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
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
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
It is a big crowd, yet the conversation suddenly dies and a hushed silence now sweeps through the room. All eyes are fixed forward, as the MC tears at the envelope and announces this year’s award winner. Polite applause fills the air as the proud selectee stands up, glances around smiling, shakes hands and navigates between the maze of tables and chairs up to the podium. Receiving the prize, obediently posing for the photographer, our winner turns and begins to move gingerly towards the microphone. Facing the assembled crowd of industry peers, personal and organisational brands now begin to disintegrate.
They have that deer-in-the-headlights glazed look in the eye, as they contemplate a packed room full of searching, quizzical faces. Their throat suddenly seems Sahara parched, words struggle to get out, both legs feel weak, and the mind is a total whiteout.
What finally does come out of their mouths are strings of pathetic Ums and Ahs. There are particularly strained and embarrassing silences as they obviously struggle, thinking what they want to say. Their speech is incoherent, nervous, unconvincing and clearly killing them. In one minute they have gone from hero to zero in front of their industry peers. Some cowards even run from the microphone, declaring they will not take the opportunity to make any comment. Their general demeanor screams FEAR and their face looks particularly taut!
We are talking about a one minute acceptance speech here. An opportunity to promote your organization, promote yourself, thank the troops, etc. Why are so many people so poorly prepared to represent their organization in a public setting, where there is no excuse and every likelihood that you will have to get up and speak?
One speaker though, addressed the podium radiating confidence, stood up straight, and spoke with energy and clarity. It was short – maybe two minutes maximum, but it sounded so professional and competent. So it can be done – what is the difference?
The most telling point was the majority of speakers had obviously done zero preparation and this speaker had worked out what needed to be said. The majority had not considered what they might say, until they swung their torso around towards the microphone. That is not a lot of preparation time!
Actually, a short one or two minute speech is probably the most difficult talk we will ever give. It is so brief, we have to really plan it well. We also need to rehearse what we are going to say beforehand. Don’t ramble on and please, let’s not practice on our audience!
There are only a few points we can make when forced to be so brief, so we have to select the most powerful messages and dump the rest - there is no time for dross. As we say it has to be “all killer, no filler”. We need to be projecting massive confidence, even if we are dying from nerves on the inside. By the way, only we know that is the case. Definitely choose and commit not to show it to the crowd, keep that vital information to yourself.
It is a good practice to hit the first word we speak hard, to eliminate any hesitancy. With that good energy level established , we should maintain our voice power, to project confidence to everyone in the room that we deserve to be up here, getting this award. Remember we all critics and we judge your entire organisation on you. If you rock, we think your whole organisation is great. If you are a dud, we assume everyone down at your shop is a numbskull.
When speaking to the audience, our eyes should be singling out specific individuals at each table to speak to directly, as if we were having a friendly chat over the backyard fence. We are only speaking to them for about six seconds though. More than that becomes intrusive and less doesn’t allow for any meaningful engagement with that person. We then switch our gaze to another table across the room, repeat the process and start engaging someone sitting there. In a one minute speech we can engage ten tables in a room, which with around 8-10 guests at a table is pretty good coverage.
We also won’t waste our chance in the limelight by applying a vice-like grip on the lectern. Instead we are going to free up our hands for gestures. We will accentuate particular thoughts and points, with the use of our hands. We will definitely slip in a pause after a key point, to really let it sink in. We will add extra voice strength to selected words, to give them added emphasis. We will use animation in our face to drive the key message hard.
If there is even the remotest chance you will have to get up and speak, be prepared, be “A Game” ready, be organised and be great. Rehearse what you will say many times, until it flows smoothly and convincingly. You may not win but if you do, you will be ready. Don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on the awards dais. Make it a personal and professional triumph instead.
We are such a judgmental lot aren’t we! We form opinions about people within seconds of seeing them, often even before we hear them speak. We judge their dress, their body language, their style without knowing anything about them as a person. We are slow to unwind our first impression as well, so those first seconds of any interaction are vital.
We are all critics too, when it comes to presentations. We want the best, we want to be educated, entertained, wowed in our seats and we are usually disappointed. We carry that history of disappointment around with us like heavy baggage, to the next presentation. We shamelessly hold others to a level of accountability, we never wish imposed upon us!
The cold, hard reality is that Presentation Effectiveness can be a make or break skill in the workplace. At some point in your career you will be asked to present information to a group. It doesn't have to be a formal occasion. It might just mean answering a question or being invited to express a view or opinion. It is your job to ensure that you are ready to step up to the call. An individual who can present confidently and effectively immediately differentiates themselves from the rest of the group. Whether you are a pro or a beginner with presenting or public speaking, here are some practical tips for improving your presentation and communications skills.
Getting Rid of the Stress of Public Speaking
Many people are terrified of speaking in front of a group. Everyone is staring at you, your palms are sweating, your pulse is racing, strangely your throat feels suddenly dry and parched, your energy levels have dropped to precipitous levels, your knees might even be knocking as the fight or flight adrenalin kicks in.
Many of us can accomplish pulling off a presentation, but feel a certain amount of fear and stress. Speaking in front of groups does not have to be stressful or nerve racking; instead, the experience can help you stand out and get noticed.
Here are some tips that will help you fight through your anxiety and deliver an effective presentation:
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
If you have a complete understanding of your material, it will definitely give you an advantage during your presentation. However, do not feel you have to memorize your material; you just need to be familiar with it.
You can read key points as mental prompts to help you keep the flow going in the best order, but don’t read it if you can avoid it. Many people are wedded to their text. They spend the entire time making eye contact with their own words on the sheet in front of them, rather than with their audience and then wonder why nobody was impressed with their presentation. Look at your audience – talk to them as if it was fireside chat, be relaxed and engage with everyone. I recall a brilliant lecture I attended at Harvard Business School, as part of an Executive Education Programme. One of the Professors had written down a list of 10 words on the back wall behind the audience. This was his 3 hour lecture presented entirely without any visible notes. A list of key words you talk to can be your presentation too or you might use the slide deck as the navigation to move your talk along.
Open with Confidence.
Here is a big secret - only you know you are terrified. Unless you tell us, we will imagine you are competent, after all that is what we are expecting. Japan of course, loves to start a presentation with an apology, often mentioning what a hopeless speaker the individual is. No, no, no! If you are sick don’t tell us. If you are nervous don’t tell us. If you are sad because your cat died, don’t tell us. Don’t say anything about how you feel, because then the focus is on you and not where it should be - on your audience. Work the room instead – focus outward not inward.
Your opening gives your audience a first impression of your presentation. Make sure not to leave anything to chance. Your opening sets the tone for your entire presentation. No ums and ahs please!
Here is how to avoid the usual speaker opening kicking off with hesitation in the form of Ums and Ahs.
Select the first word of each sentence and hit it. Purse your lips once that sentence is completed and then hit the next sentence’s first word. Once you finish the sentence purse your lips again. Keep doing this and hesitancy and timidity will disappear from your image as a speaker.
Also lift your speaking volume up to about 30%-50% higher than in normal conversation. This is not a normal conversation, so it needs a different approach. Stronger volume communicates greater confidence (even if you don’t have any!). You usually have microphones so you don’t have to shout but lift your energy.
If you have a reasonably strong voice and it is a small gathering, dispense with the microphone, so that your hands are free for using gestures.
Focus on a Few Key Points.
Know the major points you want to make. This will help ease your worry and increase your confidence. You should also use electronic visuals, note cards, or memory techniques to outline your key concepts. If you need some prompts then prepare them. If you are using a teleprompter make sure you can carry on without it.
Famous Hollywood Director Michael Bay just got started on his Samsung sponsored public presentation in Las Vegas. When the teleprompter failed, in short order so did he. You can see the disaster unfold on YouTube – it’s sad to watch.
Remember, the slides, the flip chart, the teleprompter are all secondary to you – you are the message. Importantly, only Michael Bay and the host on stage knew what he was going to say that day. By abruptly walking off stage in shamed, burning silence he said to the entire audience that he had forgotten his message, that he failed. He could have carried on with his thoughts and we would never have known it wasn’t the intended content.
Support Ideas with Evidence.
It is always important to provide evidence to support your main points. Supporting evidence will help your audience understand your points and will give you a chance to explain your points more fully. Point-evidence; point-evidence; point-evidence is the way to go. Just because you say it doesn't mean we believe it is true. Prove it!
Close with a Call to Action.
This will be the last impression your audience has of you and your presentation. It is important to ensure the closing reflects the purpose of the presentation. Your closing should summarize your content and give your audience a clear direction.
Don’t forget that you must repeat your close again, after the end of Q&A. Most people lose control of the proceedings when they get to Q&A and many a meltdown has been witnessed at this vital last impression juncture.
Don’t allow someone’s random question content to define your final impression or final message for the audience. I remember I was giving a presentation in Japanese, to an audience of HR professionals about how great Dale Carnegie training was and teaching them how to use some of the key human relations principles.
It was going gangbusters until we got to the Q&A. This very charming, well dressed Japanese lady in her early 70s put her hand up to ask a question and for the next 10 minutes launched into her own speech!
You must stay in command of the messaging and so the show ain’t over until you sing the last line of the wrap up after Q&A. Repeat your close so the last message they get is the one you want them to get. This is the mark of the pro!
Action Points
There are a number of common structures for giving presentations and one of the most popular is the opening-key points/evidence-closing variety. 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 consider 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 forcing the font or scale to be so small, it is barely visible on screen.
