Meeting Genius Blog

Leaders, managers, and training departments who want to see improvement in customer satisfaction and agent productivity and morale buy this DVD. Technical support reps, call center agents, customer service reps – in the USA, Canada, and offshore – quickly learn from this DVD how to adjust to each caller from various regions of the USA.

One CSR reported that he watched the DVD and the very next call he received was from a New Yorker. He (in the Midwest) used the techniques I taught and the call was a home run. Easy, productive, and timely.

3. On the other hand, who shouldn’t? What will people NOT find in Customer Service USA?

Corporations that do not have customers in the USA don’t generally buy this DVD. I am planning a sequel that will deliver great how to advice for dealing with customers in other countries.


REFERENCES


4) Besides your katenasser.com website, what other colleagues or websites would you recommend?

I am honored and excited that my specialty area -- people-skills -- is filled with innovations from:

- Gijs van Wulfen - www.forth-innovation.com/, “25 Ideas for Perfect Brainstorm”
- Bob Sutton, Author of Good Boss, Bad Boss, bobsutton.typepad.com/
- Mike Brown, brainzooming.com
- Ellen F. Weber, www.brainleadersandlearners.com/

5. How about your preferred business books?

Interacting with diverse people represents adaptation – in other words, change. Thus one of my favorite classics is still Who Moved My Cheese . There are many who haven’t read it and others who have forgotten its power to improve meetings, customer service, teamwork and leadership. Some newer books that impress me are:

- A Whole New Mind (Daniel Pink)
- The No Asshole Rule (Bob Sutton)
- What to Say to a Porcupine (Richard Gallagher)
- The Squeaky Wheel (Guy Winch)

About You

6. Kate, how did you get started in this area?

I always had a strong intuition about how to best interact with different people. When I left my corporate information technology job to start CAS, Inc., it seemed like a natural fit and logical step to teach others great people-skills. I also completed a Masters in Organizational Psychology lending more research results to my experience and intuition. Over the past 20 years, I have used all of it to teach and consult on customer service, teamwork, and leading change to large corporations, federal government, and mid-size enterprises.

7. Most memorable training session, presentation, or meeting? Why was that? What did you learn?

Tough question yet in the end I must say the transition training to IBM during its transformation in the 1990s. I was on a team of consultants teaching IBMers how to retool their skills. It was memorable because I discovered the difficulty of teaching professionals who are going through cataclysmic change that rocks them emotionally. Concurrently, I was studying for my Masters in Org. Psychology and suffice it to say – the real life happenings taught me more than the books!

Major lesson: No matter how prepared you are to teach, be ready to adapt to unforeseen developments.

8. Most disastrous presentation (or funny situation).

This one is easy. I was teaching a public customer service training class in hotels all across the USA. On one occasion, the hotel was also hosting a conference on sleep disturbances. The banquet room we were using was in the same corridor as the ones used by the conference. A few times in the morning, participants of that conference would come in, sit down in the back, look puzzled and then leave. In the afternoon it happened again and the person stayed for a bit. So I looked over and said, “This is not the sleep convention.” The person left. At break, one of my participants came up to me and said, “You were a little tough on that guy weren’t you? Telling him to wake up, this isn’t the sleep convention!” I chuckled and told her that there was a sleep disturbance conference going on in the other banquet rooms and someone had come into our room by mistake! She laughed.

About Your Work as a Presentation Expert



9. What is the biggest mistake you see people making during meetings, training sessions, or presentations? What suggestions do you give them to improve?

- Meetings : Not owning your energy and personality type. Meetings can go from unproductive to productive if people moderate their own extremes and adapt to others interaction styles.

- Presentations: Being so planned and rehearsed that it looks insincere, non-authentic, and detached. Planning and rehearsal is valuable yet you draw an audience in when you seem human, sincere, and authentic. Show a bit of vulnerability (except when presenting to C-Suite execs) and you are more likely to connect with the audience.

- Training: Lack of engagement of participants. TIP: Give them situations to discover key points rather than telling them everything.

10. What tools are underutilized in training and staff development sessions? 

Video-conferencing is still underutilized and extremely valuable for training around the globe. In August, I will video-conference from NJ to Asia and the Middle East and deliver team transition training for technical support teams in those regions. It allows these highly distributed teams to connect in for “live” training with role plays. Video-conference captures the interactive value where webinars/podcasts don’t. Organizational change happens globally and the training must meet that challenge.

11. Why do you think so many meetings are boring or unproductive?

There are a couple of reasons.

#1 – Meetings are still being used as “live” status reports. With today’s technology, we don’t need to use precious meeting time for that. Let technology facilitate that homework.

#2 – Interaction hurdles between personality types (hidden and blatant) limit the outcomes.

12. What is the best speech / presentation advice you ever received? 

Be authentic, sincere, and use true stories whenever possible to make your points. Numbers get people’s attention and stories connect to the heart and mind.

13. What speech or presentation advice do you think is wrong and makes you mad when you hear someone giving it? 

The absolute focus on being rehearsed. Planning and rehearsal are valuable. Yet extensive rehearsal can come across as robotic and insincere. To be extremely well rehearsed and still look genuine takes either a special natural talent or years of doing it. So many novice presenters trade in a possible WOW of genuineness for an acceptable of well rehearsed.

14. What are, in your opinion, the ingredients of a fantastic presentation / meeting / training session?

A fantastic meeting includes the classics (goals, agenda, timekeeper, summary of outcomes, assignments, etc…) AND

- Quick reminder to all about the four social interaction styles (Amiable, Expressive, Analytic, Driver) and a request that each person manage their own style and adapt to each other. It works!

- Leader or facilitator that addresses communication and participation hurdles. It helps to even remind everyone that honesty doesn’t have to be rude, sarcasm at each other is a form of anger not humor, and hierarchy stifles participation. Even if the “boss” is going to make the final decision, open discussion must temporarily overlook the hierarchy.

- Use techniques that tap both extroverts and introverts. Extroverts think out loud and introverts think inside. Extroverts often think that introverts are doing nothing and introverts often think that extroverts don’t think. Neither is true. So use some brainstorming and some brainwriting to tap the contributions of both.

15. Any additional comments or thoughts?

People-skills impact results. Meetings, presentations, and training sessions succeed or fail because of the interaction of the people. I am so passionate about filling the gap of interaction diversity with success that I am offering all your readers 10% off the price of my Customer Service USA DVD or a webinar on “GPS Your Brain to Work With Any Personality Type.” Just reference “Meeting Genius” and we’ll get started.

Also, a big thank you Raul for bringing such a rejuvenated focus to effective meetings when we thought all had been written.

Thank you, Kate!
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Contact Info




katenasser.com (footage to view and workshop outlines)

twitter.com/katenasser

www.youtube.com/user/KateNasser#p/u/5/KM91bM_dDUQ

www.facebook.com/pages/Kate-Nasser-The-People-Skills-Coach/112541906626

www.linkedin.com/in/katenasser

Email: Info@katenasser.com

Phone: 908.595.1515 USA

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