silence between points is not dead air.  It gives the audience time for their emotions to catch up, and time to grasp the depth of what is being presented, so they recognise the need the pitch is there to address.

Rehearsal must simulate the actual stress of the room.  Present in front of a crowd.  Deliver the same material to different crowds, and watch how the reaction shifts.  Then adjust, and repeat.  Rehearse in front of a difficult audience too, one that interrupts, checks a phone, or walks in and out mid-sentence, because a real audience will do that.

Most presenters fail to prepare for the questioning that follows.  Business presentations carry a question-and-answer segment, and a strong pitch can still collapse under a weak answer.  Prepare for the hard questions with the same rigour used on the scripted material.

Record every rehearsal.  Study three things: body language, vocal variety, and stage use.  Body language means economy of movement and deliberate gesture.  Watch for nervous tics, wasted motion, and pacing with no purpose.  The presenter is meant to be the fixed point in the room, the audience’s anchor.  Every movement should serve the narrative or highlight a specific point.  A speaker who moves too much loses credibility and is seen as less convincing.

Vocal variety governs pace.  Speak too fast, and the room sees nerves or a lack of discipline.  Speak too slowly, and it loses attention.  Hold one pace for the entire presentation, and it loses the room regardless of speed.  Change pace at intervals to shock attention back into place.  Raise the voice to project excitement.  Lower it to draw the room in, as if sharing a secret, the answer to the problem the pitch exists to solve.

A Diverse Panel of Evaluators Matters

None of this becomes visible without recording the presentation and reviewing it with qualified evaluators.  Identify what worked and what did not.  Listen for whether specific points, using the intended emotional appeal alongside the intended logical one.  The argument must appeal convincingly to the audience’s self-interest.  Good evaluators review the speech after every rehearsal, with feedback weighed honestly for what to keep and what to cut.  That feedback might target the strength of the argument, the choice of words, or the method of delivery.  The evaluator panel itself needs to be diverse, to reflect the demographic the presentation is built to move.

There is no mystery to delivering a great business presentation.  There is a process, and there is real work behind it.  A pitch done properly can be worth billions and can move people.  That is what the work is for.

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Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters

How to Value Your Business Idea

Investors and funders encounter people with business ideas across every industry, looking for funding.  In most cases, these would be entrepreneurs overvalue their ideas.  In some cases, they have no idea how valuable the idea they have is.  There is always an angle, perhaps a minor part of the entire premise that has potential beyond what they conceive.  There is no shame in a founder not recognising the true value of his idea.  When they deal with venture capital and angel investors, they are dealing with sharks, with years of experience, with a team of analysts. 

Here are some points to consider when assessing the true worth of what any founder brings to the table.  Of course, these are generalities.  There are people who are exceptions to the rule.  Exceptions to the rule tend to be straightforward and to the point. 

When meeting investors, there are three main scenarios.  If they ask polite questions, and then say they will contact you or consider it, they likely will not.  They are not interested, or the idea is simply not good enough.  Sometimes, especially with institutional investors, the questions are quite in depth and confrontational.  In such a case, due diligence has started, but they need to be convinced.  There may be a good proposition in there, but it does not have enough potential, or it needs some refining, or simply, it could be a great idea, but they do not believe in you or your team. 

Or, there is the third scenario.  This is when the investor asks questions about the structure of the company, the nature of the idea, the market positioning, the genesis of the idea, and so forth.  They want to know how it works, and how you came up with it.  The more confrontational the questions, the more probing they are, the more interested they are.  This is both a good sign and a dangerous one.  In such a case, you know you have hooked them.  What you want is their money.  You give them enough for them to understand what you are presenting, but not enough for them to take what they need and start it somewhere else. 

In such an interaction, you need to pay attention to the questions, and the direction it takes.  You need to note what they specifically ask for.  That is their angle.  That is what they are looking at.  At that juncture, you should go back and relook that specific aspect, and see if you can see the opportunity in it. 