No, the WHY is all about persuading the audience to agree with 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 impenetrable and so is not fully accepted. The tendency to imagine that this superb, high 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 valuable”, is a typical, if somewhat pathetic excuse.
Another common error is to invest the vast majority of the available time for the presentation preparation on the accompanying slides for the talk. Digging up the data, tweeking the detail, creating the charts, arranging the order etc., keeps us quite busy. So busy, in fact, that we forget to practice the delivery of the talk. We find ourselves peering down at our audience, presenting the content for the first time up while at the podium. We are in fact practicing on our audience and this is definitely 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 a gripper and use a very big font to isolate out that one number. 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, so the evidence and context are more easily transferred. 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. We recall Professor Albert Mehrabian’s study about the importance of not just what we say, but how we say it. Emphasising particular words, adding gestures for strengthening key points, engaging our audience by using eye contact, allowing pauses so ideas can sink in and reducing distractions so our actual words are absorbed.
Structure, rehearsal, storytelling and congruent delivery combine to create a powerful success formula for presentations.
Action Steps
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
We may not have the chance to give that many public presentations in a year, but usually we will have some common themes which we can speak on. As businesspeople, we will have our areas of expertise and experience and based on those attributes, the hosts will invite us to present. Basically, in the lull between hostilities, we do nothing and just wait for the next chance to speak. If we want to improve as presenters, that passive approach doesn’t make any sense. There are a number of things we should be doing between presenting gigs.
Further researching our expertise areas should be a constant item for us. We are daily looking for things in the media, in journals and on social media which we can collect and stash away for when we need it. We can’t put it in the shoe box like our tax receipts, because we need to be able to find it when we need it. So a simple sorting system is required, so that we can extract what we have found, when the occasion presents itself.
We need an idea collection system as well. At different times we get some genius inspiration about one of our topics and then that thought is totally overtaken by the next thought and then lost forever. Instead, we need a place where we can quickly grab that thought and keep it for later when we need it. Ideas pop up at the most unlikely times, so we need something with us all the time. Usually, our phones have apps suitable for that quick notation we need. Again, we need a basic filing system, so that we can locate that excellent insight, observation or idea.
We may have a great amount of knowledge and experience on certain topics, but those searching for speakers may never know we exist. This is where we need to be constantly making any effort to alert others that we know lots about a few things. I was reminded of how important this whole “be found” thing is recently. Ironically, we were doing leadership training for a large consulting firm and had been doing it for quite a while. One day, out of the blue on LinkedIn, I received a message from a junior person in that firm asking about whether I could speak to a conference they were holding. In the note to me, it was mentioned that two people who knew me had recommended me for the gig.
I was happy to be considered, but confused as to why the connection had come through this circuitous route? I have given over 550 public speeches, pump out six podcasts and three TV shows a week, have written the book Japan Presentations Mastery, have 27,000 followers on LinkedIn and have published thousands of articles on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Maybe the person doing the research was hopeless. Maybe it was Covid, where public presentations basically vanished, I don't know, but it really highlighted for me how invisible we all are. Anyway, we have to make a positive effort to be found and we have to calculate in that the designated researchers may be sub-standard, so we need to do even more to be found.
Also, we should always try and video our presentations. This provides us with material for our “show reel” where we can select the bits and pieces to show a prospective speaking gig host our goods. As I mentioned, the chances to speak in a year are relatively limited for most of us, so we need to produce some proof that we are the one they need for the next speaking spot. Videos can be edited and flashed up to make us look even more amazing than we already are and they can be on our websites, on YouTube or sent to the hosts, when they inquire about speaking to their audience.
We shouldn’t be too snooty about taking speaking gigs either. Imagining you will save it all up for the big stage and be totally awesome is wishful thinking. We should grab every spot we can get, however humble, so that we build our craft. We should also keep notes on where we went well and where we need to improve, so that the real time insights are not lost in a busy life. A lot of little events can help hone our skills to really shine at the big events. As I have mentioned a million times, having incredible data to share doesn't mean your presentation is going to be spectacular. The brilliant content won’t save you from decimating your audience with ums and ahs, or a monotone, boring, wooden delivery.
Speaking in front of others, in this Age of Distraction and this Era of Scepticism, means the act of presenting has never been harder. Audiences are well equipped with their gateway to the internet in their hand. In the first ten seconds, if you sound dull, they bolt and don't wait. Also, the “fake news” era has driven up the scepticism scale people are gauging us by when speaking. The bar has never been higher for public speakers. That means we have to become Masters of the Mechanics of speaking at the very least. Great content is meaningless, if no one is taking any note and you have lost control of their attention
So, between major speaking gigs, we have work to do. We should be in a constant state of prep, always anticipating our next chance will emerge and making sure that we will be more than ready to take that opportunity.
The chances of this happening anywhere is pretty remote, but especially so in Japan. Audiences here are polite and wouldn’t be so rude as to interrupt the speaker. Having said that, things can happen for which you are not prepared. I was delivering my debut speech in Nagoya, as the founding Australian Consul, in Japanese, and the unexpected happened. A local representative of one of the main Japanese government organisations was sitting in the front row on my left. I began the speech with a very standard Japanese opening, appreciating everyone coming to hear me when they are all so busy. I barely got that phrase out of my mouth when he erupted in very loud laughter.
The unexpected is more likely though, with foreigners in the audience. Depending on the occasion, it could be one of the big bosses weighing in on what you are saying or one of your ambitious colleagues trying to make you look bad, so that they get the promotion and not you. Regardless, what can we do in these unexpected situations?
In that first example, I was nervous enough giving my debut speech as the Consul and giving it in Japanese. I was dumbfounded by his outburst, because I took it he was laughing at my language skills and I still had another thirty-nine minutes to go speaking in Japanese. I girded my loins and kept going because I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t reading the speech, so it was all coming out of my brain, trying to follow the navigation I had planned for the talk.
I noticed that some members of the audience were appreciating the fact I was speaking in Japanese and seemed to follow what I was saying. I ignored that ignoramus and concentrated on the people who were nodding, smiling or at least looking neutral. This helped my confidence to return and I could carry on. I recommend you do the same. There is very little chance of a cabal of hecklers disrupting your talk, so you will probably only face one person and there are plenty of other people in the audience to interact with.
If there is just one comment, I would just ignore it and carry on as if nothing happened. If the talk is internal and heckler is your boss, then you have a different problem and you need to stop and get more detail on what is causing the unhappiness. If it is a sharp elbowed rival, I would just ignore the interruption. If the rival or the heckler at a public speech should continue with their outbursts, then you have to stop and deal with it. How should we deal with it though?
First of all we need to understand this person is not your friend, so forget trying to win them over to your point of view. They are interrupting everything to show the rest of the audience how awesome and smart they are, by challenging the speaker on what they are saying. I would ask them to elaborate on their point. I would look straight at them the whole time and not nod or move my face. Nodding looks like you are agreeing with what they saying and we may do it out of nervousness or habit. Don’t. Just look at them and let them speak. When they finish, we start our reply and we keep maintaining eye contact and after that we never give them any more eye contact. We address the rest of our answer to the other members of the audience.
By ignoring them, we are taking all the air out of their balloon and withdrawing the ego driven attention they have been so fervently seeking. We look at the members of the audience who look friendly, supportive or at least not negative. We give them each six seconds of eye contact and we just keep repeating this throughout the rest of the talk.
We will do our best to answer their concern and one thing we should never do is ask if they are happy with our explanation. They are not heckling to get illumination. They are there to provide heat to the speaker and make us look bad. We just give our answer and we say something like, “Now I will get back to our topic for today” and we just keep going, ignoring them the rest of time. If the heckler is taking the talk off topic, we should stop them and say we will be happy to discuss their point after the talk and then get back to what we were saying. If they still want to continue, again, we tell them we are happy to talk at the end and we pick up where we left off.
The key to remember is that even though we can be quite nervous without this extra pressure, the majority of the audience are with us. They think the heckler is a jerk and very rude, so they immediately side with us against them. They didn’t come here to be part of a bun fight between the speaker and the crowd and they feel their time is being wasted by this very selfish person. So keep going and look confident and positive, no matter how you are feeling on the inside. The audience will go with your confidence and support you.
We often mix up words like metaphor and analogy, using them in the wrong context. Anecdote is another word we often use, but sometimes are not sure what it means. Basically, it is storytelling about a real incident or about a person. I was reminded of the power of the anecdote the other day, when listening to a presentation to a select private group, by an international captain of industry. He was going through what their firm was doing globally and particularly here in Japan. As presentations go, it was mostly the “inform” variety with a few sprinklings of the “impress” dimension. That is to say, it was fairly dry, except for a couple of occasions when he related an anecdote about what they were doing and what they had found.
These brief interventions lifted the whole proceedings up into the “insight” category of communication. That is a much richer dimension and as listeners, we feel we are getting real value here from this speaker. The speech basically followed the guidelines of a similar speech he had given recently and he was using slides as his navigation. The rules of this private study group is that we don’t use slides to show what we are talking about. We just speak and then take questions in depth on the topic. He was allowed to use the slide deck as his personal navigation for the talk. Interestingly the anecdotes were not in the deck. They came out spontaneously as he searched for illustrations and examples to further flesh out his points. What a contrast. We were getting fed corporate pap for the most part and then “bingo”, out pops a valuable morsel.
