How Not To Use Your Hands When Presenting

We think of speaking as an activity where we use our voice. That is true but we use a lot more than that. We use our face, eyes, legs, body and our hands. When we are speaking while seated it is different to when we are standing. We need to master all situations for when we are called upon to speak in front of others. One of our problem areas is what to do with our hands when we speak. Judging by most of the presentation I see in Japan, few speakers have worked this out yet.

Here are some common habits we can improve upon to make ourselves much more persuasive and professional.

1. Hands in front of the body. This for men will usually means wrapping the right fist by the left hand and holding both in front of the groin. For women, Japan has a specific requirements such as cupping the fingers of each hand so they interlock like the yin yang symbol and holding them at waist height or sliding the fingers together at the thumb and first finger intersection, so the arms are outstretched and all the fingers are pointing to the ground. This is usually a set and is combined with the foot positioning, so that one foot is forward of the other and the front toe of the rear shoe touches the back heel of the front shoe.

These elaborate rituals are a product of trying to standardise the form and to kill uncontrolled hand movements. It also kills the ability to use gestures to support and strengthen our words. The arms and hands when held in front of the body also create a subliminal barrier between the audience and the speaker. It is saying “I don’t trust you, I am scared of you and I need to protect my most vial organs from you, in case of sudden attack”. As a speaker, we want to be as inclusive as possible, so we need to eliminate all physical barriers (podiums, reams of notes, ipads, arms) between ourselves and our audience. We also want to show we are totally confident and have a welcoming attitude to our audience.

2. Arms behind the back, clasped together. This is another anchor technique used when the speaker has no idea what to do with their hands. The hands are also invisible to the audience, so the speaker feels they can forget about what to do with them or how they are placed or situated. That is true, but there are a few issues with this pose. Since cave dweller days, we have learnt not to trust people whose hands are not visible to us. They may have been concealing a weapon. The thigh bone of a major animal, a sturdy, gnarled tree branch or a sharp, flinty rock with which to bash us on the head and steal out fire, food or loved ones. In more advanced and sophisticated times, the fear is they will suddenly whip out a deadly blade and plunge it deep into our soft intestines and kill us.

The palms open and facing forward gesture is a universal and timeless indicator of “I am not a threat to you, because, as you see I have no hidden weapon”.   This when associated with certain words and phrases says “you can trust what I am saying”. Not a bad thing for a speaker to achieve with an audience, especially to a gathering of card carrying skeptics.

3. Arms folded across the chest or one hand touching one elbow while the other hand is held near the face. Like number one, these are defensive postures specifically designed to keep your audience away from your vital spots. By the way, I do recommend the latter posture, if you are ever standing close and talking with someone you are suspicious of. My karate background recommends that position, because from there it is very quick to parry a sudden “king hit” style blow to either your face or your body, but I digress.

In speaking term though, these postures send all the wrong messages. We want to be trusted as a speaker and to do so, we have to show we are open to our audience. Holding our hands by our sides is a natural position and from here it is easy to raise our hands when needed, to inject a powerful gesture with which to back up our words.

4. Hands in the pockets. This is a particular favourite of male executives who have no idea of what to do with their hands when speaking. The really confused thrust both hands into their respective trouser pockets achieving a sort of stereo effect. It presents the hands where they can be seen from the front, but it denies us the opportunity to use gestures during out talk.

5. Holding something in our hands. When we are teaching public speaking, our participants often want to hold their speaking notes in their hands when they do the pair practice role plays. I notice they actually never look at them, but they feel comforted that should they get into trouble, help is close by, if there is a possible brain white out.

Sheets of paper however tend to become a distraction as we tend to wave them around. The pages quiver and shake if we are nervous and this is visible to our audience. We are sending the wrong message to them. We want to convey belief and confidence in our message.

If we are looking down, be it at the notes page or an iPad, we break off eye contact with our audience. Instead, we need to be watching our audience like a hawk, constantly gauging their reaction to what we are saying. We also want to employ our eye power to engage with them directly and sell them on our key messages. We want to remove all distractions from what we are communicating and we want to free up our hands so we can employ our gestures to bolster our argument.

6. Gripping the podium, the microphone stand or holding the hand microphone with both hands. The double hand, vice like grip of the podium gives the speaker the feeling of stability. It also removes the “what do I do with my hands” conundrum. What it says about you though is, “I am nervous and lacking in confidence”. It can make us appear quite strained as we apply muscle power to the upper arms and raise our shoulders, as we ensure the podium does not make a sudden attempt to scarper. Best to not even touch the podium at all and just feel free to raise your hands for gestures. Holding the microphone or it’s stand with both hands, precludes us from gesturing during our talk. Don’t touch the microphone stand at all. Restrict the hand microphone usage to one hand only, so the other is free and readily available for emphasis.

Having said that, if you find your arms and hands are shaking almost uncontrollably, because the adrenaline is coursing though your body, then by all means hold the microphone with both hands and gather it to your chest, so no one can see how petrified you are. The shaking won’t be visible anymore and you can feel more confident when you are talking.

7. Hands under the table. If we are seated during our presentation, we don’t want to hide our hands under the table. This is the same trust issue as the hands behind the back in number two. Place the hands on top of the table, resting comfortably together where they can be seen. From there, pick them up and use them for gestures.

8. Over employing or holding on to the same gesture, all of the time. We need to use a variety of gestures otherwise, we become too predictable and boring for our audience. We also need to turn gestures on and off, like the faucet of a tap. Don’t let the water run too long, remember to switch it off for a while. The break between usage and non-usage, gives the gesture more force with our audience. If we hold the same hand position for longer than 15 seconds, all the power of that gesture dies and it just becomes an annoyance to our audience.

9. Pointing our finger at people, making a fist like we want to fight, making slapping sounds and waving our hands around like a drowning person when speaking. Thrusting our single finger at someone is an aggressive action, as is brandishing our fist. We associate these gestures with an invitation to argument or combat. Neither should be our intention when engaging with our audience. Slapping or hands together or slapping our legs is an unnecessary distraction and we should avoid doing so. Waving our hands around becomes another distraction from the message we want to convey and can look like we are out of control.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Presentation Advice for Japanese Politicians

Vince Staples, American Hip Hop Rapper, was recently quoted in a Financial Times interview, “You have to paint the picture because everyone doesn’t come from the same background”. Even a humble Long Beach rapper gets the point of engaging our audience with stories when we are the speaker. Japanese politicians have to do a lot of public speaking, but they are rarely engaging. They are generally speaking at their audiences rather than to them. I previously attended the Japan Summit at the Okura Hotel Ball Room run by the Economist. Sitting there listening to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, then Minister for National Strategic Zones Shigeru Ishiba and then Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy Akira Amari, I was struck by the lack of picture painting and storytelling in their presentations.

By the way, if you have seen Prime Minister Abe of late, he has improved quite a bit. Whether it was some coaching before the Olympic bid or thereafter, the man is much better. More animated, using bigger gestures, more eye contact, using those see through teleprompters to help engage the audience rather than looking down at a page of notes. He had humour, pauses for clarity and some voice modulation. Hey Japan, take note, it is possible to become better at public speaking!

I can’t give a similar praiseworthy account for his other colleagues. They are generally a dull bunch. I flash back to Abe’s arch rival Shigeru Ishiba, who also spoke that day at the Summit. Sprawled in his seat, eyes looking up and away in the distance at some obscure spot of the upper reaches of the Grand Ballroom wall, he spoke in a voice dripping in disinterest, leavened with lethargy and boredom. He absolutely proved Professor Albert Mehrabian’s rule that when what you say (content) is incongruent with the way you say it (delivery), then 93% of the message is missed.

Here is the scary part. I closed my eyes and tried to just concentrate on the words and actually the content was pretty good and well considered. If we took the transcript and showed it to people, I am sure they would be impressed with how he was analyzing the situtaion. But he totally murdered his message.

I doubt anyone in the room got many of the points he was making. Why was that? He could have made a few adjustments and the message worth and delivery could have coincided to be very powerful and build his brand with his audience. This mediocre effort is typical of the political and business worlds in Japan. They are simply not making enough effort to become effective communicators. Sometimes you feel you are stuck in time and we are back in the 1950s here.

Minister Amari was polite, nice, but boring. He was boring because like Abe and Ishiba, he was dancing the two step data dump of information. This is a problem in corporates as well, as the leader gets up and drills the audience with detail, detail and more detail. The idea that the purity or the quality of my information is superior and sufficient, is so grossly outdated and incorrect, you wonder how it could survive in this 24/7, totally connected, information overloaded world.

CFOs and other technical types, please take note – don’t bore us with your data.

Tell us a story, pleeease! Bring the points being made to life by connecting them to some people and events you have encountered. Our minds are well trained to absorb stories, because they are the first educational structure we encounter as young children. The story should start with taking us to the place of the story, the location, the room, nominate the day, month or the season and introduce the people there, preferably people we already know, to make it real for us.

By getting straight into the story we can draw our audience in. We can now intertwine the context behind the point we want our audience to agree with. By providing the background logic, cloaked in a story which is vivid, we can see it in our mind’s eye. We will have more success convincing others to follow us. Having set the scene, we finish by outlining our proposition or proposal and tie the ribbon on top, by pin pointing the major benefit of doing what we suggest. This is elegant and powerful.

Storytelling does suffer from misuse. American politicians lead the world in this regard. Like many things in America there is gross exaggeration. If a story is good, then ten stories must be better. That is why we hear politicians referencing various Joe Public individuals in their speeches, trying to connect with their audience. Usually it comes across as fake, duplicitous, over cooked and shady.

In business, we don’t want any of that inference, so we should use storytelling sparingly yet powerfully. Less is more, but none is bad. Unite our disparate audience from multiple backgrounds by wrapping our key message in a story and if you do, what you say will be remembered, unlike almost all Japanese politicians. Let the story create your context, evidence and sizzle for your key message

Action Steps

1. Stop believing the quality or quantity of your information is enough
2. Don’t try and pack too many stories into your presentation
3. Start the story by creating a vivid mind picture of the scene

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "The Presentations Japan Series" and "The Sales Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Speaker Final Impressions

Final impressions at the end of a speech are what determine our memory of the person.  Life is throwing so much information at us and at such a manic pace we are easily overwhelmed. We are unlikely to recall too much of the detail of the talk, because there are so many other details in business and life competing for our brain space.  I remember reading that Albert Einstein didn’t bother remembering his own phone number. He said he wanted to apply his available memory space for more higher order items. I like that excuse for why I can’t remember a lot of stuff! Anyway, as an audience we may be similarly picky about what we choose to recall. Yet, we will retain an overall impression of the speaker, for good or otherwise, forever. We can let that be a random selection event or we can plan to have the final impression the one we have chosen in advance.

It is a bit like a restaurant we may visit. Unless you are like my wife, you are unlikely to remember every meal you have ever eaten, but you will come away with an impression of the quality and taste of the food, the service levels and the atmosphere. We will either record that as a place to revisit or we will determine to drop that one off the list of the many choices we have facing us.  The same with speakers. If we are left with favourable impression, then we will look forward to spending time with them and hearing from them again.

I attended a recent presentation. The speaker was rather casually dressed for the occasion and frankly it didn’t look promising. It was one of the best presentations I have attended in a long time. I can’t remember every detail, but that speaker is right up there in my mind as someone I would look forward to hearing from again. The delivery was competent and the information was super well presented and highly relevant. Another speaker here in Tokyo always draws a huge capacity crowd whenever he speaks. He has a unique style, but he has combined his content and delivery faculties well and is now a go to guy to have speak. The final impression is “that was a very valuable use of my time to sit there and listen to him speak and I want to hear more from this guy”.

Now your talk may not even get off to a brilliant start, but it better have a brilliant finish.  The idea of recency is that we tend to remember more of what we heard last, than what we heard first.  The details of the talk's key points and the evidence backing it up are lost, as the content quantity builds, each point overlaying the last. The speaker we remember yes, but the details no.  We have to therefore really work on how we leave the audience. Will we have a call to action, a rallying cry to do something that will grip the audience’s imagination and inspire them to make a change to what they have always been doing?

Will we leave them with a pithy quote that really gets them thinking about their view of the world and their place in it? Will the ending reheat the one key point we want them to remember?  There are so any ways to end a talk, but the key is to plan it well from the very beginning.  

The ending is where we should commence our design process.  That sounds a bit counterintuitive doesn’t it. Normally we think we should start at the start, that is the opening of the speech and then we flesh out what will be the key points and finally we design the wrap up at the end. That is the technique of the rank amateur. Actually the order is the other way around. We start with the end, then design the key points we will raise and finally we design how we will open it up.

Designing the ending is no small thing. To get a long argument of a 30-40 minute speech chunked down to a single sentence is hard work.  This is the professional skill of the copywriter and few of us have that training or expertise. Yet we have to come up with the equivalent of a killer line that encompasses the entire talk and encapsulates the key message for the audience. A take away for the audience that resonates well after the lights had been turned out and the doors locked at the venue.

If we can do that, then the last impression will be positive. If we can inspire the audience to take action, then we will have made a real contribution to the business and they will thank us for it. If we changed their view or widened their vision of how they see the world, they will feel richer than when they arrived for the talk. We want the audience to mentally thank us for adding something to their business or their life. That exchange of their time for greater value is what raises our value in their minds. This should be our aim and how we finish the talk is the tool to deliver that outcome.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

About The Author

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Evidence Rich Presentations

There are a number of common structures for giving presentations and one of the most popular is the opening-key points/evidence-closing. We consider the length of the presentation, the audience, the purpose of our talk and then we pour the contents into this structure. Generally, in a 30 minute speech we can only have a few key points we can cover, so we select the most powerful and then look for the evidence which will persuade our audience. This is where a lot of presentations suddenly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The structure flow is a simple one, the analysis of the occasion is straightforward but at this next stage we can get confused about what we are trying to achieve. We might become so engrossed in the evidence assembly component that we forget the crucial “WHY” aspect of this effort. We are not here to produce mounds of statistics, battalions of bar charts or proffer reams of text on a screen. Technically oriented presenters love to bludgeon their audience with detail, usually in font or scale so small, it is barely visible on screen. Don’t do that, you will be killing your message.

