2 Minutes and 3 Slides: How to Win Over a Boardroom

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone, my name is Armando Perez-Carreno and welcome to the Web Talk Show. Today with us is Bianca Riemer. How are you Bianca? I'm great, thank you. And how are you? I'm doing great, thank you for asking. Bianca, could you tell us for the audience what you do and how you got to where you are right now? Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm an executive coach. I work mainly with people in the financial sector, but also tech sector. And we mainly work on communication skills. So, people approach me when they've either been promoted already or they want to get promoted into a leadership position where all of a sudden the technical skills are not enough anymore and they want to be able to influence other people better. They want to be able to know how other people think so that you can collaborate more and get stuff done faster without getting your elbows out. So, how did I get here? Well, I used to work in the beautiful world of finance in London. I was a stock market analyst for 10 years and the skills that I teach my clients now is what I learned the hard way for the decade that was in Morgan Stanley. So, at the beginning of my career almost got fired because I was so bad at communicating and whatever I we're going to talk about today are exactly the things that helped me going from almost getting fired to getting promoted and having my salary almost double within a a series or a a time period of about 6 months. Wow. It's I was just talking with a friend from high school that coincidentally I saw over the weekend. They live in another town, they were here in town and we were chatting. And he got to promoted in a few years ago to a more leadership type position. He was more serving the sort of software space, but now he manages a team of engineers and and developers. And so, it's a very different **[00:02:00]** skill set than one has, right? When when that happens. So, what what is the typical issue that you see when you're coaching people where they're they're going in from a technical role into a more leadership type role? What's the What's the main thing that you see as a the initial barrier? Yes, so there are two big challenges that people have when they get promoted into a leadership position. The first one is managing the team. Because your team are no longer your friends and your mates. You are now leading the team. So, it's a different version of you required to do that well. And the second big big challenge is that you are now going to have to influence more people but who are either just as senior as you or more senior than you. And who may not have any interest whatsoever in what you're trying to achieve. So, that also requires a new mindset and new ways of communicating with people as well. That is very interesting. When someone gets into a leadership or management type role, I've had the opportunity to discuss this a little bit with other guests when we did a segment on leadership. Mhm. And it's it's hard for a lot of people to get established. And I think both reasons that you mentioned now are a big part of it because it's not as easy as just oh, I'm going to tell people what to do cuz it's not about telling people what to do, right? Mhm. Exactly. Exactly. Um because nobody likes to be told what to do. But people love to make suggestions on what could be done differently. So, **[00:04:00]** leading a team is very different from delegating tasks to a junior person. Leading a team is inspiring people to become leaders of themselves. And that's a completely different ballgame. And also you touched on a very important point, which is when you get to that position, and I think we don't hear this as much. Yes, you're going to have people, let's call it a level below or under you or that you manage, whatever phrasing you want to use, you have to delegate tasks, you have to lead a team. But that's not the only thing. You can you also, as you just pointed out, have to then influence or report to other people that are at the same level as you or higher because now you have everyone that's in your team gives you information that you then have to pass over to someone higher up and and sort of explain everything and and how does that mind shift work with people? Are Is Is that something that requires maybe training a little bit on speaking, on um how to present? What What new skills do people need to have acquire? Mhm. I think um there is the preconceived idea that you need to have presentation training in order to be able to influence other people. And it depends on the individual whether they really need presentation training. What's actually a lot more important than presentation training is training in marketing, basically. You need to become a marketeer to be able to influence other people because here's what marketers do really really well. Marketers do what's called market research. They try to understand the audience. They get under the skin of the audience **[00:06:00]** and they find out what's important to this person, what do they want to achieve, and what do they want to avoid. And then they target their language to exactly that. So, when people approach me because they've seen my LinkedIn post, etc. One thing they almost always tend to say is OMG, it's like you're in my head. Because the language I'm using is exactly how the people that I want to work with think or speak to themselves. And that is what as a leader you want to find out, okay, now I have to go and influence this other person. What's actually important to them? And how can I then change how I position my idea so that it is interesting to them to do what I want them to do. I like that. Yes, marketing is an art. It's it's seriously an art form. If you're good at it, you can achieve pretty much anything you want because of what you just said. It's you're you're figuring out what their pain points are, what their desires are, what their needs and wants are, and then based on that then you formulate what you're going to speak about, how you're going to speak about such that like you just said, and we we said this a lot back many years ago I used to do Facebook advertising training. And it was like you have to prepare the the phrasing of that title such that someone like you just said thinks that's exactly me. Like that's you're just talking exactly to me. And it's very