This tells me that he had not planned his talk to maximise the insights they had learnt from running their business globally and in Japan. Why would that be? This is a very common problem with presenters. They are in the “inform” mode of presentations and think that reeling off data and facts is all that is required. These accidental sharings were the most valuable part of the whole talk. We should try to eliminate the accidental nature of these sharings and actually plan to inject them into the talk from the very start.
I am sure his approach was to take a chronological survey of the company and then just build on that, to highlight the main iterations over time. What if he had said, “right, I am going to sit down and draw out what we have learnt from doing business here in Japan and gather the widsom together”. Following that he could arrange the structure of the talk around these learnings and present the context and background, so it would be easy for the audience to follow. We still need the “inform” part, because that context gives the insights their power. It makes them stand out from the ordinary and trumpets the learnings. Business audiences, in my experience, are always hungry to learn. In particular, they love to hear about disasters, so that they can make sure they don’t replicate the same issue in their world.
It is hard to be bursting with insights, so we are not talking about a talk with wall to wall insights flowing constantly like a massive waterfall. However, we do things and we do learn what works and what doesn’t. The difference is the speaker has a mind to capture these and store that information away for when it is needed. Most people just forget about the insight and move on, because there is always so much more data and information coming at them. That endless supply dilutes the key points we the audience need to retain. So from now on, if you hear a good insight or you discover one in your business, find a place to capture that and have it in your mind to use in a future talk.
One other thing is to be excited about the insight and frame it for the audience. Our speaker on this occasion never got excited about the insights and spoke throughout with the exact same energy when describing something terribly mundane and when talking about something much more breakthrough. We need to raise our energy and enthusiasm when we get to the juicy bits, so that the audience knows – here comes something very valuable. We can frame it too. We can say, “Let me tell you about something which proved to be such a valuable lesson for us”, or “I came across this understanding which really transformed our business here in Japan” or “let me tell you an insight which saved us from disaster”. The audience will be guaranteed to be on the edge of their seats to hear what is going to come next and that is exactly where we want them.
So, start with the insights when designing the talk and wrap them up in a clear context. Make sure the audience can fully appreciate the value they are receiving. Seize those anecdotes and put them to good use.
The chances of this happening anywhere is pretty remote, but especially so in Japan. Audiences here are polite and wouldn’t be so rude as to interrupt the speaker. Having said that, things can happen for which you are not prepared. I was delivering my debut speech in Nagoya, as the founding Australian Consul, in Japanese, and the unexpected happened. A local representative of one of the main Japanese government organisations was sitting in the front row on my left. I began the speech with a very standard Japanese opening, appreciating everyone coming to hear me when they are all so busy. I barely got that phrase out of my mouth when he erupted in very loud laughter.
The unexpected is more likely though, with foreigners in the audience. Depending on the occasion, it could be one of the big bosses weighing in on what you are saying or one of your ambitious colleagues trying to make you look bad, so that they get the promotion and not you. Regardless, what can we do in these unexpected situations?
In that first example, I was nervous enough giving my debut speech as the Consul and giving it in Japanese. I was dumbfounded by his outburst, because I took it he was laughing at my language skills and I still had another thirty-nine minutes to go speaking in Japanese. I girded my loins and kept going because I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t reading the speech, so it was all coming out of my brain, trying to follow the navigation I had planned for the talk.
I noticed that some members of the audience were appreciating the fact I was speaking in Japanese and seemed to follow what I was saying. I ignored that ignoramus and concentrated on the people who were nodding, smiling or at least looking neutral. This helped my confidence to return and I could carry on. I recommend you do the same. There is very little chance of a cabal of hecklers disrupting your talk, so you will probably only face one person and there are plenty of other people in the audience to interact with.
If there is just one comment, I would just ignore it and carry on as if nothing happened. If the talk is internal and heckler is your boss, then you have a different problem and you need to stop and get more detail on what is causing the unhappiness. If it is a sharp elbowed rival, I would just ignore the interruption. If the rival or the heckler at a public speech should continue with their outbursts, then you have to stop and deal with it. How should we deal with it though?
First of all we need to understand this person is not your friend, so forget trying to win them over to your point of view. They are interrupting everything to show the rest of the audience how awesome and smart they are, by challenging the speaker on what they are saying. I would ask them to elaborate on their point. I would look straight at them the whole time and not nod or move my face. Nodding looks like you are agreeing with what they saying and we may do it out of nervousness or habit. Don’t. Just look at them and let them speak. When they finish, we start our reply and we keep maintaining eye contact and after that we never give them any more eye contact. We address the rest of our answer to the other members of the audience.
By ignoring them, we are taking all the air out of their balloon and withdrawing the ego driven attention they have been so fervently seeking. We look at the members of the audience who look friendly, supportive or at least not negative. We give them each six seconds of eye contact and we just keep repeating this throughout the rest of the talk.
We will do our best to answer their concern and one thing we should never do is ask if they are happy with our explanation. They are not heckling to get illumination. They are there to provide heat to the speaker and make us look bad. We just give our answer and we say something like, “Now I will get back to our topic for today” and we just keep going, ignoring them the rest of time. If the heckler is taking the talk off topic, we should stop them and say we will be happy to discuss their point after the talk and then get back to what we were saying. If they still want to continue, again, we tell them we are happy to talk at the end and we pick up where we left off.
The key to remember is that even though we can be quite nervous without this extra pressure, the majority of the audience are with us. They think the heckler is a jerk and very rude, so they immediately side with us against them. They didn’t come here to be part of a bun fight between the speaker and the crowd and they feel their time is being wasted by this very selfish person. So keep going and look confident and positive, no matter how you are feeling on the inside. The audience will go with your confidence and support you.
I had an interesting collision of presenting styles recently. We were conducting one of our High Impact Presentations Courses and I was one of the two instructors for this programme. On Day One, a very important pivot takes place. They do three presentations that day and during the third one, they stop focusing on themselves. In the first two, they are consumed with nerves and trying to remember all of the things they are supposed to be doing.
One participant publicly mentioned that she hates having a room full of people staring up at her when she presents. It makes her feel tremendously nervous and she feels great fear as a result. Sure enough, she looked totally nervous and very uncomfortable during that first presentation. We have two instructors, so that one can review the video of the presentation with them, immediately after they finish in the main room. What a change, when I got to review her third presentation with her that first day.
Like all class participants, she was looking for all the things which were imperfect. In Dale Carnegie, we don’t dwell on what isn’t working, because we are too busy looking for what is working and for what can work even better. I said to her, “Look at this person on screen. She looks very confident and not at all nervous”. Sure enough, by the third presentation, she had made that important pivot to stop focusing on her nerves and to try to start engaging with the audience in the room. Everyone assembled in the room was directing their eyes to her, watching her, staring up at her. The very thing which she had noted made her supremely nervous, yet by number three, she had forgotten all about that. She was totally focused on others and not on herself. Now she was concentrating on engaging her audience with her message.
After the two days of teaching the main modules, I attended an event the next evening for a major luxury brand. The Japan CEO gave a brief presentation. He was bilingual, handsome, and full of confidence. He gave a very good presentation, but it wasn’t the full package. Why? The missing vital ingredient was that he wasn’t engaging his audience and using that framework to drive his message home. Like most public speakers you will see, he was lacking that engagement factor. Check it the next time you see someone present. Are they talking “at” their audience or “with” their audience?
His voice was clear and at a good volume, he used humour well, the slides were acceptable, his energy was great, but he wasn’t getting his message through. He was spraying his message to those assembled that evening. Everyone was getting the message at the same time, in the same way, so it meant that no one was actually getting a personalised message. It was a shotgun approach, and he needed to be a sniper instead.
If he had directed his eye contact for six seconds each, with each person gathered there, he could cover ten people a minute. That is a very powerful personal connection – one on one, rather than en masse. In his fifteen minute talk, he could have easily made a direct connection with one hundred and fifty people. There were only about fifty people, so he could have covered every single person in that room multiple times.
The next morning, I attended another networking event and here was another bilingual, handsome, confident CEO presenter. He had a good voice, good phrasing, displayed lots of energy. The slides could have been simpler, though. Unlike the presenter the evening before, he was spending a lot of time wandering around when speaking. The movement added no value to the talk and in fact, was distracting. By the way, next time you have a chance, take note of presenters who wander around and ask yourself – is their movement habit adding any value to their message? Back to this speaker. He almost had the full package, but again that same vital ingredient of audience engagement was missing. He was another shotgun speaker. He was spraying his message across the entire room to everyone, at the same time and so to no one in particular.
There were about 60 people sitting there and he spoke for forty minutes. That means he could make direct six second eye contact with four hundred people, so again a chance for at least six multiple direct touches with each person in that size of crowd. Engaging the listeners is how we get our message to sink in. Just speaking at them doesn’t do it. it is like being bathed in a morning mist and you feel a little damp, but soon that evaporates and you move on. His message mist evaporated and was not retained by his audience. If we asked those assembled what they remember from the talk, I will guess not much and probably not the key points he wanted them to keep.
Just making that one switch in eye contact in the training made a total difference to how well the class participants got their message across. These two CEOs also need to get their message across too and yet they are falling short at the finish line. The takeaway here is don’t spray your audience. Instead, engage them, one by one, and keep engaging them right through the talk. If the object is to get them to accept your message, then this is the secret of how to achieve that goal.
