Management<br> <p>Turn Your Listeners Into Leaders<p><i><font size="2">To inspire your managers, forget the presentation; give a leadership talk instead.</i></font>

To ensure that what you send will be received, don't give presentations, give leadership talks instead. My experience has taught me that 95 percent of all communication in business and government is accomplished through the presentation. Presentations are intended to communicate information, but leadership talks inspire listeners to believe in you, follow you, and, most important of all, become leaders for your cause. If 95 percent of government communications were accomplished through leadership talks, executives would be far more effective in getting results.

Here's how to prepare a leadership talk.

Be clear about the difference between a presentation and a leadership talk and which you intend to give. If you simply want to communicate information, give a presentation or just hand out a piece of paper with the details. If you want to motivate people, give a leadership talk. Make sure you have the basic ingredients of a leadership talk. Ask yourself these three questions:

• Do I know the emotional needs of my audience?
• Can I bring deep belief to what I am saying?
• Can I inspire the audience to take action? If your answer to any of those questions is "no," you are not equipped to give a leadership talk. These questions are not meant to be stumbling blocks to your talk, but stepping-stones. If you don't know the answers, find out.
  

  Consider each trigger.
  

• Do you know the emotional needs of your audience? Emotional needs are your tools for getting results. Every emotion is a problem crying out for a solution. When you understand your listeners' emotional needs and can help them find solutions to their problems, you are close to developing a leadership talk.
  

Indeed, it was the equivalent of a lion's den. Hired from a competing firm, the CEO was a stranger to the company-a company hobbled by a declining market share and flagging morale caused by the arbitrary actions of his predecessor, an isolated dictator.

"This is the first time most of them will hear me," the new CEO said. "I'll give a presentation on the state of the business." "Hold on," I said. "The old saying, 'You never get a second chance to make a first impression' applies here in spades.

"Understand and speak to people's emotional needs," I said. "When you want to move people to respond to your leadership, you must engage their emotions."

Before his speech, the CEO talked to some of his managers; they were feeling intimidated by the demands of increasingly sophisticated customers. They feared not getting support on decisions they made in the field. They were angry about having to meet what they considered unnecessary reporting requirements. And they didn't trust the top executives.

In his speech, the CEO focused on and answered those needs and emotions. His talk was based on a single idea: that he was a person his employees could trust.

• Can you bring deep belief to what you're saying? The function of a leadership talk is to get people to take leadership action for your cause. But people will only sign up for leadership when they are convinced that you believe deeply in your own cause.
  

"I'm a patient, reasonable man," another CEO once told me. "But when I run out of patience, I don't give presentations; I give leadership talks. My best talks." You will succeed only when you are dedicated to your message. Don't give a leadership talk until you have that inspiration.

• Can you inspire the audience to take action? The measure of a leadership talk is not linked so much to what you say but to what your audience does after you have had your say. The speech should get people "marching"-taking action that gets results. Another CEO, who gives many talks to chamber of commerce leaders, attributes the success of those talks to challenging his audiences to take action.
  

"In many of my talks, I stress the need for improving our educational system," the CEO says. "So at the end of my talk, I'll tell the audience to call on the principal of their local school, ask about the dropout rate and how they might be invited to talk to dropouts or potential dropouts. I challenge audiences to get involved, and I tell them exact ways they can do that. After giving speeches with those specific calls to action, I've received more positive correspondence than from any other speeches I have given."

At a tempestuous rehearsal of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the cantankerous conductor Auturo Toscanini shouted to a violinist, "God lets me hear the music, but you get in the way!" As an executive, you do nothing more important than communicate for results. So stay out of your own way. Don't give presentations. Give leadership talks instead.