Disrupt HR: The Creative Process in 7 Simple Steps
Last month I was up in lights at the Disrupt HR event in Brisbane. It’s the first time the event has been brought to sunny Queensland and the HR Community in the river-city came out in their droves, to hear from nine diverse speakers about the Future of Work.The format for the presentations is fast and furious – 20 slides with only 15 seconds spent on each slide. That’s 5 minutes to ignite some interest in the audience, lead them down the road with a story or personal anecdote, throw some stats around and inspire them to take action. Yes, it’s a tough gig.Here’s the video of my presentation ‘How one switch can improve your nine-to-five'’. I spoke about something really simple - office furniture, in particular, the sit-stand desk and its impact on productivity and quality of work life.How One Switch Can Improve Your Nine-to-Five | Leanne Hughes | DisruptHR Talks.When you write for Disrupt HR, you really need to consider your topic. I learnt a lot while preparing for the stage and thought I’d share my tips.But before we start, I want you to put yourself in the ring and:
Back your experience and your public speaking ability - then DO IT. Submit your application.
When I read on LinkedIn that Intelli HR were bringing the event to Brisbane, I thought ‘Geez that event looks interesting! I’ll DEFINITELY grab a ticket and tell my colleagues all about it too’.A few minutes later, my thoughts changed to, ‘Hey…I think I could actually speak at this thing’. I resonated with the tagline of the event: ‘DISRUPT is an information exchange designed to energize, inform and empower people in the HR field.’I love all things disruptive, so I expressed my interest with the event organisers, told them a bit about myself, outlined a couple of topic ideas and then forgot all about it.A few weeks later I received the call up. I was locked in to the program. And I was terrified.
Why did I sign up and why do I recommend you do the same?
I recently listened to this podcast from Pat Flynn – ‘Why you belong on Stage – Pat’s “braindump” of public speaking and presentation tips’. He explains how public speaking changed his life (how it helped to build his personal brand/credibility, led him to new opportunities, and opened his door to meeting other influencers), and other compelling reasons that will have you on the stage in no time. I recommend you plug in those headphones, go for a walk and listen to Pat’s wisdom. But if you don’t have that much time than this image pretty much sums it up:
You may be thinking 'I don’t know what to talk about', 'I don’t have credibility in any particular HR niche', 'I can’t memorise my speech' or 'I’m not creative'.And guess what? That’s completely normal. Most (if not all) speakers up on stage have had these thoughts at some stage in our career. It's whether you choose to ignore them and forge ahead, which makes all of the difference.Through this process working on my speech, I went through all stages of the change cycle. Denial, particularly, which manifested in the form of procrastination. Six weeks out I needed to submit my topic idea and a brief descriptor.Here’s a little wrap-up of the 7 step process I went through to deliver my Disrupt HR speech, from topic generation through to performance.
Step 1. Topic choice
By far, for me this was the trickiest of all the stages. I read a lot of blog posts and article on which topic to choose from and spent a while fleshing out ideas using mind maps.My criteria was that I wanted a topic which was fairly pragmatic, meaning that it was useful for the audience and they could take practical action the minute the speech was over.However, after listening to Michael Port’s podcast, ‘Steal the Show’, I realised that I was going about this all the wrong way...
The real Step 1 is: Profile the audience
The event isn’t about you, it’s about serving your audience and determining what’s in it for them.Think about the type of people that will attend an event like this. The brief attracts a local HR professional type audience. Think of a HR professional, one person in particular and profile their demographics - gender, age, education.Map out their career needs, fears, wants and frustrations.Think about:
- Why they’re attending a HR event after a long day at the office, when they could be spending time with their family.
- Why they’re attending an event that talks about disruption.
The key here is to not think about this criteria too broadly, you really want to target one person. As you work in the HR space, think of a colleague or boss that you could profile.Through this process, I realised that the majority of HR Professionals still work in an office environment and there are common concerns associated with that, such as our lack of movement and collaboration when you sit in the same spot, every day.This linked into something I’m passionate about - which is physical activity and how standing up while working can make you feel great, as well as lift your levels of innovation, collaboration and efficiency.You really don’t want to spend too long in the topic choice stage. Once you’ve made the decision, commit to it and cut off all other options. You still have a lot more work to do.
Step 2: Researching the topic
At this stage you want to use a range of sources, such as:
- Your own personal anecdotes and experiences (start thinking of interesting stories related to the topic)
- Data/research/stats to support your idea - Spend a couple hours on Google- I’d recommend both academic articles and also researching interesting blog perspectives.
- Chatting to other people on their thoughts to validate your topic
- Podcasts related to the area (makes it easier when you’re commuting/walking/don't have time to sit down and read)
I spent a few hours over two days, gathering all my stats, quotes and information together. With all of the information collated, I realised there were three broad themes to address;How sit-stand desks improve:
- Your health
- Your productivity
- Your levels of collaboration in an open-plan office.