Presenting is physical labour. We can do it with minimal energy or we can expend large amounts of effort. There are dangers with both extremes. The dull speaker, barely getting the words out of their mouth and hard to hear, isn’t going to ignite much interest from the members of the audience. The nervous speaker, pacing across the stage like a junk yard dog prowling the fence perimeter, is very tiring to watch. The energy output cannot be at one constant setting either. Full bore on being boring and hard to hear and full bore on extreme outputs throughout, both tune the audience out. Variety is the key to keeping the audience with you. They get into a rhythm, and we have to become asynchronous in our delivery, to break their rhythm to maintain a stranglehold on their attention.
Today we are in the Age of Distraction, with our audiences being trained on social media one minute video outputs, sharply shortening their attention spans. Anytime the audience gets too much of the one thing they get bored. They are scrambling to get their phones to escape us and access more interesting content, all instantly available on the internet. Delivery which is too soft, too loud, too continuously the same thing, will see audiences flee us.
There are key words and phrases we need to highlight with either more power in or less power in. A secretive yet audible whisper is just as powerful as shouting a word to the audience. The point is the whole sentence can’t be a whisper or a shout, but only handcrafted words and phrases which we highlight for effect to get into the febrile attention span of the listeners.
Pauses are blank space which can elevate words and phrases which come before or after. It allows the audience to focus on what is coming or on what has just been said. When we speak continuously without breaks, it is like winter surf, where the big rollers crash on to the shore, each one wiping out the residue of the previous one. We want a break here with a pause where the attention span can be elevated and the content can receive the concentration it deserves.
Our gestures must link up with our words and be congruent with what we are saying. If we need a big gesture we should deliver one. Often, when we are teaching participants public speaking, they are fearful to make a big movement with their gestures. When we replay the video and ask them if the larger gesture we have coached for looks crazy or out of place, they always say “no” it looks congruent. We can use gestures in creative ways. If we talk about something in the past, we can thrust our arm backward to emphasise the point, this is in the past, it is behind us.
If we refer to ourselves, we can bring both hands back to point at our chest. It indicates we are talking about ourselves and not someone else. If we want to involve the audience, we can spread our arms wide and open our palms out, to indicate our listeners. If we want to show some scale either small or large, we can use our hands to do that. If I lift my right hand to the top of my head or above and cup the hand, so it is ninety degrees to the floor, it indicates a measuring rod to show height or scale. If I push my hand down by my side and hold the palm ninety degrees to the floor, it indicates a low height or a small amount. If I say, “the whole world…” a good gesture is to spread my arms wide and extend my hands to the side at about 170 degrees. Bringing my palms together right in front of my chest shows something very small or narrow.
Breath control is important for singers who are using their voice as their medium. They get training for this but what about speakers, who are using their voice as their medium of communication. Normally, no one gets any training. The singer and the speaker secret is lower diaphragm breathing. This means the lower abdomen expands and contracts as we breathe, rather than having the breath focused in the upper chest. Place your hand on the front of your tummy at about navel height. When you breathe in the tummy should expand out and push against your hand. When you exhale, it should contract and draw your hands into toward your body. This gives us a rich source of oxygen and breath control to use when speaking, such that we never sound tinny and short of breath.
Another powerful element for speakers is to project your ki (気) or intrinsic energy into the audience. By directing your energy into those in front of you, they feel energised by you and they keep listening, rather than reaching for their phone to escape. Try to imagine you are pushing your energy to the back wall of the venue, covering the entire audience. Don’t keep your intrinsic energy bottled up inside of you – share it with the assembled masses. To help with this, use big gestures and use voice power when speaking loudly, to drive the force into the audience in front of you. This requires conscious thought at first, but after a while you will be doing this naturally, without any thought required.
We have physical power and we need to plan for this when we are preparing to give talks. This is another reason why rehearing our presentations is so important. If we work on these things in preparation for the talk we will be able execute them during our presentation.
Japanese culture is pretty specific about making eye contact with people. In ancient times, a commoner might lose their head if a samurai felt they were making eye contact with them in an arrogant or disrespectful way. Even amongst samurai, in the presence of superiors, you would only raise your eyes to make eye contact when invited to do so, otherwise your right place would be looking down at the floor with your head bowed. Here we are in the modern era and making direct eye contact is still felt to be inappropriate. The guidelines are look at the person’s throat or forehead or chin, but don’t make eye contact. It is thought to be too aggressive and rude, especially if they are older or higher in status than you. Okay, you might not agree with it, but so what, that is how we do things around here.
As a result, I rarely ever see Japanese presenters making conscious, specific eye contact with the people assembled before them. I don’t see too many foreigners doing it either. My old Japanese history Professor at University, had the habit of looking at the joint between the back wall and the ceiling behind us in the lecture theatre and looking there whenever he wasn’t reading from his text. Zero eye contact and engagement with any of us plebs.
Now “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” is ancient wisdom, so should we foreigners blend in with the locals and avoid eye contact with our audiences? Absolutely not! This point can become contentious, but we are mixing up scenarios. Chatting with your colleague, boss or friends while not making eye contact is fine, if that is the appropriate relationship. I had to retrain myself to make eye contact when I went back to Australia after studying here for the first four and half years. I had automatically gotten out of the habit, which was treated with suspicion back home. Why couldn’t I look people in the eye? Was I hiding something or was I a dodgy character you couldn’t trust?
As a presenter, we may be conversational in our delivery, but this isn’t the same as a chat over coffee. We are on stage and we are the person commanding the attention of the room. The formality associated with this speaker scenario is a lot more substantial than chatting together. So we need to make eye contact, because we want to engage our audience.
This audience engagement piece is where a lot of speakers fail. They spray their eye contact equally over the whole ensemble. They give everyone the same degree of eye contact at the precisely same time and in effect, make eye contact with no one in particular. I am looking at you all, so I am making eye contact is the theme. This is fake eye contact. You see it most often with politicians, who try to look like they are at one with the masses, but actually don’t engage with any of them. They dart their eyes left and right, but they are not really looking at anyone.
One of the reasons it is hard to make eye contact is we are not taught how to do so when we are speakers. We just take our cues from the people we see presenting and imagine that must be how we should do it. With a large crowd of people peering up at us this can be confronting and make us self-conscious and nervous. Any plans for looking at people are now out the window, as we mentally retreat in fear. The answer isn’t to look at the crowd as one entity but to look at one person at a time. We need to break the room up into segments. You will have those on the left, those in the middle and those on the right. We can cut this in two and break the venue into those up front and those down the back in the cheap seats. Our aim is to engage as many people as possible and the best way to do that is to cover each of these segments. If we are too predictable, say going from left to right, the audience will realise it and will tune us out. The element of surprise is a good one to keep audiences engaged.
We take one of these segments and then we choose a single person and we make eye contact with them. It is very confusing to look at two things at once, so don’t bother with that. Select one of their eyes and use your two eyes to make eye contact with their one eye. You will find this much easier. We have also removed the fear of having a mass of people looking up at us, because we are only looking at a single person. At a distance, the twenty people sitting around that individual, will think we are looking at them too.
In short order, we can cover a large amount of people in the crowd. We are only engaging with them for around six seconds, so we can cover a lot of ground in a forty-minute speech. In fact, we can make eye contact, one on one, with 400 individuals in that one speech. If we have an audience of fifty people, we can do eight rotations during the forty minute speech and really personalise the occasion.
Why six seconds and why not four or twenty? Burning a hole in someone’s retina by making overly long one-on-one eye contact is a bit creepy, a lot of pressure and feels intrusive. Six seconds gives us enough time to make close contact, personalise what we are saying and yet not be too oppressive for the audience member. Four seconds just isn’t long enough and we meld into the fake eye contact world.
Engaging our audience is what we are after. Making eye contact, with one individual for six seconds is how we do it and we try to interact with as many people in the audience as possible over the course of the talk.
It is a mystery why more people don’t bring storytelling into their presentations. Technical subjects may seem to be oblivious to storytelling, because we are only dealing with hard data. Absolutely not the case. This type of dry talk really benefits from injecting stories into the presentation. Numbers can be brought to life through telling stories. Our minds are geared up to absorb stories much easier than a download of numbers, so it makes a lot of sense to introduce the stories behind the numbers. One of the reasons presenters don’t use more stories is they don’t have any. Or more correctly, they don’t think they have any, which is not the case.
Things happen and there is always a background and a context tucked in behind. Targets have some basis, but usually we just get the number and not the explanation of the basis. Strategic directions are set and we just hear the outcome, but we are not told the basis for the idea. You get the picture. Behind all of the things which happen in business, there are individuals and circumstances involved and this is where the stories can be found. We hear about the direction of the new marketing campaign, but that is it. We need to broaden out the WHY behind these decision and tell the story of how we got to this point.
For example, if the new marketing campaign is going to be using more influencers we need to explain how that decision came about rather than just announcing “we are going to use more influencers”. We could explain, “In January this year Takahashi san and Suzuki san in the marketing department had received a tip off that our key competitor Z Corporation was having success by driving sales in e-commerce, due to recommendations from influencers in social media. They have been gaining market share of late and initially we didn’t know why. Suzuki san did some checking on the influencer costs relative to their return and the numbers stacked up very well and so a pilot programme was suggested to test it. Over a three month period, the pilot programme showed a 27.5% uptick in e-commerce sales”.
This little vignette is a lot more powerful in persuasion terms, than just saying “we are going to use more influencers”. We have introduced characters who people will know – Takahashi and Suzuki in the Marketing Department, so this gives more credence to the talk. We have a timeline – this January and a three month pilot period, so that the audience can plot the timing. There is the bogeyman of Z Corporation getting ahead of us by using influencers and the luck of the tip off, so there is a sense of heightened risk involved if we do nothing. The outcome of 27.5% is a solid enough improvement during the pilot period to warrant continuing with the e-Commerce strategy using influencers.