interesting place in this context. I hadn't seen it that way, but that's right. A leader in a team doesn't doesn't need necessarily to be the greatest presenter. They just need to be able to grasp these details and then position the language such that people in their team feel heard and understood and then and then they can they can **[00:08:00]** actually collaborate and and like you said, make themselves like internal leaders. Mhm. Absolutely. So, you're running your own internal PR campaign. And the metaphor that I like to use with my clients is what's the newspaper headline that's going to make that person pick up your newspaper at the newspaper stand. So, what's the newspaper headline? And the newspaper headline is not going to say um you know, oh, let's have a meeting or oh, um your input needed or oh, um update on my monthly, you know, monthly update. Nobody picks up those newspapers, but that's what people put in the subject lines for their emails all the time and then wonder why the person never gets back to them. Why? Because people get hundreds of emails every day and your subject line needs to be that newspaper that they want to pick up at the newspaper stands. How do you do that? You need to speak directly to what's important to them. So, what often happens is when I work with people, they give me an example of the email that never got replied to. And um one client for example, she sent monthly um monthly data to her boss. And she needed to have another resource in her team because they were swamped with requests. Um and these were clients that she was in a complaints department of a big financial institution. So, they needed to get back to all of these clients who customers who were complaining. And she sent an email that said something along the lines of a monthly month update on monthly requests or monthly complaints. No reply. We looked at the email, it was just a big block of text and then attached to it was an Excel spreadsheet with the data and just the the chart that Excel **[00:10:00]** draws for you with like the legend you can't read and then some things there and some things there and it was, you know, you get that kind of email you're like, "Oh, I'll deal with it later." and then you just forget about it. So, how do you get people to get a response? Um what we did for her is we just put the put an image of monthly client requests a year ago and monthly client requests now. And the number had tripled. Okay? Plus she was a member down on her team. So, then we made the data even more pungent by saying client requests per team member. And she literally just had the two bars. And then we had a an error and it showed tripled or whatever the number was. It had gone up a lot. Okay? Mhm. So, then the subject line on her email said, "I need you to approve an extra resource for my team." Okay? So, she you lead with the conclusion and then boom, the image said everything. You don't need a lot of words to get buy-in from the person above. You just need a headline and then if you have some data, put the data into an image that speaks for itself. That is a great example. We used to say how an image is worth 1,000 words or whatever the phrase is, right? And this is a great example of it where at a glance someone can see exactly what you're trying to say. And that heading is perfect. I I I want to stay a little bit on this because we tend to go around things. Mhm. You you sort of want to do a a nice subject or something that you're like, I don't want to be mean. I don't want to be pushy. And and you you well, if **[00:12:00]** you're nice. You sort of tend to go that way. Mhm. And at the end of the day, like you said, if you really want the result, you have to especially for stakeholders and VPs and CEOs and who who are tremendously busy. You have to tell them whether that email is relevant enough for them to read. Do they have to take action? And if that's with that subject like, oh, this is what I need to do and then, oh, this is why I need to do it. Then that's it. They can make a decision like that or delegate it themselves. But but at least they know, whereas in the other scenarios you were explaining, it's just it's hidden and it will never be seen. Yeah, yeah, exactly because the chart that Excel draws you is just it shows the data, but it was just like a line. Or it was two lines. And one was slightly higher than the other. But, you know, you have to play around with the scale a little bit and make it punchy. And nowadays, people are lucky nowadays there's lots of Excel chart packs that you can buy online with examples. So, once you have your data and you can make it something meaningful that really shows how much some a number has gone up or gone down or you have a big return on investment on something that your manager cares about, then you can um type it into the slide pack software and the software will spit out a nice um Excel template that you can just then plug your numbers in and Bob's your uncle, you know, the job done. So, what's really important now is to know what your boss cares about. And I once worked with an engineer who wanted to invest in a new machine. And his boss was a finance guy and he was an engineer. And he said, um my new boss needs to understand exactly what this machine does um so that he can then explain it to his bosses and you know, well, hopefully we get the machine at some point. And oh gosh, it was painful because he **[00:14:00]** had to created this he explained he explained to me for an hour what the machine does. I'm also a finance person and I knew that if he explains that stuff to his boss like that the boss is going to you know, start watching cat videos on YouTube instead because I have no idea what that machine does. Um so anyways, I then asked him the question, okay, so tell me what does your boss care about? And I know he's finance person, so he wants some kind of return, right? On investment. And that's when then my client said, oh my boss cares about full-time employees. How many full-time employees the machine can save because he was based in an economy where there weren't enough qualified people enough qualified engineers. He was based in Germany. So, for his boss it's not even about the money, it's about saving full-time employees because the machine does something which then means that you need fewer full-time employees to um to finish a process. Basically, that's how much I understood from that. And