Does your communication to the executive leadership team feel like an information overload, yet still fall flat?
You might be doing everything right and it's still boring everyone to tears.
Welcome back to Speak Up, the podcast for high-performing introverts, including you, social introverts where we reveal the charisma and communication secrets of A-listers so that you get the recognition and the opportunities you have earned.
I am your host, Laura Camacho, your magical executive presence coach, godmother, and strategist.
By the end of today's episode with Mubeen Tahir, you're going to know why your intelligence might be hurting your executive communication and how to fix that.
A simple storytelling shift that makes any technical presentation instantly more relatable.
How to tailor your message without dumbing it down and get your ideas heard and respected.
Okay, everyone, I am so excited.
I've been looking forward to this conversation all day, because it's almost like I have one of you listening as the guest, because he's a finance economics guy Mobine, and he understands the conundrums that we have in life of how the content can get in the way of connecting with people.
So welcome to the show, Mubeen.
Tell us a little bit about a little before and after, so the people listening can get a picture of what it was like for you.
And what did you change in the way you think about communicating that helped you so much?
Laura, thank you so much for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
And I really like the name of your show, Speak Up, because It really resonates with my own personal journey in my career.
As you mentioned, I'm a finance and economics guy.
My role is that of an investment strategist, so very much embedded in the asset management finance industry.
But my area of focus is communication.
And I try to make my own communication effective, but I also now teach others to bring information, the power of storytelling, bring the power of your voice and your body language in your business communication.
But when I started around six and a half years ago in this firm, I was still settling in.
It was a new industry for me.
And one of the first few meetings after a few months of being in the company that I had with my manager.
He told me that I know you are smart and you do good work, but a lot of people tell me that if they speak to you they have a great experience because they'll have a good conversation, but otherwise they won't hear from you and they don't really know what you're up to and that you are smart and that you can contribute to the company.
And that really Stuck with me, because ultimately it told me that yes, you can develop the skills and the knowledge of any industry, but then you have to be able to communicate well.
And when that opportunity came for me to showcase my communication skills, I really grabbed onto it, and that changed everything.
That is so cool.
So what is the mindset shift that you started with to help you understand that you just have to Take that expertise and go a little bit further with it, in a different direction?
I can certainly speak for the finance industry where I come from, and I see that all the time.
And a lot of my clients come from that industry as well.
They've created 50 charts, so they want to put the 50 charts in their presentations.
And I was in this situation where I was in the audience and someone was presenting and they had a slide up and there were about 10 charts on a single slide.
Now, a real situation.
And this was a really smart person that I was observing presenting.
And I know how smart they are.
And the charts that they had produced were phenomenal.
But 10 charts on a slide.
You can imagine, no matter how big the screen is, if you put 10 charts on a slide, anyone in the audience will fail to make out what's on the y-axis, what's on the x-axis, what is the line?
Where is it going?
What does it mean?
As someone in the audience, I felt a bit silly because I had no clue what the charts were trying to convey.
Now, that is the complete opposite of the goal of the presenter.
You don't want to make your audience feel silly.
You want to make them feel empowered.
You want to make them feel like they've learned something and they've had a good time while they learned it as well.
So you want to add a bit of enjoyment to the process of learning as well.
So the mindset shift that you asked is entirely that.
You have to start by knowing that you, as a presenter, in any situation, are there to at the service of your audience.
Suddenly you start thinking that, look okay, maybe 10 charts on a slide will not really serve the interests of my audience.
Right.
And I think another factor at play here let me see what you think is that the companies that are growing so much today, whether it's in the new energy or the finance or technology I mean the people that work there are brilliant.
Probably the people who were there were the smartest in their class in high school.
And then college, they were, you know, maybe top 10, 20% still at the time.
And then they're working with the other people in the world that were also the top of the class.
So there's a little bit of, am I smart enough?
You know, that need to signal that I really do have the intellectual capacity.
Do you think that's a factor in this?
That is absolutely the factor.
And sometimes you're in a situation where say, you might be in a meeting and you have really senior people in the room and you might feel nervous to speak up.
You might even be an accomplished public speaker and you might be on a panel and suddenly you have another panelist who is a celebrity speaker and suddenly you feel intimidated by their presence.
One thing that...
I always tell to my clients as well is you have to showcase what makes you unique.
The other person could be the best speaker in the world.
You might be up against the best speaker imaginable.
