The Great Canadian Leadership Podcast

What Makes a Great Presentation?

Have you been trying to get your presentation from good to great? Wondering (ok, struggling) with the best way to use MS PowerPoint? And present it with a confident and engaging delivery style?

You’re not alone. That’s why we created this episode, the combination of technical and soft skills to guide you in bringing out the best in your presentations.

We’re thrilled to have as our Guest Host Jon Neuhold, Co-Owner of Great Canadian Training, interviewing Senior Software Instructor Christine Irons and Senior Professional Skills Facilitator Joel Silverstone.

There is a gap in people’s technical skills – but technical skills on their own aren’t enough. Each of us also needs the professional skills to match them. In the case of presenting in front of an audience, that means designing a slide presentation that effectively captures and holds the attention of others and knowing how to talk about the slides to match the content.

This is episode 2, as part of our significant 4 podcasts series on feeling more confident, engaging, and prepared with your presentation skills.

We discuss:

• The How and Why in designing your presentation
• Key principles in delivering your presentation
• Debunking fear of public speaking
• The best ways to use PowerPoint to be impactful
• How to start strong and why that matters to your audience (and you)

Our Guest Christine Irons is Great Canadian Training’s lead software instructor and courseware designer. Christine worked in Human Resources at York University in Toronto for over 20 years as an instructional designer, trainer, and learning specialist. As a certified master Microsoft instructor, Christine brings an extensive knowledge of Adult Learning Theory to her work, whether it’s designing and delivering live classes or creating e-leaning that truly teaches. ​

Our Guest Joel Silverstone is the regular host of the Great Canadian Leadership Podcast. When not hosting, Joel is the Senior Professional Skills Trainer & Coach at Great Canadian Training. For over 20 years, he has helped leaders and their teams feel more confident and impactful with their communication and leadership skills in live and virtual sessions, from small businesses and government agencies to Fortune 500 companies in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Joel is also a speaker at HR, Learning, Leadership and Professional Services Conferences across North America. 

Presentation skills are not easy, but you can get better. It’s a combination of mindset, intention, and the tools to get from good to great, whether you are presenting at a meeting or to hundreds.

• Speaking of presentation skills… At Great Canadian Training we are offering our unique GREAT Series: “Become a Great Presenter with MS PowerPoint and Presentation Skills”.
• In one day, you will learn powerful skills and tools to connect and engage your audiences by developing and mastering your MS PowerPoint and presentation skills.

Email info@greatcanadiantraining.ca and mention ‘GREAT’ to get more information about our GREAT Series and how you can become a Great Presenter with MS PowerPoint and Presentation Skills.

 

What Makes a Great Presenter?

Presentation skills are not easy, but you can get better. It’s a combination of mindset, intention, and the tools to get from good to great, whether you are presenting at a meeting or to hundreds.

This is episode #1, as part of our significant 4 podcasts series on feeling more confident, engaging, and prepared with your Presentation Skills.

This episode, we’re thrilled to have Rhonda Scharf share how someone from a small town - outside a small town - became an in-demand speaker.

We discuss:

• How do you prepare to present?
• Where do you start?
• What to do when you forget
• Being you…but not too much you
• It’s not about memorization, the secret is…
• What is your intention? And why that matters to your audience
• How do you engage them to action?

Our Guest Rhonda Scharf is an author, speaker, trainer, training partner with The Great Canadian Training & Consulting Company and earned her Certified Speaking Professional. Rhonda is a member of the Canadian Speaking Hall of Fame and is one of only 35 speakers worldwide who have earned their Global Speaking Fellow (meaning she truly has an international business) and been awarded the Spirit of CAPS award. She was the first speaker in the entire world to earn all four awards. Her peers consider Rhonda a leader in the speaking industry! Rhonda’s professional speaking career began at age two… when her mother would offer her 25 cents to be quiet for five minutes!