so um what became his newspaper headline is investing in this machine will save us four or five full-time employees per year from year two. Boom. So, he told he had a meeting with boss. He said, "This machine will save us four full-time employees from year two." The The boss said, "Okay. Let's do it." That's it. He literally just needed to have the the right newspaper headline. And his boss did not have to listen to him for an hour trying to explain every single detail of what the machine does. Cuz here's the thing, as a team leader, you have already proven that you're an expert in what you're talking about. Mhm. You don't need to tell him the once upon a time story of how he found the machine and then tested checked it against all the other machines, etc. He just needs **[00:16:00]** to say, "Here's my recommendation. I recommend we should buy this machine. It will save us this many employ full-time employees." And then yes, you have your workings um in a spreadsheet that you can show to people, but people just want to know senior people just want to know the newspaper headline. If you speak their language instead of your own, and you show up as the expert that you are, people will trust you. You will come across credible and extremely useful. That's fantastic. We forget when we're an expert or seen as an expert in a company. This has happened to me through the years where maybe you're consulting for someone, maybe you were at a certain position, and you're there because they trust your expertise. And I'm an engineer. As an As an engineer, sometimes you want to get into it and you you want to validate and explain the whole thing. You're like, "Because this and this and But But you made an excellent point. We need to step back, get into their shoes, and see what they care about. But not only that, I think the point that you just made about they already trust your expertise. Mhm. That's super important. I think people need to understand this and and just put it in their minds. They already trust you. So, if you give them something that's valid and based on data and it will actually help the company, as long as you present it in the right way, they're going to trust you. You don't You don't have to sell yourself again every time, right? I think that we we lose sight of that and and and what up What I don't know I don't know why it's human nature, I guess, but it's uh That's an excellent point that I think we need to we ought to remember when when trying to to sell something. I I hadn't framed it in that way before. **[00:18:00]** Mhm. But I I thank you for for sharing it that way. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, during a pitch to like say the board, it's not a job interview. Yeah. And the board doesn't need to see all 50 slides explaining every single detail. What they need from you right at the start is your recommendation, your conclusion, the newspaper headline. And then, like a good image that makes the point. They will trust you so much. So, I had this one client, he'd already presented to the board twice with like 50 page presentation packs. And he wanted to invest in something. He had a he had an initiative, very important security initiative. And the board just said, "Yeah, thank you very much. We'll think about it." And they were still thinking about it when the security incidents happened. Two. Mhm. Two security incidents. So, the guy's super burned out. Then we started working together and I said, "Okay, let's try something else. Five slides maximum. Ideally, just three. And each of them will have a a on it." And he went in and he said, "Last time, you know, there were no questions. How can I get them to ask questions?" And I said to him, "Well, you're going to say, 'I'm going to show you my recommendation and afterwards, you know, I will present for 5 minutes and then afterwards, I would like to hear your questions.'" So, you say right at the beginning, "I'm going to have a really short presentation and then I'm free for questions so that we can have a dialogue." He had so many questions. He only presented for 2 minutes. Newspaper headline, some data that he picked up from the press, etc., on how expensive not having the security thing is for competitor companies. And, you know, what that price means as part of this company's revenue. Right? You make it very interesting for the **[00:20:00]** board because they care about cost saving a lot and also obviously not having the whole palaver about security incidents and the reputational um damage from it. And he said, "My goodness, there were so many questions. It was a dialogue. It wasn't a presentation. So, that's the That's also the response to your question, should I get presentation skills? Well, only if you're intending to do presentations, but what's actually a lot better is a dialogue. Right? Where they the board can ask questions so they feel in control and you can show off your expertise and you know that they're going to listen because they asked you for it. It's fantastic. Um so, they approved the initiative there and then Mhm. all questions were answered. That's That's great. I We see in the movies the board's asking a bunch of questions and everyone's nailing whoever's like in the front, right? And that could be the situation, but I expect and and you'll you'll have more experience on this, of course, but I I a lot of times, especially when the person presenting is very technical in nature, that there might not be any questions if you just go out blank and don't guide them into questioning, they might just feel like, uh, I don't want to feel dumb for asking this question, and like nobody ends up asking anything, and then nobody understood anything, and so nothing happens. Right? Is that So, this approach that you're talking about sounds very accurate because whenever there's a conversation, that's when when the truths come out, when when people are start And when ask when asks, then the other one feels more comfortable to ask as well. Yeah. And there you go. So, how would you help someone get questions out of people if they're presenting to a board other than saying, "I'm going to present **[00:22:00]** shortly and then I'm going to have some questions." Let's say nobody ask questions. So, how how can we get someone to to initiate that back and forth such that it's not just pointing a finger at someone and asking a question cuz they're going to be blindsided, but is