Now let's say, if someone comes up to me and says that he's up against a speaker like Steve Jobs, who has the same charisma and same storytelling capabilities, I'd say well, if Steve Jobs is telling his stories, you need to tell your stories, and then there's no competition.
This is why i emphasize that personal stories have such an important place, even in business presentations, because if you just deliver generic messages then yes, someone who is better at delivering them might deliver them better than you right right, if you bring a personal touch to it, and the best way to bring a personal touch to it is with a personal story.
And you can absolutely embed personal stories into business communication.
Give us an example, though.
I'm reading the minds of some of the people listening Mubeen and they're saying well, but I'm all about the data Mubeen.
It's just we're a data-driven company.
Tell me how you would coach the 10 chart guy into incorporating a personal story in that.
First of all, they have to recognize the importance of telling a personal story as well.
You know, I was in this situation where I was at a conference and I saw two CEOs in a panel, accomplished people at the top of their career, but somehow their communication was letting them down.
To the point where, very interestingly, I was going to be up on stage after this panel discussion, right.
And as soon as the panel discussion ends, I'm like gearing up to go on stage.
And suddenly the host goes up on stage and calls for a coffee break.
Completely unscheduled.
I'm like, what's going on here?
I was getting ready to go on stage.
And then the host comes up to me and says you know, I think the audience needed a coffee after that last session.
And what an eye-opener.
That's not a good sign.
That's not a good sign.
Just because they weren't quite using their instrument, their voice, the way it should have been used to really convey their message in a way to engage the audience.
All of their credibility was undermined.
How can you embed personal stories in a business situation?
Well, a story is... ultimately has to have a lesson or a conclusion.
So the way I think about stories is, at the very simple level, a story is a situation where you start with a certain state of the world, something happens to create change, and then you end up with a different state of the world.
That's a story, right?
And in that change, in that moment of change, there's a lesson.
We live in a different state of the world.
Whether it's a small it doesn't have to be huge thing but even in small moments you can find something that changed the state of affairs.
And if the lesson can be applied to the business situation, then you can absolutely take that lesson from a personal story.
Exactly.
What I'm thinking of is a hypothetical example of that.
Let's say, somebody listening has to put together a presentation, and how can they start to make that a better story?
So you start by first identifying what is the main message that you want to communicate in any presentation.
And whether you have been given an hour to present or 30 minutes or 10 minutes, it doesn't matter.
The message should be something that you can communicate in a single sentence.
You should know the main goal of your presentation and you should be able to articulate in a single sentence, just for yourself.
So you know why you are going and delivering a certain presentation.
Then you can find a relevant story to support that message.
Now I'll give you an example.
There's a story that I often tell in my business situations.
The message that I wanted to communicate, and this is how I build it up, right?
So the main message that I wanted to communicate for this story was I was talking about artificial intelligence.
And I was talking about how artificial intelligence is very energy intensive.
Like to run artificial intelligence, you need a lot of energy.
This was my message, that to run artificial intelligence, you need energy.
Now, the story I created was I was working with ChatGPT.
So I take the audience to the situation that I'm working with ChatGPT.
I asked ChatGPT to generate an image for me.
And the image that I asked it to generate is of a presenter on stage presenting and the audience is very happy and they're engaged.
And it's the sort of situation I like to imagine myself being in.
So, you know, that's the sort of image I was looking for.
And ChatGPT generates an image for me, but in the image it puts the flag of the United States on the stage.
And I'm a bit confused.
I'm like, I don't necessarily need the flag of the United States.
So I asked ChatGPT to please remove the flag, because there's no relevance to a.
ChatGPT gives me another image where the flag has been moved from one part of the stage to another part of the stage.
I again say to ChatGPT that I appreciate the effort, but we don't need the flag.
Then I get an image where there are two flags in one image.
There's a flag in the back of the room.
The flag is just moving everywhere.
And this whole exchange takes me about five to seven minutes, maybe even 10 minutes, to At the end.
I have an image of a presenter on stage with a happy audience, and there's no flag of the United States in the image.
Finally, what I realized at the end of that 10 minutes, that I'm just firing away prompts and saying that look, can you generate another image, yet another image, which takes me as close as possible to my desired outcome.
And what I'm not appreciating at this point is that a single chat GPT query, even a simple chat GPT query, can require 10 times the amount of energy as a Google search, let alone one which is creating images.
That's even more.
And just in those five to 10 minutes, I've created a process which requires a lot of energy.