If the idea has potential, there is likely an established company working on it.  In that confrontational series of questions, if the investors lip up and mention that a larger company is working on the same issue, it is a validation of your idea.  That larger company may have the resources and personnel, but it does not guarantee success.  The difference is that you have only this ideas, this one shot to succeed, and all your effort is poured into this.  For a larger corporation, it is likely one initiative our of a series of initiatives.  There are more layers of management, and they will move slower.  What you are now selling is exclusivity, something investors will not have with a larger company, where they are simply one our of a group of shareholders. 

It is important to remember is that when you pitch, you are not actually selling the idea.  You are really selling yourself as a credible, capable person, qualified and determined to implement that idea.  A person can have a great idea, but if the investors do not believe in his capabilities and qualities, they will pass, or they will look to buy you out of your own idea or company. 

There are two ways to gain this credibility.  The first is to have a successful exit.  Everyone loves a winner,  This does not solve the problem for people doing this for the first time.  The second way is to build your credibility as an industry expert.  This means writing about it, this means speaking about it, this means presenting about it in forums.  If you are capable of articulating your ideas, analysing industry trends, explaining consequences and developments; you are seen as an authority, and an authority in the industry gets those meetings with investors.  They get that funding and that backing.  This halo effect increases the value of your ideas. 

To get a sense of the value of your product, or service, speak to people who would constitute the target demographic.  People are invariably polite, even investors.  If what you present does not excite them, they are likely to say that this is a good idea, and they will give you advise.  This is a “no”.  If your deck, if your presentation does not excite them, go back to the drawing board.  When they start saying they are interested in getting it, or how it would take the market, or how it excites them; that means the deck works, and the value of the idea goes up.  This means people are willing to put money down, not just words. 

You know when your idea has traction when people are unhappy about the alternatives they have.  As long as there is some dissatisfaction, and you are able to address it, you have a market, and when you have a market, your idea has a value commensurate to that potential market and its immediate growth. 

In summary, if you only need a good enough idea; it does not have to be great.  As long as you are seen as a credible founder, you will get backing.  As long as you can address a need, that is your market.  As long as you can get people excited, you will have fans, not just customers.  When you can quantify those fans and the market, you have an idea what your idea is worth, and that puts you in a better position when you value your capitalisation table prior to seeking funding.

The Process of Drafting a Strategic Plan

In every organisation, we often hear talk about new “strategic initiatives”, a new “strategic direction”, even a new “strategy”.  The issue is not that they are not effective, but that too many people, even in management, do not necessarily understand what “strategy” or “strategic planning” is.  Strategic planning is a process in where leaders of an organisation come together to ascertain their vision for the future, over the horizon, as well as identify specific goals and objectives.  The process must also include establishing the sequence in which those goals should fall so that the organisation is enabled to reach its stated vision.  This process is termed the mission. 

In reality, we have few such documents which effectively lay out any form of strategic plan.  Most such plans are, in effect, implementation of specific actions, with no consideration of the wider strategic positioning of the organisation.  Since the strategic goals are not addressed, or sometimes, even identified, they do not help the long-term positioning of the company.  Sometimes, we have these plans even working at cross-purposes to it.  There are is a certain methodology towards crafting an effective strategic plan. 

The very first step is the identification of stakeholders.  The world functions on self-interest.  People need to have a stake in the success of the organisation.  If they are disenfranchised, they are either unmotivated, or worse, they would work against the organisation, and become a threat to be addressed.  There are two kinds of stakeholders, what we call the internal customers and the external customers.  Internal stakeholders would be staff or volunteers, management, investors, shareholders, and any group within the organisation.  External stakeholders would include customers and clients, vendors, and regulatory authorities. 

The second step is to define the target demographic.  Defining the client or customer also means defining their motivations, and how we are to address them to seize market share.  There is no one type of customer base.  There is always a range, and the means to gain their interest may vary.  This allows focus in hiring and development since no organisation can achieve market dominance in every market, or leadership in every area.  Resources have to be marshalled and judiciously deployed. 

