Well Japan, I’m Sorry

Well educated from two top ranked Universities.  Undergraduate in Japan and an MBA from the USA.  He had a very capable command of English and our presenter did a very good job of conveying the business structure, strategy and results of his publicly listed enterprise.  Yet, that presentation could have been so much better with attention to a few simple basics.  This difference in polish is both cultural and attitudinal.  

Beginning your talk in Japan with a series of apologies is standard practice.  First apologise for speaking while standing, because you are towering above your audience implying superiority.  Next, tell us how nervous you are about speaking to such a distinguished audience.  Don't forget to mention you had no time to prepare the talk properly because you have been so busy.  If you are sick, it is always good to get that in there too.  If you are speaking in English, then an apology for your poor English is mandatory. At the end, make sure you apologise for giving such a poor presentation.

Why do Japanese speakers go through all of this apologizing?  Japanese humility demands a public display of rectitude.  Appearing too confident in front of others is not appreciated. Being seen to be a bit of a smarty pants never goes down well.  Especially when most Japanese public speakers are untrained, dreadful, boring and killing us with their monotone delivery, it is always good to fit in, rather than stand out.

Public speaking has only a relatively recent history in Japan dating back to early Meiji when Fukuzawa Yukichi established the practice of the public speech.  Daimyo or Provincial Lords, were not giving stentorian addresses to the struggling masses or the latter’s samurai betters.  Public notice boards were erected to inform everyone of what they needed to know.  Western civilization on the other hand has been talking up a storm since ancient times and has embraced the idea as a mark of skill and intelligence.  Japan has still not fully embraced the power of the spoken word and so it is not as valued here as in the West.  Lack of value translates into lack of attention to being excellent as a public speaker. Especially so, when everyone around you is equally hopeless, so why bother?

So what should Japanese speakers do when they are addressing an audience in English made up of foreigners?  What do we foreigners do when we are speaking to a Japanese audience in either Japanese or English?

Most talks are not recalled in much detail.  What we do remember though is the speaker.  We come away with either a positive or negative impression.  Linguistic purity is not required in either case.  Foreigners are used to non-native speakers giving presentations with accents, grammatical mistakes and unusual or exotic vocabulary choices.  

It seems that there are still some Japanese who are basically convinced, that non-Japanese can't speak Japanese, so any attempt to do so is greeted with approval, as long as it isn't too perfect.  Foreigners speaking absolutely fluent Japanese worries some older Japanese people who seem to think their protective language barrier has been breeched and maybe this foreigner knows a bit too much. Better be careful of this foreigner. A certain degree of ignorance is somehow more comfortable, although the younger generation are not so much confronted by the concept of fluent foreigners. They have grown up watching them on television, working as commentators or variety show performers.

For Japanese speakers, when it is your turn to speak to a foreign audience, find out who is in your audience.  The chances are if it is a business audience, then you are speaking to a good proportion of Japan fans, boosters and supporters.  Many will be fluent Japanese speakers or possibly speak one or more additional languages, so they understand all the intricacies of presenting in a foreign argot.

They will also have been weaned on a diet of presentations throughout their education and thereafter will have an admiration for good speakers.  For this audience, then follow western tradition and ditch all the cultural paraphernalia around apologies at the start.  Instead open with a blockbuster that grabs everyone's attention and cuts through all the competition for the attention of your audience.  Even the most riveting speaker today cannot stay the hands of some in the audience as they surreptitiously sneak a peak at their hand held device, while the presentation is underway. In fact, we are becoming bolder and bolder. We are even doing it in full view of the speaker, while they are mid peroration.

Rehearse the presentation and show command of the material.  If there is a slide advancer involved, practice with it before the start, so you can show mastery over the technology.  Have some rhetorical questions at hand to maintain the attention of your listeners.  The audience should not know initially if they are going to be required to actually answer this question or not, in order to keep them locked into the details of the speech.

Have a proper close designed, in fact, have two ready to go.  One for before we get into Q&A and one for after questions.  Don't just let the speech fade out, as our speaker did, by saying "well time is up and I will finish here".  No, we need to leave our audience with a call to action to get them supporting whatever it is we are promulgating.  The final close is to take back control of the speech, because questions from the audience are random and often can be completely unrelated to what it is we have been talking about.  We need to restate our main message, so that this is what is ringing in the ears of our audience, as they file from the room at the end.