there a way is there a mechanism for which someone, uh, who's maybe not the greatest presenting, can initiate a dialogue with a group? Yes, absolutely. So, the first thing to remember is you're the expert. Most people don't do this because they are scared that they won't be able to answer the questions that the board asks. But, that hardly ever happens. So, I was a stockbroker for 10 years. I had 10,000 conversations with investors. Um, investors are very skeptical. That's their job to be skeptical. Hardly ever had a single question that I wasn't able to answer. And if it is if it was a question I did not know how to answer, it's because it was irrelevant, and then I obviously had to use my emotional intelligence to tell people, "Well, that's not kind of not relevant." But anyway, so you have to go in with the right mindset and not be scared of questions. That's the first thing. Cuz if you're scared of questions, you will self-sabotage and it will backfire on you. So then of course when you start presenting, you say, "I'm going to present really, really short. I've just have a few slides and then afterwards, I want to make this very interactive, so I invite your questions." Is that okay with everybody? Get them to say yes or not. Mhm. Yeah. Okay? Because you get an agreement from them. Okay? So once somebody has already said yes and agreed to asking a question, they're automatically going to listen to you more because A, you've made it very easy for them to listen to you because you said, "I'm going to make this a really short presentation." So they're not going to be like, "Oh, thank you." Okay? It's easier to listen for a short time than for a long time. And you say then I want to know what you're interested in, right? So then I'm going to ask for your questions. **[00:24:00]** Also, it stops people from interrupting you because they know you're not going to um go on and on about stuff. Yeah. They know they're going to be able to ask their question in like 2 minutes. Okay? So then when you're finished, you say, "Okay. Uh you repeat your conclusion again. That's why I recommend we buy this thing or we invest in this. And what are your questions?" So here's the difference, right? Most people say, "Oh, are there any questions?" Right. But don't give them the option not to have any questions. You ask, "What are your questions?" It is obvious that there's going to be questions because you're only talking for 2 minutes. Of course there's going to be questions and also it's the board's responsibility to ask questions and to grill you a little bit. But you leave it to them on what they're going to grill you about. And then they will grill you a little bit, but you've already done them such a big favor by having a short presentation and poli- polished, you know, speaking their language. They're you know, they you're going to come across a lot more credible. Then of course, have all your data there. Bring like a big folder or a big file where if they, you know, because some directors they want to know how many windows does this building have or whatever. Right. I actually once got asked this, something like that. Uh Japanese investors they wanted to know how many buildings as opposed to how many units uh did this German property company had and no idea how many buildings because they count in units. So anyways, um but have all the data there. And I remember the highest ranked CFO in the um Extel survey here in Europe who um you know, investors they vote for the best CFO. The highest ranked CFO, he always had a ring binder with all his numbers **[00:26:00]** when he went on road show to see investors and people loved that. The best thing if you're a CFO, the best thing you can do is know all your numbers. So for engineers, it's very important to you obviously speak your audience's language and we can get to how you can do that. And also know your data obviously. That is expected. So even though you just have a really short slide pack, have all the data there anyways in like the appendix. There's two things I want to call out here. The first is we measure ourselves with a different stick and sometimes we feel because of what we know regardless of what you know. You know more than other people about something. But since you know that you know, then you say, "Oh, I they're going to ask me something that's going to be super hard and I won't know how to answer." Because you're measuring yourself by your knowledge and expertise. But they have nowhere as close to typically have expertise, specifically if you're talking about a subject which you are the one that's working on and that's why you're presenting. And so, yeah, you like you said, we we self-sabotage in those cases and you're you're thinking you're nervous, they're going to ask me this, but then it never happens. They never ask if you're well prepared. You're basically prepared, doesn't have to be the most prepared in the world. It's highly unlikely that they're going to ask something that you have no idea about because you're the expert in this case, right? But I've I've had that situation as well, so I relate where you're like, "Ah." Where you see something and the way they put it in or the request or the proposal, you're like, "Wow, these people are going to But then you get there and they're like they don't they don't know anything compared to to you in this case if you're the expert. And so, the other thing uh this **[00:28:00]** it's brilliant to do the short presentation because if you prepare all the data like you just said beforehand, but you don't make the presentation include all the data because again, then you want to show them the whole thing. Well, then you don't. Just have it. But the presentation is short, so you don't give them any ammo, right? That's super interesting. The If you give a very long presentation, you're going to cover everything, then they're going to look for the tiniest thing to ask if they have to ask for something and you might not have that. But if you present a very brief thing and keep everything here on the side, then they can ask you anything and it's very likely that you're going to have the answer and by you giving the person who asked the question an answer, they're going to feel more engaged, they're going to feel they got more out of the conversation. