Hello and welcome to the Redefining Hyperformance Podcast. My name is Ty Bennett, and every week I bring you a short, quick episode with something that hopefully is very practical, something that you can use, and over the next couple of minutes, we’re going to dive in. Every once in a while, we will bring some longer form interviews with somebody who I think adds to the conversation around high performance. But today.
I want to share with you the 4 questions you need to answer when presenting.
I don’t know if you present on a regular basis. That’s what I do primarily as a keynote speaker, and I think that there’s 4 questions that most people need to answer. So whether this is you presenting as a speech or a presentation at work.
or you’re asked to present something in your church, or in any of those situations. I think that learning how to present information in a way that communicates value and adds to other people is a huge skill set that will serve you in virtually anything that you do.
And so, I wanted to bring you this insight that came out of a learning system studied by a man named Colby. So the Colby learning system, what I’m going to do is I’m going to walk you through a little exercise for a second, and the end of this is going to teach you these four questions.
If you had a piece of paper, like I have.
I would make two axes, basically make four quadrants on that paper, and at the top of the vertical axis, I’m going to put feel slash experience.
and at the bottom of the vertical axis, I’m going to put think, consider now.
Here’s what Colby was looking at is all of us process information differently. Some of us are more logical, right? We’re think, consider kind of people. Some of us are more emotional. We’re feel-experience kind of people. There’s no longer right to this. This is just how you process information.
If you were to plot a dot on that axis, the vertical axis now, meaning you can’t have it right in the exact middle, you have to choose one side. I’m… kind of balanced in my field experience than consider, but I’m going to go a little bit higher on the feel experience side, so my dad is just a little bit above the.
middle of the axis, okay? Now, on the horizontal axis from left to right, on the left side, we’re going to put do act.
and on the right side we’re going to put watch observe.
When you process information, how do you act on information?
On the left side, are you more of, like, the do-ack? Like, you jump into action, you are maybe more of, like, the ready fire aim, right? You’re… you’re a doer, you’re ready to move quickly.
Versus the right side, the watch observe, you sit back, you observe a little bit more, you’re cautious in your approach. Again, not good or bad, just interesting to know about yourself. So.
Once again, you can’t put a dot right in the exact middle, so you would choose. I’m more of the do-act kind, which means that when you have those two dots, you create quadrants. If we were going to go like a clock, quadrant one, the intersection of feel experience and watch observe is quadrant one.
at the top right corner. Quadrant 2, which is the bottom right corner. That’s the intersection of watch, observe, think, consider quadrant 3, the bottom left is the intersection of think, consider, do, act, and quadrant 4, the top left is the intersection of do act.
feel experienced. Now, that’s kind of interesting to see and understand about yourself, but here’s the takeaway.
Each of those learning styles have a particular question that they want answered.
And this is where it gives us insight when we are presenting, because if you’re presenting to a group of people, the reality is you have people in every one of those quadrants, and these questions will help you to design what it is that you need to and want to share.
So in quadrant one. They asked the question, why is this important to me?
Now, if you are in quadrant one. I find the most time that question resonates. They’re a little bit more critical in their thinking, in nature. They want to make sure that this is pertinent. They don’t want to waste their time. They go, why is this important to me? Why do I need to listen?
Okay, that’s a good question. Quadrant 2, the intersection of watch, observe, think, consider.
They’re asking… What? They’re asking… What is it?
What? What do I need to know? What are the facts? What are… what makes this stand out? What is the compelling?
reasoning behind it. They want to know… the details, like, what are the facts? If you’re in quadrant two, maybe that resonates with you. Quadrant three, the intersection of do, act and think consider. They’re asking how is this practical?
Right? How do I use it? This all sounds great, but what do I do with it? If you’re going to give me this idea, also give me direction. Like, help me know… How does this impact my life, or what can I do today to put it in place?
How is this practical? And Quadrant 4, the intersection between field experience and do act. They’re asking, what if.
These are more of, like, the future thinkers sometimes, like.
What would this look like? What does this lead to? How is my world better because of this? What if now?
If you follow that. sequence quadrant 1, 2, 3, and 4, and those questions 1, 2, 3, and 4. It gives you a blueprint, or at least a way to measure and a mechanism to guide the presentation that you’re creating.
You need to answer. Why is this important to me?
Pretty early on, you need to establish why do they need to listen? Why does this matter to them? You need to know their world and be able to speak to them so that they know that you’re bringing something of value.
Number two, what are the facts? You need to establish credibility. You need to establish that this is something that matters and something that will move the needle for them. Number three, how is this practical? Give them something to use. Give them takeaways, give them steps.
Give them something that they can move forward with, and then quadrant four, what if?
What is the world… how has the world changed? What is the future look like because of this new idea, this new product, this new strategy, whatever it is that you’re bringing. If you can answer those questions as you present information, you’re going to be engaging, you’re going to be compelling, you’re going to keep people.
engage because you’re answering the compelling question that’s inside them.
Why is this important to me? What are the facts? How is it practical? And what if?
How does my world change? What does the future look like as a result? That little system of learning has helped me in the thousands and thousands of presentations that I’ve given to make sure that I’m hitting on those questions.
I often come back to those as a guide, and very often I will actually say those words in phrases as I’m presenting.
This is why this is important to you. Now, here are the facts.
If you want some practical takeaways, here you go. I mean.
You want to think about how this changes the world in the future, how this impacts your leadership, or whatever it is that we’re talking about.
Like, you can use those as guides and as mechanisms to help you get to where you want to go as transition statements. Those 4 questions, if answered, make it very compelling presentation. They allow you to be more articulate.
And here’s something that I found. My friend Vin Jing, who often talks about communication, he has a great line that he says.
that if you’re… If your expertise, if your capability is at a certain level.
But your ability to communicate that value is at a lower level. People actually see you at the level of your ability to communicate.
So I think it’s important for all of us as we strive to raise our level of performance, that we learn how to raise our level of communication so that we can impact people, and.
communicate our value and our worth. If you haven’t done so the last 3 weeks previous to today’s episode was all about storytelling, where I break down the mindset, the skill set, and the toolset of storytelling.
If you want to continue to elevate your communication, go back and listen to those episodes. If you want to dive in deeper, grab my book, The Power of Storytelling.
But I’m excited to come back to you again next week and continue to bring these quick, simple insights as we continue to strive to raise our level of performance. Thank you for listening. My name is Ty Bennett. I appreciate it. Please subscribe, like, rate, review.
share this with a friend, connect with me on social media. It’s great to have you as part of this community, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.