No, the WHY is all about persuading the audience of our conclusion or way of thinking. This is communication skill rather than archeological or archival skill. Line charts, pie charts, comparison tables are trotted out to do battle with the perceptions and biases of the audience. The errors though include a presentation style where the actual detail is unapproachable and so is not fully accepted. If you can’t even read it how are we are supposed to be mesmirised by the power of the information. The tendency to imagine that this quality data will stand by itself and not require the presenter to do much, is another grave error. “I don’t have to be a good speaker, because the quality of my information is so high”, is a typical, if somewhat pathetic excuse. This excuse may have had some hint of relevance once upon a time but the internet has swept that excuse straight out the door. The exclusivity of information ownership has been replaced by a free for all provision of all the information you need accessed through search engines.

Another common error is to invest the vast majority of the time for the presentation preparation on the accompanying slides for the talk. Digging up the data, tweaking the detail, creating the charts, arranging the order. We become quite busy. So busy, in fact, that we forget to practice the delivery of the talk. We run out of time because w have dome a poor job of planning for the talk and properly allocating our precious time. Toyota does well as a manufacturer using its Just In Time methodology but this is not the model for the speaker. Don’t leave it until the last moment. Be well organised and build in rehearsal time from the start. We can find ourselves presenting the content for the first time up at the podium, peering down at our audience. We are in fact practicing on our audience and this is not a best practice.

How should we fix this approach? Some examples of evidence are really powerful when they are numbers but instead of drowning our audience with too many numbers, we can select one and use a very big font to isolate out that one number on screen. We then talk to that number and explain what it means. If we want to use line charts or trend analysis then one chart per slide is a good rule. We don’t split the visual concentration of our audience. We speak to the significance of the trend knowing that our audience can see the trend line for themselves.

To improve our communication effectiveness, we go one step further and we tell stories about these numbers. Who was involved, where, when and what happened. We recall stories more easily than masses of data. This helps to get us around to the WHY of our talk, the key point we want the audience to absorb. And we practice the delivery over and over until we are comfortable we have the cadence right. The application of knowledge is where the value lies and telling stories about both failures and successes brings the talk alive.

We recall Professor Albert Mehrabian’s study about the importance of not just what we say, but how we say it. He found that when what we are saying isn’t congruent with the way we are saying it, we can lose our audience. They get distracted by how we look and how we sound. Today, it is even worse because they have their phones and tablets handy to escape from us while we are speaking.

Emphasising particular words, adding gestures for strengthening key points, engaging our audience by using eye contact and facial expressions, allowing pauses so ideas can sink in and reducing distractions so our words are heard is how we need to be doing it. Yes, we should have great evidence and yes, we should impart that in the most effective means possible. If we have both content and delivery, then we are a force to be reckoned with!

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

When Presenting You Gotta Have Rhythm

Usually a speech or presentation is somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour long. Obviously, the longer the talk, the harder it is to keep the audience’s attention. Even worse, today, everyone has their internet connection to email, social media and apps in their hand, right there under the desk, while we are speaking. We have all become fervent multi-taskers, listening to someone speak while surreptitiously scrolling through our email feed, Facebook or LinkedIn or all three!

For the speaker to be persuasive there must be a transfer of passion and belief to the members of the audience. How does this work when we speakers are only getting the partial attention from those we wish to persuade? The irony is we have never had so many devices to aid our message communication and yet we are becoming less communicative thanks to our small screen obsession. Talking at others is not communication. Having our listener follow what we are saying, digest it and agree with it, must be the goal. Otherwise, why are we bothering? We could just send everyone the 10 key bullet points by email and we can all head off early to cocktails.

Words carry their weight through the delivery. I was reminded of this recently when some clever person put together a video of Donald Trump speaking, but dubbed him with a very polished Oxbridge style, British accent. The precise same words were there from the original speech by The Donald, but they were magically transformed into something that sounded more intelligent. How was that possible? The delivery is what made the difference and the dubbed speaker was very skilled and polished.

Many people imagine that the content of their talk will be sufficient to carry the day with their presentation and that emphasising delivery skills is simply dabbling in verbal voodoo. Such beliefs are often firmly held by technically oriented people, for whom proof, evidence, statistics and data are sacrosanct, solid and sacred. The weight of the evidence is all we need to persuade others. Not true!

“If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it matter?”, is one of those cool, hipster questions some people like to throw around. Here is another version: “If your evidence was compelling, but nobody was paying close attention, would it matter?”. The answer is obviously “Yes, it matters”. The degree of difficulty in being heard in a cacophonous, blue back screen focused world is increasing everyday. We have to rise to the task.

Let’s presume that the presentation’s opening has been well designed and is successful in grabbing the attention of even the most distracted audience. Before we get to the wrap up and call for Q & A, we have our main points to present. This number will probably range between three and five points. If it is a 40 minute speech, then we have roughly 30 minutes for the main body and so around 5 to 10 minutes per section of the speech. There may be main points and sub-points in each section, depending on the density of the topic.

We can take a bracket of 5 to 6 minutes as our framework for the speech. Every bracket needs to have a change of pace to keep our audience’s attention. Even within the same topic or sub-topic, we need to switch gears and vary the delivery. This is not something we leave to happenstance – we plan this from the very start.

We might introduce a powerful visual effect be it on screen or in the room using a prop. I used a rolled up Japanese scroll to great effect in a speech. I wanted to unfurl the scroll so it would drop quickly and reveal what was written there. I attached some small weights to the bottom of the scroll to have it make a slight snapping sound for even more dramatic effect.

On the scroll was written “DatsuO NyuA” (脱欧入亜), which was a play on words reversing a Meiji era slogan of Japan turning away from Asia and going toward European civilization. I was making the point that my country of Australia was moving away from Europe toward Asia. I could have just said so in words, but the scroll drop was much more powerful.

On another occasion, I was making the point about Australia being as safe a Japan, because of the similar strict gun control laws. Hidden in my suit jacket I had a plastic replica Magnum 38 handgun, which Clint Eastwood made so famous in his Dirty Harry movies. It has a very long barrel and is a physically big gun, so even when viewed at a distance, it has visual impact. I slowly pulled the gun out and held it in profile view to the audience, high above my head, saying “This is illegal in Australia, the same as in Japan”, to make my argument about the safety of sending their children to study in Australia.

Now our speech cannot become littered with too many such devices every five minutes, because we will be exhausting our audience. However, there should be a change of pace at regular intervals to keep our audience with us. It might be a powerful quotation, a joke or a visual on a slide that grabs our attention. We are going for the mental equivalent of an audience stretch break every five minutes or so. The key is to plan the speech this way from the beginning, if we want our message to be heard.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

The “55% Of How We Communicate Is Visual” Myth

 Professor Albert Mehrabian’s 1967 study of communication concluded that 55% of the presenter’s message was received visually, 38% from voice tone and only 7% through the words. As we all know a little bit of knowledge is dangerous and these numbers have been widely misinterpreted. As a result a number of gurus and pseudo experts have built businesses around emphasising the importance of how we look when we present. So, according to this misplaced logic, how we look accounts for over half of the impression of how we come across, so pay careful attention to dress etc.

Professor Mehrabian nearly 50 years ago, flagged an issue that has reached epidemic proportions today – audience distraction. In his day, he was worried about factors that might compete with the key point we were trying to get across. His research showed that this 55/38/7 split only applied under one very critical condition.

When what we are saying is not congruent with how we are saying it, the audience leaves us. They go off message and get distracted by our dress and appearance in 55% of the cases. Others are no longer listening to what we are saying, but to how we are saying it. So 38% are focused on how we sound, our voice qualities, our accent, our pronunciation, etc. When we are incongruent between what we are saying and the delivery, only 7% of the words are registering with our audience.

When we say “incongruent” what do we mean by this? In some societies, family members being interviewed by television reporters after losing loved ones in a tragedy, are smiling while talking to camera. This is a painful moment, yet they are smiling. In these cultures this is accepted as a polite way to not burden others with their personal, heartfelt grief. This for the rest of us is incongruent. What we would expect is a face contorted with sad feelings, tears rolling down cheeks and a voice barely audible and breaking up under the strain. In the same way, a happy event greeted with a long, sad face would not be congruent.

Mehrabian’s work tells us that when we don’t match what we say with how we say it, we lose our audience. It wouldn’t matter how well dressed we were, we wouldn’t be able to maintain attention to what we are saying. No matter how stentorian or lilting, pleasant and professional our speaking voice, the key message is still being lost.

Wooden faces, devoid of expression are precisely the target for Mehrabian’s research results. These are often the experts in their fields who rely on their reputation and authority to carry the day. They are heavyweights and their faces are ever serious, never smiling. The problem is they are only able to manage one facial expression throughout their presentation, regardless of the content.

Not every sentence in a presentation is of such heavy weight seriousness. Consequently, the audience leaves their message and to add to that dilemma, it is so easy to escape the presenter today, thanks to powerful hand held devices allowing us to instant on-line access to the world.

We need to have highs and lows in our presentations. Serious and light moments, complex and simple components of the message. Each of these requires a face and voice of its own, that is in synch with the content. Of course we should be dressed appropriately for the occasion, but we need to make our face and voice do the work, not the suit, blouse, tie or shoes.

If the topic is serious, be serious but be prepared to ease off the pressure from the constant seriousness. It is exhausting for an audience, they need a break or we will lose them. If we are flippant and light all the time, we will not be providing enough variety for our audience at the other end of the scale. Telling jokes and repeating witticisms constantly for 40 minutes is not a substitute for a well designed presentation, unless you are a professional comedian and that is your trade.

If we focus on being congruent when we speak, then we will be more successful in getting our message across to our audience. That 7% number will flip to become close to 100% and that is what we want.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

The Design Stage Of Presenting

Many people don't start out with a design for their talk.  They launch straight into the details, especially working with the slides.  The lack of design shows as the structure isn't tight enough, the points are nor clear enough and mostly the talk is totally forgettable.  They feel happy however because the talk was completed and they can tick that box.  This is often the case here in Japan where giving the speech well and just giving the speech are confused. Our objective is to provide value to our audience and build our personal and professional brand, not just give a speech.  We judge companies based on who we meet. If the person speaking is really impressive, we extrapolate that ability and project it to the whole team.  Conversely, if the speaker is a dud, then we assume nobody at that shop is much good.

Designing our presentation is a critical stage.  We have identified our target audience for our key messages.  We have selected the title to really engage our audience.  We know the purpose of the exercise - inform, persuade, entertain, motivate to action.

Designing the conclusion is always a good place to start.  The conclusion is really the summary of the key message we want to get across.  The actual content delivery of the concluding message may vary from what we design at the beginning, but it is still a very good discipline to force us to focus on the one central thing we want our audience to take away from our speech.

Having boiled all of the various things we could say down to the one most important thing, we can now work backward and think about how we can get our audience to agree with our conclusion.

Covering too many points and our audience will have trouble following the thread of our argument.  Too few points and the argument may not seem convincing for lack of depth and evidence.

We may group similar ideas under the one umbrella idea and may include those together.  We have the key points selected that we want to raise and now we have to construct the argument to support the ideas.  This would include some evidence based around statistics, data, expert opinion and authority references.

Usually three key points is easy for an audience to follow, but if the subject matter is complex or if you have been given a longer time to speak then five may be needed.  There are a number of structures for how you present the individual ideas. It could be a result/problem/ solution structure or you may switch the problem to the start and then outline the solution and the consequent result.  The key is that the structure flows logically to make it as easy as possible to follow.

Having derived the key points we are going to make, we go back and design two closes.  One is for the very end of the speech. This is to tie the whole presentation together.  We might review what we said or we might focus on a particular key point.

Having designed that close, we now design a different one to follow the Q & A session. We need this second close, so that we can keep the whole proceedings on track.  We have no control over what people will raise at the end by way of questions and so it often happens that an audience member will take the discussion off topic.  If we just allow the event to finish at that point we have lost control of the messaging.  We need to wrap it up in a way that the audience have our key point ringing in their ears as they leave the venue.

Finally we design the opening.  This is a tricky one because it is wrapped tightly together with the first impression we will make with the audience.  If we try a joke that is weak and falls flat, our initial impression is negative.  If we start rambling, we lose the audience's attention.  If we commence with something very boring we are going to have trouble breaking through the noise that is humming away between the ears of our audience.  We need to break into their attention and capture them for the receipt of our key message.

Questions are very powerful.  These should be asked rhetorically, in a way that the audience is not actually sure if it is a rhetorical question or something they actually have to answer.  This creates a certain amount of tension that drives their attention to what the speaker is saying.

They are curious to find out what you meant.

Quoting some relevant expert on the subject is also good because it references the topic and gives the speaker additional authority to their message.

Statistics are powerful because they are hard evidence and tell the audience this is going to be a fact based presentation and not just opinion.

Something shocking is a good way to grab attention, so make a provocative statement and then explain what you mean.

We can always flag our conclusion at the start and then spend the rest of the time justifying our interpretation.

This is a standard ploy and it has it’s own risks.  Audiences are already distracted and anything that smacks of predictability sees them drifting away from us and straying into extraneous unrelated thoughts, completely off-topic.

The title of our talk is usually selected before we get down to the nitty gritty of the speech design.  We may have been requested to speak on a certain subject, so our ability to use our title to intrigue may be contained.  It is not such a problem because most people will have forgotten the exact title of your talk and unless there is a slide with the title listed, they will have trouble recalling it word for word.

The opening, therefore is the opportunity to break through all the audience noise - all their screaming monkeys running around inside their brains.  This should be designed with great precision and delivered the same way. Don't digress or comment on something that has happened in the lead up, get straight into the opening and grab the audience.

Before the start of the event, get there early and mix with some of the participants.  Get them talking about the topic, this is a good way to connect with the audience by referencing what a couple of them said in the moments before the speech started.  The person referenced feels very special through the recognition and the imaginary boundary between the speaker and the audience disappears as the speaker becomes one with the group.

Only at this point in our preparation should we start playing around with the slides to support the presentation.  Once you have designed it this way the need for a lot of text on the screen disappears.  We know what we need to say and so we can start introducing pictures and diagrams, as well as text.  Even the text can be just one word because we are able to talk to the key points covered by that word.  This is very powerful because it keeps your eyes on the audience and off your text.

When we are designing the talk there will be key words that lend a lot of weight to our argument and these may be key words we want to emphasis on the screen, though a photo or a video or some image.

Everyone is used to seeing lots of text on the screen and when you present in a different way you remain memorable.  The audience will not remember the details of your speech, but they will remember their impression of you, the speaker.