For foreigners, don't copy the Japanese model because you are not Japanese, never will be considered Japanese no matter how long you live here and are not expected to be Japanese. Give the most professional presentation you can and be another speaker who the Japanese look at and wonder why they don't have those sorts of presentation skills.  It doesn't matter which language your are speaking in, always make it the most powerful piece of communication you can muster.  You represent your personal brand and the brand of your organisation whenever you speak publically, so how you handle yourself is important. Also, let’s help create role models of excellence to better internationalise Japan and help it to do a better job of selling itself to the wider world. They need the help, because based on Japan’s current presentation skills level, there is still a long way to go.

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.

Show Me, Don’t Tell 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 slide 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 of “show me, don’t tell me” 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.

Designing Our Presentation Part Two

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 audience 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 for that reason we should use it sparingly.  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 out 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 though because most people will have forgotten the exact title of our talk. 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 planned opening and grab the audience’s attention.

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 for 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 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 one the audience and off your text. It also forces them to look at you, because there is no competition for audience attention, from what is up on the screen.

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 emphasise on the screen. We can do this through 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 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. These are spread across an astonishing number of different fonts and font 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

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", 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.

Designing Our Presentation Part One

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 prioritized 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 get our audience to agree with our conclusion.

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 roll these out 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, 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 such 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 our first impression 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.

We should also be very well choreographed with how we get going. Do the microphone check before the audience arrives. Have the slides ready to go. If there is a change over between your presentation and someone preceding you, then don’t start anything until the logistics are completed. The start of the talk begins at the start and not with any discussion about what you are doing with your laptop to get it ready. Make the first sentence powerful and don’t let anything else get in the way.

In Part Two of Designing Our Presentation, we will look at great ways to open the talk and some key elements of slide design.

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", 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.

Are You Any Good – It Is 10 Minutes In?

We have worked hard to get our opening right. We know that first impressions really count and we have planned the start. We contacted the organisers well before the talk to get a sense of who has signed up for the talk and what their main interests are. We got to the venue early and checked on all the logistics. We don’t need to thump the microphone and ask if they can hear us don the back because we have already tested it. We don’t need to fuss around with our laptop because we are ready to go or if there is a laptop change over, we do that first before we even start saying one word.

That first word is a chosen word, not some accidental offering. We have been speaking with some of the early arrivals to get a sense of why they are attending and to know their name. we reference their name as we start to connect with the audience and remove the barriers between speaker and the gathered masses.

We are also fully primed for the end, with both our first summation and our final close. We know we need two closes, one for the immediate end of the talk and another one for after the Q&A. We have prepared both. We know how to properly handle questions – repeating, if not hostile or paraphrasing if a veiled or direct attack upon us. In this way, we can make sure everyone heard the question and that any invective in a question has been properly neutered.

What about the middle bit of the speech? How we do we keep attention from start to finish when we have an entire audience fully tooled up with their escape vehicles firmly clasped in their hands. Their mobile devices will release them from the mortal toil of listening to us and they can be swept afar to more interesting and pleasant climes.

The next time, you are at a presentation look around after the first 10 minutes and see what the audience are doing. Many will be surreptitiously scrolling through their Facebook or Line feed or whatever, multi-tasking, rather than giving the speaker their full attention. How do not become that speaker who has lost the opportunity to get their key message across to the audience?

Every five minutes we need to switch the pace. We need to be presenting something that grabs the attention of the masses. We need an example, a story, demonstration, audience involvement, etc. This shouldn’t be left to random chance. This needs D-Day level planning, so that you know what slide you will show at what point, what story you will relate. Your voice is such a phenomenal tool yet so many neuter it by turning it into a monotone that is guaranteed to become an insomnia cure.

We need to use pace – fast and slow, strength – loud and soft, vocal intonation – up and down. Japanese native speakers have a disadvantage on the up an down front because Japanese is monotone delivery language. No problem , just work on the pace and strength variables and you will gain enough variety in the delivery to keep your audience’s attention.

Story telling is so powerful and so under used. There is huge demand for reality television, which are like home movies into the lives of celebrities. This is basic storytelling, often at a very mundane level. Nevertheless, these programmes draw an audience because we are fascinated by the personal lives of others. So tell your disasters, your fails, your hard won lessons, your triumphs. Come up with pithy quotes that are referencing well known legends like JFK or Churchill etc.

The key here is the planning and then the practice. What is written down sounds a bit clumsy sometimes when we say it out loud. This is where rehearsal comes in. Go through the presentation and work on the cadence of the delivery. Make sure that every 5 minutes you are switching gears and giving your audience something to do, like raise their hand (don’t overdo this, it is annoying) or ponder, or laugh at, or nod to knowingly.

We cannot let our audience escape and lose the benefit of hearing our valuable message to the idiocies of whatever is trending on social media.

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", 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.