 

• Speaking of presentation skills… At Great Canadian Training we are offering our unique GREAT Series: “Become a Great Presenter with MS PowerPoint and Presentation Skills.”
• In one day, you will learn powerful skills and tools to connect and engage your audiences by developing and mastering your MS PowerPoint and Presentation skills.
• Email info@greatcanadiantraining.ca and mention ‘podcast’ to get more information about our GREAT Series and how you can become a Great Presenter with MS PowerPoint and Presentation Skills.

Soft Skills and Virtual Reality

What does the future look like? Will we be using Virtual Reality…And how is this used to reinforce soft skills?

In this episode, we are curious how virtual reality (VR) can connect to our soft skills and be used in training. We discuss the thoughts and skills that we can take from these VR scenarios and put them into real world practice in how we interact with each other in business, and maybe in life.

We talk communication, empathy, giving feedback and …Presentation Skills! Virtual reality has an interesting perspective here, especially with your number of ‘um’s’.

Our Guest Betty Dannewitz is an Immersive Experience Designer with 18+ years in corporate learning and development. She is also a Speaker, Podcaster, and High-Performance Coach. Betty’s passion is to help people become better humans and she advocates that innovative technology, like augmented reality, has a huge role in making that happen. 

Listen in as we explore a possible future and how you can start using some of these communication and leadership abilities in your present world.

Do you have a question or comment for The Great Canadian Leadership Podcast? Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca.

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episode series:

• Our Special 4-part series on Presentation Skills to build your confidence, clarity and engagement in person or virtually.

The 9 Behaviours of Leadership-Part 2

Are leaders born that way? Probably not! Your business card may say ‘leader’ but that doesn’t mean you are one…yet. What if we took those leadership buzzwords like integrity, visionary, etc. and made them into tangible skills? What if we looked at other behaviours of leadership and made them into skills you could develop and practice?

This is part 2 of the 9 behaviours of leadership – these are traits, sometimes clichés – that we can make into clear skills you can develop. In this episode, we explore the soft skills of leadership, specifically how listening and empathy are core traits to continue developing.

Developing leaders can change. Existing leaders can get better.

David Kelly is the CEO of The Learning Guild. David has been a learning and performance consultant and training director for over 20 years. He is a leading voice exploring how technology can be used to enhance training, education, learning, and organizational performance. David is an active member of the learning community and can frequently be found speaking at industry events. He has previously contributed to organizations including ATD, eLearn Magazine, LINGOs, and more. For more on David, follow him on Twitter.

Listen in as we share how to make leadership behaviours into tangible and intentional skills and why it matters for your communication and leadership abilities.

• Do you have a question or comment for The Great Canadian Leadership Podcast? Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca.

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes:

• Virtual Reality meets Soft Skills
• And our upcoming 4-part series on Presentation Skills

The 9 Behaviours of Leadership-Part 1

Are leaders born that way? Probably not! Your business card may say ‘leader’ but that doesn’t mean you are one…yet. What if we took those leadership buzzwords like integrity, visionary, etc. and made them into tangible skills?

What if we looked at other behaviours of leadership and made them into skills you could develop and practice?

There is a wealth of information here – so much that we made this into a 2-part episode. In both parts, we explore the 9 behaviours of leadership – these are traits, sometimes clichés - and make them clear skills you can develop.

Developing leaders can change. Existing leaders can get better.

Our guest, David Kelly, guides us to a better understanding of words like ‘innovation’ and how to apply them and even measure their success.

David Kelly is the CEO of The Learning Guild. David has been a learning and performance consultant and training director for over 20 years. He is a leading voice exploring how technology can be used to enhance training, education, learning, and organizational performance. David is an active member of the learning community and can frequently be found speaking at industry events. He has previously contributed to organizations including ATD, eLearn Magazine, LINGOs, and more. For more on David, follow him on Twitter.

Listen in as we share how to make leadership behaviours into tangible and intentional skills and why it matters for your communication and leadership abilities.

Do you have a question or comment for The Great Canadian Leadership Podcast? Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca.

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes:

• The 9 Behaviours of Leadership-Part 2
• Soft Skills and Virtual Reality
• And our upcoming series on Presentation Skills

Getting Started with Business Storytelling

Are you using storytelling in business to motivate, inspire or persuade your audience(s)? Are you thinking, “Sure, I’d love to try, but where and how do I start this?”