But of course, now we have technology.
So it's not like we're not going to use it.
We will use it.
We will require energy.
So the question now is, where will the energy come from?
So you take your message and then you build a story to really highlight and really drive home that point.
If I just shared that data point, maybe that sticks, maybe it doesn't.
But if you wrap it in a story, now you have a narrative.
Absolutely.
I love that about the flag.
That is so good.
All right.
So, since you're in finance and I know people, a lot of financiers or CFOs and those kind of people They have a lot of financial updates, you know, for a company or something.
Because I'm hearing them tell me, Lorna, it's not just one point, Mabee.
I have a lot to tell the audience.
So tell them.
I mean, my answer would be like, well, is it overall good?
Is it overall not good?
Is it what we expected?
Like when they have a lot of data points to share, so what's the story going to be?
Ultimately, you have to distill it down because saying more with less is the way.
And we think that we have to say so much because if we don't say everything that we've prepared, we're doing our audience a disservice.
When, in fact, if we download all that information onto the audience, chances are they'll hardly remember anything.
Whereas if you identify the most important things... And that's your job as the expert, right?
As the expert.
Exactly.
That is your job.
And this goes back to what you asked earlier.
What's the mindset shift?
Well, the mindset shift is, well, you think you have 10 things to say.
Well, who are you communicating to?
And what is the most important thing that they want to hear?
And once you make that mindset shift, maybe you realize that out of those 10 things...
They just want to hear, you know, is everything good?
Is everything bad?
What do we need to worry about?
And it's a simple message, and it's a message that you should be able to articulate in a single sentence.
So always start with identifying that, even if I've been given a one hour slot to communicate all these things that I need to communicate well, what is the ultimate goal of your presentation?
Can I put it down in one sentence?
If you can't, it means you haven't quite identified the purpose of your message.
So I'm going to recap some of the major points and I want you to fill in what I've left out.
I know people are hanging on to their seats to hear words of wisdom from a technical person.
All right, so keep everything simple.
Be a filter.
Think about what is the main point, folks, that you can get into one sentence.
And that one sentence could be you know what this month or this quarter.
Everything that I'm in charge of is going fine.
You don't have to share every single detail and you can always ask for questions and you can share those details in questions if they're asked.
So, as far as how to find the story Mabin is saying, to just imagine that you're in a situation where you absolutely have to say it in one sentence or you'll die.
They'll kill you.
The shark will come and eat you.
What would you say?
And then the story, you know, it doesn't have to be war and peace.
With the state of the world, then this thing happened.
There was a change.
We have a new state.
And what did we learn from that?
What's the lesson?
You don't need to prove your reasoning.
You might need to prove your reasoning if you're making a proposal, maybe for something new, but not for a standard presentation.
And be creative.
The personal stories, whatever the main point is.
And those of you who have kids...
They're insane.
They're giving you fodder for stories every single day.
Yes.
So you've got that too.
Don't be afraid to bring in a personal story like that.
So what else should they remember from this?
I like the word creative you that you mentioned and ultimately public speaking in any forum.
I mean when you're speaking in front of one person, that is, public speaking, whether it's a team meeting, whether it's a formal presentation, whether it's a conference, whatever the situation, if you're speaking in front of other people, this is an opportunity to be creative.
I think of public speaking as a form of art.
And what makes a form of art, anything a form of art is creativity.
You develop a set of skills, but then you start using those skills to be creative.
And that is what really helps you stand out.
So don't be afraid.
And if you're feeling hesitant, I can speak from personal experience that once you start showing that creativity alongside all the great work that you're doing, all the technical work that you're doing, but add that little bit of creativity, you suddenly start to feel some magic.
That is great.
I'm so inspired.
So we're going to leave a link to my being in the show notes.
If you want to contact him.
I expect everyone to be more creative as a result of hearing this transformational message.
And as usual, you're welcome everyone.
And I'll catch you on the next episode.
Wow.
These. executive presence insight and investment strategist.
How is this free?
That's so cool.
You're welcome.
And he gave so much encouragement to use creativity and about being the filter.
You might want to listen to this one twice.
If you're interested in increasing your executive presence, I have a tool that you might be interested in.
It's the Executive Presence Scorecard.
It has 15 questions and it grades you on the four pillars of executive presence that I coach.
And if you want a copy, just put score in the subject line and email me at hello, at speakupwithlauracom.
Have a super duper fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode.