The third step is to qualify and quantify the needs of these stakeholders.  It is not enough to know who they are if we do not understand what we can offer them, and how we build that relationship with latent control in the power dynamic.  Just as we want to attractive to stakeholders, the organisation must also be clear about what it wants in return.  This is a transactional relationship, not pure altruism.  Organisations often make one of two mistakes: they either give too much with too little in return, or they do not value stakeholders, and lose them. 

Once we have addressed these three points, it is important to continuously track these relationships in terms of personnel turnover and growth, market share, client loyalty and such like.  This is a constant race of continuous improvement.  It is from these that strategic plans are developed, and strategic positions taken.  What we are advocating here is a series of steps to develop a system, not the system itself.  What makes it work is the values behind it: an unstinting culture of excellence.

Addressing Forms of Team Demotivation

“Motivation” is a noun.  The plural noun is “motivations”.  Motivation is a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way, or a desire or willingness to do something; or the state of enthusiasm.  In a business or organisational context, motivation is the enthusiasm to get the job done, by starting rather than procrastinating, by persisting in the teeth of challenges.  Motivation is the driver of organisational and business growth.  As such, loss of motivation, or motivational failure, in human resource jargon, can be fatal. 

To address loss of motivation, we need to consider the reasons for that loss.  According to research, these reasons fall into four categories, what the researchers have labelled motivation traps.  They are a mismatch of values mismatch, a lack of self-efficacy, disruptive emotions, attribution errors.  It is important we understand the nature of failure in order to address it. 

The first, and perhaps, the most common is the mismatch of values.  People are moved by self-interest.  There has to be something in it for them, and it should be worth the effort.  When the employee, the volunteer, the person in question, feels a disconnect with the task, or if they are sceptical of its value, they experience and erosion of motivation. 

This is easily addressed.  The work distributed must be explained within the context of the whole so that they understand that their contribution is crucial.  People want to feel valued.  If there is interest value, where there is a compelling intellectual connection, people will be motivated.  It appeals to their self-esteem and their ego, because now, there is a sense of self-worth and value to their contribution.  Related to this is the sense of identity.  People identify with their occupations when there is a sense of esteem or prestige associated with it.  This is why companies spend money and effort to give titles to even the most mundane position.  A better way would be to draw out the specific capabilities of the person, and how that is related to the task or job at hand. 

This also points out to the importance of the task.  One of the quirks of organisations and teams is that we sometimes overlook how crucial specific tasks or jobs are simply because we do not realise their worth.  Too many leaders assume the most important tasks have the highest profile.  In fact, a good administrator or coordinator, for example, is the foundation that holds everything together.  This must be highlighted.  It builds respect in the team, and raises the morale of the support team.  There is value in utility which must be reflected in importance.  Additionally, compensation must be commensurate to work and responsibilities.  This is the basic measure of importance. 

Secondly, motivation is tied to confidence.  When people believe they are not up to a specific task, they are demotivated.  This is where we work on building their confidence, having mentorship, and putting in place training before assigning a task.  This is because, people who lack competency in a task naturally assume that success at a particular task requires the investment of far more time and effort than they are willing to afford.  We need to convey to the that they have greater ability than they realise, provide mentorship, and bolster their confidence and esteem.  This is a major part of people management. 

On the other hand, we also have the situation where people are demotivated because they feel a task is beneath them, and they are over qualified.  The assignment of the task to them could be seen as an insult, and this creates tension.  People with an inflated sense of importance are one of the greatest human resource challenges, since they tend to challenge the system, and make mistakes.  These people cannot be mentored; they must first be disabused of these notions of overconfidence.  Otherwise, they take no responsibility for their mistakes.  Unless these people have some value to the team that makes it worth the effort to accommodate them, it is simply more expedient to discard them for the sake of team harmony.  Otherwise, it may be possible to reframe the importance of the task, and make them understand its worth. 

Another form of demotivation is caused by negative emotions.  This happens to the best of people.  Due to events such as divorce, a death in the family, or other concerns, they could be having anxiety, depression, anger, or grief.  This requires a different management tack: empathy.  Sometimes, people simply need time.  Other times, they need to be given space.  And when they have had time to process these emotions, we sit down with them and have a conversation.  The intent is to engage in active listening. 