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, the key really is to do your research. Find out as much as you can about the people that you're going to present to. So, how do you do that? Um you The first thing to do is go by function. So, if I say as a stockbroker, I meet investors, I know that these guys are interested in making money. Mhm. And not losing money. Depending on, you know, what their investment philosophy is. So, um they're also individuals. You know, they all have hobbies, children, they're from certain nationalities, etc. So, initially when I go and start meeting with somebody, I say, "Hi." Maybe we're walking you along a corridor together, do a little bit of small talk, uh about something that maybe interests the person if there are pictures on the wall, etc. You can talk about that. And doesn't have to be anything too fancy. The whole point of small talk is just to build rapport with the person and helping the person understand that you're not a dinosaur who's going to eat them. Right? Or um **[00:30:00]** um that there's nothing to be scared of. You help them relax, and when they're relaxed, their brain is working better, then they're not going to ask you irrelevant questions. Then I always ask I always start my meetings with a question as she instead of giving them my spiel because when you meet um uh uh people, they want to be in control. I come I come in as an adviser, but the other person, they want to feel like they're in control, especially if they're more senior than me. So, if it's appropriate, I ask them what's So, what's your personal investment philosophy? Anything that I need to know before I start. Right? So I never had like a spiel of this is what I always do. I always make whatever I'm talking about very specific to the person. So if the person was a property specialist or I was a property specialist or my stocks were property stocks. I'd talk very differently to a generalist who doesn't know very much about property and how property short shares trade and the all the financial metrics that we look at in property which are completely different from all the other stocks are trading on. So I speak very differently to that generalist person and I always speak to people the same way that I'm speaking to my 12-year-old child. So I don't use any acronyms, I know abbreviations and I make it very very simple. So the one thing that our head of department at Morgan Stanley always told us was speak and write so that your grandmother can understand it. Speak and write so your grandmother can understand it and she wants to buy the shares. Is your grandmother going to want to buy this or sell this you know if you're if you're negative on something. So **[00:32:00]** um don't make it hard for people to understand what you're trying to tell them. Make it very easy and that's actually built a lot more credibility than now you're talking like I don't know a 100-year-old newspaper would have been written. Mhm. Or a technical paper, right? That Mhm. But sometimes we want to seem fancy or knowledgeable and throw out all these acronyms and things. But people don't don't understand that. They're just all going to be confused and it's just glaze over. It's just not going to work. So that and that's again to the marketing point you made earlier. When you're doing marketing you sort of want it to be at a like fourth grade reading level or something like that where it's anyone could understand it cuz you never know one what actual educational level or reading level the person that you're giving it to is going to have but also they have so many things on their mind that giving them something that they have to think about in abstract terms in order to understand versus just here it is like the pictures you were talking about. Makes a world of a difference whether they're going to listen to you or even comprehend what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then there's an advanced technique that you can also use. And that is knowing how a person thinks. The pattern in which a person thinks. So this comes from the world of neuro-linguistic programming which is using words to then um influence people to take certain actions. Okay? And it's called um language and behavior patterns. So one thing that I can tell you um is that people in finance and risk management they tend to have a very risk-averse attitude in business. So they have what we call an away-from pattern. They like to um solve problems. They know the problem and they want to solve it. They know about the risk and they want to um avoid it. Okay? **[00:34:00]** Now you've got a sales person. A sales person tends to be very goal-oriented at work. So they want to reach the target or exceed the target. They're towards the goal. Mhm. How are these people going to get on with each other because the finance and risk people, compliance people, they want they see the problem. The sales person wants to achieve the goal. They're completely different thinking patterns because the finance person thinks about pain I learned. There's pain, there's pressure, want to avoid the pain. The salesperson thinks about the goal and pleasure island. Let's go there. So, we want to go away from pain island towards pleasure island. And most people when they first hear this, they say, "But it's the same thing." Yes, it is the same thing, but the way you talk about it is going to be completely different when you address finance people to when you're addressing sales people. It's just the way that they express it, the words that you use. So, if I can give you a very simple example, one of my colleagues trained with me in this methodology, um he had a I think his son was 10 years old at the time, 10 or 12, something like that, and he was trying to motivate his son to do well at school. And he he would say, "You know, if you do your homework, you will get good grades." The son was not motivated. Then when we did this training, he asked his son the question, "What's important to you about school?" And the son said, "I don't want to get bad grades cuz then my friends will not like me anymore." So, a big light bulb went up for my for my colleague because my colleague's language, you know, "Do your homeworks, you get good grades." That's very much towards pleasure island, like the salesperson. **[00:36:00]** Do this, you get the reward. But the son had a very different attitude towards school. The son did not want to get bad grades because then his friends wouldn't like him anymore. He had a thinking pattern of avoiding pain. So, once