Japan may be the land of Zen but there is very little Zen influence going on when it comes to slides.  Baroque with its ornate detail is more the flavor here with many competing colors and a screens packed with information, spread across an astonishing number of different fonts styles and sizes.

Japan has a love for detail, but we don't have to put it all up on the screen.  Japan also has a love of the written word and what is written down carries a lot more weight that in Western countries.  The point here is that Japan is still some way behind the rest of the world in this aspect of clear communication.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

The Presenter’s Mindset

Our mental approach to our activities determines our success.  We know this in sports and in business, but when it comes to speaking in public, we somehow manage to forget this vital point.

We know we have to make a presentation, so we get straight into the details and logistics, without spending even a moment on our proper mindset for the activity. Given we are putting our personal and professional brand out there for all to see, you would recognise this was a fairly important opportunity to get it right.

The mindset game is a critical one, especially if we are nervous about giving presentations.  Confidence is paired with credibility in the presentation game and we have to exude both.  We may be very unsure, nervous, even petrified but we must never show that side to our audience.  Hesitation kills the message delivery and therefore the impact.

Often we think that our wondrous content will carry the day, that we can be hopeless presenters, but somehow it won't matter.  There are few subjects where we are the font of all knowledge and therefore everyone else has to put up with our ineptitude.  

Normally, we are competing for the attention of our audience.  Social media has made a hell for presenters because within two seconds our audience can escape to any number of other more interesting worlds.  People are becoming used to multi-tasking, reading their Facebook feed, while they are doing something else like listening to us.

We need to have a powerful faculty to compete with the wonders of the Internet. A big part of our appeal is our message’s worth and the delivery of that worth. Both are required.  To get the right combination, we need to sell that we are confident in what we're saying and our content is valuable. This means we are able to deliver the talk without having to read the text.  We can talk to key points in front of us or up on the screen.  This is different from burying your head in text notes and not engaging your audience.  To have the confidence to work the room while speaking, means you have to know the content.   You created it or adjusted what someone else put together for you.  

Start with a powerful opening, including the key message captured in your conclusion. Isolate out 3-5 key points so make your argument and support them with evidence. Design both your first close and your second close for after the Q&A.

You have managed your schedule well, so that there has been ample opportunity to practice the delivery.  People who are spending all their time on the making the slides

forget they have to rehearse the delivery for an audience. They usually prefer to practice on their audiences, then wonder why the whole thing was very flat with no engagement of their audience.

In the weeks leading up to the talk we are the thinking about what we want to say and how we might say it, we are combing the media and books for juicy quotes and examples to back up what we are saying. We are playing it out in our mind's eye.  During this mental imagining, we see ourselves as very confident and successful - we are predicting our success by seeing it before we even do it.  We are seeing the audience nodding and agreeing with what we say.  We can see ourselves enjoying the moment and feel in full control.

When we have rehearsed, we know the timing, the cadence of the talk.  We know where to pause, which words to hit harder than other to emphasize our key points.  We are confident on the flow of our talk and with this knowledge we can now relax and enjoy the process rather than dreading it.

Action Steps

1. Decide you will have the right mindset for your talk
2. Understand your delivery is what makes your content work, not the other way around
3. Don’t read the text – speak to your points or use the screen for your prompts
4. Carefully design your opening, your key points (3 to 5) and your two closes
5. Use mental imaging to see yourself being successful giving the talk
6. Rehearse – don’t practice on your audience

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

How To Prepare For Your Talk

Before jumping straight into the slides to build your presentation, identify your likely audience. It might be an internal meeting report to your team, a presentation to your immediate boss or to the senior executives of the firm. It might be a public talk. How knowledgeable are the attendees on the subject matter? Are you facing a room full of experts or are they amateurs or a mixture of both? What are the age ranges and the gender mix?

Next, consider what is the purpose of the speech? Are you there to pass on relevant information, to inform your audience of some facts and figures? Are you there to entertain them, to make people laugh, to boost morale? Is persuasion your objective, to sell them on your vision, idea, product or proposition? Are you trying to motivate them to take action, to rally behind your flag?

How long do we have to speak? Many may think that a short speech is easier than a longer one. Depending on the objective, the degree of difficulty may be higher with the shorter speech. Trying to persuade others or to motivate others, usually requires solid evidence to bring the audience around to our way of thinking. In a shorter speech there is less opportunity to pour on the evidence.

What time of the day will we speak. After lunch and after dinner are two tough slots. Consuming meals and alcohol will sap the audience’s energy and attention. If it is an evening affair, where everyone is standing around and your speech is all that separates the masses from the food and drink, expect they will be distracted. In Japan, in such cases, audiences are usually merciless about chit chatting right through your speech. There is that low roar of an ascending passenger jet coming from the back of the room.

How will you dress for success? All eyes will be on you. Given we absorb a good deal of your message through body language, how you present yourself makes a big difference. In Japan, it is rare to be overdressed for the occasion. Usually it is better to be more formal in dress than casual. Be careful that your tie, pocketchief or scarf does not compete with your face for the attention of the audience.

Where will you stand or will you sit down? If you are using a screen, stand to the “audience left” of the screen. We want the audience to look at our face and then look at the screen. We read left to right, so your face first, then the screen is the natural order.

Japan loves to have the speaker sit down at a table with a microphone stand, so you can drone on and on, like all the other speakers. This is partially regard for hierarchy, because standing above others and looking down on everyone else, implies you are superior to the audience. It is felt better to be seated on the same level.

You will often hear Japanese speakers mount a rostrum and say, “Excuse me for speaking from this elevated position”. It is also regard for the speaker on the basis that you will get tired having to stand and so please be comfortable and sit down.

It is better if you can stand, simply because you are more easily seen by your audience, especially those seated at the rear. You can use all of your body language to bolster the points you are making. If, you are forced to sit then sit forward, as high as possible in the seat and use voice modulation, gestures and facial expressions to help convey your message.

What will you do to control your nerves before you speak? You will be somewhere in a holding position either seated in the same room, behind a curtain or to the side of the room. While waiting your pulse will start to race, you will likely begin to perspire and the “fight or flight” chemical cocktail in your body will now start to kick in.

If you have some space where you cannot be seen, then striding around burning off that nervousness will harmonise your energy control. Following this, deep, slow, breaths from your lower diaphragm will help reduce your pulse rate.

In the hours prior to you speech, try to drink water to get fluids into your system. Also make sure there is some room temperature water, without ice, prepared for you during the talk. Iced water constricts the throat, so we don’t want that when talking.

Select a title for the talk that creates curiosity. Isolate out the key points you want to make in the talk, between three and five points. Think of a strong opening that will grab everyone’s attention. People are easily distracted, so you have to break through with a grabber start.

Come up with two closes for your speech. One for the end of your talk and a second one for after the Q&A. We don’t want the randomness of the last question to define the final impression of our talk. We want to end on a strong message for our audience, which we control.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people:

Showtime - Are You Ready?

The hush has now swept across the room. All eyes are fixed on the MC, breaths are being held, awaiting the announcement of this year’s winner. Amazingly, it registers that it is your name they are calling to the stage. Emotion wells up. Your team join you for handshaking, shoulder hugs, high fives and backslapping. The prize is now firmly ensconced in your hand and you are beckoned to the microphone. What happens next?

Do you find your mind is experiencing whiteout and goes blank. Do your nerves suddenly kick in when facing a sea of faces with thousands of eyes boring into yours? Do your knees mysteriously seem to have been drained of all their sinuous strength? Do you launch forth into a raging torrent of Ums and Ahs, followed by indiscriminate rambling, punctuated with pathetic apologies for your inability to string two words together?

Are you having an out of body experience watching yourself have a public meltdown of stupendous scale. Seeing yourself trash your company and personal brands simultaneously, because you are demonstrating to all that you are a total dud as a professional?

How could it come to this, to have capitulation snatched from the jaws of triumph?

Simple really. You didn’t prepare properly. You didn’t think through the consequences of filling out that pile of boring and tedious application documents, all those many moons ago. There you were cheerfully getting stuck into the booze at your table with your colleagues, full of bonhomie and good spirits, unsuspecting of the ordeal about to descend upon you.

The harsh stage lights shine on the harsh reality that you are woefully unprepared for the win. At the podium, emotion wrestles with the brain to pull it altogether, but you fail. Remember we judge every company by the people we meet. If they are smart, we think everyone is smart. If you are a shambles, we pin that crime on the entire team.

What would have been a better approach? Expecting to win is a good place to start. From that thought flows a stream of things that must be done, just in case lightening does strike, unlikely as that may have seemed at application time. What will be the content, how will you start, how will you end?

Here is how to do it with aplomb, so that the audience mentally genuflects, “Wow, I wish I could be like that”. Firstly, find out how much time you will have available. How would you know that – ask the organisers. How many minutes do they give the speaker who wins, when it comes their time to address the crowd? Usually, you can imagine two minutes tops. In that space of time, what would be the content you want to cover.

You will want to thank the judging panel for selecting you and the organisers for putting on the event. That is polite and a set piece. “Ladies and gentlemen, let me say thank you to the judging panel for selecting us. I am sure it was a very demanding job for you and the organisers of today’s competition. On behalf of all the candidates, allow me to say thank you one and all for your efforts”.

You will have others you want to recognise, such as colleagues, clients and family. You could just say a simple thank you to these groups, but that is a bit pedestrian. Here is your chance to really shine, so why not grab it with both hands. Think of a short story for each group, that connects their support with this win. Story telling is powerful, because it creates context and draws your audience into the mental picture you are drawing.

If it was a colleague for example, you might say: “Inside our company, Taro and his team regularly took the last train home in the coldest, darkest depths of winter and were back early the next day, bright eyed and bushy tailed, to get the Z project completed. Thank you all for going the extra mile, for your loyalty, commitment and perseverance, when so many doubted we could do it” .

For clients, you might select an episode of some consequence. “We would not be standing up here tonight, if it wasn’t for Tanaka san at XYZ company. She gave us a chance to demonstrate we could deliver on schedule, on budget and at the right quality. I know that she had to weather some particularly tough internal meetings with her Directors last fall, but she went to bat for us. So we all say a very big “Thank you” to her and we are delighted she can be with us tonight”.

For family, you could note, “As we all know, we often spend more hours working with our colleagues than we spend with our own family. When we get home, exhausted, we unburden ourselves and share our concerns and worries. We need to set the ledger right and also share in the good times and tonight is just that occasion. I would like to thank my own family for their total support, which keeps me going.

I would also like to recognise all the families of our team members who equally are giving their support. We know it is a sacrifice and we appreciate that you make that on the company’s behalf. So this prize tonight goes to all the angels at home who keep us going and make it all worthwhile”.

How do you wrap it up. This is the time to sell your company’s services or products. You could say, “Finally, I would like to say how proud I am of our widget. We are committed to making the lives of our clients and their clients easier and more effective. We are on a mission to serve as many people as we can, because we know we are bringing value and growth to their businesses. Entwined inside their growth and success is our success and that thought drives us each and every day to do our best. Thank you!”

This is just the planning component completed. The other thing is the speech delivery practice. There will no supporting slides to serve as a prompt for what you cover next. There will be possibly be a mike stand and no more, so no place for notes and you don’t want to be reading them anyway.

Better to have your eyes on your audience and connect with the room. Mentally, divide the room into six sections and give some attention to each sliver. Think of a baseball diamond. Left, center and right field plus inner and outer field. Make eye contact with someone in each section and speak to that person for about six seconds before moving to another section. Do it at random, so the audience can’t mentally escape, because they can predict where you will make eye contact next.

Use your hands for gestures, rather than thrusting them into your pockets, stand up straight for maximum credibility and a professional look. You may be nervous and speaking quickly, so make sure to inject some pauses, to allow the audience to catch up with where you have been taking them. A pause allows you to check that your speaking speed isn’t getting too fast and frantic.

Stand up straight, don’t slouch with your weight split 70/30. Instead go for 50/50 weight displacement, so you look as tall and elegant as possible. This is no time for being casual. This is a formal occasion, so rise to the challenge and impress.

If the mike stand is too low, then adjust it, unhook the mike itself or pick the whole thing up (like a rock star!). Leaning over and down to speak into the mike, gives your audience an unwanted view of the top of your head. You want them looking at your face, not your pate. You need to have good posture throughout to have sufficient gravitas suitable for the evening’s affair.

Run through this acceptance speech at least twenty times, before you give it. Use your smart phone or tablet and video yourself, to get an idea of what the audience will be seeing. You may be puzzled to discover that you are scowling and looking unhappy on this magnificent occasion, because the concentration is killing you. Smile! It is easy to say, but under the pressure we may forget to smile and just look angry and unhappy to our audience.

You may find you are speaking in a dull as dishwater monotone voice, that is killing your audience and your reputation. The video will reveal all and help you rid yourself of bad habits, nervous ticks and outright errors.

What happens if you get the order wrong, get stuck or leave something out? Don’t worry. The only person in the room who knows what you are going to say is you. Therefore if you do mess it up, maintain your absolute best poker face and keep going. Make it appear as if everything is going according to your best laid plan.

So if we put it all together, it would go like this:

“Ladies and gentlemen, let me say thank you to the judging panel for selecting us. I am sure it was a very demanding job for you and the organisers of today’s competition. On behalf of all the candidates, allow me to say thank you one and all for your efforts.

Inside our company, Taro and his team regularly took the last train home in the coldest, darkest depths of winter and were back early the next day, bright eyed and bushy tailed, to get the Z project completed. Thank you all for going the extra mile, for your loyalty, commitment and perseverance, when so many doubted we could do it.

We would not be standing up here tonight, if it wasn’t for Tanaka san at XYZ company. She gave us a chance to demonstrate we could deliver on schedule, on budget and at the right quality. I know that she had to weather some particularly tough internal meetings with her Directors last fall, but she went to bat for us. So we all say a very big “Thank you” to her and we are delighted she can be with us tonight.

As we all know, we often spend more hours working with our colleagues than we spend with our own family. When we get home, exhausted, we unburden ourselves and share our concerns and worries. We need to set the ledger right and also share in the good times and tonight is just that occasion. I would like to thank my own family for their total support, which keeps me going.

I would also like to recognise all the families of our team members who equally are giving their support. We know it is a sacrifice and we appreciate that you make that on the company’s behalf. So this prize tonight goes to all the angels at home who keep us going and make it all worthwhile.