Different types of emotions require a different method of response.  People who are consumed by anger are often overwhelmed with a sense of injustice.  This is addressed by getting them to focus on the perceived injustice or wrong and reframe it.  The next step is to consider legal and effective means of remedying that wrong.  This empowers them.  If it is depression, their sense of self-worth is affected.  It is not possible to point out that any sense of inadequacy is an illusion logically, since this is not about logic.  Rather, we address this by pointing them in a different direction, to focus on what they feel adequate at, and build them from there.  Anxiety and grief are relatively easier to address, and require a listening ear.  In any case, should these emotions be overwhelming, it makes sense to have them engage a professional. 

Finally, people get demotivated due to a misattribution of errors.  This means they either cannot identify where they went wrong in a task, or they misattribute it to causes that do not address the issue.  An inadequacy of time management is an attribution error, for example.  Constant tardiness, or missing deadlines is a common form of it.  This is addressed by helping them identify the cause, and working with them to rectify it.  The intent is to bring the cause of the error back into their control so they can take responsibility for it.  When people believe the cause of their problems are outside their control, they will not make any effort to address it, and this leads to a spiral of demotivation. 

Essentially, people need to be nurtured and built, since they are the foundation of a great team.  When properly motivated, that team can achieve wonders.  When mismanaged to demotivation, even the best people are unable to function.

Three Considerations to Impress Venture Capital

The average investor probably meets around two new companies a day in face to face meetings.  There are probably thousands of proposals sent through emails and social media.  When considering startups for investments, investors, especially venture capitalists, need to quickly discount the 99% of proposals which will not work so they can focus on the 1% which is worth serious consideration.  From all this, investors need to predict the next unicorn or dragon. 

To get an idea to the investor, it is important that the management team of a startup ensures what they have passes through three gates.  This means the startup team needs to qualify the investor just as much the investors qualify startups.  This process of qualification saves al lot of effort.  There is no point in having a great pitch, and then sending it to the wrong potential investor. 

Meeting an investor is about raising capital.  Investors and their representatives will still meet people they have no immediate intention of investing in to have an idea of the business, and network.  For them, this is part of the job.  For the startup, it is often a waste of time, unless these investors are in a position to recommend someone more suitable. 

This is why the executive summary is crucial.  It should state, in a two or three paragraphs, the type of company, the target market, the industry, where the company is based, and how much the company is looking to raise.  It should also be clear whether we are looking at B2B or B2C, or both.  This should be matched against the investor thesis.  If there is no match, then there is no point reaching out to that particular investor. 

The second consideration, assuming the first gate is passed, is the founders.  Investors are not investing in a product or service.  That is incidental.  What we are investing in is the people behind the idea.  There are a lot of people with great ideas, but they will never be successful entrepreneurs.  This could be an inadequacy in values, or certain skills.  Founding a company is not just about having an idea, but a vision of how that idea can be interpreted and reflected on the market.  That vision must be accompanied with a strategic plan to seize market share. 

When an investor asks a lot of questions about the product and service, and not the team, and how the business will be built, it either means we have a predatory investor who might steal the idea, or more likely, someone too polite to tell the founders they are not impressed.  Instead of outright rejection, it is easier to talk about the idea, and then claim they will consider it. 

Finally, investors put money into a startup because they believe it can scale.  A great business idea and a competent team is not sufficient.  Running a restaurant, or opening a retail outlet might make good business sense., but if the concept cannot be scaled up, most investors will not be interested. 

Too many founders tend to focus on the product or service, and immediate market share.  Their goal could be immediate income replacement, and to make a small profit.  That sort of pitch will not interest a genuine investor.  What investors look for is the scalability of customer acquisition models, and the strategic position of the business in the long term.  That is what they are investing in.  Any investment plan with a predictably scalable customer acquisition model through leveraging would interest the right investor.  That is how the real return on investment is calculated. 

