The skill I’m talking about is the impact message.

It’s important because no matter whether you are making an internal presentation to management or a sales presentation to clients, being able to craft a memorable impact message makes it easier for your audience to follow what you are saying, and, more importantly, take the actions you would like them to.

What an impact message is

An impact message is an emotive ‘call to arms’ that sums up what you are saying in your presentation, and hammers home your message with persuasiveness and urgency.

Advertisers use impact messages all the time. They do so because they know that their audience have little time to dwell on details and… because impact messages sell.

Impact messages are typcially no more than 9 words in length and loaded with energy, colour and emotion.

Yet these short, lively messages can take quite some time to craft… but this need not be so…

How to craft your impact message

If you would like to craft a compelling impact message in a tenth of the time of advertising agency creative departments, then these are the steps you need to follow (we cover these with examples in our presentation skills training programme Presentation Talent! – more details here):

1.Perform your audience analysis – try to identify their interests, needs and obstacles they are facing. Identify their backgrounds if possible – what kind of factors appeal to them?

2. Write down 20 questions without thinking on your subject matter. This will draw out the topics you will speak on.

3. Map out your topics using a clustergram. Feel free to be as creative as possible, and avoid censoring your ideas.

4. Now cross our redundant ideas and concepts, and highlight recurrent themes.

5. Try to articulate a message in up to 20 words for those themes.

6. Now get a single, central theme of no more than 9 words, and load it with a powerful image, and…

…voila – you have your impact message!

Make an impact with your presentations – every time!

If you would like to discover the power of the impact message as well as the other essentials of delivering presentations that are concise, effective and that persuade, why not have a look at Presentation Talent! our 2 day presentation skills training programme delivered in Thailand and Asia – simply follow the link below!

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There have been claims and counterclaims of poor communication in Thailand during the flood relief operations between the FROC (chaired by Yingluck Shinawatra) and the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority or BMA (chaired by MR Sukhumband Paribatra).

What do you think? Does this picture speak volumes to you? Feel free to add your comments below!

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Talent Technologies. Taking Your Talent to a Higher Level.

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But increasingly, management training needs to be seen in a different light – one central for companies wishing to execute more effectively on their strategies. Here’s why…

Conceptual skills are what Thai employees lack the most!

Regulatory burdens and technical skills shortages are often cited by both Thai and multinational companies alike as being serious barriers to doing business in Thailand. However there is another factor (leaving aside English language skills for the moment) that trumps both of them.

That factor is ‘conceptual skills’ – the ability to be able to work using language, numbers, and abstract ideas as part of one’s work. We’ll explain what this means and why it is so important in concrete terms in a moment!

In its massive study of the competitiveness of Thai & Malaysian companies, The World Bank in its PICS report discovered an interesting thing. While Thai employees were ranked nearly 60% as effective in Technical Skills as their Malaysian counterparts, when it came to conceptual skills, this figure fell to below 25% when it came to conceptual skills. Put another way, the Malaysian employee was judged to be able to problem solve, use numbers, generate ideas, communicate concepts and define issues over 4 times more effectively than his or her Thai counterpart!

What conceptual skills are, and why they are so important

Have a look at the chart below. As you can see, the higher an employee progresses up an organisation, the more important conceptual skills (in the dark blue boxes) become.

This stands to reason. After all, front-liners are mostly ‘doing things’ or ‘making things’. The more one manages, though, the more one has to make connections between things – and that’s where those conceptual skills come in!

If your company needs or expects its staff to know or use the following words in any shape or form – then that means you will need your people to have good conceptual skills:

Teamwork     KPIs     Processes     Attitude     Leadership     Behaviour     Talent    Trust

Accountability     Issue Resolution     Customer Service     Customer!     Communication

Now, how many Thai companies routinely struggle with the above?

…That’s why Training is so important in Thailand!

This is not to suggest that Thai or Multinationals now need to go ‘all in’ on management training. However, it’s essential that they (in our opinion) address these shortcomings in a strategic and systematic way.

This means getting the very best programmes that turn these concepts into images and experiences and link to your business’ realities.

You can find a list of our management training programmes here that make understanding these concepts and then turning them into behaviours really easy.

Also, why not stay on top of developments in Thailand and Asia by subscribing to our newsletter Talent Talk here.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcniaL5dasA

…Then you may be interested in this…

Presentation Talent! gives you the tools to make your presentations shine… in only 2 days!

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Talent Technologies. Taking your Talent to a Higher Level

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However, testing candidates’ proficiency is often one of the biggest headaches managers can face. Thankfully, now that we have made available an automated English language assessment in Thailand, managers no longer need to have those headaches!

