The Big Idea When Presenting

The podium is a powerful place for powerful ideas.  The audience has no idea what you are going to say and where you are going to take them during your presentation.  In Japan, at least, they will politely hear you out until the end and then perhaps offer up a question oR two.  For the thirty or forty minutes allotted to you, you are the master of the universe, omnipotent over all seated before you.  And what have you done with this remarkable opportunity so far?  Not that much I would reckon.

In business we are very pragmatic, practical, down to earth, focused.  No one expects a businessperson to be giving a fiery, impassioned call to storm the Bastille and put the heads of useless politicians and leaders on pikes to be paraded through the town square.  In fact, we bend over backward to be apolitical on the basis that we have customers of various allegiances and beliefs and we don’t want to upset our revenues or hurt our brand.

This tends to breed a focus on the details of elements of our business when we speak.  We might be doling out useful advice based on our own experiences to date.  It is all kept pretty locked down, neutral and safe.  We don’t challenge ourselves and so don’t challenge our audience either.  This is not varsity, where a lot of airy fairy stuff can be debated for intellectual stimulation.  This is the real world.

The only issue with this “steady as she goes” model is we don’t push ourselves to go higher.  We focus on what we know and have seen, instead on what could be imagined.  We don’t try to think about issues at a more holistic level, to take a local company issue and elevate it to a conundrum facing the industry.  We don’t try to project our intellects to a higher plane of thinking because we are caught up in the weeds of the detail of our speech.  We spend vastly more time deciding the order of our sides than on any big idea.

This doesn’t mean our business speech has to whir off on a philosophical tangent far removed from the reality we all face.  It does mean though that at a couple of points in our talk we can try to go higher than our own self interest and look at the bigger picture at the industry, country and international level.  It may just to be offering up issues for consideration or to project different angles to a problem.  To push ourselves to see something in a new light and from a bigger perspective.

The dealing with everyday problems can bury us in the everyday, every day of our working lives and that is a limiting factor in our own intellectual development in business.  By taking the opportunity of the podium presented to us, we can challenge ourselves to see what we can say on a bigger topic.  One or two big insights per speech is probably enough though, otherwise it sounds like we are on our soapbox, indulging our egos.  This should not dissuade us though from thinking “what bigger points can I make about the world of business in my speech?  Where do I see future danger points for the industry, the society, the country etc?”.

So when we are next preparing our talk, let’s ask ourselves “what can I say on this topic that will elevate some issues beyond today and my small part of it?”.  That act alone elevates our own thinking and vision.  Our job in the actual presentation is to do the same for the members of the audience.  To challenge them to think more deeply and think differently.

Small Target Tactics For Hostile Audiences

Presenting isn’t always adoration, adulation, regard and agreement.  Sometimes, we have to go into hostile territory with a message that is not welcomed, appreciated or believed.  Think meetings with the Board, the unions, angry consumers and when you have sharp elbowed rivals in the room.  It is rare to be ambushed at a presentation and suddenly find yourself confronting a hostile version of the Mexican wave, as the assembled disgruntled take turns to lay into you.  Usually, we know in advance this is going to get hot and uncomfortable.

We still have our message to get across but we have to make some adjustments to head off trouble.  The essence of the issue is disbelief.  The audience, for whatever reasons, simply don’t believe what you are telling them or they just don’t trust you, regardless of what you tell them.  The first casualty of this type of speaking engagement has to be big, bold statements.  In less tense situations we might be throwing these types of statement around with gay abandon and not face much resistance from the audience.  If what we have said gets brought up in the Q&A we bat it away without breaking into a sweat.  No problem, we have this one!

In more fraught circumstances, those big statements will get us hammered, maybe even as soon as they are issued, with no regard for waiting for the Q&A, as the interrogation gets underway immediately.  By the way, if there is an intervention by someone in the audience, we should redirect them to ask that question in the Q&A, which is where we will handle all questions.  This stops your flow being interrupted and the proceedings being hijacked.

We need to be more circumspect about claims we make.  We need to introduce ideas surrounded and buffered by evidence.  Instead of saying, “this is how it is”, we need to say, “according to the research, this is how it is” or “according to the experts, this is how it is”.  We swiftly and subtly slip off to the side of the attack and let the third party reference take it between the eyes, rather than ourselves. 

We need to wrap up our statements in cotton wool and preface them with comments like, “as far as we know…”, “according to the latest information…”, “to the best of our knowledge…”.  In this way, we are not holding ourselves up as the oracle, the all knowing, all seeing sage, unburdened by limitations of self awareness.  We are making ourselves a small target, harder to attack and providing many loopholes to leap though, should we need to.

