An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Lighting, lighting, and lighting! The number of times I’ve had bad lighting in person or on a zoom call it can mess with you, if you’re in person you don’t want to get to hot only adds to the pressure. Online turn off your self-view, or get a detachable lighting ring over the camera.

At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need to Be a Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Liam G Donaldson.

Liam Donaldson is a recent graduate from Curtin University who joined Infor as an associate consultant. Prior to this, he had the opportunity to perform at Disney, interned at CSIRO to redevelop applications, and participated as a finalist in the Top 100 Future Leaders of Australia. These experiences led Liam to find his passion in information systems, as it enables users to do more with less.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

It’s a bit of a tail, I was born in Perth Australia and would live in Spain over the summer to visit my mother’s family in La Coruna. This shaped and showed me how the world is bigger than just you, and all I knew was I wanted to do it all! However, before I could jet set around the world doctors discovered I had heavily scared eardrums after my talking ability wasn’t progress as fast as expect which started the next 8 years to gain my hearing. I could hear but imagine a constant bubble around your ears, no background noise just you and my mother’s dulcet voice trying to grab my attention.

After my last surgery when I was 12, I started to understand how important speech, cadence, and rhythm where to communicate and disseminate information. I started out hating public speaking in high school as no one really wanted another speech on the book of the month during library class. When I started working as a demonstrator for a large vacuum company, I realised I love to teach and disseminate information.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

Passion for talking, and a computer science lecturer from the university I ended up completing my degree majoring in Logistics Supply Chain Management, and Business Information Systems. I originally started out with an event management and marketing major but found it wasn’t the kind of challenge I was looking for, neither was the PR, or business analytics major.

I always loved talking hearing or not and making any sense or not. It was the way I communicated that early on opened many doors that I didn’t think would be in my realm of possibilities growing up. From school council secretary, backstage tours of visiting musicals, and working as a performer for Disney world. I tried to home in my language capabilities and found I enjoy demonstrating or finding what the needs of a given client would be.

While with the technology side I always enjoyed showing what it could do and learn what it enabled users to do. When the lecturer showed up in my year 12 computer science class, I wasn’t fazed at first until the teacher whose name escapes me said you could do that. I always remembered her saying that and so after my fourth major change I decide to go into what I graduated with. From day one it blew my mind how technology could impact the world at large in ways we still can’t comprehend.

Merging these together I knew I wanted to head into the enterprise software industry, and after doing my degree part time with internships, several degree changes, and eventually finding what I enjoyed was systems implementation. It doesn’t have the sexiest jingle to it however to do a successful implementation need impactful communication, workshops, presentations, and many, many meeting to ensure a complex end-to-end system can meet the requirements of the client.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Probably the impact of covid. When youre here the title associate consultant in a tech company you assume that this would involve travel and a flash navy blue suit. But due to covid everything I’ve done has been online at my apartment in Melbourne Australia. Even I was delayed by 5 months and we still aren’t in the office. I think this is so interesting because what ever post-covid is it has shown so much of the communication we do and process configuration we achieve is all manageable on the hole at home.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I would have to say my first client presentation, wow was that a train wreck that was. At this point through university and extra curriculars I’d done I had a firm public speaking ability…Until this happened. I was getting ready to talk and my heart just started racing, my head went blank, and my throat dried up. It was for only 20 minutes, but I felt every second. I could speak and I’ve never lost me during a flu or cold. We eventually had to re-do the entire presentation but that took some coaching to get back to where I was capable of.

The lessoned learnt was something so simple and obvious, KISS — Keep it simple Stupid. For me to elevate to the level needed to communicate a presentation I have to believe and understand the basics, due to not understand the brief to the best of my abilities I did a rookie error everyone talks about and that make assumptions on what was needed. Never assume always ask, and always assume that you are wrong unless an email proves you right.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My mother, she was always there for me. We had our ruff times we are both very strong-willed individuals that want to do it our way, but she always was there to pick me up. She also would push me down if I was being too lazy, I will add.