Finally, I would like to say how proud I am of our widget. We are committed to making the lives of our clients and their clients easier and more effective. We are on a mission to serve as many people as we can, because we know we are bringing value and growth to their businesses. Entwined inside their growth and success is our success and that thought drives us each and every day to do our best. Thank you!”

That is two minutes. We have managed to say a lot in two minutes and we will leave a very positive impression with the audience hearing that speech. Please take the structure provided and create your own stories that will attract the support of your audience. This is the time to differentiate your company and personal brand, so make the time and put in the effort. After people come up to and tell you what a great speech that was, you will realise all the preparation and effort was worthwhile.

What if you go to all this trouble and you don’t win. You have definitely improved your speech making skill and you have put yourself out of harm’s way. Both are major wins, even if the big prize eluded you this time. There is always next year, the next occasion and your speech is ready to rock. You have positioned yourself in a good place from every angle.

Good luck and break a leg!

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

How To Kill Your Brand With Public Speaking

Seriously sad really. Our speaker had some excellent points to convey but due to silly basic errors, killed his organisation’s messages. I believe there is no excuse for this anymore. Today there is so much information available, so many role models, so much video instruction, so much access to insight, so much training, you really have to wonder how some organisations can do such a poor job.

The impressive thing was our speaker was delivering the talk in English, when that was not his native language. Actually, the level of English fluency was impressive. The speed was good, the pronunciation was fine, the speaking voice was clear. He came with a grand resume, part of the elite of the land, a well educated, senior guy. This was game, set and match to be a triumph of positive messaging and salesmanship. It was a fizzer.

I approached him after it was all over. Being the eternal Aussie optimist from the land of vast horizons, blue skies and wonderful sunshine, I thought our speaker would benefit from a bit of friendly, positive feedback on how he could help his organisation to do better. He wasn’t buying that and asked me for one example. Clearly he believed his talk went down a treat with the crowd, a group by the way, full of long term Japanophiles and boosters for things Japanese. He was in fact preaching to the choir, in audience terms, but his messaging went astray.

I asked for the first slide to be brought back up. A confusing coat of many, many colours, seriously dense with data, totally impervious to easy understanding – a florid mess in other words. They were all like this. Data was simply killing the key messages. When I suggested the slides were perhaps attempting to put too much on the screen at the one time, he said I was looking at the cleaned up version. He had taken the organisation’s standard slide deck and pared it back. “Pared it back?”, I thought incredulously. Well it was still ridiculous.

The other issue was the delivery. Our speaker chose to stand in front of the monitor and read to us what was on the screen, while having his back to us for most of the presentation. Fortunately, he was handsome, urbane, charming, international and articulate. He had all the natural advantages to carry the room to his way of thinking. Unfortunately, he failed completely.

What could our erstwhile hero have done? He made the slide deck the centerpiece of the presentation, instead of making his messages the key. We should all carefully cull our ideas and distill the most powerful and important. We should present only one idea per slide, restrict the colour palette to two colours for contrast and try to keep it zen-like simple. If our audience cannot grasp the key point of any slide in two seconds, then it needs more paring back.

Graphs are great visual prompts and the temptation is to use them as unassailable evidence. This usually means trying to pack the graph with as much information as possible, showing long periods of comparison and multiple data points for edification. Instead think of them like screen wallpaper. They form a visual background. We can then go to another slide showing a turning point in isolation or we can have a pop up, with a key number, emphasised in very large font. In this way, we can cut through all the clutter and draw out the critical proof we want our audience to buy. Trying to pack it all on one screen is a formula for persuasion suicide.

We need to learn some very basic logistics about presenting. Despite how the organisers have set up the space, move things around if possible to give yourself the best shot to present as a professional. Try to stand on the audience left of the screen. We read from left to right, so we want them to look at our face first and then read the screen. We want to face our audience and if anyone drops the lights so your screen is easier to see, stop everything and ask for the lights to be brought back up. We need the lights on in order that we can see our audience’s faces. We can then gauge if they are with us or resisting our messages. They can see us and we can use our gestures, facial expressions and body language to back up the words we are saying.

Changing the slides and the delivery would have made the speaker’s messages clearer and more attractive. None of the things I have suggested to him are complex or difficult. Why then are we still assailed with unprofessional presentations from smart people? He remained resistant, so I saw him riding off into the sunset on his quixotic quest to convert others to his organisation’s point of view. Good luck with that one buddy!

Action Steps

1. Make yourself not the slides the centerpiece of your presentation
2. Don’t bombard your audience with a visual multi-coloured extravaganza – go for zen when designing your slide deck
3. Don’t put too many graphs on one slide – two at most is a good rule
4. Try to position yourself facing your audience to the audience left of the screen
5. Keep the light up, so you can see and be seen

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Stage Fright Got You?

Hands and legs quivering, knees knocking together, face turning red, pulse racing, mind whiting out – this is stage fright. The term is associated with the total melt down people experience when they get up on stage in front of an audience to speak. In Japan, there is even an association of stage fright victims who wish to suffer no more. Our exposure to the “stage”, broadly defined, is any occasion where we are required to get up and speak in front of others. This frequency increases as we get older.

Our work responsibilities are rewarded with a salary increase but also the obligation to give reports or speeches. We are innocently beavering away at our jobs, are recognised for doing well and given promotions or more responsibility. This is when we are forced to move out of our area of defined expertise and out of our Comfort Zone.

Tetsuya Miyaki is a typical example. He was a low level bureaucrat in a municipal government office. Promoted to become the head of a department, he suddenly found himself having to give public presentations, including to the municipal assembly. He immediately found that his ambitions had now out stripped his abilities. When he became the mayor of a city ward, the speech requirement exploded, and so did his stress. The opportunity to enjoy the fruits of hard earned prominence were removed, because this one piece of the work gamut was killing him. “I feel like I barely made it through my term”, he lamented.

Eye Off The Ball

This is what happens to us. With no thought for the future, we plough along working hard, looking for the rewards but forgetting the escalation of expectations that go together with that. If we took our nose off the grindstone for a minute and looked ahead, we would realise that if we go further up in the echelon of organisations, our ability to speak in a professional manner will come with the territory.

I was the same. I had no vision of what the future would require. When I was younger, a friend of mine asked me to be his best man at his wedding. I deferred and suggested an older mutual friend instead, citing my lack of experience with such a daunting responsibility. The real reason was my terror of having to speak at the wedding, instead of just sitting there cool, calm and collected, eating, drinking and enjoying myself like everyone else. Did I look ahead and realise this is what comes with future responsibilities and go and get some public speaking training? No. I just avoided the issue at every turn, running away from every request like a scared rabbit.

Eventually, I gave my first public speech. It was in Tokyo in late 1983, in Japanese and it was horrible. I was supposed to talk for 30 minutes but I finished in about 8 minutes. My nerves were severely ramping up my speaking speed. I read the whole thing, never looked up at my victims, didn’t smile, had no pauses, no gestures, no animation except high blood pressure giving me a big red face like a warning beacon.

I was stubborn too. Did I go and get training after this near death experience? No. I just kept on going along doing it the hard way. I ultimately gave hundreds of speeches in the course of my work responsibilities. I improved as I got more experience through simple repetition of the act, but I was still just an amateur bumbling along.

Revelation

When I took the High Impact Presentation Course with Dale Carnegie it was such a revelation. Two instructors, everything videoed, massive personal coaching – it was amazing. I just kicked myself for all of the opportunity costs I paid by not doing this when I was younger.

I was an idiot. I could have spent decades polishing my speaking skills, growing my potential rather than hiding from the opportunity. I could have ramped up my personal brand big time, if I had been even half smart and gotten the training. Like Miyaki san, for long periods of my career I was in pure, self-inflicted denial.

Don’t be stupid like me – get the training. If you are going to get anywhere in your career, you will need this facility to not just speak competently in front of an audience, but to speak persuasively. It is not a matter of if, only a matter of when. Are you going to let stage fright get you? Are you going to knee-cap your career growth? Are you going to be petrified every time you have to get up to speak? Do something about it. It is never to late to start.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Don’t Tell Me, Show Me

Japan is an interesting place where there is a lot of respect for people’s job titles and position in the company. Sometimes though, you are left wondering is this person really one of the elite or is this the best the elite can produce? American friends tell me Missouri is famous for it’s “show me, don’t tell me” mantra. When you can’t back up who you say you are with the goods, credibility declines rapidly.

This seemed like such a case. Seriously sad really. Our speaker had some excellent points to convey but due to silly basic errors, killed his organisation’s messages. I believe there is no excuse for this anymore. Today there is so much information available, so many role models, so much video instruction, so much access to insight, so much training, you really have to wonder how some organisations can do such a poor job.

The impressive thing was our speaker was delivering the talk in English, when that was not his native language. Actually, the level of English fluency was impressive. The speed was good, the pronunciation was fine, the speaking voice was clear. He came with a grand resume, part of the elite of the land, a well educated, senior guy. This was game, set and match to be a triumph of positive messaging and salesmanship. It was a fizzer.

I approached him after it was all over. Being the eternal Aussie optimist from the land of vast horizons, blue skies and wonderful sunshine, I thought our speaker would benefit from a bit of friendly, positive feedback on how he could help his organisation to do better. He wasn’t buying that and asked me for one example. Clearly he believed his talk went down a treat with the crowd, a group by the way, full of long term Japanophiles and boosters for things Japanese. He was in fact preaching to the choir, in audience terms, but even then his messaging went astray.

I asked for the first slide to be brought back up. A confusing coat of many, many colours, seriously dense with data, totally impervious to easy understanding – a florid mess in other words. They were all like this. Data was simply killing the key messages. When I suggested the slides were perhaps attempting to put too much on the screen at the one time, he said I was looking at the cleaned up version. He had taken the organisation’s standard slide deck and pared it back. “Pared it back?”, I thought incredulously. Well it was still ridiculous.

The other issue was the delivery. Our speaker chose to stand in front of the monitor and read to us what was on the screen, while having his back to us for most of the presentation. Fortunately, he was handsome, urbane, charming, international and articulate. He had all the natural advantages to carry the room to his way of thinking. Unfortunately, he failed completely.

What could our erstwhile hero have done? He made the slide deck the centerpiece of the presentation, instead of making his messages the key. We should all carefully cull our ideas and distill the most powerful and important. We should present only one idea per slide, restrict the colour palette to two colours for contrast and try to keep it zen-like simple. If our audience cannot grasp the key point of any slide in two seconds, then it needs more paring back.

Graphs are great visual prompts and the temptation is to use them as unassailable evidence. This usually means trying to pack the graph with as much information as possible, showing long periods of comparison and multiple data points for edification. Instead think of them like screen wallpaper. They form a visual background. We can then go to another slide showing a turning point in isolation or we can have a pop up, with a key number, emphasised in very large font. In this way, we can cut through all the clutter and draw out the critical proof we want our audience to buy. Trying to pack it all on one screen is a formula for persuasion suicide.

We need to learn some very basic logistics about presenting. Despite how the organisers have set up the space, move things around if possible to give yourself the best shot to present as a professional. Try to stand on the audience left of the screen. We read from left to right, so we want them to look at our face first and then read the screen. We want to face our audience and if anyone drops the lights so your screen is easier to see, stop everything and ask for the lights to be brought back up. We need the lights on in order that we can see our audience’s faces. We can then gauge if they are with us or resisting our messages. They can see us and we can use our gestures, facial expressions and body language to back up the words we are saying.

Changing the slides and the delivery would have made the speaker’s messages clearer and more attractive. None of the things I have suggested to him are complex or difficult. Why then are we still assailed with unprofessional presentations from smart people? He remained resistant, he is part of the elite after all but he didn’t get it. So I saw him riding off into the sunset on his quixotic quest to convert others to his organisation’s point of view. Good luck with that one buddy!

People will judge us on what they see. They will note our resume but they will make up their minds on what we present and the way we present it. Missouri’s rule is a good one to keep in mind when preparing to stand up in front of others and pontificate.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Dale Carnegie’s Three Iron Rules Of Public Speaking

 Not everyone should be a presenter. We don’t need higher levels of boredom or disinterest than we have already. A big “No thank you” to those conspiring to waste our precious time. This does not mean that only a few super talented individuals can be presenters. We can all learn to become competent and become better presenters. This is “nurture” not “nature” in action. The key point is your motivation, why are you doing this?

Dale Carnegie pioneered business public speaking when he launched his first course in 1912. He proffered the 3Es as a solid requirement before we contemplate being a speaker and it still applies today. Those Es are “earned the right”, “ excited” and “eager” to present.

We have earned the right to speak to others about our subject because we have studied the subject and we have relevant experience. It is not limited to our direct experience, because we could be drawing on the experience of others. We should be a subject matter expert with formidable knowledge on a particular topic. We have been reading expert opinion and doing research on this subject, absorbing the key points and making them relevant to the business community to whom we are speaking.

This means keeping up to date, because there are always new findings and new ideas emerging. For many of us, what we were taught in school is different to what our children are being taught today. The reason is specialties like biology, archaeology, astronomy, mathematics, physics etc., keep pushing the boundaries of our previous knowledge.

Today there are podcasts, advertorials, blogs, LinkedIn articles, YouTube videos, conferences, workshops, subscription information products, etc., all expanding our world. These are separate to the traditional sources of published academic works, journalistic offerings, thought pieces in print and mainstream broadcast media. The internet provides massive access to everything you want to know on almost any subject and it is free. The recent spread of “content marketing” has meant that everyone is pouring forth even more high quality information and again, at no charge.

We must remain current because for sure, there will be members of our audience who are likely to be highly informed. As we know, everyone has instant access to everything today. While we are speaking, they can quickly go on-line and search for references we make to facts, situations and people. We do this ourselves don’t we!

We need to have reserve power – this is the additional knowledge of a subject, which we don’t have time to present during our allotted speaking time. To have reserve power requires we study our subject.

Experience is the other highly valuable arrow in our speaker quiver. Telling stories, based around our personal experience or observation is very powerful. Our audience may choose to disagree with our conclusion drawn from our experience, but they cannot argue with that experience or the context behind the conclusions we have drawn.

We need to draw on more than our own individual experience and that is where the exploits of others, particularly famous individuals, lends credibility to the story we are telling and the points we are making. People remember stories but they don’t recall disjointed facts and data for very long. We all have great stories to relate, but we forget to tell them during our talks. Instead we dole out dry facts and data, thinking this is what our audience is wanting. This could not be further from the truth.