We need to lead with context and background.  Making statements, drawing conclusions, before we get to the evidence part, is ritualistic suicide as a speaker facing a hostile crowd.  We need to take a note from the pages of the Japanese language grammatical structure.  Unlike English and most European languages, in Japanese the verb comes at the very end of the sentence.  This is a great metaphor for dolling out the evidence. 

In Japanese, we don’t know if the sentence is past, present or future oriented, if it is negative or positive until we get to the end of the sentence.  That means we have to sit there and absorb all of the context, background and evidence before we can make a judgment about whether we agree with what is being said or not.  This is what we should do with a hostile audience – load them up on the details, the data, the evidence, the testimonials, the expert statements, before we venture forth with what we believe to be true. 

We deliver this this deluge of facts piecemeal, so that the audience is taking the information, processing it in their own minds and jumping to conclusions about what they have just heard.  Our object is that the conclusion they have jumped to is the same one that we have reached, based on the same information. It is almost impossible to disagree with our context.  They may not agree with our conclusions from our understanding of the context, but the context itself is usually inviolable.

Before we go into Q&A we must publically announce the amount of time available for questions.  It is going to get heated and we don’t want to appear like a cowardly scoundrel beating a hasty retreat, because we can’t take the rigour of investigation of what we are saying.  By having stated the time available at the start, we can simply refer to it later and say, “we have now reached the end of the fifteen minutes for question time” and go into wrapping up the evening with our final close.

Hostilities will commence immediately we begin to speak, so we have to be mentally ready for that.  We also need to switch our presenting tactics to account for the pushback which will come.  By making ourselves as small a target as possible, it becomes much harder for any enemies in the audience to successfully attack us.  If they are going after you, they are definitely not your friend, so keep that in mind when your are preparing.

Dress For Success When Presenting

How should we dress when presenting and does it actually matter?  It matters - particularly in Japan.  Japan is a very formal country, in love with ceremony, pomp and circumstance.  Always up your formality level in dress terms in Japan, compared to how formal you think will be enough.  This was a big shock for this Aussie boy from Brisbane, who spent a good chunk of his life wearing shorts and T-shirts or blue jeans and T-shirts.  Tokyo is not Silicon Valley, where dress down is de rigueur and where suits have gone the way of the Dodo.  This is a very well dressed, sophisticated capital city where serious money is spent on quality clothing.

Business suits are a given when presenting.  Not even coat and slacks in the Italian style, but business suits.  The colour should be on the dark spectrum to fit in with the solemnity of your “aura and presence” as an expert, about to pontificate on your subject.  A serious speaker in a light coloured suit is an oxymoron in Japan.  Go dark .  The suits don’t have to be the deepest black in colour, because darker greys and blues will work.  Now the odd thing is this applies in summer too.  The summer speech outfit will be a little lighter in colour than the winter suit, but not as light as the very light colours in summer suits.  It doesn’t matter if they are three piece, double-breasted, or have one, two or three buttons.

Needless to say the suit should fit well.  I have a very old and dear friend who has, like me, been in constant battle with his weight.  We take it off and then we put it all and more, back on again.  Very frustrating of course, but a painful reality.  The sight one day, of him giving a major speech, while only able to close the bottom suit button, rather than the top, was very sad.  It said to the audience, “I am fat, in denial and have not bothered to adjust my suits to match this fact”.   We all have our “fat suits” of course, for those occasions when we are losing the struggle against our expanding waistband, so that would be a good choice if you are carrying a few too many kilos. However, if even the “fat suit” is now too tight, then go to the tailor and get it adjusted.  Better to be paying a small amount of money for that, then telling the world you are a loser in the battle of the bulge.

The shoes will be formal, brogues are good, shined within an inch of their lives and never “down at heel”.  It would be rare to wear any other colour than black, because the suits are going to be dark.  The belt obviously must match the colour of the shoes and be in good condition, not looking like you have worn it to death.  I don’t even know why I mention this, except that I often see some Japanese gentlemen messing it up getting the colour coordination wrong and displaying a belt clearly on its last legs.

The socks should match with the colour of the slacks and avoid fascinating contrast colours that herald your rebellious and exciting individuality.  Save that funky revolution for the weekend.  They should be knee rather than ankle length.  When seated on stage, for say a panel discussion, there is nothing more alarming than the sight of a very hairy shin protruding from underneath the suit pants.

The shirt should be white, never coloured.  I know this seems very limiting and lacking in imagination but there is a biological reason for it.  When we are on stage we can become nervous or the lighting on stage can heat us up.  The consequence is we begin to perspire and the neck area is one location where this happens very quickly.  That gorgeous Egyptian Giza 45 cotton shirt, in light blue, becomes a two tone job, as soon as the sweat envelopes your collar and makes it turn dark blue.  Now the audience is losing touch with what you are saying and are fascinated by your unfolding two tone colour arrangement of your shirt. 

