(Zurich, Switzerland)

Credit Suisse is one of the worlds biggest, and most global banks. Today they had a learning session for senior managers at their HQ in Zurich.

I was the speaker.

Every time I get invited to give a talk for senior, global managers at a big, global, multinational company I always remind myself why I got invited there.

Because it is crucial that I remind myself of that.

I have never had a senior position in a company bigger than 700 employees.

I have never worked in a big, global, multinational company.

I have never managed a bigger group than 60 people.

Yet here I am speaking for global, senior managers of a company with more than 40 000 employees and revenues of more than 25 billion CHF.

So why did I get invited?

One reason is of course that I have an expertise that the bank is looking for right now.

But it is also because I have chosen to take this expertise and add a global context to it.

I have done research in over 40 countries, been invited to speak in over 60 and go to between 20 and 35 countries every year. I do that because I want to understand my subject from a global perspective.

Would it be possible to get this speaking gig (and similar like it) had I not had this global exposure in over 60 countries and in 100’s of industries?

Yes.

Was it easier for me to get it because I do have it.

Oh, yes.

I do not care what your expertise is (ethics, diversity, networking, leadership or whatever).

If you are a speaker and if you are interested in speaking for top managers at global firms you should really consider adding a global perspective to your expertise. 

Many of these companies will not let you become a top manager unless you have worked in different positions, and in different places around the world – so that you have a more global – more human – outlook at the world.

And for the very same reason they will be much more likely to invite you as a speaker if you do too.

And that is why I travel so much.

(Suggestion: Submit your email address in the form to the right to get a convenient email summary in your inbox every time 10 new posts have been posted.)

Contact Fredrik by clicking on the email symbol below.

 

 

Share

I am from Sweden, I live in Singapore, just flew in from Brazil to Portugal where I am going to look up a street address in Zurich on Google map.

When I open maps.google.com they show me a map of the USA…

Here is the funny thing. Google knows all of the facts above.

They know I am from Sweden, they know I live in Singapore, they know I last checked in from Brazil and that I am now checking in from Portugal. Heck, they even know that I am soon flying to Zurich (as their latest feature in Google Calendar is to automatically post flight information in your calendar that they have picked up from Gmail…)

And yet they show me a map of the country where their HQ is located.

Why?

When I recently was entering “United Square” in my Uber app the first suggestion the app suggests was “United States”…

United Square is a shopping centre in Singapore, I am based in Singapore and I was doing the search on the Uber app in Singapore. Yet somehow they think I want to take a taxi ride to the country of America?

Why?

Back to Google.

So which map SHOULD Google map be showing? (you could argue that they show the USA because they do not know what location I want them to show)

They could show:

– the location I am checking in from (to give me a sense of location)

– Show the location of my home (to give me a sense of roots)

– Show me the last location I looked at (to give me a sense of time)

– Show me the location they think I want to look at (based on previous searches) (to give a sense of foresight)

– Show a random place on earth (to give a sense of humanity)

Any of the above would be better than showing the home country of the HQ of their company (which is all about them – not me – and which is totally, and utterly irrelevant to me.)

Yes, these are small bugs in their systems.

But they show a fundamental flaw in how businesses might have mastered “going global”, but not “thinking global” – or more specifically not “thinking human”.

Business should be built around the user. Not the company.

Solutions should be build for humans – not nationalities.

Our visions should be limitless – not confined by borders.

 

(Suggestion: Submit your email address in the form to the right to get a convenient email summary in your inbox every time 10 new posts have been posted.)

Contact Fredrik by clicking on the email symbol below.

Share

(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

For its global conference in Rio de Janeiro Nexia had invited two speakers:

Nelson Cardona, from Colombia.
and me (who flew in from Singapore).

I did a good speech, got great feedback (including a top manager of Nexia who came up and said “This was one of the best speeches I have ever heard, and I have heard a lot.”)

So job well done.

But I did not get a standing ovation.

Nelson Cardona did.

In this post I will analyse why.

1) An awesome story.
Nelson Cardona has had an amazing life. He was literally born during an earthquake. He ran away from home at 12 to discover the world and ended up in the rainforest for 8 years while his family thought he was dead. Then he became a climber. But in an accident he fell 18 meters and almost died and had to amputate his leg.

With just one leg he was able to climb Mt Everest (!) But on the way down he had lost so much weight that his prosthetic leg did not fit anymore and at the same time he got stuck in a storm with no oxygen left. He almost died again. But he somehow survived and now goes around and gives talks about living your passion.

2) A positive message.
His main message was about how he learnt not to complain and he showed a powerful picture of a very young child who had lost his legs but refused to complain and Nelson realised that to be a role model for this (and other) children he had to stop feeling sorry about himself and instead appreciate what he had.

As he said: “Life said to me” If you are going continue to complain I will take an eye out”.

3) Great connection to the client.

Nelson was perhaps the best speaker I have ever seen when it comes to connecting his speech to the client. He had included the clients logo, values, business and credo into his speech in a way that did not feel forced and which made “accounting” feel connected to climbing mt Everest.

4) Passion.
Speakers who tell their own story always run the risk of the audience feeling “why are you speaking so much about yourself?” or “What does this have to do with me?”. But Nelson was able to get the audience to connect to the higher message. You could tell by his speech that he was passionate about his life – but also about his message. (he spoke in Spanish so almost the whole audience had to listen via the translator which made it an even more impressive achievement.)

5) A great ending. (Which is probably the single most important part for who to get a standing ovation if I look at the times that I have gotten it in my career. (I can not go in in detail on how he ended it, but he did a very nice connection between a strategic decision that Nexia has taken for the future and his own story.)

To finish a speech in a good way we should not think about it as a “sprint to the finish line”’
More like how the participants in the TV show “american ninja warrior” stop to focus before they attack the last and most difficult hurdle.

Pause. Collect your thoughts. Focus. Get the audience to understand that you are now going to deliver the closing message – then pour all your energy into ending with a bang.

ps.

One of Nelsons message was that we have to “design the emotions”of the people we want to influence.

He used it to explain how he convinced his group that he could climb mt Everest with only one functioning leg. When people said it could not be done he said: “We have to do it to show people in Latin America that we can do great things.” His message became something bigger than just “I can do this” – it became “we have to do this to show everyone else that they can do what ever they can dream about too.”

As speakers that is one of the most important things that we do. We have to aim to “design the emotions” of our audience. And to do that we need to be aware about how to package our message in a way that moves them in a maximum way.

I did not get the standing ovation today.

But I got something better: a lesson in how to become a better speaker.

 

(Suggestion: Submit your email address in the form to the right to get a convenient email summary in your inbox every time 10 new posts have been posted.)

Contact Fredrik by clicking on the email symbol below.

Share

Learn how to become a professional global speaker

    We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.