All of this information was already available. The difference is the presenter harvested this context to explain the strategy direction as opposed to just announcing the direction. That WHY component is absolutely critical to getting people behind the effort. Without it, all we have is a chorus of critics and naysayers, who want to argue the point based on opinion and no information, other than the announcement. Once we feed in the background we redirect people’s brains and it is easier to get them to support the new initiative, which is what we want.
On top of the background detail there are other stories we can tell. These might involve our own experience or the experience of others in the company. For example, “When Takahashi san and Suzuki san first noticed this influencer strategy by Z Corporation, the Head of the Marketing Department Tanaka san, recalled how in her previous company there had been success using influencers and she encouraged them to investigate if we could match this strategy or not”. This lends further credence to what we are saying. Or we might reference something from research or from the media. “Last year, Takahashi san had come across a broad based five year study on influencer’s impact on e-Commerce sales covering various industries. The report concluded that for certain products and services there was a very positive ROI involved and that traditional marketing was ignoring this new trend at its peril”.
We are all seeing reports in the media about trends which influence our markets, but we usually ignore them. We are not thinking that we can possibly use some of these in our presentations and that is a mistake. Keeping abreast of trends is a basic element of professional life. Researching what is out there around the theme of the talk will quickly bring up data which we can turn into stories to support our thesis in the presentation. The key is to be looking for how we can translate information into stories. Once we have that idea as a central plank in constructing our talk, we will find there is a rich cornucopia of information out there waiting to be scooped up and converted into stories for our presentation.
In some professions, there is a lot of media scrutiny on what the speaker is saying. The organisation they represent also has very strict rules around who can say what. This makes giving the presentation very restrictive and difficult. Usually, the people in that line of work, are used to giving these types of presentations, so they are accustomed to be being very guarded in their remarks. They also become very guarded in the way they deliver the presentation. The danger is the message transmission is being killed off by the restrictions and rigidities of the content and their delivery methodology.
Sentences contain words and they deliver those words. The problem is they are giving every word equal treatment. Public speaking is not a democracy, but a dictatorship. A world ruled by key words and phrases, which must absolutely dominate the plebeian words which link and connect the core content together. These key words are handcrafted for special attention, with the view that their elevation during the presentation will drive home the key messages more effectively. Our speaker was a democrat, as far as not granting special favours to key words by hitting them harder or softer than the rest. He spoke in an even tempo, with the same power throughout the talk.
Given his profession, it was natural that he would read the document. That document had to be cleared for release and many eyes would have scrutinised it for any irregularities. It had been thoroughly cleansed of any potential controversy by the time it was presented. There was also simultaneous translation going on and in fact the translator had the same text in Japanese to work from. This is a golden way of ensuring that what is meant to be said, is coming across exactly as it should, in Japanese as well as English. Freestyling is frowned upon because this is where things can be said, as an aside, which make the front pages of the media and cause the speaker to lose their job. No wonder caution is the name of the game.
Does this mean that these types of talk are doomed forever to be dull and boring? I have mentioned voice modulation, through word and phrase emphasis as a way of departing from the usual monotone delivery. The latter is almost 100% guaranteed to put people to sleep. Pauses also can add gravitas to what we have said, as we allow our audience a little time to digest the deeper meanings and nuances of what we have just said. We can add gestures to bring strength to a point we are making, as we engage our body language and don’t just abandon our hands to the task of page turning.
We can work the room with eye contact. We can look at individuals in the audience, grab their attention and then read the next sentence to them. They feel we are appealing directly to them, as we again direct our eyes to theirs, after we finish the sentence. We cannot be satisfied with a broad sweep of the room with our eye contact, effectively looking at everyone at the same time and so therefore, no one in particular. This is where pausing is so powerful. By stopping what we are saying, we are forcing the audience to look at us, to hang on our next words in anticipation. This is how we can funnel attention. This means the speech has to be designed for this and not created as a mad rush to the end, to get it all done in the time allocated. Less is more for us and we should build in pauses into the delivery.
Our facial expressions are so much more powerful that any slides on a screen. We need to engage our face and combine our expressions with certain key words and phrases. It may mean becoming more animated in our expression, looking quizzical, upset, concerned, happy, excited, etc.
One notable absence from these types of rigid talks is storytelling. The presenters are usually elite, powerful people. They can relate stories about well known figures. They can drop names and get away with it, because it is all congruent with the circles they move in. The story can be cleared for telling and if necessary the name of the key person in the story can be hidden. The point can be attached to that individual, without identifying them by name and a strong connection made about the key message being communicated. It also allows the message to be humanised and as an audience, that is very appealing because we may not be able to move in such stratospheric circles, but we love hearing about what they are getting up to.
Getting our slide deck functioning properly is another simple fix. We don't compromise the approved content, but we can make it more accessible to the audience. As with many others, this speaker often had three or four slides all combined into one, such that the individual parts were too small in size and so hard to see. We should be aiming for one idea per slide and to make the content as large as possible on screen.
With a few tweeks, even the most rigid talk can be brought to life in the hands of a polished speaker. Because it so rare to see this done, most people go through life squelching the life out of their super formal talks, in their attempt to conform to the rigidities the organisation demands. If we know what we are doing, we can stand out and show how it should be done, no matter how restrictive the occasion.
We know that being formal and stiff creates distance between the speaker and the audience. We also know that a “conversational tone” is ideal, as it creates a strong feeling of inclusivity between the presenter and those in the room. That conversational tone means a relaxed style on the part of the speaker, but how relaxed? We gauge people’s education and intelligence level by the way they speak. So we want to sound smart, but we don’t want to sound snobby. Where is the line?
If you speak with a regional or national accent, should you stick with that or should you OxBridge it up? Typical Australians have very strong accents. Educated urban Australians speak quite differently to rural dwellers and the further you go from the coast, the stronger the accent becomes. Television presenters in Australia all spoke as if they were aping BBC presenters until the 1960s, when television commercials started adopting the lingua franca of the masses. I have read that in the USA, regional accents are a barrier in many cases and as people move around for work, they have to change the way they speak to be better respected. So, when presenting should you present in a more highbrow fashion and change your diction or speak as if you would to one of your local neighbours?
It will depend to a great extent on your audience and the topic. If I was presenting to a room full of Aussies and I put on a posh OxBridge accent, that would be seen as fake and lacking in authenticity and would impact how my message was received. If I was presenting to a room full of well educated Aussies, in a down and dirty local Brisbane boy accent, that would also have a negative impact. If it was a highbrow topic, I would be seen as uneducated and therefore not seen as credible for that audience.
In Japan, I often speak to national Chambers of Commerce. Often these are mixed audiences of non-native speakers. Generally, the international businesspeople you meet in Tokyo speak excellent English, no matter where they come from. However, my Aussie vowels can confuse people at times. I think I am saying “a” and they are hearing “I”. It is always a surprise for me, because I thought I had moved on from that. I have learnt to neutralise my accent for the most part, when speaking to these groups, in order to have the greatest shot at getting my message across.
Am I being authentic, if I am not speaking as I would back in Brisbane? I think there is room for variation of our accents to give us the best communication vehicle to get the job done. If I go all OxBridge though, then that is too much, because I am not British and not a graduate of either of those storied universities and now I am just faking it for effect. If I put on an American accent, that would be ridiculous as well and I am not sure I could carry it off anyway. I go for a neutral accent, which will give me the greatest access to the listener’s attention and will sound both natural and unforced.
What about the way we present? Should we be standing around in a relaxed fashion, as we would down the pub or should we be there ramrod straight and upstanding? Should we put our hands in our trouser pockets or keep them out? Should we be leaning on the rostrum as we talk or should we be standing with 50/50 weight displacement on our feet? I think standing up straight with a 50/50 split is the most professional approach, but it doesn't have to be stiff and tense. Just standing up straight with the knees unlocked is enough. You look good without looking forced.
Hands in the trouser pockets is usually the male speaker thrusting them in there, because he doesn't know what to do with his hands. The most natural position is for the hands to just hang by the side of your body. To find that magic spot, just raise your arms up to a 90 degree angle to the floor and then drop them. Where they land is the most natural position for them when you are not employing them for gestures. Hands in the pocket, behind the back, fig leaf in front of the groin, are all guaranteed to restrict your use of gestures and that should be avoided at all costs.
We need our hands to add power to the point we are making and we want to treat it like a faucet. We turn the gestures on and then we turn them off again. We don’t hold the same gesture for longer than 15 seconds, because the power just dies after that point and it adds no value to anything we are doing. Don’t forget about your hands and just allow the same gesture to linger long. People become self-conscious about where their hands are, but if you are using your eyes, face and voice to engage the audience, they won’t be paying any attention to your hands in the rest position. Your gestures will come up in a natural way and the audience won't think twice about what you are doing, as it just fits in nicely with the whole flow of the presentation.
Our audience and topic will determine how we choose to speak and how we decide to present. There is a range we can adopt and we should use that range to suit our purposes. The extremes of that range are where we will get ourselves into trouble and we should avoid doing that if want our message to get through.