We are conditioned from babyhood to listen to stories and nothing beats a riveting account of a total meltdown you had in your business and how you fixed it. We love to listen to learn and relating our successes and failures is hungrily consumed by our audience, because it is real and relevant. They want it, so let’s become more professional and give it to them.

Being excited to present because we have positive feelings about our subject is another vital prerequisite for success. Watching the global head of a huge resources company give a presentation on the amazing things they were doing, but conducting the talk without the slightest sense of excitement for the topic, was a truly brutal experience. The slides were professional, the speaking speed was good, the flow was logical, he was handsome, expensively dressed, his shoes were glistening. It was horrible. It was awful because it was so bland, so devoid of passion for the subject. It was “painting by numbers” for someone thrust into the role of global representative for the company. He destroyed his brand on the spot.

We should never overlook the power of passion for our subject. We are the one creating this talk, so we can empty our heart into the topic without any reserve. We don’t have to pick a boring topic to speak on. Even a dull sounding topic can be brought alive in the hands of the person delivering the talk. When they feel and communicate their excitement for the topic, we pick that excitement up and it adds persuasive power to what it is they are saying. Enthusiasm is contagious, so let’s infect everyone in our audience.

Our erstwhile captain of industry mentioned earlier failed the other test, which is to be eager to project the value to your listeners. He was robotic, boring, formulistic and passionless. There were no take-aways for our businesses, redemption tales, no hero’s journey – there was just an hour of time, dull and devoid of all life forms instead. Let’s do our analysis of our audience and understand what will be of value to them and then provide it.

What could he have done? He could have asked the organisers about his audience. He would have discovered a majority of small-medium enterprises and a couple of large firms. Knowing this, he could have thought about what lessons does his mega-company have for much smaller firms. What global market trends would be interesting to his audience. He could have offered some hints on what helped him to climb the greasy pole to the top of his field. He could have shared some anecdotes on the famous personalities he had met so far in his business role. None of this occurred to him because he was selfish. He was just focused on delivering what his company did and not much more. He was focused on promoting his company by talking about what was interesting to his company. What about what would be interesting to the audience? Nary a thought for that.

The truly sad part is he had zero self-awareness. He will continue travelling the world killing his company and personal brands for a number of years into the future, totally oblivious to the damage he is doing. In those big organisations, the Emperor may have no clothes, but none of the “yes” men and women are ever going to let him know that.

He was speaking in Japan, so given how polite this society is, nobody in the audience is going to wander over and let him know he was a total fail. No doubt he left us for the next country to carry on the work of decimating his reputation with the next international audience. The presentation will have been totally identical, with no tailoring for the different culture or conditions.

Do us all a favour pleeeease – bulk up on the 3Es before you speak. And if you do, then you will project a highly positive professional image to your audience for your brand, company and yourself. Never forget Dale Carnegie’s Three Iron Rules and you will become a person of value and acclaim.

Action Steps

1. Earn the right to speak to us by doing your homework
2. Be excited about your subject, such that we feel your passion
3. Be eager to share your insights, knowledge and experience with us

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Goodbye Presentation Nerves

Unexpectedly, twelve time Grand Slam Tennis tournament winner Novak Djokovic has some good advice for public speakers. “I believe that half of any victory in a tennis match is in place before you step on the court. If you don’t have that self-belief, then fear takes over. And then it will get too much for you to handle. It’s a fine line. The energy of those moments is so high: how are you going to use it? Are you going to let it consume you, or are you going to accept it’s presence and say, ‘OK, let’s work together’. ”

What he is saying is we don’t worry about having fear or not having it, we look for how to control it. When we feel fear, our psychological fight or flight response provides energy to our major muscle groups in the chest, arms and legs. This is great energy to tap, in order to bring our belief and our passion to our messages. If the energy is a bit too high and you are feeling too hyperactive, then try and burn some energy off before you go on stage. Out the back, out of sight, pace up and down strenuously for about 5 minutes and take some of the edge off those nerves.

The opposite feeling of “butterflies in the stomach” is a result of the blood being directed away from our internal organs to our major muscle groups. The body is getting ready for survival mode. To overcome the butterflies feeling, just find a quiet place off stage, sit down and do some slow, deep breathing from the diaphragm to inject more oxygen into the brain. Take it slowly though, because if you do it too fast you may become dizzy. This oxygen hit will sharpen us up, get us concentrated and ready for the speech. The slower breathing will also help to slow down the pulse rate.

We should accept that fear is part of the process of public speaking. Let’s use the adrenalin coursing through our veins as a power source to hit key words, have more energy, use bigger gestures than normal and send our power vibe out to the audience.

Speakers who look tired, bored or uninterested, are never going to be persuading anyone of anything. I hate those presentations. I saw the head of a huge division of a major global resources company, give a totally lifeless presentation. This guy was rich, immaculately groomed, in charge of thousands of people and billions of dollars of revenue. Yes, he spoke in concert with the slide deck, was not nervous, spoke slowly and clearly but with absolutely no energy, passion or commitment to his message. It was seriously painful to watch and his audience was lost to his message about his company. Despite his big title and big bucks he was a dud. We judge the entire organization on who we see in action. Sadly that day, his organisation’s reputation was harmed as a result of his lifeless presentation.

I read that Frank Sinatra felt fear every time before he performed. He always worried that the first note would not be there. Once he got going however, he could relax and enjoy the process. That applies to us as well – we have to get that first couple of minutes settled down and then we can relax and enjoy the opportunity to help the audience through providing our message or our valuable information. Fine, but just how do we do that?

Here are some do’s and don’ts.

Don’t put unbelievable pressure on yourself by trying to memorise your talk. Do have some key points you can elaborate on though and have them in a logical sequence, that will be easy for an audience to follow.

Being able to speak to your points is a basic requirement. You have knowledge of your subject, you have experience in this field of expertise, you know stuff we don’t. You know what you want to say, so you can glance at notes briefly for data points as you need them.

Remember, in the room, only you know the order of the talk and the content, so if you get it mixed up, keep going, as no one else will know. Keep any disasters, errors and mistakes to yourself.

A recent speaker I saw got herself into serious trouble by trying to read the line by line from the screen on her laptop and also simultaneously make eye contact with the audience. Looking to and fro, she was losing her place, this triggered an attack of nerves, such that she had to stop speaking and try and regroup. The problem was obvious to all and she then compounded the error by telling us she was nervous.

She lost 100% of her credibility at that point. She should have paused briefly, taken a slow (silent) deep breath and carried on. We would have just imagined it was a pause. Nobody is going to dismiss a speaker who takes a pause or reflects before they speak. It is a very natural thing to do and we accept it.

Don’t spend all of your preparation time putting together the slide deck. The slides are not the main game – we speakers are the main attraction. Our face is one million times more convincing and more powerful than whatever is up on screen. Even when trying to use slides for impact, there are usually too many, too much text, too many different colours, poor sizing of graphs (too small and too many).

The tool itself is misused. If you can use photo images with no text and just speak to the point that is ideal. One or two words with the photo is also good. We don’t need a lot of text every time in order to be persuasive. Apart from our face, photos and images are the next most powerful mediums.

Also, don’t rely too much on video. There is always that break in the flow while the video is retrieved, the sound adjusted etc. I often see visiting big shot CEOs get up to talk, then abrogate responsibility for their presentation by going straight into the corporate video. What a wasted chance. They do this because they are scared, shy, lazy or out of their comfort zone. Unless the video is demonstrating something that can’t be shown at the venue, like a new technology etc., then don’t use it at all or make it very short.

We want the audience to connect with us, to become our fans, our supporters. We have limited time in which to do that, so don’t squander opportunities to connect with people.

Do allocate time for rehearsal. The amount of time spent before our speech is the key to success. Incredibly, most people spend zero time rehearsing and wonder why presenting is so stressful. Ideally, during rehearsal, have supporters provide feedback. Don’t just let them do this without any direction or they will start critiquing your performance and undermine your confidence. Rather, ask them for two pieces of feedback only – what was good and how to make it better.

If you can’t have a live audience during rehearsal, then watch yourself on video if possible.   Most of us have video on our phones or iPads, so the technological barrier today is pretty low. If that isn’t available, then use a mirror and record the audio on your device, so you can review how you sound.

I have found that when travelling to give a presentation, the windows of the hotel room become mirrors at night when the room lights are off and this provides the visual feedback I need. Rehearse as you will give it, looking around at all sectors of the audience, gesturing, using voice modulation, inserting pauses etc., while talking to your imaginary listeners.

When live, don’t look down at your notes or laptop screen for too long. Do look at the people in your audience and make eye contact with individuals, one by one, so you can speak directly to as many people as possible. Around six seconds each works well – not too short and not too long. Look around the room but not in an easily predictable way. Don’t always going from left to right. Instead break it up, so you are looking at the back, then the front, the right, then the left. If you use predictable eye contact, people know what is coming and they mentally switch off. Keep them guessing.

Don’t make eye contact however, with audience members who are scowling, doubtful, unhappy, angry, negative, laughing at you, cynical or sneering. Do ignore them completely and look for the audience members who are nodding, smiling, agreeing and look either supportive or at least neutral. This will help to maintain your confidence and equilibrium.

I was giving a speech in Kobe in Japanese to a room full of 100 salesmen and one guy about half way down on the left, sat through my one hour talk and had the angriest expression on his face you can imagine. He did not seem to be buying one word I was saying. At the end of my talk, he jumped out of his seat and bolted up to the front. I thought he was going to punch me. Instead, he shook my hand and told me how great the presentation was and how much he appreciated it. I was almost speechless, given how hostile his face appeared during the presentation. So we never know how to interpret what appears to be negativity, but let’s be on the safe side and only look at our supporters.

Don’t be thrown by anything unexpected - the show must go on. So unless it is an emergency and we have to leave the building, keep going no matter what. This is not always easy. I was giving a speech to 300 people in Nagoya arranged by the local Japanese Chamber of Commerce. Again, I was speaking in Japanese, had barely gotten into my first sentence, when a senior official of one of the Japanese Government Ministries, sitting in the front row to my left, suddenly erupted into raucous laughter upon hearing my first burst of Japanese.

Being a non-native speaker of Japanese and always a bit shy about my dubious command of the subtleties of Japanese grammar, you can imagine how debilitating that very public outburst was for me. I looked at the guy incredulously, but kept going for the next 40 minutes.

In that instant, I had to put all of my linguistic self-doubts and paranoia aside. I purposely only made eye contact with audience members who looked like they were supportive. There were others in the audience who seemed to be impressed that I was trying to speak their language and that really helped me to keep going. I will never forget that rude outburst and when I think back to that incident, I am reminded that there is never a dull moment in Japan!

Like Novak Djokovic let’s tap into our nervous energy and work with it, rather than try and fight it. We need energy to be a successful presenter, so let’s try and surf the wave of our nervousness, rather than have it wipe us out.

Action Steps

1. If feeling too tense, go out back and stride around
2. Do deep breathing to get enough oxygen and reduce the pulse rate
3. Don’t look lifeless, bored and uninspired
4. Don’t try to memorise it, use notes and speak to them
5. Don’t make the slide deck or video the star of the show - make you the focus
6. Only make eye contact with your fans and supporters
7. Don’t let anything faze you – the show must go on
8. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Rockin It Women Presenters In Japan

The presentations world is still a male bastion in Nippon. I attend lot of events in Tokyo and probably the vast majority of even the internationally oriented business audiences that I see here, have a 70/30 male female ratio. The number of women presenters though is about 5%-10%. In the case of very domestic, Japanese language based events, the female ratio of attendance is maybe 1%-2% and the speaker ratio usually a zero ahead of two or three decimal places.

For any presenter, understanding your audience is a key part of the preparation and delivery. Women are still walking three paces behind the men here in Japan but amongst those rarities who are female and who do get asked to speak to businessmen, I have noticed a few commonalities amongst the most successful. Here are some tips and what I have seen work well for businesswomen when speaking in public in Japan.

Confidence is the overwhelming positive first impression. This is communicated in a number of ways. The voice is strong and clear. Even relatively soft female voices can become powerful enough, through using the microphone technology available today, so there is no excuse for letting a weak voice derail the presentation.

Funnily enough, many macho male businessmen seem clueless about how to use microphones. You see them actually wave off the offer of the microphone, because they have a fear or distaste of it. Now if your voice is strong and the venue not so cavernous, then that may be completely fine. If not or if you have any concerns, spend some time with the microphone to understand how to use it properly, before the audience arrives.

Thumping the microphone at the start of your presentation and asking your audience if they can hear you at the back is the mark of the rank amateur. Also, consider a lapel microphone or a hand microphone, as good options for mobility during your presentation. If you are using a hand microphone and you discover your hands are shaking furiously through nervousness, then simply hold it to your chest, so it can’t fly around.

Eye contact is another powerful tool of the skilled female speakers. Looking at our audience allows us to connect with them. This might sound obvious, but sometimes looking at the many faces in the crowd peering wistfully back at us may suddenly trigger nervousness and self-doubt. The successful women I have seen in action pick out individual members of the audience, look straight at them and speak directly to them. They are constantly doing this throughout their entire talk. If the distance is far, then the twenty people sitting around that single person all think the speaker is making direct eye contact with them. Importantly, they are only holding the gaze for about 6 seconds, so it is neither too short nor too intrusive.

Japan has a cultural preference for very limited eye contact, so many people misunderstand the difference between our role in a normal conversation and our role as the speaker. They mix the occasions up and worry about making eye contact with their audience. Instead, they look at everyone and no one at the same time.   This is ineffective and the speaker has an obligation to get their audience behind what they are saying. Woman or man, eye contact gives tremendous connectivity because we feel the speaker is addressing us directly. Good eye contact allows the speech to improve from being a one to many, to a one to one experience. It is so powerful because when the speaker looks directly at us, we feel they are personally connecting with us.

Looking at our laptop screens , the big screens behind us or our notes, takes our eyes off the audience. We don’t want that. We need to see the audience to ascertain whether they are buying what we are selling or not. Studying their body language, their faces helps us to read how we are doing with our audience. Are they following us, are they bored, are they in rabid disagreement? We need to know so we can adjust our delivery accordingly. Absolutely do not let some helpful venue staffer turn off the lights, so the room becomes darker.