Making the hiring process so much easier!

As the video below shows, assessing English language skills does not need to be a headache. Using patented voice recognition technology pioneered by Versant, this process is in fact very straightforward, as well as surprisingly easy to administer.

Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmX3w2fOcMw

What to do now

If you would like to find out how Versant can streamline English language assessment in your company, then email us using the form here, or contact our office on +662 6393550. We are offering free assessments for a limited time only.

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However, for a little bit more we believe we have the most reliable way to test a candidate’s English language skills.

The world’s best English language test comes to Thailand

With over 10 years of development, the Versant English language test is now available through Talent Technologies in Thailand.

Most people haven’t heard of Versant, but it is a must-have tool for any company where English language skills are a key requirement of doing business. Let me explain.

Versant is available 24/7

Versant is unique in that it has been developed using speech recognition technology and is thus available 24/7.

This means that you can test a candidate’s or colleague’s English language skills and within 15 minutes, have a report based on their capability. But it gets better..l

Listening / Speaking is where it’s at!

Ask most professionals which English language skills are most important to them to operate effectively in business in Thailand, and they will tell you ‘listening and speaking’.

But how do you test these critical skills?

Think about it. Normally a Thai is tested either by a fellow Thai who, let’s face it, is probably not that proficient in English, or by an expat manager, who may be costly to use as an interviewer and may not have the technique, nor the training, to know how to assess a candidate’s skills and rate him or her on those.

So companies all so often end up making mis-hires in Thailand as far as English language skills go. And the alternative, like the written test attached below, has zero relevance to what companies really need. Namely professionals who can:

• pick up a phone and make arrangements for a business trip
• update on a project
• teleconference with colleagues in Singapore, Hong Kong or America
• make a presentation
• problem-solve in a meeting
• greet a customer and find out what he or she wants

All of the above require listening and speaking skills. But the harsh reality is that companies have no structured, reliable process to test that. And that is precisely what Versant offers.

Get your free test below, or your free Versant listening/speaking test here…

So if you want a test that will make a difference where it matters in your company, then why not have a look at Versant?

We’re currently offering one free test per company on a limited period basis. To qualify, simply email us using the contact form here with ‘Versant’ in the message box.

To download a free English language test in pdf format, go here. We hope you agree that while interesting – this is not a very effective way of assessing the English language skills that matter most to your company!

So go ahead and give Versant a try!

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Using the world’s most popular team development workshop, Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Talent Technologies’ MBTI programme makes it easy to further team performance following the five stages of development shown below:

Overcoming one major team derailer – Fear of Conflict

Managers in Thailand know all too well the paralysing effect fear of conflict has on team performance.

People familiar with MBTI will know that, according to Carl Jung, humans fall somewhere on the spectrum of being ‘Thinkers’ or ‘Feelers’, as per the graphic below.

Using MBTI and Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team together, it’s easy to build understanding – and learn the techniques – of how to overcome this fear. Here’s one example below that helps participants connect more effectively with others depending on whether they are more naturally ‘Thinkers’ or ‘Feelers’ on the MBTI scale.

What you can do now

If you would like to find out more about how MBTI can help your team grow in Thailand, then why not read more about Personality Factor or simply contact us following the link to our form below:

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Ask us about Personality Factor here >>>

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The test gives you a feel for how Myers Briggs works and how it identifies your personality type and preferences at work. MBTI is an invaluable tool for enhanced teamwork, communication and management effectiveness, because it unearths the unconscious drives and ‘styles’ at work that we all have, using Carl Jung’s conceptual methodology.

How to make Myers Briggs work for you

There are many different applications and approaches to MBTI. Here at Talent Technologies, we believe MBTI is most effective as a tool to improve team performance and mutual understanding.

In Personality Factor, we identify all the team member’s MBTI types,  help them understand what this means, and train the skills needed to ‘bridge’ working with other types, essential for supervisors and managers.

Where the programme is super-effective (in our opinion!) lies in the use of video case studies. Here, participants see conflicts and ‘people problems’ at work, and, using the skills they have learnt, need to:

• identify the person’s type and from it their preferences
• choose an approach and words that engage that person more effectively
• use their skills to achieve their stated objective

Making the Personality Factor difference!

‘Strong teams,’ Stephen Covey once wrote, ‘lie in differences, not similarities.’

One of the major challenges faced by organisations in Thailand and the Asia Pacific is that managers all too often ‘hire after themselves’ – they recruit individuals based on similarities, instead of the differences that could make the difference.