There are facts, provable information, data, research results and opinions. What is the right mix when presenting? Should we just marshal the detail, lay it out for the audience and let them draw their own conclusions or do we need to direct them? How expert do we have to be to start handing out advice to others? Are we seeding the emergence of opposition to what we are talking about, because members of the audience don’t want some speaker lecturing to them? Are we setting ourselves up for a very hot Q&A session, where some of the assembled masses are about to tear shreds off us?
These types of questions are difficult for those of us in industries where we have points of view and are recommending certain actions on the part of the audience. The training industry is a hot crucible for advice and recommendations for others. We are suggesting things which we believe will help them do better in their companies. Or it could be that through your own firm’s experiences, you have observed some things to be careful of and you are going to enlighten the audience, so that they don’t repeat the mistakes you made.
There is certainly a demand for case studies, warnings, examples and the sharing of experiences, in order to guide audiences about where the dangers are and the traps are set. Just stating our opinion though won’t cut it. We have to set that up with some evidence, something relatable for the audience, so that they feel what we are saying is credible. The best options are personal experiences. These always have the most credence and authenticity. The second best is the experience of others and the last is published, public information. In Japan, any time you are tempted to use data to prove a point, you need to have the Japanese version too. If it is only information collected in the US or in Europe, then Japanese audience members will just discount it, because as far as they are concerned, Japan is always different and the data won’t travel well.
Often though, we start out with some data and we even raid previous presentations for slides brimming with graphs and diagrams, to use for the next presentation. That data is too valuable to just leave for one presentation, so we want to recycle it. Or we might have some recent survey data, which will be fresh for the audience and we want to impress them. One of the dangers is we get stuck at the data provision level and we don’t relate this to the realities of the audience members. Data by itself is good, but “what does it mean for me”, is always in the minds of the audience.
This is where we get into the advice business and we have to tread warily. We have to remain the expert, without becoming the schoolteacher, bossing the audience members around and telling them how to fly straight. Extrapolating what the data shows is a good idea, but there is an element of prophesy built in and basically that is just our opinion. Instead of getting sucked into the “listen to me now” business, we can approach it in another way.
Rhetorical questions are brilliant for this. We can lay out the facts or the argument and instead of moving into the advice component, we can ask the audience what they think, without requiring them to vocalise an answer. We frame the construct and let the question hang there unanswered, so that the audience has to draw their one conclusions. When we want to add in our point of view, we can do so in a very small target way. Rather than spruking the answer, we can cloak it in camouflage.
We can say, “there is a view that…” or “ a common conclusion has been….”, or “a perspective I quite like is….” or “most experts seem to agree that….”. In this way we proffer an answer, without having to attach ourselves to it. This reduces the friction with highly opinionated audience members, who may want to argue the point with us. We come across as reasonable, balanced, open, flexible as well as humble.
We can say, “I will leave it to everyone to make up their own minds on this one”. That is fine but often we are asked to speak because we supposedly know something about the topic and this may come across as a cop out and audience members may feel cheated. They don’t want a lecture from us, but they are interested in what we think, and they want to hear about that.
Rhetorical questions and a small target strategy will go a long way toward setting the right frame for the talk. Audiences will vary of course, but if you don’t know what you are facing then caution is a good policy. You have assembled valuable information, given some guidance and have respected the audience to be capable of reaching their own interpretation of what it all means, while offering your humble insights. That is a killer combo.
I was held up at the hospital, which those who live in Tokyo will know, is a typical occurrence, so I was late to the presentation. One of the speakers had just started, as I slid into my seat at the back. The screen was hard to read, because the scale of the content was small. The presenter was speaking in a voice range which was probably fine for those seated at the most proximate tables, but was hard to catch at the back of the room. I missed the very start, but I could tell the speakers hadn’t tested the audio or the screen for visibility when they were doing their set up. They just turned up and turned things on and away they went. Not a great idea for presenters.
I always recommend to get there early and check for sight lines, audio quality and screen accessibility. When we are using a screen or a monitor, we have to be careful where we stand, because we can be cutting people out, if they are seated in a spot where we are blocking their sight access to the screen. We need to know where these invisible boundaries are before we get going. That is a simple task. We just go and sit on those chairs and see where the boundary will be for us, when we are standing and presenting. The same with the size of the fonts and diagrams. Go to the extreme corners and rear of the seating area and see how clearly those audience members will be able to see what we are presenting on screen. In this case, there were a lot of small drawings and diagrams and at the back of the venue, they were hard to see.
The audio is another key point. Speakers are not sound engineers, but they can have the tech team help them to get the volumes right. In this case, the volumes were too low for the size of the room. If they had checked it when they arrived, which I doubt, the room would have been empty. We need to allow for the host of bodies in the room, which will weaken the spread of the audio, once the audience has filed in. The volume control needs to allow for that and to be set a little higher than normal. This is another reason why professional speakers always repeat the questions they receive from the audience, if there are no microphones being employed. The speaker may be able to hear the question, but other members of the audience will have trouble catching what was being asked. In this case, there were hand microphones for the questioners, so everyone could easily hear the questions.
The other issue was the size of the presentation. By this, I mean how big were the speakers going with their voices, energy and gestures. There were two speakers and in both cases they were very contained. For those seated at the front, it was probably fine, but quite a different experience for those seated at the back. We have to remember the importance of having “speaker presence” and adjust ourselves to go bigger when presenting. This is why sitting in the extreme distance seats at the start, before the audience arrives, is so insightful. You realise that you are much smaller on stage, for those at the rear, than you imagined.
Getting the voice strength up is important, but often speakers cannot gauge how much stronger they need to be. They somehow imagine that a normal chatting voice volume can be applied, when they are the presenter. As presenters, we want to be conversational, but we shouldn’t misunderstand what that means. We should be relaxed, but louder than in normal conversation. For those seated down the back, we need more energy from the speaker, in order to be able to connect with them. We buy energy, passion, confidence, commitment and the voice is a major tool to project all of those things. We don’t have to be shouting, but we do have to be projecting our energy to the far reaches of the room.
Gestures need to become bigger. They don’t have to be too exaggerated and massive, but they do have to become bigger. One exception though, is that if you are ever presenting in a 5000 seat venue, then your gestures really have to be ramped up. On stage, you are a peanut in size and it is super hard to connect with the people in cheap seats, right down the back. Even if the venue isn’t that mighty, we still need to be conscious that we have to up our gesture game, to accommodate the audience members at the back. We cannot be only presenting to those seated up the front.
The output level of these speakers was at about the 75% range. They clearly needed to do more to reach all of the people in the room. If they had these thoughts in mind, when they arrived at the venue, then they would have made the necessary adjustments. Like a lot of speakers though, they got there, made sure the slides were working and that was the end of it. Just a little more attention to the venue considerations and the audience positioning and things would have been a lot better.
“You are too loud”, “You are too high energy”. These were some survey comments following some training I was delivering for 60 managers for a client. You can imagine that the venue to hold ten tables of 6 participants each has to be quite large and spacious and that was the case. To project to an audience that size, in such a large venue, means you have to really lift yourself and pump out a lot of energy. The brief from the client was that many of these managers had lost their mojo over the course of Covid and the organisation needed lifting and these were the people who needed to provide that lift. They wanted the first session to be a motivational speech to inject some missing mojo back into those in the team who were lacking in that department.
With some of those comments coming back in the survey after the session it was obvious that for some of them I was too strong, too powerful and they found that threatening. Out of 60 how many do I think felt like that? I would say two or three and as a trainer I would just ignore that group and go for moving the mass of the people and getting them fired up. If I was the boss, I would look at replacing them with others to lead who would be more suitable for the task. I would be asking, “if they can’t take a one hour motivational speech, how can they deliver as leaders to their teams?”. Other comments were “powerful”, “motivating”, “enthusiastic”, etc., so you can see it hit the mark with the majority and as a trainer that is a good result. Training is one thing and presenting is another, but there are obvious overlaps, especially given that first session was a motivational talk.
Is there the danger that if we are too strong as a presenter, we will lose some of our audience, who don’t like all of that power close up and personal? Also, how much power is too much? Where is the line to determine we have gone too hard and too far? A talk is usually around 40 minutes and there are 15 minutes for questions, so the amount of presenting time is contained. Is it legitimate to go hard during those 40 minutes?
There are a number of factors to consider. Who is the audience and what is the point of this talk. The brief in my example was clear – restore their broken mojo and fire them up. To do that I have to be fired up, high energy, driving, powerful. If I want to lift them to 100%, then I have to go to 150%. In a typical business speech we won’t be asked to perform that role. The topics are usually more technical, we share experiences, explain how we got results and cover problem solving. We are there to stimulate the thinking of the audience and get them on the road to success. Do we need to go to 150%? Actually we might in very short bursts, if we need to make an important point, but we are talking nano seconds here not minutes.
There is also the question of the brand we want for ourselves personally and professionally. How do we want to be perceived in the market? If we are coming across in a very mild, low energy manner, that may work for our brand and for some industry audiences, particularly technical groups. If it was an audience of salespeople, it would be a total dud. I am a trainer and a salesperson and if I presented in a highly calm, no energy manner, it would be the death knell for my business. No one would hire me, because I wasn’t being congruent with what I am doing.
Generally speaking, our talks should be a mixture of energy outputs. There are certain words we want to highlight to lift their importance above the parapet and make sure they resonate with the audience. We inject a lot of energy into those words mimicking the highs of classical music. Classical music cannot just be crescendos or the audience becomes overwhelmed. There must be lulls too and that contrast is what make both work so well and so it is with public speaking. All soft or all hard are both bound to fail.