This happens all the time. In my own case, recently I was presenting to a visiting delegation of lubricant distributors from Vietnam and sure enough the Hotel staff member turned off all the lights to make the screen easier to read. No, no, no! We want the audience to see us and we want to see them. The projector technology today is very good, so we can leave the lights on and everyone can still read the screen. When someone suddenly turns the lights off, I have seen the skilled women speakers stop presenting and politely request they turn them back on again. They know the power of eye contact.

The successful presenters want to use all of their body language to assist their communication so they are not trapped behind the podium. Podiums can sometimes be a challenge for shorter ladies. Trust me, having seen this a number of times, your carefully arranged coiffure bobbing just above the waterline of the top of the podium is not the best look.

If the podium is too high, ask for small platform to stand on, to give yourself some air space. This is another reason why we always need to get to the venue early and check all the mechanics and physical layout arrangements. Don’t apply a vice like grip to the podium, this looks nervous and negates our ability to use gestures to emphasis key points we want to make.

Standing apart from the podium, to the side or in front of it also works very well. You can easily turn the podium itself around ninety degrees, so that you can see the laptop screen and push any buttons, without having to stand behind it. In this way, you can see what you need to and your audience can see you.

Freeing ourselves from the podium is good and powerful female presenters don’t then pace across the stage, left and right, showing possible stress and anxiety. They usually stand to the left side of the screen, so that the audience will look at their face, listen to their voice and then read the screen left to right. They are communicating a subtle command - “look at me, now look at my information on this screen”. In this way they dominate the screen, rather than the other way around.

What they put up on the screen follows the “less is more principle”. Think Zen garden here rather than Times Square neon heaven. They see the value in having more images than text. They have one graph per screen not four and they don’t go crazy with more than two colours.

They make themselves the centerpiece of the presentation, not what is put up on the screen. By contrast, Japanese male CEO screen presentations are usually totally horrible. Crowded, obtuse, ugly, impenetrable, gaudy – they may be Japanese samurai businessmen, but clearly no Zen happening here.

Persuasive women demonstrate their confidence by NEVER EVER apologizing for their state of health, degree of nervousness, lack of preparation, jet lag or any other excuses. I doubt very many men care about the speaker’s health status or any other excuses from any presenter. The successful women have worked this out and they keep their health issues, etc., to themselves and want to be seen as true professionals.

They don’t seek sympathy by telling us: “I am sorry, I have a cold today” or “I didn’t have enough time to put this together”. In my experience, men don’t care all that much for that type of detail and there is no particular empathy for these types of excuses.

If these successful women presenters are ever feeling anxious, they make sure not to show it. Consequently, they are taken at face value by the men in the audience and get full credit for being a business expert in their area of expertise.

I was at a presentation recently by a visiting speaker and everything was going fine until about 5 minutes into the presentation. She started to lose it. Super surprisingly, she announced to us she was losing it and that she needed a deep breath. After a couple of repeats of this “poor me” routine, she finally pulled herself together.

She had done quite well at the start, telling us about her rise to success and how she did it, but at the meltdown point, as she got into her key topic, her entire credibility flew straight out the window. She damaged her personal brand beyond repair and forever.

The interesting thing is, unless she had told us, we probably would never have known she was so nervous. So no matter what, carry on as if it is all part of the plan. Generally we men are not that smart or sensitive, so we will never know unless you tell us.

There are plenty of professional, competent female speakers in Japan, so ladies, please take note of what is working for them and join their ranks.

Action Steps

1. Know who will be your audience and prepare accordingly
2. Master the microphone technology before the audience arrives
3. Speak to your audience while looking at them, make eye contact
4. Free yourself from the podium trap by standing apart from it
5. Dominate the screen, don’t let it dominate you
6. Apply “less is more” to the on-screen content
7. Never make excuses for your presentation
8. Never show us you are nervous

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Persuasion Power Trump Style

Donald Trump isn’t a textbook presenter. He breaks many of the rules of presenting, but nevertheless he has been effective in getting his message across. Love him or loath him as a contender for the Republican Party Presidential race nomination, as the Republican candidate and as the President, he won against the expectations of the vast majority of American political experts. He had large numbers of people turn out to hear him speak. What was he doing right? How was he being persuasive with the audiences who came to hear him. Are there any lessons here for us, when we come to give our own presentations?

He is authentic when he speaks. There is no speech writer grinding away in the background polishing his prose to within an inch of its life. He rarely used those semi-invisible prompters on the left and right to drip feed the polished input. He does have some notes to keep him on track, but he barely refers to them. He likes Twitter because it provides what he likes: brief, simple messages and gets him directly to his audience. This is how he speaks in public.

He is not a highly polished speaker by any means. He digresses, goes off on tangents, gets sidetracked, but the audience understands this is the price for the speaker being non-scripted. He keeps their attention because he concentrates on his audience. So let’s take the good bits of what is working for a guy who only relatively recently started as a public speaker and drop the rest.

Here are a couple of fundamentals we can all safely adopt - be yourself, don’t ape anyone else. Trump is not a copy of anyone and this adds to his credibility with those who come to hear him. So yes, be you, but try to be the professional you. Focus on your audience, not on the technology, the laptop, the big screen behind you or your notes. Having fewer thing to focus on makes the public speaking task easier, so divest distractions. Trump focuses on his audience, he seeks out interaction, the connection. We should look for opportunities to do the same when we are presenting.

One observation is that he has been getting a lot of practice over the last year or so. Prior to this run for the Presidency, he rarely had to make such long public speeches. Like the rest of us, he had to learn by doing. Repetition is key to learning new skills and so seizing every chance to present is needed to improve our professional craft.

Sounds terribly logical doesn’t it. However, many people shy away from presenting because they are lacking in confidence or are too nervous. For a very long time, I was one of them. I avoided public speaking because I was terrified and scared of failing. Fortunately, there are various techniques for overcoming nervousness. These can be learnt and by increasing the frequency of presenting, we gradually become more comfortable with the process. Eventually, I came to enjoy speaking, but I needed to get the practice to tap into the pleasure as opposed to pain zone.

Trump’s messages can be quickly understood. Build a big wall; everyone is more cunning than we are; make America great again; read my Art of the Deal; it’s my own money so I don’t owe anybody; politicians are useless; I am rich and successful; I know how to get things done; I am not politically correct; drain the swamp, etc. He is derided as a demagogue and rabble rouser but as a speaker he presents his ideas such that we can remember them. Isn’t this what we also want with our audience?

Think back though, how many key messages can you recall from the many business presentations you have heard over the course of your business career? I would guess not many or none. Here is the key question - will people remember yours?

When we speak, we need to have clarity around the key points we want to get across, in the time we have available. Taking on too much content (“death by Powerpoint”), nullifies the key messages we want to have resonate with the audience. A major information dump is also a communication killer, especially when quoting lots of data. Overload just destroys the message and the audience are lost.

I notice that diplomats are very much prone to data dump. They have an important role to represent their country and promote key messages. I used to work for the Australian Embassy here in Tokyo. I often thought some of those public speeches were killing the messages by overloading the audience with too much content. The intentions were tremendously sincere and purposeful but ultimately the delivery was ineffective. Did they ever get proper training and improve? No, they just kept on repeating the same error, over and over again. Less is more when it comes to the number of messages you want to get across.

Trump totally radiates self-confidence. Confidence certainly sells and if he had any self-doubt (?) about his new public speaking role when he started, he certainly has not shared it with his audiences. Now, we may not have his same degree of self-belief or his many billions, but we must exude confidence when speaking with our audience. Some people say, “fake it, till you make it”. Remember, in the room, the reality is that there is only one person who knows you are not confident and that person is you. Unless you run around advertising it, nobody else will have a clue. So never apologise for your perceived poor speaking ability, your lack of confidence, nervousness, that you have cold, or whatever – just carry on regardless.

In Dale Carnegie we bolster public speaking confidence through embracing the 3 E’s: We have Earned the right to speak, because we know our subject; we are Excited because of our positive feelings for the content; and we are Eager to share with our audience, because we feel this will help them. You will qualify under all three of these conditions, so go about your task with positive energy.

There is an important cross-over point to become a successful a speaker. That occurs when you stop concentrating on yourself and what is wrong with you and then you start concentrating on your audience. We have to get to that point as quickly as possible. Employ the 3 E’s and you will become confident. Even if we are not super confident at first, never ever show that to the audience – they buy speaker self-belief and our job is to provide it.

Trump tell stories, lots of stories. NBC begged me to do a new season of The Apprentice; Carl Icahn told me he is ready to be my negotiator with China; I saw all of these Japanese cars in LA coming out of the biggest ship I have ever seen, etc. He weaves these vignettes into his speech to highlight his key points. Storytelling works and as he demonstrates, they don’t have to be lengthy stories to be effective. Sprinkle some real life stories into your presentations to make you and the content come alive for your audience. There are specific techniques for that though.

Talk about people, places and emotions that the audience can identify with. Don’t say, “we were having a meeting”. Talk about, ”It was winter in New York and we were in the wood paneled boardroom of the client, on the 36th floor of the Rockefeller Center, having a tough meeting with the CEO Jane Smith and I was becoming more and more nervous.” Now we have taken our audience to the place (New York, The Rockefeller Center, 36th floor company Board room), added in the people (my colleagues, Jane Smith), the season (winter), the atmosphere (conservative décor, tense). This story takes less than 15 seconds to tell, so it is very efficient to draw our audience into what we are saying. Now our audience can clearly visualise the situation in their mind’s eye and like a well written novel, they want to know what happened next. This is how we need to use stories in our talks.

Whether you agree with him or not, it is a simple fact that if a novice like Trump can learn to become persuasive as a public speaker, then we can too. He may become a great President or a disaster – time and your personal viewpoint will tell.

Regardless, take the advice offered here and study successful speakers, adapt what works, hone your skills and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. The latter, by the way, is the most common error of unsuccessful presenters – they forget to make time to rehearse the speech before they give it to their audience. Some good advice in business is don’t practice on the client and that includes public speaking! Being persuasive is a massive advantage in life and in business and few possess this skill. Become one of the few.

Action Steps

1. Be authentic but be the professional you

2. Focus on your audience the entire time you are presenting – never take your eyes off them

3. Take every chance to speak for the practice

4. Keep the key messages simple and easily accessible for the audience

5. Appear supremely confident, even if your knees are quivering, your throat is parched and your heart is thumping

6. Embrace the 3 E’s - Earned, Excited and Eager

7. Use stories to bring your content to life.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Wow Them At The End Of Your Presentation

It is rare to see a presentation completed well, be it inside the organization, to the client or to a larger audience. The energy often drops away, the voice gradually fades out and there is no clear signal that this is the end. The narrative arc seems to go missing in action at the final stage and the subsequent silence becomes strained. It sometimes reminds me of classical music performances, when I am not sure if this is the time to applaud or not.

First and last impressions are critical in business and in life, so why leave these to random chance? We need to strategise how we will end, how we will ensure our key messages linger in the minds of the listeners and how we will have the audience firmly enthralled, as our permanent fan base.

Endings are critical pieces of the presentation puzzle and usually that means two endings not just one. These days, it is rare that we don’t go straight into some form of Q&A session, once the main body of the talk has been completed. So we need an ending for the presentation just given and we need another ending after the Q&A. Why the second one, why not just let it end with the final question?

The pro never lets that happen. Even the most knee quivering, voice choking, collar perspiration drenched, meltdown of a speaker is in 100% control while they have the floor. The audience usually let’s them speak without denunciation or persistent interruption. Life changes though once we throw the floor open to take questions. At that point speaker control is out the window and the street fight begins.

The members of the audience are able to ask rude, indignant questions, challenging everything you hold to be true. They can denounce you as a charlatan, scoundrel, dilettante and unabashed poseur. Sometimes, they even launch forth into their own mini-speech, usually unrelated to whatever it was you were talking about. Or they move the conversation off to a new place, which has nothing to do with your keynote content.

The original topic of your talk is now a distant memory. That is why the pros ensure they bring it all back together with a final close to the proceedings. The last word is now with the speaker, not some provocateur who happened to turn up to the event.

There are a number of ways of bringing the speech home. In the first close, before the Q&A, we might harken back to something we said in our opening, to neatly tie the beginning and end together. Or we might restate the key messages we wish to get across. Another alternative is a summary of the key points to refresh everyone’s recollection of what we were saying. We might end with a memorable story that will linger in the minds of the audience, that encapsulates all that we wanted to say.

When we do this, we should be picking out key words to emphasise, either by ramping our vocal power up or taking it down in strength, to differentiate from the rest of what we are saying. Speaking with the same vocal power throughout just equates the messages together and because it is not clear enough, makes it hard for the audience to buy what we are selling,

At the end of the final sentence we need to hit the power button and finish with a rising crescendo to really put the passion behind our position. Many speakers allow their voice to become weedy and just trail off into oblivion. They appear exhausted and energy drained, rather than on fire with belief. Instead of fading out, we need to bring energy to our final words. We then add a small pause to let our words sink in with the audience and then smoothly move into inviting audience Q&A.

Don’t miss this key point: always specify the time available for Q&A at the very start when you call for Q&A – never, ever leave it open ended. Why not? If you are facing a rabid gathering of foes, critics and opponents and you just end proceedings, it looks cowardly and weak, as if you can’t take it when things get hot. By mentioning the amount of time available for Q&A at the first close and then referring back to it again at the end, allows you to depart with your dignity intact. Just ending, packing up and departing can make you to look like an wimp, scurrying out the door, because you can’t take it. Not a great final impression.

Also, if you are trained on how to handle a hostile audience, you will sail out of there looking like an absolute legend. Few people have any clue on what to do when under pointed attack. The rest of the audience will look at you in awe and admiration, because they know if it had been them up there on the stage, they would have been mince meat. By the way, we teach this, if you are interested to know what to do when the gloves come off and all hell breaks loose, let us know!

Now, back to our topic. The second or final close can be very similar to what we discussed earlier for the first close. Tie it all together or re-state key points or a summary. In addition, this is also the point to use a pertinent quotation to leave a rousing call to action in the minds of your audience. Again, the voice rises in strength at the end of the final sentence. Don’t let it fade away.

When you get the ending right, you can then thank your audience, relax and bask in their warm applause. This is a good feeling.