Another challenge (especially in Thailand) is when these differences become a source of conflict rather than a source of collaboration.

Because of its unique programme design, Personality Factor helps participants overcome these two team derailers, significantly driving higher performance from their team and achieving business results.

If you’re interested in finding out more about how Personality Factor can make the difference to your team, simply email us using the form below.

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Showing Steve Jobs unveil the iPad, the video crystallises some of the public speaking techniques used by great presenters. Have a look and see what you think Jobs does that is effective…

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBhYxj2SvRI

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Our participants said…

‘In our Presentation Talent! programme, our participants found the following techniques he used to be effective:

1. Use of body language (hand gestures) and powerpoint to illustrate the two device categories and Apple’s third one (the iPad) clearly.

2. Jobs’ purposeful, bullet-point style verbal delivery.

3. Use of graphics to disparage the Netbook!

4. Linking his visual / powerpoint presentation to his delivery.

5. Use of language: getting across key (or ‘impact’) messages using phrases such as ‘it’s like holding the Internet in your hands’.

6. Use of voice and tonality to keep the audience’s attention.

These are just 6 of the points they identified (all the above are trained in Presentation Talent!)… what do you think? Feel free to add your comments below!

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Do you need to improve your public speaking skills? If so, then Presentation Talent! helps you make your public speaking talent stand out, and has received rave reviews from our participants.

If you would like to find out more about the programme, simply follow the link below or contact us here.

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Presentation Talent! programme details >>>

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In brief, both assessments are Q&A based and where DISC claims to be able to identify patterns of behaviour, MBTI (or Myers Briggs) claims to identify deeper personality characteristics.

Knowing whether MBTI or DISC is better for you in Thailand ultimately depends on the purpose for using the instrument.

1. As an objective talent assessment.

Answer: neither. Neither DISC nor MBTI have much use as an assessment of a person’s talents (namely linking their talents to the tasks you would like them to do at work).

Instead, look for an objective talent assessment to achieve this. The Highlands Ability Battery is probably the best tool available in the market at the moment. It is thorough, objective and culturally neutral, and benefits from having over 90 years of development.

2. As a means to build a team

MBTI and DISC come more into their own when used as an interpersonal tool. In other words, they are more effective at helping individuals relate to others in a team, than identifying what tasks those individuals are best-placed to do.

Both have interesting facets (discussed below) but ideally you want a tool that will not only identify others’ personality or behavioural characteristics, but will let your team members go on identifying them in future, with people who may not have sat the assessment.

The key then is not the tool, but how it is used.

3. As a means of identifying leaders

Both tools make big claims about being able to identify leaders. At Talent Technologies, we have seen people of different personality and behavioural types operate effectively as leaders.

In our opinion then, there is little correlation between personality or behavioural type to leadership effectiveness. What’s more important is alignment to talents and the practices leaders create and follow.

4. As a tool for career planning

Again, while both tools make bold claims with regards to helping people identify their ideal career, neither in reality are safe assessments for career planning.

This is because DISC and MBTI are subjective, not objective tests, and because they identify patterns of personality or behaviour – not talents. Your talents are the key link to job effectiveness and a fulfilling career path. Again, the Highlands Ability Battery is infinitely better for this purpose because it is an objective assessment of talents.

In the Final Analysis…

In the final analysis both DISC and MBTI tests have shortcomings and any claims made by practitioners that these tests identify leaders, career paths and talents should be taken with a big pinch of salt.

However, there is one very effective way you can put the MBTI Test to use… and that is by using the test not for its value as an assessment, but as a tool to help professionals asily identify different personality types, and adapt and communicate with them more quickly…

….Introducing Personality Factor

The most effective use of the MBTI tool, in our opinion, is through training it with video, role play and other activities so that professionals learn how to identify other types (having already identified their own) and communicate and collaborate more effectively as a result.

Talent Technologies, in short, uses MBTI as a tool to enhance participants EQ in the workplace, and this, we feel, is where the tool is especially strong.

At the end of one of our Personality Factor sessions, participants are able to:

• understand and communicate more effectively with their colleagues, customers, direct reports and managers (360°)
• avoid unproductive conflicts, and
• promote more effective teamwork

If you’re interested in finding out more about Personality Factor, simply follow the link below:

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Personality Factor training programme > > >

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References

To find out more about DISC, MBTI and other assessments, here are some useful links:

DISC on wikipedia

MBTI on wikipedia

Introduction to your personality type using MBTI

Another article comparing DISC and MBTI

We hope this article has been useful!

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