This episode can help! Rance Greene gives us a masterclass on how we can create and design relevant stories to connect, inspire, guide or persuade others with a clear call to action.

Our guest Rance Greene is a Story Designer, Author, Speaker, and owner of Needastory.com and the School Of Story Design. Rance formed these companies for those who struggle with storytelling at work. His methodology—Story Design—gives leaders and talent development professionals a systematic and creative way for discovering who their audience is and how to persuade them to take action on new ideas.

Rance shares his diverse journey from Actor, Playwright, Choreographer, working with Inner City Youth to working with leaders in health insurance compliance and how stories created a common language that connected them all. Stories bring the emotional content, making facts relatable, more concrete, and fun, and persuade people to action.

Listen in as we share how to get started with business storytelling and why it matters to your leadership and audiences.

• Do you have a question or comment for The Great Canadian Leadership Podcast?
• Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca 

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes:

• Behaviors of Leadership
• Soft Skills and Virtual Reality
• And our 4-part series on Presentation Skills

How to Use Neuroscience to Feel More Confident

What if you could feel more confident for your next presentation, meeting, or pressure situation?

In this episode, learn ways to have more control over your thoughts, and not vice versa!

How does this help us to be more confident? It starts with learning how training your brain to grow and to be challenged is pivotal to building your new levels of confidence.

Are you challenging your brain? When you create new experiences, you are getting out of your comfort zone and on your way to growth and being better equipped to deal with FEAR (false evidence appearing real)

Our Guest, Diane Crawford, is the Chief Operating Officer at The Voyage Inc. Prior to starting her company, Diane held several senior leadership positions in the financial services industry. From managing her own start-up to directing a team of over 400 professional staff, she has honed her coaching and people development skills. Diane has been a regular presenter at the Human Capital Institute (HCI) conferences in the U.S. and is currently leading an E.U. sponsored program for African Women Leaders.

Join us in this episode as Diane shares the ways we can use our brains and the circle of confidence to feel more prepared for that next challenge.

 

Do you have a question or comment for the podcast? 

Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca 

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes

• Getting Started with Business Storytelling
• Behaviours of Leadership
• Soft Skills and Virtual Reality
• And our 4-part series on Presentation Skills

The Shared Experience Extravaganza - Summer Edition

Have you missed an episode? Looking for quick notes on giving feedback, communication styles and tips on leadership actions?

In this episode, we reflect on the 'Greatest Hits' from our guests and answer your questions on effective communication styles, giving feedback, time management, thought leadership and tough conversations.

It’s the Shared Experience Extravaganza - Summer Edition.

You can’t have an extravaganza without special guests: Joy Neuhold, Co-Owner of The Great Canadian Training & Consulting Company, and our superb producer Erica Baillie. 

Thank you to our guests, amazing leaders and experts who brought their insights, shared their failure ta-da moments and inspiring passion for leadership and communication styles. 

• Nicola Van Dam
• Nancy Shapiro
• Shayna Beeksma
• Jay Guilford
• John Horn
• Kira Callahan
• Arminda Gonzalez-Dumpierrez
• Michael Varga

 

Our panelists:

Joy Neuhold knew that she wanted to be a consultant and start her own business from a young age. After working for a small IT business and then moving up the career path for an insurance company within a year and a half, Joy took a travel break. She came back in 2002 to start what is now The Great Canadian Training & Consulting Company. In 2015, Joy purchased CompuEase to add to the offerings and range of software and soft skills training across North America.

 

Erica Baillie is the producer on The Great Canadian Leadership Podcast and Acting Training Manager at The Great Canadian Training & Consulting Company. Erica brings her experience in marketing and customer service and her passion for creating amazing customer service experiences for clients and guests of the podcast.

• Do you have a question or comment? 
• Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes

• The Neuroscience of Confidence
• Getting Started with Business Storytelling
• Behaviours of Leadership
• And our 4-part series on Presentation Skills