For the same reason NEVER take off your suit jacket.  I am soaked under my jacket, by the end of a 40 minute talk, because I am pumping out so much energy and heat.  If I had my jacket off, there would be a much darker colour running down the side of my body.  By the way, there is nothing more unpleasant than seeing someone in a shirt, sporting a saturated armpit, raise their arm so the soaked armpit becomes visible to the audience. 

Your tie collection may have some daring beauties, but leave them at home.  At one stage, I was sporting some very ferocious Versace ties, with very vibrant colour combinations and adventurous patterns. I never wore them for speeches though, because they were competing with my face, for the attention of the audience.  Also, forget the power colours.  You don’t need them, because your speech delivery should have power and authority to command the obedience of the assembled masses.

The same daring do logic applies to pocket squares.  Especially fluffy, elaborate and exuberant little darlings grab the gaze of the crowd and they take their eyes off your face.  We don’t want that. The plastic name badges you are given by the organisers are another trap.  Don’t wear them when you get up to speak.  They reflect the lights and your body movement can set them off on a navy signal lamp training session.  We don’t want anything competing with us when we are speaking.

I am highly reticent to speak about ladies fashion, because I have so little knowledge of this subject.  My wife tries to encourage me to become more expert, but there has been no great progress to date. My only advice would be basically adopt the same ideas – dark suits, white blouses, black shoes, no scarves, modest earrings and broaches and basic hair and makeup approaches.  This is not a runway extravaganza, but a chance to drive home your message.  By the way, if it is a panel discussion, where you would be seated on stage, then a trouser suit may be easier.  Always make your face the centrepiece, so the audience is firmly focused there.  Our faces can transmit so much power to drive our messages, so we can’t let anything compete with this awesome weapon.

Using Micro Stories When Presenting

Storytelling is one of those things that we all know about, but where we could do a much better job of utilising this facility in business.  It allows us to engage the audience in a way that makes our message more accessible.  In any presentation there may be some key information or messages we wish to relay and yet we rarely wrap this information up in a story.  As an audience we are more open to stories than bold statements or dry facts.  The presenter’s opinion is always going to trigger some debate or doubt in the minds of the audience.  The same detail enmeshed in a story though and the point goes straight into the minds of the crowd and is more likely to be bought as is.

When we are planning our talk, we think about what is the key message.  We should get this into one sentence, able to written on a grain of rice.  Okay, you are not likely to be able to achieve that any time soon, but the keys are brevity, clarity, focus, conciseness, and paring the message down to its most powerful essence.  We build the argument to support our key message, broken up into chapters throughout the talk.  We design our two closes, one for before Q&A and one to wrap up the whole talk at the very end.  We design our blockbuster opening to pry the phones out of the hands of the audience, to get them to listen to what we are saying and going to say.

We can inject micro stories, by which I simply mean short stories, into every part  of this design.  The opening could be a short story which grabs the attention of the listeners and primes the room for our dissertation.  It might be focused on an incident which relates to the key message of the talk or about an episode from a famous historical figure or about someone in the firm or a client that drives home the message.

Each of the chapters of the talk can rely on micro stories to back up the evidence being presented to justify the conclusion we have come to and the point we are making.  These stories bring flesh and blood to the dry facts and details.  They can enliven the point we are driving hard on, by making it something the audience can relate to. These facts don’t just appear.  They are there because of a reason and there are bound to be stories aplenty attached to them.

Both of the closes can be separate stories that enhance the final messages we are delivering to the room.  We keep them short, bountiful, memorable and attractive, such that they linger long in the minds of the audience members.  We want our story attached to the inside of the brains of the listeners, so that they remember it long after the event has passed by.

A thirty minute talk would probably have five chapters, an opening and two closes, so at least room there for eight stories.  These stories can be our own, garnered from our experiences or they could be folkloric stories from the firm’s rich history or we could be borrowing other people’s stories to make our point.

We all have products and solutions.  Where did these come from?  How were they created and who created them?  What about the firm’s founders’ stories?  Why does this company exist and how has it manage to stay in business for so long?  Taking the key chapter content, we can inject some life into the data points by looking for creation stories or application tales of high deeds and gloried achievements.  Other client’s stories can be some our stories too, as we relate how our solution changed their world.  These stories lend themselves for inclusion in the “about us” component of the firm’s website and for placement in the corporate brochure. 

The point is we have so many stories to choose from, we have a surfeit of content lapping all around us.  All we have to do is collect it.  So from now on build a library of stories about the firm, the personalities, the products, the client successes etc.  When you are reading about other companies look for their stories that you can borrow to make a point about your own business.  Add them to the library so that you don’t have to go scrambling about trying to think of stories.  You have them there, ready to go whenever you need them.