Action Steps

1. Carefully strategise the ending rather than leave it to random chance

2. Loop back to the beginning, hit the key message again or summarise some key points

3. Always nominate a time limit when you call for Q&A

4. Prepare two closes – one each for before and after Q&A

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

That Vital Two Second Window

Question: how long does it take you on average to form a first impression of someone? My presentation training participants tell me “two seconds”. Wow, I nearly fell over when I heard that the first time. I was thinking, “what does this mean for the speaker?”. It could be in the boardroom, the meeting room, at the networking event, a public presentation or at the pitch to the client. Regardless of the occasion, one thing is sure – everyone is a critic.

Think back to the last time you saw someone present – be it an update, a project submission, an overview or a fully fledged speech. Were you indulging in a little mental aside, “I hope this is good”, as you swiveled around in your chair to view the speaker? Did the speaker get right into it or was there some logistical finessing of the laptop, the lapel mike (“can you hear me?”) or the notes being shuffled on the rostrum? Was the speaker looking at the audience or up at the huge screen behind them or down at their laptop? Did we have some good old hand microphone thumping to see if it was working properly? If there were any such diversions, then our two second window for the first impression has come and gone completely.

What would help us to maximize this incredibly brief two second window we have been given? Getting straight into the content without any distractions, is so important because it allows us to set the tone for the occasion.

Traditionally, we could thank the organisers for the opportunity to present. Doing this with a huge, warm smile would be a good use of the two seconds. Even if nature has not blessed you with a killer smile, give us the best you can do.

We could start by telling an episode, an incident, a story. We love listening to interesting stories involving real life and real people, because we can easily identify with the content.

We could refer to a member of the audience, immediately shattering the mental barrier separating speaker and audience. “Anne Smith from XYZ and I were chatting earlier and she made a very good observation about….”. We are now one unit – audience and speaker. We are being inclusive and this is a powerful connector that promotes a positive first impression. It also helps to lessen the critic propensity in our audiences.

After having launched into proceedings, we can now backtrack and use the laptop, our notes, the spreadsheets or whatever we need to explain the content. Rather than wasting our initial two second window on these adjustments, we instead get right into it and capture the attention of our audience from the very start. Once captured let’s keep them so.

Japan has a few set pieces with presentations. I am sure you will have seen some of these: have trouble with the technology, not be conversant with the content because one of the underlings prepared it, kick off with a perfunctory apology for being a poor speaker. To really set the tone, now look down and read every single word on the screen or on the notes page. Non-Japanese speakers though are often guilty of the same things, especially jet setting big shots winging in from afar for a cameo appearance.

Another powerful tool, left in pristine condition through underuse is voice quality. Again nature may not have blessed you with a deep throated baritone or mellifluous instrument that harkens the angels, but no matter, do the best with what you have. That means speak clearly, with sufficient volume, so that you can easily be heard. Use the microphone properly by holding it just under your chin and speaking across the mesh.

Have some variation in the delivery so it is not totally predictable. Hit key words with a roar or a whisper to highlight them. At the start, go for the roar rather than the whisper. Show confidence through voice power. Slowing the words down for emphasis is equally powerful. For example, “This--is--the--moment” and delivered slowly with a dramatic pause after each word. Our attention is all yours and we are bursting to know where you are going with this talk.

Eye power is a must. Pick a single person about half way down the middle of the venue and start by speaking directly to them. Smile and look them in the eye. We have now personalised our interaction in that first few seconds and created a connection with the audience.

I recommend holding the person’s gaze for around six seconds, as this allows for engagement without generating fear of retina radiation burn. Spend the entire talk selecting one person after another, randomly selected and speak to them maintaining eye contact. Do this without allowing your sight lines to stray to the floor, ceiling or the back wall. Keep your eyes glued on your audience. You not only want to enhance that one-to-one personal connection with your listeners, you also want to gauge their reaction to what you are saying.

This means carefully instructing the venue organisers beforehand to not drop the lights on the audience or yourself. You want to be able to read their faces for confirmation they are with you. We also want them to be able to see us clearly, rather than disappearing into the shadows on stage. As often happens, someone “helpfully” plunges the venue into darkness, so your slides are easier to see. Stop what you are doing and ask that the lights be brought back up and don’t continue until that happens.

Don’t leave it to random chance or good fortune – decide to own the first impression and enjoy the glide to the finish. When we understand how important the start is, we make sure it is a winner for us. After all you only have a couple of seconds to nail that positive first impression.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Find Your Leader Voice

Why are so few business leaders good communicators, given all the education they have received, starting at varsity and then later, through their workplace organisations? Leaders – let’s stop kidding ourselves, the reality is, if we can’t talk to people, we can’t lead successfully.   The TED talk phenomenon, which has spawned TEDxEverywhere, should be having a positive impact on leaders. It would appear though, that not many of us are taking any note.

Leaders are often told they need to be “authentic”. That means to some, that it is fine to be dull, obtuse, monotone and forgettable. While dramatic oratorical flourishes are not required, congruency is a must. For leaders this means matching the way we communicate with the content of our message.

When we speak using a monotone delivery, placing equal voice stress on each word, sadly, our audience just tunes us out. They start to look for other points of stimulation, such as how we are dressed, our body language, our voice quality – almost everything except the actual key message content. They also escape to the internet through their addictive hand held device of choice. “Authentic failure” as a communicator is probably not what leaders have in mind as the desired outcome.

Leaders need to match their vocal variation and facial expression to the message being delivered. Congruency means emphasising key words or phrases, through either adding or subtracting voice projection. Whispering is as powerful as yelling, as long as the message content is aligned with the delivery mechanism. Dialing up and down the energy and speed when speaking, creates the necessary vocal variation to keep the audience focused on what we are saying and away from their portable blue screens.

Business leaders are often notable for speaking while exhibiting a “wooden face”, meaning they maintain the same facial expression throughout their talk. Good, striking, even exceptional news is greeted with the same fixed expression as announcing disaster, doom and gloom.

The simple rule is, if it is good news, let your face know and smile or show happiness. If it is bad news, look serious, worried, upset or fearful depending on the content and context. Get the face involved, because it is a million times more powerful as a communication tool, than whatever is up on the screen behind us. Captains of industry reliance on their slides to substitute for their poor presentations skill is a false dawn of hope and marks the amateur business speaker.

Voice speed can be an indicator of confidence or terror. Most of us, when nervous, tend to speed up and our ideas can rapidly begin to overtake each other. Pausing is needed to allow the audience to process and digest what they have just heard. Getting through the talk in the time we have been allotted, does not equal getting our message across. If we can’t absorb the key points because they keep tumbling out all over the top of each other that is a recipe for confusion not good communication.

We can also speak using our body. Our facial angle allows us to become inclusive and capture all of our audience, no matter where they are seated. The front, middle, back, the sides – the leader makes eye contact to engage with people in all parts of the room. Eye contact means actual engagement – looking an audience member in the eye and speaking to them for around 6 seconds. Less than that makes for a rather fleeting, perfunctory type of engagement. Locking on to their gaze for too much longer starts to burn into their retina and becomes uncomfortable.

Our feet, funnily enough, are important when speaking. Pointing them straight forward and using only our neck to swivel our head and engage the audience is projecting confidence, credibility and solidity. Often times, speakers are unconsciously facing their feet forward at an angle, favouring one side of the room over the other. They subsequently only engage that half, leaving the remainder of the audience in supreme neglect. Slouching, swaying, standing off balance, nervously striding about the stage may not be projecting the professional image leader’s desire.

Our hands can be a dilemma too. We either overemploy them, so that like the monotone voice, everything gets the same unbroken level of emphasis or we don’t deploy them at all. Behind our back, resting on our hips, thrust deeply into trouser pockets, held protectively in front of our body are the usual suspects in the crime of neglect of our hand’s communication strength when speaking. Gestures are powerful to emphasise the key points we want our audience to remember. As a general rule, 15 seconds for each gesture allows it to have impact. After that point, the strength subsides and the gesture just becomes annoying.

Being a “good speaker” is not the goal. Being a good person, who can speak convincingly is the real goal. There are plenty of spivs, spinners, crooks, dodgy politicians, shifty CEOs etc., who are verbose and quoting that brilliant Aussie gem: “can talk under wet concrete with a mouth full of roofing nails”. Leaders need their own voice to fully reach their audience, to persuade, to inspire, to be credible and memorable. You are the brand and what you say and how you say it matters. We judge the entire organization on you, so how leaders perform in public matters. Be congruent, authentic, be you, but be the best possible you.

Action Steps

1. Always be congruent between our content and our delivery
2. Use vocal tone, facial expression, power and speed to vary the delivery
3. Keep our eyes fixed on our audience the whole time engaging them one by one
4. Work the whole room and not just one side
5. Remember – you are the brand

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

How To Market Yourself In Under One Minute

Meeting new business contacts, expanding personal networks, promoting a reliable, trustworthy “Brand You” are the basics of business. By the way, even if our job title doesn’t explicitly mention “sales and marketing” we are all in sales and marketing. In modern commerce, even professionals in non-traditional sales roles like accountants, lawyers, dentists, engineers, architects, analysts, consultants all need to pitch their expertise to get new clients. This may not have been the case in the past, but this is the “new black” of the professions. When we try to influence a decision – buy my widget, use my service, fund this project, open a new market or even where shall we go for lunch - these are all sales and marketing efforts to get others to follow our ideas. Don’t miss this change and instead master the process, such that you get the business and not your competition.

By the way, first impressions are so critical. When I ask my class participants during sales training, how long does it take to form an impression of someone, the range of answers is usually between 2 and 5 seconds. Think about that.   We are all so quick to judgment, we are shockers! An opinion is formed immediately and it takes quite a bit of effort to unwind a negative first impression. We would have to be crazy to leave that first impressions to random luck or happenstance.

Now given our first interactions with strangers are so important, are we getting the best result for ourselves and organisation? When we are out there representing our company and someone asks us, can we succinctly explain what we do, in a clear, informative, impressive and memorable manner? Based on my experience and observations from attendance at thousands of networking events, there is a lot of room for improvement. Those from the so-called professions are usually the worst!

An excellent formula is called the Wow & How.  When we meet someone for the first time, after examining their business card, we should get the ball rolling and ask them about their business. Why don’t we just seize the moment and jump in and start impressing them with information about us and what it is we do? Well, you could do that but it is a hit and miss approach. We know that people love to talk about themselves, so don’t deny the potential client that chance. We also learn more by listening than speaking and so having them lead off is a win-win.

Hearing what they do also assists us in considering how best to explain what we do. We can emphasise certain aspects that we believe would appeal to them, based on what they have just told us, about what they are doing. If their industry has relevancy for something we have done, then we can mention that point and start building our credibility. We may have a business contact who can assist them, making ourselves valuable in the process. They may mention an issue and bingo, we are the solution, so we can zero in on learning more about the concrete problem.

By listening to them speak, we can also gauge their preferred personality type. We can then adjust our communication style to best suit their preference for interaction. If we notice, for example, that they are a very detail oriented person, we might add in more concrete detail than normal to explain what it is we do. If you are speaking with an accountant, three decimal places when quoting numbers is always appreciated! The opposite tack is best applied to big picture people - don’t kill them with the micro detail. If they are fast paced, then we need to speak faster and with more energy than normal. If they are very calm and considered, drop your voice and lower your energy to mirror them. Check you are not standing too close to them and give them some space.

Generally speaking, we all like people more who are like us. By adjusting our own style to match them, we are more quickly able to enhance our communication and understanding. Does this mean we have to be a schizophrenic with conflicting personality styles? No, but it does require that we master the language styles of the four main personality styles – Expressive, Driver, Analtyical and Amiable.

When it is our turn to explain what we do, we can really get things moving by using a three step approach:

1. We start with a proposition that they can easily agree with. For example, in the case of my business: “You know how companies often really struggle with training their staff. They get really frustrated that the training doesn’t produce the results they require” . The listener by this time is nodding and silently voicing their agreement, because they can mentally picture the problem.

2. We embed a pregnant pause, then add the mega attention grabber, almost as a throw away line - “Well, we fix that completely”. At this point, we become as silent as the tomb and do not utter any follow up to our bold statement.

3. Their immediate internal mental reaction is “Wow, that sounds amazing” . Then their buyer supreme skepticism kicks in and they ask, “Oh yeah, so How do you do that?”.

They have asked the question from their side now, so this allows us to subtly lead with our differentiable advantage in the marketplace. This is brilliant, because we are responding to their request for more information and unlike everyone else, we are not pushing our unique selling points down their throats.

Importantly, our answer is more about the What we do, rather than the How we do it. We do this on purpose, because we want to explain the precise How in detail later, in the comfort of their office, rather than in short form at a noisy, distracting and crowded networking event.

So our answer would go like this: “Dale Carnegie has been around for a long time, so we have proven methods which trigger the behavior change needed to get the staff to produce outperformance”.

The explanation should be succinct and only take about thirty seconds, so each word is vital. The delivery must be practised and perfected beforehand. The delivery must be relaxed, purposeful and voiced with confidence. Simple things which appear effortless are often complex to perfect. There may be a lot of re-writing, before you can find the economy of words needed to get across the concept in such a way, the listener is drawn in to want to hear more on the How.

At the next business soirée you attend, roll out the Wow & How formula, delivered in the potential client’s preferred communication style and see the results. Study their reaction very carefully and keep adjusting the content, until you find the “all killer, no filler” combination that works best.

Every single person you meet judges your entire organisation and business on you. That is a heavy burden and one we have to master. Remember you only get one shot at a positive first impression, so let’s not leave that creation process to random chance.

Action Steps

1. Understand that we are all in sales and marketing

2. When meeting someone at a networking event, have them tell you what they do, before you introduce your business

3. Listen for their preferred communication style

4. Tell them how you are the one to fix the business problem

5. Create the opportunity to meet again for a business discussion

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

How To Command The Rabble

The Master of Ceremony (MC) goes to the microphone to get the programme underway but the audience are simply oblivious, caught up in their own riveting conversations. The situation is much worse at receptions where alcohol is already flowing and the people down the back are generating a roar, a positive din, that drowns out the speakers. Apart from bona fide members of Imperial Families, everyone is fair game in the “let’s ignore the speaker” stakes. Cabinet Ministers, eminent speakers, famous personalities all struggle to get the attention of the crowd. When it is our turn, what can we humble beings do about this?

Here are some ideas that will shut down the noisy rabble and provide a proper platform for the speaker to be heard.