Most speakers deliver their content to the audience in a monotone voice, which is a great formula for putting people to sleep. We need to match our energy to our content. Professor Mehrabian discovered in his research in the 1960s, that if the way you are delivering the content doesn’t match the content, then that lack of congruency confuses the audience and they get distracted. In his day, that distraction would be evidenced with the audience concentrating on how we look and how our voice sounds, instead of on what we are saying. Today the audience would be lurching for their phones to escape the speaker and get on to the internet to access their social media feeds.
This means where there are points in the talk which call for more enthusiasm, we should raise our energy and voice and show more passion. If it requires a calm demeanour, then that is what we need to be presenting to the audience. We cannot have a Johnny One Note approach of one setting on the energy dial from start to finish. Our variation in energy and output is the key.
“I have been presenting since I was 17, but I am not good at engaging the audience”. This comment from a man in his fifties was telling. He was in a very technical area which requires a highly acute mind and he is a leader in that field. He has a big job today for a famous brand name firm. If he has been getting lots of practice presenting since a young age, why has he not been able to transition across to engaging his audience? He made the comment to me unprompted, so he was aware of the gap and had not been able to bridge it yet under his own steam.
I told him that in one particular course we have, that stretches over two days, by mid-afternoon on Day One the participants start to stop focusing on themselves and really start working their audience and this just continues for the next day and a half. If it is that quick, why can’t he get to that point by himself? The simple answer is the expertise of the instructors and the coaching being handed out.
If you don’t know what you are looking for, it is hard to hit the target and by that, I don’t mean having some vague idea of what you want to achieve in audience engagement terms. The instructors know what they are looking for and so they push the participants to rise to the occasion and start connecting with the people they are talking to. The coaching shows the way forward and the repetition with feedback is the key to refining this part of the presenter’s arsenal.
The big breakthrough comes in a couple of forms. One is the energy flow. When we are just handing over information, we retain all the energy within ourselves and are just going through the motions with a major data dump. We are putting the information under the audience’s noses and then just leaving it up to them to digest it. When we want to engage the audience, we start directing our intrinsic energy known as “ki” in Japanese, into the audience. Anyone who has studied martial arts will have a good idea of what I am talking about.
This requires that we are pumping out energy to those in front of us. That sounds simple enough but a lot of people are very mild mannered and softly spoken. Consequently they become invisible to their audience and nothing they present resonates nor retains. We need to purposely lift our energy and then direct it to the audience members and we need to do that one person at a time. Pushing the energy out en masse, means the energy is diluted and the spell is broken.
For some people pushing out a lot of energy is something they don’t normally do, so they are resistant to increasing the energy flow. They imagine they can address the audience just as they would their friend over coffee. That is definitely not the case and presenting and chatting are light years apart in the galaxy of public speaking.
I saw this recently with a very senior person giving a talk. She is a very mild mannered, softly spoken person. That is fine, except if you want to have impact with an audience you need to increase the energy and particularly the voice volume. For her, anything above a chat level of speaking would feel totally crazy, as if she was hysterical and was screaming at people. Not true. What happens is we feel your confidence and we feel your energy and we gravitate toward both.
I know I could get her from totally forgettable to remarkable in thirty minutes of coaching, but mentally she is not interested in that, because she doesn’t value public speaking enough to want to make the change. So be it, but the downside is, she stays invisible. I think that is a bad idea.
By talking to the audience one person at a time, we can direct the energy flow straight to each person, one by one, and they immediately feel it. We combine this energy direction with our eye power. The usual formula is for the speaker to look at everyone and therefore no one. Our eye power is now diluted. When we give six seconds of eye power to each person, we are making a powerful direct connection, which for the audience member is tremendously impactful. They really feel we are talking to them only, in the room, for that moment and the link between us is palpable.
When we add in our gestures to the pot, we are now cooking up a magic broth, which really engages the audience. There is the issue of knowing what to do, getting coached so that you can refine it and having the desire to make the necessary changes to accomplish this connection with the audience. If the desire isn’t there, than no amount of professional coaching will work. The problem for most people is all they have ever seen are presenters talking at their audience rather than speakers deeply engaging their audience. When we see what is possible, it opens our eyes up and we realise the gap between where we are today and where we could be. Get the desire and get the coaching.
How much is too much? For the expert, the boundaries on this equation can be quite broad. For them, we are only tapping into the very superficial elements of this worthy subject. They have so many layers at their disposal and they can go to exquisite depths of complexity and nuance, within a heartbeat. When they are addressing the great unwashed, the best laid plans can go astray.
I was one of the great unwashed, turning up to a complex subject in search of some better understanding and education on the topic. The expert’s temptation is to try to cram as much material as possible into the talk and show both their tremendous expertise but also the depths of the beauty of the topic. They are at the “art” end of the scale, while the punters in the room are more at the utilitarian end. The bombardment of the depth of materials can cause brain whiteout, as our cerebral capacities are severely challenged by the concepts, the data and the complexity of the delivery. Concentration spans take a hiding and we start to fade.
That was happening to me. We all turned up at night-time after completing hard toil down at the salt mines, so as a group, we were already mentally taxed. Naturally, a complex topic attracts experts in the field, who want to attend the talk to steal from the presenter’s materials or concepts and to gauge how big a threat they are as a competitor. This emboldens the presenter to turn on the expertise faucet and to go deep on the subject to justify why they are the one standing up in front of everyone and presenting, and not one of these other experts in the crowd.
Tonight’s expert also made the typical mistake of pounding us with slides, which were packed to the gunwales with information. We are talking beautiful slides, but so dense. If you were in the front row, you had a shot at being to read the detail, but anyone else would have been struggling, because of the density and small font sizes being employed. He also needed, like a lot of experts, to break his own slide into three or four slides.
Slides are free, by the way, so we don’t have to be parsimonious about their usage. It is better to have one idea per slide than lots of slides with too many ideas on each individual slide. Having complex configurations rarely works because the scale of the font and the micro-detail has to become too small, to fit it all in. Yes, he kindly supplied the slides after the event, but as a presenter, this is too late. We have to deliver our message in that moment, with that crowd and get to them then and there.
He made the mistake of suggesting we could stop him whenever we wanted to during his talk. I don’t recommend this, because you can so easily lose control of the time, because there are now no limits. When you have presentation followed by the Q&A there is a time allocated for the later for a reason. When we mix it up we are in danger of being distracted from our message or having to spend too much time on a relatively minor point to satisfy that questioner. It is also a free for all, with who can ask questions and suddenly you can get into a group debate about a point. This is very exciting, but it destroys your time allocation for the presentation and like him, race through the last 10% - 15% of the slides to finish on time.
One thing he did very well was to come across as an expert without being a pain and a know-it-all. He could phrase certain things which said, I believe this to be true based on my current knowledge and experience, but I could be mistaken. This is quite artful because he is making himself a small target. When you come across as “I am the expert here” then you invite people to want to prove otherwise and bring your ego down a peg or two. He did a good job being the legitimate expert and creating no enemies in the room.
As I have stated many times, it is always a good practice to get the list of who is coming to gauge how expert the crowd will be and also to get there early to suss out the interests of various people in the room. Actually, he didn’t do either of those judging by his late arrival and his high-level approach in presenting his information. I believe in these cases you can demonstrate sufficient expertise to convince the room you know your stuff without having to beat everyone into submission with a relenting “death by powerpoint” performance. He could have shown less and had just as successful a presentation. Less is more, as we say and a handy thing to remember if you are ever asked to give a presentation as an “expert”.
When we are giving a public presentation, it is rare that we will be given carte blanche by the organisers to promote our product or service. That type of blatant self-promotion is frowned upon and your reputation in the market will be negatively impacted. Great, but I want to sell more stuff. How can we promote ourselves without seeming to be breaking the boundaries of common sense? The hero’s journey is a popular Hollywood trope and it works equally well for us when presenting.
Let’s begin with laying out the situation in the market and at this point we are describing what has gone before and what has been accepted as normal. Now we need to raise the stakes and jack up the tension for the audience, so that they feel what they are hearing is worthwhile. We all love a warning about some impending disaster, because we feel more protected and bettered secured to weather the changes. Most of us respond more easily to addressing our fears than maximising our opportunities. As they say in the newspaper world, “if it bleeds, it leads”.
Changes in the market can be good of course, but we need to zero in on the negative consequences of the coming changes. We need to lay out what could go wrong and try to tie this back to the interests of the audience. If they feel this isn’t going to affect them, then they have a minimal commitment to doing anything about it. This obviously requires some pre-research about who will be in the audience and what they are interested in. That should be standard procedure for any speaker.
Storytelling at this point is a powerful tool. We can use the example of another organisation and what happened to them, because they weren’t able to respond fast or thoroughly enough to the changes. We need to set the scene and put the story in a timeframe based around a season and a place. If we can introduce characters into the story who they will know, even better. Our object is to transport them to the scene which they see in their mind’s eye.
If we can come up with a villain, all the better. It might be an actual person or it could be a circumstance or a piece of technology. ChatGPT is performing wonders for a lot of writers at the moment, as they blast our screeds of text full of doom and gloom and impending disaster. It makes for graphic reading and we are all aware that this is a pivotal change but we don’t quite know the ramifications as yet. That is enough to grab the interest of the audience. This is a gift which will keep giving for a long time and so look for a constant flow of commentary on this subject.