A founder who understands how investors, and venture capital, in particular, works, has a better chance of getting the required investment.  As such, it is important to remember that any pitch must consider these three considerations, and address them.

Leadership Assessments are Subject to Bias

As part of leadership, it is important to identify and assess the next generation of leaders.  In large organisations, it is not always possible to simply identify them through direct interaction, or a limited mentorship programme.  As such, organisations are moving towards tools such as leadership surveys.  These surveys are a preferred tool to determine whether a person is a potential leader, and whether his values are congruent with the organisation. 

These surveys are generally put in the form of an assessment sent to leadership candidates, their managers, and their colleagues.  Some companies implement a 360-degree feedback system.  The assumption is that the data is accurate, and objective.  But this is not how we should identify leaders.  This is how we identify popular people.  People are biased, and there is a reason why eyewitness accounts in trials are known to be faulty,  In general, people are terrible judges of situations and character.  For example, people evaluate those who share their culture better.  Those who speak the lingo have an advantage.  Men are judged more favourably than women, even when they have obvious flaws in character.  Taller men are judged more favourably.  Attractive women tend to be disadvantaged.  Fairer people have an advantage.  This follows with political affiliation, religious association, gender identity, nationality, and so forth.  This system is fundamentally flawed. 

These surveys measure the perception of what people imagine a good leader is, not what a good leader actually is.  Because perceptions of good leadership are shaped by the media, these surveys end up looking at the wrong parameters to judge the qualities of good leadership.  This means that organisations utilising these feedback tools actually manage with data on what people perceive good leadership is, not the reality of it.  This means that ideas of good leadership get subverted, and effective leadership diminishes in these organisations.  Due to the influence of the media, narcissistic and sociopathic behaviour is perceived as good leadership.  Flamboyance and perception have taken the place of quiet efficiency and ingrained effectiveness. 

In recent years, studies in leadership have written enormous amounts of literature on this phenomenon, and devoted entire sections in journals on the question of identifying and quantifying leadership through various means of research.  Personally, I think the underlying assumption that the average person knows what good leadership is happens to be greatly exaggerated.  People know the fruits of good leadership; they do not know what a good leader is.  Good leaders are often only recognised by the fruits of their decisions and policies, and this could be long after they are gone. 

360-degree feedback is a tool to quantify the efficacy of management, not leadership.  Management is something apparent, and being the subject of management, people can tell the difference between effective management and ineffective management.  It is a question of values, and whether they felt enfranchised and empowered.  Leadership is more than that.  Leadership is about seeing beyond the horizon, and putting in place the foundations to meet those challenges then.  The average employee, or follower, is not privy to that level of decision-making and planning.  How is he going to make a judgement on that? 

Ultimately, judgements of leadership performance can only come from peers, and the people above.  Nurturing of such leadership performance comes through mentorship programmes to inculcate values, and create a learning environment.  That does not mean we cannot use these feedback tools to have a better understanding of a candidate leader’s performance.  We need to recognise the limitations of these tools, and refine how we use them. 

Firstly, people need to be educated on the role and nature of good leadership.  Based on this, we can have a conversation, and construct the ideal leader.  This ideal leader, by shaped consensus, is what we rate leaders against.  This makes the rating system more useful, and less arbitrary. 

Secondly, we need to drill down on specific rated behaviours and values, and look for qualitative and referenceable examples.  This makes the ratings more useful, and we can benchmark certain behaviours. 

Finally, the feedback should be constructed in such a manner that people are forced to slow down, and think.  If we create it like a multiple choice question, people will simply tick boxes at random and go through it as quickly as possible.  This renders the data useless.  On the other hand, we also want to avoid confirmation bias.  This comes back to the need for confirmation, and examples. 

When done properly, and paired with a mentorship system, we can use this data to help the organisation identify potential leaders, better judge identified leaders, and shape our engagement and development programme.  People, left to their own devices, do not know what is good for them due to inherent and media bias.  But they are still a useful means to understand effective application of leadership behaviour, and how to refine it.