Become A Great Speaker with Powerful Presentation
By Peter
There is a simple and practical filtering process we can use to detect which type of meeting to expect, and a few others we can use to avoid those that would only waste our time. We simply ask the organizer of the meeting to define our role. Just ask specifically: (1) Why do you want me to attend? and (2) What do you want me to do? When we ask these questions, and are persistent in demanding answers, the answers can be quite revealing. Next, I illustrate a few typical answers to these questions, what they really mean, and how we might respond: Read more »
By Peter
What should we do when we are invited to a meeting? The same thing as when we are invited to sample narcotics—just say no. Oh-oh. Reality check here. Sometimes we have to go to a meeting. So I guess we should look at how to do it. We can approach this in the same manner as the document or presentation: through planning, attitude, and execution. The real problem, however, is how to determine which meetings we actually should attend. So first let’s look at which meetings are useful and which are not.
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By Peter
Before leaving this chapter on conducting the presentation, it is worthwhile to say a few words about the impact on presentations of one of life’s modernizations: the video teleconference. This is yet another attempt to complicate our lives, but certainly a manageable one. In such cases, we may be speaking to a dual audience: the one in the room with us and the one remotely connected via the teleconferencing system. The planning and attitude aspects are pretty much the same as for a live presentation. However, the mode of execution requires a slight adjustment.
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By Peter
Believe it or not, zero-preparation presenting is the most fun we can have as presenters. Why? Because what responsibility we have to an audience under normal circumstances (and that is precious little anyway) disappears altogether in this situation.
As usual, we generally find ourselves in this situation because someone has probably decided we need to drop everything and do a presentation with little or no notice. We have no preparation time whatsoever, not even to do the meager preparation I talked about in Chapter 4. Now we have to get up and talk. Are we nervous? Are we worried? Of course not! We are going to do just two things when we get up there. The first is to lay the responsibility for what is about to happen squarely on the shoulders of the genius who requested it. Having done this, the second is to do whatever we like with the presentation—just have fun with it.
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By Peter
Now that we have poise and confidence, you might ask, “But what happens when something goes wrong?” Simple. That is when we require dignity. Everyone makes mistakes and may even present erroneous information from time to time. Audiences can be forgiving of errors or problems, as long as we make an honest and dignified recovery from them. On the other hand, nothing will sink a presentation faster than the presenter falling apart after encountering a problem.
There are many kinds of mechanical problems we cannot foresee, such as projection systems failing or fire alarms going off (not to mention buttons popping off and hitting the microphone). These incidents are best handled by simply correcting them, if we can, or waiting them out while remaining calm and dignified. A prolonged interruption is a good time to sit back down and wait with the audience while the facility maintenance crew does their job to repair the offending machinery. Our job is not to entertain the audience while an interruption gets resolved, so we simply join the audience in awaiting a solution. This takes the pressure off us as presenters. We and the audience collectively have a problem and simply await its solution.
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By Peter
We are confident because we have planned well and prepared our presentation as a fluid, comfortable, enjoyable encounter with an audience we don’t give a hoot about. Our planning has considered the audience’s needs, interests, and diverse agendas, and we have taken steps to ensure that our presentation makes the connection to them, and proceeds with proper flow and reinforcement. But we really don’t care if the whole lot of them are suddenly transported to Mars right before our very eyes. So our confidence is naturally high whenever we have done the planning and nurtured the correct attitude. With such confidence, we are ready for anything.
By admin
Poise deals with how we visually appear and present ourselves as we talk. When poised, we speak well and clearly, gesture appropriately (not excessively), and let our body language affirm our presentation. We do not appear nervous (because we aren’t), and the presentation flows easily and fluently. To maintain poise, a good rule to remember is simply to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. When we are in front of an audience, we sometimes tend to get into a rush. When this happens, our words become slurred, our gestures become frantic, and we move from topic to topic like a ping-pong ball. We can become a total mess in a matter of seconds. When we get frantic the audience gets nervous too, and then they become a total mess as well. Slow down and take your time. A poised person in front of an audience is comfortable and moves from topic to topic at a reasonable rate, spending time to explain everything properly and chatting with the audience occasionally. There is no hurry, and the audience will respond very well to a poised, unhurried, and congenial presenter. So how can we acquire such poise? That’s easy—by being confident. Confidence breeds poise. It’s as simple as that. Furthermore, the reason we are poised is not that we have learned ninety-six ways to appear confident. It is because we are confident.
By admin
I could spend pages and pages on the art of executing a presentation (but then this little book would be in danger of becoming a big book, a fate worse than being chewed up by the cat). There are volumes full of useful information, tips, and tricks to help the presenter. From these sources, we can learn how to stand, gesture, talk, move, interact with the audience, and so forth. However, the fact of the matter is that all these aspects (which appear in big books, by the way) are founded on only three basic elements, and once in command of these elements, we are ensured of success. These elements are poise, confidence, and dignity.
So how do we acquire these traits? Take a seminar? No, that would just cost a lot of money and get us another big book or two. Go back to school? No, some of those instructors were pretty boring; we can learn how to be pretty boring by ourselves. Watch some talk shows? Get serious! Emulate a great orator? No, the truly great ones are all dead, and we certainly aren’t going to emulate that. Could it be that we already have these traits within us and just need to turn them loose? Yep. Let’s consider them one at a time.
By admin
Developing a healthy indifference is sealing our attitude in an impregnable coat of armor. We have planned, created, improved, reviewed, and taken the proper precautions. We have done all we can possibly do, so what is left? Nothing, that’s what! So, accordingly, because we have nothing left to worry about, we might as well start thinking about whatever comes after the presentation. We move on to our next agenda.
Basically, we take the attitude that we have prepared as well as we can and that we really don’t care enough about the audience’s likes and dislikes to concern ourselves any further. We’ll handle anything that comes up when it does, and that is that. We certainly aren’t going to spend every waking moment between now and the time of the presentation redoing our already complete preparation. That would be silly. We definitely aren’t going to sit around scrutinizing our notes just prior to the event. We’ve seen them enough already. Our attitude is that we are already past the event, and it has no more significance than going to the grocery. We don’t get worked up about a trip down the frozen-foods aisle, and we aren’t going to get worked up about this presentation either.
You’ll be amazed at the feeling of freedom and relief this attitude brings. You’ll feel loose, confident, and ready to go. If you do it right, you’ll avoid all traces of pre-event nervousness, and the whole thing will simply work out. By becoming aloof and detached in attitude, we place the significance of the event where it belongs—somewhere among the routine chores and not up with the actually significant happenings of our lives. Then we just go and do it, and don’t worry at all about how the presentation may be received by the audience.
By admin
Having planned the presentation, created it according to the script, reviewed it, modified it as necessary, and reviewed it again a few times, we may think we are ready to give the presentation. If we could be isolated from the audience in a nice, soundproof, glass room, that would be true. But that is not typically the case, unless you happen to be the dictator of an unstable, coup-inclined republic! For most of us, taking precautions means anticipating the agendas of the diverse audience we will encounter and deciding how to deal with them.
The way we do this is by taking a few more excursions through the presentation charts, this time in the context of the audience. What will a reluctant participant think about the length? How will a nitpicker react to a particular technical point? What fault will an advocate of a competing technology find with certain principles? These are the questions we ask ourselves as we go through the charts in this manner. Then, we decide what we will do about it. Maybe we will have a few backup charts or other material, to counter an argument. Or maybe we will have tomatoes of our own to throw back at them. By conducting this type of review and preparation, we continue to build our confidence. We were already prepared for the expected, and now we are ready for anything, or almost anything.