my colleague, this is amazing by the way, once my colleague used his son's language and thinking pattern, the son started doing his homework. Because he said, "Look, if you do your homework, you won't get bad grades, and your friends won't hate you." So, just just by expressing still the same thing, but in a different direction, there was a lot more understanding connectedness between him and his child. Now, imagine doing this at work, you're going to get so much more done, so much faster, with no friction. And if you understand that pattern, it's it's more powerful than than many realize, because in that example, someone might very well have said, "Do your homework, because then you can get candy or snacks, or be able to go to the park." Or whatever the adult in that situation might think the child wants as a reward. And in this case, it was the complete opposite. The The child actually wanted to get good grades for another reason. And if you're if you're targeting the wrong thing, it's like when you're you have you can find a have a fantastic ad for a fantastic product, but you're just you're just not hitting the right person. Or you're hitting the right person, but with the wrong wording, and the person just doesn't relate, and doesn't get it, but it could have changed their life. It could have been the that fantastic thing they needed, but just you didn't present it **[00:38:00]** in the right way. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like in the rain boot example. So, when you market rain boots online, you can market it in different ways. You can either market them as keeps your feet dry, right? That is the towards pleasure island, dry feet. Yeah, that's what we all want. Or you can market it as doesn't prevents you from getting your feet wet. Don't have wet feet when it's raining. So, obviously, the outcome is the same, but you are presenting the ad in two different ways. One is in a way-from language, away from the pain, no wet feet. The other one is towards a pleasurable outcome, dry feet, even when it's raining. Okay. So, here's the thing. Um you got to you got to have these language patterns in your ads when you're testing them. And then you know who's more likely to to buy rain boots, right? Most Most people probably away-from with rain boots. Keeps your feet dry in the rain. But unless you test it, so then the next question would be, "Oh, so what do I do when I go into the boardroom and I don't know how people are motivated in that context, right?" Or there's a mix of people. There's going to be finance people and sales people. What do I do then? So, here's here's how to do it. Say rain boots, right? Just to have a very simple example. Um today I suggest that we all put on rain boots. It will prevent our feet from getting wet, and it will keep our feet dry. And it may seem like you're saying the same thing twice, but people don't hear the same thing twice. The The finance people or the people who've gotten away-from attitude when it comes to rain and rain boots, they will hear, "Ooh, she said no wet feet. I love that. She understands me." The people who've got a dry feet kind of **[00:40:00]** attitude to rainy weather, weather, they're going to think the same thing. But the only reason why everybody then feels like he's speaking to them individually is because you've expressed it in both motivation directions. That's a great example. It might seem like you're saying the same thing twice, but yeah, each one will hear it in their own way, and to one it'll jump out when you have the second part, and to one it'll jump out in the first part. And anyone in between might just not really care that you said it twice cuz you're just reiterating it. So, Totally. what happens when someone um is already or has been already put in a management role or a leadership role. They didn't really want to. They weren't ready. They just got thrown into it, and then cuz I see this a lot. I've heard when we did a training segment, they were talking about this happening a lot with training. They would get someone that was good, and then they put them and started having them train people, and they were like, "But I'm not a trainer. I don't have any expertise in that." And the same goes with leadership. So, when that has already happened, then and they might feel like uh it's a burden to go to work cuz I have to manage all these people, and nobody likes me, and they're not listening to me, etc. What would be your suggestion for them to start even if they've been at it for months, to start now getting engagement from the people that they're they're now leaders of? Yes. So, that's of course a really tricky situation because you're basically being forced to do a job that you never asked that you never asked for. Mhm. And um I've also coached quite a few people who actually wanted me to help them leave the company because they put it been put into a management or leadership position, and they they just wanted to do coding, or they just wanted to do, you know, the thing **[00:42:00]** the thing that they were hired for. They just wanted to produce the results, but they didn't want to lead people. So, the first thing to do is um have a conversation with somebody you trust about, you know, who do you want to be at work? How do you want to show up? Um, is this is this leadership or emotional intelligent aspect of you is it maybe just something that's dormant and you need to ignite it, right? It's a seed inside of your If you're like a garden, there's like a beautiful flower seed somewhere, but it just hasn't been watered yet. Do you want to water that seed and see what comes out? Or do you really just want to do coding for the rest of your life or whatever your technical expertise is and, you know, have an easy life, go home and and do other things? So, once you've decided I'm going to give it a go. I'm going to actually try out this leaderships thing for real, then uh if you want to get engagement, have one-on-ones with people and not just the so-called important people. Have one-on-ones with everybody, the receptionist, the the people who cleans the kitchen area, um, um, you know, the the the guy at the coffee counter. Talk to everybody and get to know what's important to them. And that is exactly the question to ask. Don't ask people how they're motivated because then they think, "Ooh, he wants me to say money. He wants me to say promotion." And then, you know, um, uh, it