A story is hard to share about someone like my mother, she shows through doing. She is the most giving and caring person I’ve meet. She would give the clothes of her back if it would help someone. But she never wavers either, she always stands up to inequality and ensure everyone feels welcomed and included. She would always make a lesson learnt out of how import it is to show up for people and what inclusion can do for someone mental health. Also never comment on a topic you don’t have valid information on, she would say even when I was young, I don’t know, we can look it up later. She valued the important of people, knowledge, and self-worth. I learnt a large portion of my soft skills set from watching her.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

Get comfortable in the uncomfortable, there’s a great David Bowie quote about life is like swimming out as far as you can and then just a little further. Anyone who I’ve idolised or been in the arena with during my success has failed more time than you can’t count. But failing is truly the only way to success, be the first to give it a go. You might always set it wrong, but it shows an eagerness to try and learn something new. The individuals who do that are always highlighted because everyone knows through seeing their actions they won’t back down to complexity of a task.

What drives you to get up every day and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?

Solving a problem is why I enjoy my work. I’m enabled to talk, find, and execute issues our client is facing using some of the best solution cloud driven software in the game. During a workshop or client meeting as a junior my goal is to ensure we are on task and meeting their needs. You hear horror stories at university of projects not working due to the implementation team adding value by their own metrics vs the companies need.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

Right now, I’m focusing on learning new systems for future client that we need more resources dedicated to in the APAC arena. I’m excited after completing my associate consultant certification what project I get to be involved next, will it be fashion, food and beverage, or even equipment management.

I see in the future more learning and more opportunities to take on responsibility that I currently have a knowledge short fall for. I hope that through these experiences I can start finding more ways to enable individuals to loosen up with presentation and enjoy the process of clients asking questions, high stress situations, or even a disagreement of a process flow.

Can you please give us your favorited “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Ceteris Paribus meaning all thing unchanged and equal. Effectively everything must equal, any input has the same output. You put in the work to learn a new process, present ideas in an easier manner, or going to the gym, all things require input. Throughout my life I’ve heard that quote and its always rang true for me. If your able to push yourself forward and try new things there will be an outcome. No not always what you wanted or good, but a learning opportunity at the minimum.

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need to Be a Highly Effective Public Speaker?”

1. Always breath and focus on your breath before you start.

2. The client, stakeholder, or audience is always more interested in the content then you. So, use that to your benefit, talk to the PowerPoint and the audience by gesturing towards key talking point. Don’t have a PowerPoint, then use the stage to walk around it will lower your stress automatically.

3. Lighting, lighting, and lighting! The number of times I’ve had bad lighting in person or on a zoom call it can mess with you, if you’re in person you don’t want to get to hot only adds to the pressure. Online turn off your self-view, or get a detachable lighting ring over the camera.

4. Confidence is nothing but lying. Fake it till you make it! Don’t think about questions they will ask (chances are they won’t) think about how to make the content interesting. Start with the good old 2 facts and a joke format.

5. Structure and build, every painter has a base, every speaker has an introduction. Build your speech and practice it till you can almost remember it! Having an arch in anything from ERP implementation software, to how to train your dog, you need to give a narrative to the audience.

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

Remember everyone is human and 9/10 you are the one with the upper hand, it’s your information they want and as long as you find a structure that best fits the information you are communicating then it’s a formula for gold!

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Use technology to forecast worldwide supply chain shortages, if each system was able to talk to one another we could figure out when a shortfall is coming and reduce the inherent risk by upping manufacturing, increasing a more diverse range of suppliers making sure that no one is a roll short on the toilet.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

Elon Musk is an engineer turned one of the worlds best last scale talent management in two of the largest companies in their respective fields. It would be great to just ask him what is the first thing you think of when meeting potential talent for your companies?

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

Please follow bellow:

Instagram: @liamgdonaldson

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/liamgd

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

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Liam Donaldson Of Infor On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.