Make sure to turn off the background music well before you are ready to start. Surprisingly, this is often forgotten by the organisers. Speakers should not try to compete with irritating white noise in the background, so check this will be done before you are due to launch forth.

Preferably always have someone else introduce you. Their job is to quiet the room in preparation for your presentation. This doesn't always go to plan though, because it can be a lucky draw on who introduces you. Usually, they are not skilled speakers themselves and so they may do a lame job at best.

If you are in the MC role yourself, about to introduce the programme speaker, avoid the charisma by-pass problem of no presence in the room. I recently saw a giant of a man, fulsomely mustachioed, boasting a hulking frame, draw up to the microphone and in a tiny faint voice try and call the assembled masses to order. He had absolutely no success, so even an imposing physical presence is no guarantee to cut through the clatter.

On the other hand, if you worry about speaking behind high podiums and appearing to your audience as a stylish coiffure just peaking above the water line, always arrive early and have the event staff provide a small raised dais behind the podium for you.   We always want the audience to easily see our face. Even better, dismiss the podium altogether, because now we can use our body language to maximum effect. If you are using a laptop on the podium, turn it to the side, so that you can see the screen and stand facing the audience, so there are no barriers between you. The technology should be at our command and not commanding us.

As noted, voice projection is key for cutting through crowd noise. Today’s microphone technology is very good, so you don’t need to have a stentorian voice to be heard. However, placing the microphone too close to your mouth creates dissonance, making it harder to hear you. Mysteriously, some speakers have the opposite problem and hold the microphone so low that there is almost no sound being heard. These errors are easily avoided if you just hold the microphone about a hand’s spread in front of your mouth and speak across the top of the microphone mesh.

When you face a challenging noisy crowd, make sure to hit the first few words very hard. To get things going, start with a strong “Ladies and Gentleman” with power invested into the first word and remember to draw that first word out slightly (Ladieeeeees). Elongate it for effect but don’t overdo it . Now include a small pause before a strong finish to the phrase. This will generally shut the room down and gather everyone’s focus on the speaker. If it doesn’t produce that “hear a pin drop” silence, then go again with strong voicing of the next phrase, “May I have your attention please”. Again, add a pause and let peer pressure quiet your audience. If it is still noisy, repeat this phrase once more and do not start until you have total silence.

I have seen speakers using assorted cutlery to bang on a glass, to create a chime that signals it is time to “shut up everyone and listen”. It works, however, one word of warning - don’t speak while pounding. Let the chime effect work for you and when the room pressure builds to a point where you have achieved silence, put the glass down, pause and then start. Why pause? This builds anticipation and curiosity, both of which work in our favour when trying to get attention to what we are saying. Using pauses during your talk is also powerful for focusing everyone on the message you are delivering

Similarly, you can also use powerful music to drown out the crowd’s babble and make them listen to what is coming next. Just a short piece will do, as it signals action is about to commence and people will switch their gaze to you at the front of the room. After the music ends, again use a slight pause and then start.

We can’t be effective communicators if people are not listening, so our first task is to quiet the room. Using these techniques will produce the right break in the chaos for your message to be heard. Some final advice, don’t practice on your audience. Spend time rehearsing your talk, so that you are confident and comfortable that you can command the room from the very start.

Action steps

1. Turn off the BGM well before you start
2. Have someone else quiet the room for you
3. Don’t allow the podium to dominate you
4. Practice with the microphones, so that you know the correct distance and angle of elevation to use
5. Hit the first word hard and elongate it slightly
6. Uses pauses – they add power to the speaker
7. If you strike a glass to produce a crowd-quieting chime, add a pause and then speak
8. A short burst of music can silence an audience and clear the way for you to start speaking

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Storytelling For Business

 Best intentions, higher callings, righteousness – all good stuff but without good communication, our efforts fail. Instinctively, we all know storytelling is a great communication tool, but the word itself is a problem. We associate it with bedtime stories and therefore the idea sounds a bit childish. In the modern era, Hollywood talks about the arc of the story or in politics, the media punishes the lack of narrative. Actually, this is storytelling just dressed up in more formal attire.

The other problem with storytelling is that we are not very good at it. It seems too simple, so we gravitate to more complex solutions – frameworks, theories, models, four box quadrants, pyramids, Venn diagrams – anything to appear more convoluted and pseudo-intelligent. If we present something complex, we must be smart. On the other hand, anyone can tell a story. Ah…but can they?

How many really good business stories have you heard lately? Have you been captured by the speaker, as they have taken you into a story that has you emotionally and logically involved? In my observation, businesspeople are usually poor communicators. To ensure they never improve, they are invariably uninterested in “childish solutions” like becoming a great business storyteller. They totally miss the point. We can tell stories that are credible, relevant and absorbing. We do this by adding in colour, action, personalities, locations, situations – all manner of rich fabric to the story. We paint a powerful word picture that the listener can visualise in their mind’s eye.

No matter what industry we are in, we have four main business communication objectives. It might be to increase credibility for our organisation or to inform an audience of some pertinent information. It might be to move people or it might just be for entertainment purposes. The Business Five Step Storytelling process focuses on moving people to action. We might tell this story from the point of view of our own experience in the first person or we may refer to the insights of someone else, told in the third person.

We begin by clarifying the “Why” it matters. The story draws out the immediacy and relevance for the audience of the problem or issue. This is a critical step, because everyone is surfing through hundreds of emails, Facebook and Twitter posts, LinkedIn updates, Instagram messages, etc. They are dealing with family, work, financial and health issues. There is a tremendous competition for the mind space of our audience. If we don’t have a powerful “Why” to grab attention, game over right there. This is where storytelling is so powerful. We move straight into the world of the story, to highlight the gap, the failing, the challenge. Replacing the usual bromide beginnings of talks (Thank you for inviting me; It is a pleasure to speak to you today; etc.), we move straight into emotion and action: “The Marunouchi Board Room mood was dark and grim. As Jim stood up, looking at the faces around the table, he knew this was an all or nothing moment….” If you hear a talk with a start like that, you definitely want to hear what is going to happen next.

We now move straight on to the “What” – the information they need to know. This is knowledge they don’t already have or have not sufficiently focused on as yet. This will bring forth data or perspectives, which are pertinent, immediate and grip our audience. Imparting key points, each linked with firm evidence, is essential today because we are all card carrying skeptics. There is so much false information floating around, we are permanently on guard against feeling cheated or foolish.

We must communicate to the audience what they need to do. This might be our own recommendation or we may relay that of the third person in the story. For example, “Bill told me the whole marketing team, Nakamura, Adam, Tanaka and Ohira had spent weeks working back late, almost missing the last train becoming a regular occurrence. Constantly refining the database, each time with a much sharper angle for the buyer’s perspective, they were getting closer and closer to the key insight. Ohira mentioned to me the reems of paper generated were piling up on every flat surface in the office, they could hardly move but finally the answer became clear. Over a twelve month period, constant split testing and independent validation upon validation registered the same pattern. To produce the follow up communication sequence that will consistently produce the best results we need to….”

Having isolated out the issue, imparted some evidence to provide more compelling reasons to take this issue seriously, we now tell the “How” to move forward. This will explain in some detail what needs to be done, so that the listener can take immediate action: “The vendor’s programmers needed to be involved with the marketing team, as they scope out the action steps. By the way, the flow chart map in our largest meeting room in the Otemachi office spanned across every wall, even the glass door, in some places three layers deep. It was complex but visually easy to follow. Mitsuo walked me through the paper covering the walls, tracking each iteration and step, emphasing the colour paths created by the red, green and blue marker pens. Step One was….”

To deal with any potential doubts or concerns, we head them off by exploring the “What Ifs”. We join the listener in the conversation going on in their mind concerning the fears they might have, about what is being suggested. We address these in the story, so that there are no or few residual barriers to taking action: “There were doubts among the London Board members – plenty of them. What if the data was too old now, given the speed of change we were facing. In fact, we found that the constant split testing allowed us to keep updating our hypothesis, so we were always close to the buyer viewpoint”.

Finally, we repeat the “Action Steps” we recommend, succinctly and clearly, so that these stay fresh in the mind. “After the wrap-up meeting was held over pizzas and beer back at the Toranomon Hill’s office, we isolated out the Five Steps we found which worked best. In this specific order: Step One….” Compressing the steps into numbers like three, five or seven work best, as they tend to be easily recalled. Few people can hold elaborate data points in their head. Keep it short, keep it memorable.

Embed the key messages in a series of stories that we can follow along with you. Unfold the point of the talk with plenty of real people and real situations stitched into the telling. The richer the detail and the more real the story, the easier it will be to take our audience with us. Being dull and boring like everyone else is an option, just not a very good one. With a simple storyline embedded into the explanation, we will be so much more memorable and persuasive.

Action Steps

1. Explain Why it matters
2. Tell the audience What they need to know
3. Outline How to do it
4. Vanquish the What If objections before they arise
5. Detail the recommended Action Steps

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Making Yourself Clear

Public speaking throws up many fears and challenges for all of us. As part of High Impact Presentations, one of our public speaking courses, we have been surveying the various participants for the last four years about the types of things they most want to improve. The most common request, from both Japanese and English speakers, is to “be clear when presenting”. What do they mean by clear? The speakers want their message to get across to the audience, to be easy to follow, to have some impact from their efforts to get up in front of others and speak.

This is not easy, mainly because we keep snatching defeat from the jaws of victory! There are some errors we make which kill our ability to communicate with the audience. Here are some critical factors to make sure that situation never occurs.

Firstly, we should decide what is the purpose of our talk? Is it to Entertain people, so they leave feeling warm and fuzzy about us and our organization? Is it to Convince them or to Impress them that our organization is reliable and trustworthy? Is it to Persuade or Inspire them to take some action that we are recommending? Is it to just Inform them of some recent data or information that is relevant to their industry? We need to be crystal clear about what we are trying to do with our talk, before we even worry about the design, production and delivery.

Secondly, we need to thoroughly investigate beforehand just who will we be talking to? What is the generational mix, the age demographic, the male/female split? Are they experts, amateurs, dilettantes, critics, supporters, potential clients, etc.? We need to pitch our talk at the right level for the audience – no dumbing down to the exceedingly well informed, insulting them at every turn. We don’t want to be an acronym heaven dweller or a specialist jargon snob, baffling the punters completely. We need to gauge our listener’s level of comprehension and make sure we are talking to them at their level of expertise.

Thirdly, we should rehearse our talk before we give it. Sounds straight forward doesn’t it, except that hardly anyone does this! In sales we always advise, “Never practice on the client”. Presenters should heed the same sage like advice. If we prepare the talk in writing, we may find the cadence is different when we say the words out loud, compared to when we read it on a page. We also may find we have misjudged the time completely and be too long or too short. We need to start singling out key words we want to hit harder than others for emphasis. Speaking in a boring monotone is one of the most common errors of non-professional, non-competent speakers.

Some Japanese speakers have complained to me that they are at a permanent disadvantage with public speaking, because the Japanese language is a monotone, non-tonal language. True, it lacks the tonal variety of English but there are two simple changes we can make when speaking Japanese to break out of the monotony. Apply pace to speed up or slooow right down. Another variation is to add more power to a word or phrase or to speak in an audible whisper, removing the power altogether. Both of these techniques will help monotone speakers vary their presentation and maintain the interest of their audience.

Fourthly, get the mechanics of delivery right. The message cannot stand by itself; the quality of the content is not enough; the supreme value of the data is insufficient - if people can’t hear you. Yes, physically they can hear you are speaking, but when the content and the delivery are not in harmony, only 7% of the message is actually getting through to the audience. That is a shockingly low number.

The research on this is quite well established and it makes sense. When the message content is not congruent with the way you deliver the message, we get distracted by how you are dressed, by your body language, by the tone of your voice. As an example, if I said , “I am really excited about the prospects for this new technology” in a totally flat, no energy, barely audible monotone voice, with a bored, unhappy expression on my face and delivered it while looking down at the lectern and not at my audience, only 7% of people would get the message. Many speakers make it hard for themselves because they talk to precisely no one. They look at their notes or the screen or the floor or the ceiling; anywhere, but at that sea of expectant faces carefully scrutinising them.

Engage your audience by using eye contact and keep each person’s gaze for around 6 seconds to make the eye contact meaningful, without it becoming intrusive.   Japanese friends tell me “In japan, we are taught not to make eye contact”. That may be the case for normal conversation but once you have an audience, you are now in a different role. We need to step it up if we want to have the audience buy what we are saying or to keep interest in our message.

This is where making eye contact for 6 seconds works so well. The members of the audience feel we are speaking directly to them and they gravitate to us as a result, because we have engaged them. Also, get you face involved! If it is good news, then smile; if you suggest doubt, have a quizzical expression on your face; if the information is surprising, have an expression of wonder; if it is bad news look unhappy or concerned. A wooden face, totally devoid of expression is a tremendous waste, when we have so much potential to add power to our words with our facial expression. Japanese speakers can gain a lot here because often they fail to take advantage of the face as a medium of their message.

A well placed pause is a brilliant way to get the audience focused on what we have just said. Often when we are nervous we speed up and start running the ideas together. This makes it hard for the audience to digest the key points, because the points are rapidly overwhelming and replacing each other. A pause also gives us time to regroup our thoughts and calm down a bit, if we found we were getting a bit too fast in the delivery.

Throw in some gestures to add power to the words, but don’t maintain the same gesture for longer than 15 seconds. Utilise your palms, so that they can be seen by the audience. Don’t hide them behind your back, or lock them up protecting your groin or keep them hidden away in your pockets. This is the classic refuge of my fellow Aussie executives. They don’t know what to do with their hands so one slip into the pocket. The really confused CEOs from “downunder” put both hands in their pockets for a stereo effect. A gesture made too low may not be able to be seen by parts of the audience, so make the gesture zone between chest height and head. The gestures should be natural and not Shakespearian or thespian. Leave acting to the experts, be natural, be your “professional” self.

When we know why and who we are speaking to; when we get voice, face and hands working in unison to add strength to what we are saying, we get 100% of the audience to clearly absorb our message. It is quite clear what we have to do isn’t it!

Action Steps

1. Decide what is the purpose of your presentation at the very start and be clear about it
2. Carefully investigate who you will be talking to
3. Rehearse like crazy before you get up in front of the audience
4. Be a legend on the mechanics of presenting

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.