gets all stiff and and and awkward. Ask people what's important to them. And you can share what's important to you as well. Be really honest about it. And there's different levels at which you can communicate, right? You can stay very, um, grounded and realistic or you can be a little bit more open about what's really important to you on a big **[00:44:00]** picture level. I have a nice little story about that as well. Um, and then really listen to their answers. And write down the words that they say where their lights where their eyes light up. If they tell you what's important to them, and then you can reflect it back to them and say, "Ooh, so I hear what's important to you is the container and the fruit and the container and and you love the Mexican and not too sure about the Caribbean or I don't know what." So, you reflect it back to them and then they really feel like you actually really listened to them. People love to talk about what's important to them. And here's also another thing. When you ask people what's important to them, most people like cuz they don't know. Cuz nobody's ever asked them that question before. Then some new manager comes in or a new, you know, um, somebody actually for the first time ever ask them what's important to them. And they look up. When people look up, it's they're looking for inspiration. So, in coaching, I always pay attention to that. When people look up, I know that I've asked a good question. And they feel safe enough with me to actually think about it. When people look down, then they're looking for something that's happened in the past or they're not so sure and they don't really want to answer it. So, but when people look up when you ask them the question what's important to you, they're looking for inspiration and then stuff comes to them and they listen to themselves talk and then actually most people are really grateful that you've asked that question to them. So, that's like my killer coaching question that I ask most of my clients right at the beginning. Ask them what's important to you. And they love it because it makes them think and explore new things about themselves. So, once you've done that, you've listened to them, you've reflected it back to them, maybe even got their motivation direction to see whether they're away from or towards, and you reflected you reflected it back to them the right way, they're going to be be **[00:46:00]** "Oh my gosh. So, Armando, the first person ever who asked me this amazing question and actually listened to me. I like that guy." Now, I want to know what's important to him and how I can work more with him because I feel like he gets the best out of me. Um so, that's the first step. Then, when um they've told you what's important to them and see whether you can get any easy wins, whether you can make something happen that helps these people immediately. Right? "Oh, what's important to me is to find a dog sitter for my dog so I can come to the office more." "If you know a dog sitter, hey, my neighbor's a dog sitter. Maybe I can make a connection." Ah, my god. So, um it's the easy wins. Once you know what's important to somebody, it's really easy to help them and people like you, it's much easier to to influence them. And that's how then you get engagement. Then, once you've helped the person just um if appropriate, just slightly remind them that you have helped them. So, say the dog sitter example, "Oh, so how's the dog sitting going?" So, you're not being creepy or self-promotional at all. You're just checking in. "Oh, just wanted to check in. How's the dog sitting going? Is it all going okay? Is your dog happy?" You've just slightly rem- uh yeah, reminded them slightly that you've helped them and that you care as well. Does that answer your question, Amanda? Yes, and and and it it brilliantly. And also, it reminding them is not creepy at all. Well, depending how you phrase it, but it also tells them that you were thinking about it. That it wasn't just a one-off thing that they got someone else to help them or whatever, they they remembered enough or paid **[00:48:00]** attention enough that next time they saw you they asked you about it, especially if someone more senior, you might be like, "Wow, he remembered that I had the dog thing." And and it it just gives you gives you more more of a human side as well. This is great. The the getting out of them what's important for them. I was talking to a client the other day. He was talking about we were talking about schools for kids and and and all that and how he was originally very good at school. Like he loved school. And unfortunately, the the teachers he had weren't weren't that great. And so, they made him feel bad because I don't know, he did well or whatever. They they they made him feel bad to the point where he now hated school. And then his grades went down and he didn't really enjoy it and it wasn't a nice phase, right? And I think that happens to a lot of people that then at the beginning, early on, they have the inspiration, but then they they're put down. Then and then nobody listens to them and and nobody gives them their place, especially and and a lot of roles that people so don't think twice about sometimes, unfortunately. Like cleaning and other roles where they're completely and utterly required. We need those. And and we need to do them ourselves or someone has to do them, but if nobody does, then we're going to be in a lot of trouble. And so, but unfortunately, people don't don't pay attention to those roles enough and don't pay attention to the people doing those roles. And so, they don't feel heard and they're just there. And what you just said is really important because if the CEO or or the manager or VP or whatever, anyone in any position in the company, let's say it's a company of 2,000 employees or 5,000 or even 100 **[00:50:00]** employees, comes by and asks whoever what's what's important to you, Mhm. what do you think the buy-in from that person towards the business is going to be? Mhm. And their growth and how much they stay there and tell all their friends and stop any other friends from being like, "Oh, no, let's just not go and and make a riot or whatever." They're going to They're going to be the ones that say, "No, no, hold on. He's a good guy. Like, let's let's talk about this." And then you're going to have people that stand for the company, not necessarily because of the company, but