Date: 8/20/2015

Title: WHAT LEADERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW PEOPLE THINK & LEARN IN ORDER TO LEAD THEM BETTER - PART 3

By Jennifer Erickson

How many times have you prepared an awesome (your definition) discussion, stood in front of people, only to look out at blank faces? Have you wondered how to grab and hold people’s attention? Some people start with jokes. That can work for a while and with a certain crowd, but it doesn’t keep the attention of your audience or team. What do you need to know, as a leader?

Grabbing and Holding People’s Attention

**Keep their attention by being unpredictable. Ask a question, move around the room, call on someone new, switch topics, have people stand, take breaks at alternating times, change your voice tone, change your voice pitch, etc.

**Sustained attention lasts about 10 minutes.

**People think they can multi-task……research says they really can’t. Ask them to put phones away and focus on you.

**Minds wander. It just happens. To keep people’s attention, ensure your presentation/talk hits all modalities of learning, interject stories, call on people by name, give them advance notice of a question you will be asking them, etc.

**Use cue words or phrases to grab their attention, before announcing some important fact.

**Present a concept 3-5 times, in a variety of different ways

**Listening and reading don’t mix well. If you have people reading something, then you need to be quiet!!!

**People use different parts of their brain to process words, depending on how you are using them…..passively looking at them, listening to them, speaking, and generating an answer.

**Use catch phrases or emotion-laden phrases to help people listen to you.

To learn more about how to practice this understanding, contact Results Group, LLC at www.ResultsGroupLLC.com or 515-330-2866.