Performance Coaching for Executives

You go on stage, straight to the microphone, you read your speech, and nobody claps. Which is odd. because it is about a huge success with great numbers. You sense something is missing, but what? You behaved on stage like you always do, so what’s wrong? Well, the world is changing and change just came knocking to your stage.

Those who don’t burn for something don’t set anyone on fire

This change is now affecting everyone hoping to “sell” or to market something. Because “markets are conversations”, and digitalization has changed it all. Pure content is not enough anymore, it needs – like everything else – some selling. The truly important WHAT is dependent on a transmission belt, the HOW.

And your counterpart, be it a person or an audience, demands it. That means performance is key, it transmits all the facts. If you come across as if it means nothing to you, why should others care? Impact is important and it’s possible to measure it these days. To put it in simple words: You have to connect with your audience, be it a person or 10,000. The good news: It is a craft and one can learn it.

Performance Coaching

Cherno Jobatey has been on many stages around the world presented countless hours on Air and online. He is lecturing rhetoric at universities and has helped many C-level executives (Dax 40 as well as Startups) to find a path to the craft of mastering the new NEW.
Spoiler: You have to go all in and knowing some old Greek tricks, a little Plato, helps. Anybody can succeed on any stage; you just have to have the mindset and the tools.

Here is a little sneak peak of Cherno’s thinking:

It all starts with Preparation

Planning: Clarification and honing of the topic. How can you execute argumentation strategies, how can you remain credible? How can you evoke visuals in people’s minds? Do emotional arguments exist?

Target Definition: What message should be broadcasted? Boss, expert, or maybe nitpicker? Good leaders and bosses use simple language! Captivating stories are told with strong visuals. and they don’t ooze with complexity.

Traditional Rhetoric: You will acquire tools like: alliteration, innuendo, allegory, adynaton, epanorthosis, hyperbole, metaphor, simile, ellipsis, rhetorical questions, the rule of three, inversion, and also stichomythia.

Theory: Good communication also requires a theoretical basis: a command of communication theories, like insights into media impact research, strengthen every discussion, every speech, every performance. Like the “four-sides model”, “third-person effect”, “the stimulus-response model”, “the knowledge gap hypothesis”, “priming”, “framing”, and of course the good old “sender-receiver model”.

Never unprepared! It is an absolute misconception that the best speeches are off the cuff. While enrolled in the conservatory “Musicians Institute” in Hollywood, Cherno Jobatey learned the mantra: YOU HAVE TO OWN IT TO GIVE LIFE TO IT!
And to make sure it sunk in, all the students were reminded of the 5P program in boot camps:  PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE!

In addition to everything spoken

Non-Verbal Communication: Body language, our underestimated tool. Our face is an ambassador! Our voice a soundtrack! Vary the length of your sentences, tone, rhythm, and tempo so you don’t come across like a robot.

And on top of all that, the whole range of expressions, gestures, and postures. Non-verbal questions or exclamation points? You’ll learn how to express the full spectrum of grammatical punctuation through your physical self. Whether or not you’re a proponent of Albert Mehrabia’s “famous” “55-38-7 rule” (the impact of a presentation is 55% body language, 38% the sound of your voice, and only 7% content) or prefer other studies, they all have one thing in common: words alone are not enough.

Authenticity, which oddly enough is always so praised, shouldn’t be a ball-and-chain around your neck. It can also turn into a trap. Just like technology transfers horsepower from the crankshank to the road, so, too, is content communication. Craft and technique beat out intuition. Here, too, Einstein’s wisdom fits: genius is 80% perspiration and the rest is inspiration!

One more thing: Never ever forget your audience.