because of the people behind the company. Yes, absolutely. You want to nurture people. Mhm. People need It's like a It's like a form of love, right? So, like your your um contact um didn't like school anymore because the teachers weren't nurturing him. If the teacher If the teachers had only nurtured him, he would he would have loved school. Right? So, the same is true for companies. If you feel that nobody cares about you, that you're just a number, whatever your job, then you're going to be looking at job adverts. But if Mhm. I've I've coached so many many people that did not really like the job that they were in or the content of the work that they were doing, but they loved their team or they loved their manager. And that's why they stayed. Because I love the people around me and that's important to me. I love having good relationships with people. So, the nurturing aspect is really, really important for leaders. And then the second aspect that's really important for leaders is you have to have a vision. So, in order to bring people along with you, to really lead people, you need to have a vision of something that's cool to achieve. And a vision can look lots of different **[00:52:00]** ways. It can be an identity for the team. You know, we are uh whatever. My My boss at Morgan Stanley's like, "Yeah, we're the world's leading experts on European property shares." And I was like, "Yeah, we are, but kind of who cares?" But it's kind of still cool that we're the world's leading experts on like this really small segment of the market. Um so, it can be like an identity. So, we are the something, right? And it can be it can be something juicy, something cool, something playful as well. Um uh we are the dream team. Oh, yes, I was an auditor for a while. It's the most boring job ever. But it's a good stepping stone for more exciting careers like stock broking. But in audit, there's a lot of these smart really smart people in audit, but doing really boring work. That's probably going to be done by AI uh very soon and completely everything, right? Um but people would have juicy identities like, "Oh, we're the dream team." And uh we're the we're the you know, Eros layers and things like that. Just um you can play you can have like a little song or something or um you can have a story of where you're the here where your team is the hero. You know, it doesn't necessarily having a vision doesn't necessarily mean that you create a new amazing product, you know, that the world hasn't seen before. It can just be, you know, our team makes the world a better place. Um which whichever way you're doing that, something that people want to be part of. And that's like a third way of influencing people is by using the word we a lot. Cuz it gives people the impression or the feeling that they're part of something bigger and a lot of people are craving that now, especially nowadays a lot of people working from home. They want to be part of something that's worth You know, many people use the words the phrase to die for, but it's like, yeah, I really care about this. I care about this **[00:54:00]** outcome and it can be saving starving children or it can be cleaning people's houses faster with a some new cool device. Whatever is that you care about um that's important to you. You're part of this amazing team where you're nurturing each other. That's the perfect combination for a lot of people that I've worked with. I agree. I remember when I was in college they they completely pulled this card out of their hand. Um we I don't know how they measured any of this, but at some point they were like, oh, we have this new achievement or whatever and it's like formation excellence or whatever. They had this acronym and then there was a group of people and they were like, yeah, you all are the cream of the crop and you are like the best of what you whatever and they put us in this group and they're like, yeah, and then we're and they took us to a ranch and we had this adventure thing with some talks and I got but now everyone was like, yeah, and we had like you were saying like a jingle and everything. Like everyone was so happy about the thing which didn't exist like a few days earlier. They just made it up, right? And I I don't know if it was like an experiment or something or what they were doing, but we don't know what they were using for measurement. Like I don't think they were using grades. Uh were they using the fact that you were in multicultural activities or sports or I don't know. There was something some way, but we didn't really care. We just cared that we were there and we were part of this thing and now we were this group and now everyone had each other's contacts and like we're going to take over the world and and it was just that. It's just gig sort of gamifying that that uh belonging experience and being part of this team and people who if you didn't really know before and just now you're all best friends. Yeah, fantastic that's a fantastic example of how to create engagement, right? They seem to have ticked a lot of boxes on the how to create engagements checklist. **[00:56:00]** Yes, yes I everything you shared Bianca is super helpful. I'm glad you were able to come on the show and share your expertise. People need to hear this. A lot of people have been putting leadership roles and they feel that they're not ready and I think they are and like you said it's just a matter of understanding the other person and and you gave such excellent advice. I think there might be some people who might want to reach out to you to learn more and find out more of what you're saying. Is there a way where they can reach you or a website or a channel? What what's the best way to learn more about you Bianca and and your expertise? Yeah, absolutely. So you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm Bianca Riemer, so that's spelled r i e m e r. And I also have a website that's biancareemer.com. Okay, excellent. I'll put that in the show notes as well. Everyone reach out to Bianca and I think if you are in this spot you'll get excellent advice from her the same level of advice that she's been sharing with us so kindly throughout the show today. Thank you so much again Bianca and thanks everyone for listening and if you haven't liked and subscribed please do so so you can learn more about these shows and whenever we post new ones. Thanks everyone. And we'll see you in the next one.