After we have engineered a good dollop of fear to spread into the hearts of our audience, we need to relieve that tension with a way out. Now, we cannot just pound away with the negatives, because that causes the audience to lose hope. We have to balance it out with a way forward. At this point, we may refer directly to a solution which already exists and which is available. That pivot though, is in danger of crossing the line of self-serving promotion. It is better to talk about current research and progress in addressing the issue. The fact that you have identified the problem and that you are actively addressing it, tells everyone you are the one to go to for help, when they need to work on fixing this issue.
Referring to your research finding is much better than referencing the product or service. It elevates the discussion to a point where your credibility is sky high and yet there is no feeling of a bait and switch going on here. You lured the audience into this venue with a sexy presentation title and then when you had them assembled, you switched in a massive commercial for your product or service. We don’t do that. This is where the latest findings, complete with convincing statistics etc ., come to the fore. You are not seen as someone organising this presentation as a group prospecting exercise. Instead, you are seen as delivering a neutral exploration of things everyone should realise. People like to know about a problem and even better, they like to know there is a solution at hand or under close development. When we outline the manner in which the problem will be dealt with, it gives off a tone of scientific breakthrough and we like science more than we like being sold to.
Being able to describe the likely events we will face and also the likely solutions is comforting for people and they are keen to hear the detail. That engagement is what we want as the presenter and we love it when everyone is hanging on our every word. That is a rare event, of course, but if we craft the story well, then that is a distinct possibility. We can paint a word picture of a future state with which everyone can identify. The outline of a better future leaves everyone feeling relieved. The journey from fear to freedom is important and we finish on this note, so that the whole presentation apparatus is felt to be positive and worthwhile. We have sold them on our solution, without anyone feeling they were being sold.
This last week I saw two speakers who were presenting, but both managed to do so with absolutely no presence. They could not command the room and they were both hard to hear. One was hosting an event with experts assembled, there to gain more knowledge. The other was leading the opening of a prestigious event to a very large audience in a big ballroom. I don’t think there was any great self-awareness going on with either speaker. They had divorced what they were doing, from how they were being perceived doing it. When we stand up to present, we are putting our personal and professional brands on the line in public and we have to be aware of that.
The speaker hosting the expert event spoke very softly and was hard to hear, even in that relatively small room. There was no energy behind the words, no pacing, no highlights, all lulls and no crescendos. Some female speakers don’t change gears enough when they have to speak in public and don’t project with enough vocal strength. They often have soft voices to begin with, but they need to switch gears and ramp up the volume and power. Speaking with staff or with friends allows for a soft voice, because of the situation and the proximity involved. Speaking to a group is an entirely different animal and has to be approached with a professional attitude and to realise this is a speaking spot which requires a different mindset.
Our speaker didn’t employ eye contact with her audience and this was a big missed opportunity. In such a smallish room, our eye contact can be very powerful and can personalise the talk so much more. It has the effect of drawing the audience in toward the speaker and creating the feeling that the presenter is talking directly to each of them. This engagement level is very high and makes the message accessible to the audience and that is what we want isn’t it – to get our message through.
Gestures were also missing. She was using a microphone and that tied up one of her hands. Also the audio set up hadn’t been checked prior to the event. I know that, because the speaker box wasn’t amplifying her voice very much at all. A non-working microphone with a softly spoken person is a problematic combination. If she had used gestures, even with only employing one hand, it would have driven home her points much more powerfully. Her body language was also non-existent, so there was no feeling of attraction, charisma, or presence when she was presenting. Sadly, we were just left with a soft voice, which was hard to hear.
The gentleman tasked with leading the toast at the large event was struggling with the roar of the confab down the back, as he tried to get everyone’s attention and get proceedings underway. Clearly, he had no idea of how to tame an unruly gathering and just stood on stage looking lost. This is extremely damaging to your personal brand, because it reveals you are clueless as a leader. Standing up on stage looking lost isn’t a great brand builder either. I had met him previously and he is a well-educated, capable, intelligent guy, but he revealed he was totally clueless on what to do with his responsibility for that evening. He is rather short as well, so he cannot use his frame to impose order on the crowd and get them to shut up and listen to him. There is a reason a lot of leaders are often very tall. Unfortunately, I am not in that group either.
Regardless of our size though, we all have the opportunity to use our voice to still the madness. His choice of voice volume was for a close proximity, one-on-one conversation situation, as opposed to addressing the masses. What he should have done was to speak very, very loudly to command to audience to pay attention. Usually one outburst is never enough, because the alcohol is flowing and so is the conversation. People just pay no attention whatsoever to the proceedings and that in turn, means they pay no attention to the speaker. Maybe others can suffer that indignity, but we cannot have that occur when it is our turn.
He needed to keep repeating “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention” in a loud voice, until even the most wayward conformed to shut up and listen to what was going on. In my experience, it usually takes three or four renditions of this very loud opening to get people to quieten down.
His remarks when he finally got the room down to a low white noise background hum, were not well prepared and were not interesting. He should have considered that his audience had many representatives assembled and used that to get people excited about the evening. He invited the different groups representatives to come up on stage, but then he did nothing with them, so their presence was irrelevant. He could have introduced each representative and then easily encouraged all the members of that organisation to give them a big cheer. This sets up a competitive spirit which makes the occasion more fun and interesting. He could have made some comments about the significance of the gathering and pump up the activity’s importance. None of that happened and quite frankly, I cannot remember anything about what he said, because it was not gripping. Remember, we are competing with the food and drinks and so we have to make it worthwhile for the audience to give us their time.
His talk had no presence and he and his talk have already disappeared into the mists of time and both are already totally forgotten by everyone who was there. He could have used this occasion as a platform for his personal and professional brands, if he knew what he was doing. Clearly, he didn’t know what he was doing and the opportunity was completely missed. When it is our turn, we need to seize the moment and plan the talk so that it is a triumph and not a fizzer.
The best personal branding is to say something useful and interesting in a compelling, professional way. That is a snap right? Maybe not. What constitutes useful and interesting will vary, depending in who is in the audience. If we pitch the content complexity too high, we may be over the heads of our audience. They will take nothing away, because they are lost and they will hate us for making them feel dumb. If we pitch the complexity too low, they may become insulted. They feel we are purposely speaking down to them, to emphasise our own genius ability.
I have seen this occasionally where a speaker has taken no notice of who is in the audience and gives the talk the speaker wants to give. Ironically, one of those speakers was talking about “personal branding”. Unfortunately, the context for the speaker was her own massive global organisation. She was intent on branding herself to stand out internally in that grandiose world of big egos. If she had looked at the guest list for that speech, she would have realised straight away these were small to medium-sized companies and mainly people not yet very advanced in their company’s echelon. I surmised that her speech was more for bolstering her resume with the title of "public speaker" than providing useful advice on how to create an individual brand for the audience. Her own personal brand was utterly extinguished after forty minutes of her nonsense. The lucky thing for her was that only those gathered in the room put a line straight through her name, to eliminate her as a professional “public speaker” and self-promoting “personal branding expert”.
Regularly check the guest list to see who has signed up and then adjust your talk accordingly. Usually the organisers will share that list with you, but even if they are rather bolshie about it and won’t for so called “privacy reasons”, then get there early and meet people. In Japan, because we all use business cards, it is very easy to find out the rank of the person and the industry they are representing. On the fly, we can alter the complexity of the pitch for our topic and tailor it to the level of the audience.
Useful, valuable, fresh, differentiated, rare information is a big attraction for the speaker. We think that because what we have to say is so valuable, that the information itself will do all the heavy lifting for us and we can get a free pass on the professional delivery bit. Not true. I saw this trotted out recently with some visiting high-powered speakers. I realised later that the talk we received in Tokyo was actually a dry run for them, for a speech they were going to give later in the Kansai region. The ultimate intended audience were experts in the field and so the talk was pitched deep in terms of detail density. The audience assembled in Tokyo, including me, were the great unwashed and not very expert regarding this area of speciality. We needed a different version for us, but the speakers didn’t care about that. They were selfishly giving the talk they wanted to give. We were not their target audience and were just the patsies for their practice run.
What also surprised me was the unprofessional way they presented their information. Obviously, their company’s global headquarter team had prepared the slide deck for them, so it was beautiful, properly fitted out and branded etc. It was also obvious that the slide designers were not public speakers, because the beauty part was there, but the messaging part wasn’t. When you litter a slide with too much unessential text and then add insult to injury by making the text font too small to read easily on the screen, you are killing the messaging.
Their industry is awash with data and so naturally we had to have a lot of graphs to illustrate the numbers. That would be okay if they had observed one simple rule – one graph per slide instead of two or three. The graphs were also drowning in a sea of micro accompanying text vying for our attention. The numbers on the graphs were simply too small to read, so the points were lost on the audience. This is not how a professional presents their information. The speakers were oblivious to all of this, because they thought they were cleverer and much better paid than those in the audience and that we should lift our game to keep up with them.
I am positive they were being better paid than those of us in the room listening, but so what? They were there to impart a brand image for themselves and their company and they failed on both counts. I doubt the Kansai version for the expert audience went any better. All the same flaws we were presented with here in Tokyo, would have been transported by Bullet Train down there and given the same treatment. Their personal brands were diminished and also that of their firm. Remember, we judge the entire company on the quality of the people we meet from the firm. If we meet really capable, smart people we generously apply that idea to everyone down there. If we meet a dud, then we assume they are all duds down there.
Certainly have great information. The key is to make sure the way it is presented is suitable for the audience in attendance. Also, it must be presented in a way which invigorates the message, not emasculates it.