Step 3: Drafting the speech
I spent most of my time in this phrase, writing and re-writing content, deleting, adding, tweaking and re-inveting… this is unavoidable.The good news is, that the PowerPoint slide auto-advancing speech format isn’t new. I drew inspiration from blog articles based on the Pecha Kucha format (20 slides x 20 seconds), particularly this one: Your Ultimate guide to giving PechaKucha presentations’.I also drew inspiration from the book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience (Business Skills and Development) by Carmine Gallo. In the book, Gallo outlines how Steve Jobs used to sequence his big product talks in ‘rules of three’. He also used simple, visually powerful slides and he used stories to create ‘pain points’. After setting the audience up, he then offered the audience a solution to these problems (eg. the iPhone).As your speech time is limited, you need to use your visual slides to support/amplify your key messages and arguments. To plan this, I drafted my speech in a table with the following column headings:
- Slide number (1-20)
- Topic (eg. How sit-stand desks support Health)
- Content (data, stories to support stories)
- Slide image ideas (visual elements that make the content come to life)
I calculated my speech pace at 900 words over 5 mins (pretty quick) and I had written 1800 words. Cutting back was tough - it’s a balance of giving the audience enough to understand your message; but nothing too prescriptive that you’re spoon-feeding them.I dedicated 40% of my speech to setting the pain point (how our lack of movement is slowly killing us). The remainder of the speech was offering a solution. I also spent two slides opening up the presentation talking about something completely unrelated to the topic, the Wallabies recent form in the rugby league. This was to draw the audience in and to start them thinking 'How on earth does this relate to us?'How to defeat that writer's block? My tip for writing a speech is to pretend you’re writing for the rubbish bin. You just need to get those thoughts down, no matter how ridiculous and lame they sound at the time. From there, you can edit – add, tweak, adjust as needed, but building momentum is important.While drafting the speech I was also open to incorporating other concepts (especially after listening to Michael Port’s interview with Neen James on creating contextual models). I listened to another podcast where Michael Port interviewed author, Jonathan Fields. Jonathan was introducing his Good Life Project. He spoke about all of us having three buckets in our lives - our Contribution, Connection and Vitality buckets. I loved the law of the buckets and realised it was the perfect contextual model to align with my topic.I raced back home that night and read more about from Fields on How to Live a Good Life: Soulful Stories, Surprising Science, and Practical Wisdom
Step 4: Create powerful slides
I think slides are an element that speakers don’t prepare enough for/are understated.Remember, each slide flashes only for 15 seconds, so the slide must be strong, less words (or words with impact), bold, large visuals.Limit collages. Limit low-resolution files. Limit the clip-art.Each slide must support your argument and draw your audience in.Another simple tip - keep a simple visual theme weaved throughout the presentation. I chose a theme through Canva to design my slides.
Step 5: Do your first paper reading
Once you’ve drafted the speech, Michael Port suggests you do a ‘paper reading’. This is where you print your draft speech notes out, sit at your dining table and read your script aloud in a normal voice. This is a really useful exercise where you can determine which words/phrases feel comfortable off the tongue and sound authentic to you. You can extend this further and start ‘blocking’ your speech. This means, highlighting words where you’ll pause, increase volume and change tone. You can also block your movement - such as walking at a specific time, where you'll move your arms to emphasise a point, etc.Once you’ve done a couple of these, lock that speech down and move onto…
Step 6: Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse…Then, rehearse again
If you present at one of these gigs, the biggest challenge is that you can't take speech notes on stage.I don’t know any quick memorisation hacks. For me, it was all about practising when I had the chance. One practical tip I recommend is to record your speech into your Voice Memos iPhone app. I did this and would play it back when I was driving, out for a run or walking the dogs - it was an effective way to rehearse along.When I was getting the ‘hang’ of it, I’d start rehearsing from a quarter/half the way through the speech.I also recommend rehearsing in front of a trusted advisor. I’m lucky I work with a fantastic, HR professional (thanks Jordana) who gives excellent and honest feedback. The external validity and advice gives you confidence that a) You’re on the right path or b) Yes you need to tweak some things but you'll be good on delivery day.
Step 7: Showtime
Try to get a good night’s sleep the night before your performance!I didn’t rehearse too hard on the day, as I knew the time I had invested leading up to this moment had served me well. All I was focused on before the speech was staying relaxed, warming up my voice, and reminding myself to enjoy the moment.One of my favourite videos that I show anyone I help prepare speeches with, is this TED Talk from Julian Treasure – I usually start it from the six minute mark.Pat Flynn said that it's important to arrive early and mingle with your audience. He learnt this from Dale Carnegies’ book ‘Stand and deliver’. The purpose of this is two-fold:
- You connect with you a couple of people so it doesn't feel like you're presenting in front of a bunch of strangers (no longer as strangers)
- The audience members think it’s pretty cool that they’re meeting someone who is about to walk on the stage.
Conclusion
Phew! A lot of tips and detail there. Finally, just enjoy the rush of being up in lights. It’s an amazing experience and a mega adrenaline rush.Special thanks again to the team at IntelliHR for a superb evening and I will be plugging the next version when it hits Brisbane next time.