Posts from — March 2008

Simple Skills to Improve Your Presentations and Tips for Practice

First, this is not going to be a post outlining all the great content out there on presentation skills. You’ve got a search engine for that and can go for a surf to find some. I really would encourage you to do this. Check out YouTube as well - this is one area that obviously benefits from a video demonstration.

I have made the point that you should invest most of your time preparing for a presentation by crafting a good story and practicing until you can share it naturally and without aid. There are no simple tips that will get around this important point. But as you learn your new skills, always practice with this in mind.

Find Opportunities to Speak

Certainly the single best way that you can improve your skills is to practice. In this case, I don’t mean the same presentation, but many different ones. You need the opportunity to hone your skill by using it. How can you do this? There are groups that you can join, like toastmasters, and you can seek out other opportunities - I have spoken to groups outside of my work where I can share my expertise. You might choose to share your knowledge with your children’s class if they invite parents in to speak about careers - yes, speaking to five year olds can be plenty intimidating! You don’t need to give formal presentations - even reading, as you might in your church gives you the chance to put yourself on the line in front of a large group. You can practice one of your presentations, or frankly make up a new one about anything, at home alone in front of a video camera, or in front of trusted friends and family. Want your kids to grow up good speakers? Make a game of it - impromptu speaking on any topic one night as a family. The possibilities are almost endless; you just have to make it a priority.

“If you have great ideas, you need to be able to communicate them confidently and effectively.”

Skills to Keep In Mind

1. Eye contact. It is essential to your credibility as a speaker. It shows confidence and it engages your audience. Don’t focus on one area, but scan the audience and make contact with many people.

2. Volume. Speak not so that you can be heard by the person in front of you, but so that the person at the back of the room can hear you clearly.

3. Pace. You will be best heard and understood if you speak a little slower than you typically would feel comfortable doing. At first the proper pace will feel strange but trust me it is best not to rush.

4. Pause to refresh. Silence is a powerful thing. Do not feel uncomfortable pausing when you make an important point. It gives people the opportunity to digest what you have said. It gives it emphasis. It gives it strength. When I feel a pause is important as I present (or in an interview when I have given an important answer), I will say something (in my head) to the group that I find reassuring like, “did you hear that, I just made a big point.” For some reason the pause seems a little less uncomfortable to me this way.

5. Repetition. Listen to the most powerful presenters and you will hear repetition. Martin Luther King Jr. was an amazing example of this. Occasionally when you have made a very key point and then taken a pause, begin speaking by restating that point. Short and sweet, but the repetition is powerful.

6. Body language. You need to model the energy you want you audience to feel. Look no further than Tony Robbins on this one! On a simpler level though you need to be alert, stand up and keep your hands out of your pockets. How many poor speakers have you seen fiddling with the change in their pockets as they speak?

Rehearsing

I have made the point about rehearsing several times now (repetition!) but let me say it again. If you have a presentation to give and you have focused on the skills above, try this:

1. Practice it on your own in a quiet place.

2. Practice it in front of a mirror - seriously, it feels uncomfortable and you see right away what you are doing.

3. Practice for a video camera. Then review it, of course. Repeat as needed.

4. Practice for someone else - friends or family.

5. Practice for knowledgeable colleagues.

I’m sure few people will do all of these steps, but if you do any of them beyond just practicing alone, you are sure to improve faster than 95% of the rest of the world.

What about the office meetings and questions?

Yesterday I suggested presentation skills are key for all employees who work in the office, even if they only have to answer questions from a superior about their day to day efforts. How do these skills and routines that I have offered today apply?

I wouldn’t suggest raising the volume of your voice and slowing your pace when the boss asks you a question (you’ll come across as thinking he’s a bit senile…”MR. …JONES….THE..PROJECT…IS…COMING…ALONG…WELL!”) but all the other skills apply. Look your boss in the eye. Sound confident. Pause a little when you make a point, maybe even repeat it!

Similarly, you need to rehearse. Anticipate the questions you’ll be asked in the next department meeting and rehearse. Even if the questions are a little different, you will have prepared your method of delivery well. You can train yourself to be a better speaker in meetings and one on one situations through practice. All my rehearsal suggestions also apply. You can anticipate your boss asking for an update and practice your best response even if it is only a few sentences. Do it in front of the mirror, your spouse, your coworker. It might seem strange but it can be some of the most valuable time that you will ever invest.

It’s About Making You Shine

If you have great ideas, you need to be able to communicate them confidently and effectively. That does not always come naturally and must be learned through…one more time…practice!

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I have blogged before about using your downtime for professional development. This might include listening to podcasts during a commute or watching a video on your ipod while traveling.

Today the excellent personal development site Lifehack posted on DIY Education and it is well worth a look if you would like to extend your education beyond podcasts into more formal study. I believe lifelong learning is important and will give you a leg up on the competition as you strive to advance your career.

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If you don’t sound polished when answering questions in the office people will get the wrong impression about your ability

Yesterday I wrote about the need to focus on crafting and being able to delver a good story, rather than spending all your available time tweaking a deck of Powerpoint slides. I’m sure that many of you might be thinking, “so what? I don’t have to give presentations.” That may well be true, but I would argue that having strong presentation, or public speaking, skills will aid your career development, even if you never have to get up in front of a group and present.

“…everyone who works in an office will need public speaking skills on a regular basis…. If don’t speak well then you will give people the wrong impression about your abilities.”

The fact is that everyone who works in an office will need public speaking skills on a regular basis. You will find yourself in a team meeting on occasion where you will be asked to deliver something in a round of questions. “John, how are things going on the Acme project?” or “Sally, give us an update where your work stands.” Now you may be sitting down, sharing coffee and doughnuts, but how you respond will eventually be judged. If not in a meeting, you will certainly be asked questions one on one by a superior who needs to know how your work is progressing. How do you respond in these situations? Are you clear and concise? Do you get to the point? Do you stumble over your words. If don’t speak well then you will give people the wrong impression about your abilities.

Here are a few typical speakers who show up in most offices:

The person who runs on and on saying in 50 words what others can sum up in a sentence.

This person can convey all sorts of bad things. They may come across as a time-waster, if they can’t get to the point with a simple question, they might spend all day getting not much done. Or perhaps they come across as endless blowhard who feels they are more important than they really are. The one who uses jargon to impress rather than substantive content. Worse stil, some people run on and on saying little expanding on the one small thing they did - and make it clear to everyone that they have nothing real to say.

The person who stumbles over their words.

The ums, and ahs and you-knows and likes suggest a lack of confidence, a lack of competence, a lack of preparation. If this is how you speak when reporting to someone in the office, there isn’t much chance you’ll be given more responsibility where you have to lead a team, or interact more with customers.

The person who has too little to say

The opposite of the run-on talker, this person comes across as either unprepared or lacking confidence. If all you say when called on is “everything’s fine” or “nothing new to report” people will begin to wonder what you are doing all day. On the other hand, if they know you work hard they will think you lack the people skills to move up to a position of more responsibility.

The confident, polished speaker

The person who can answer a question in a group or even one on one with a confident manner as if in front of a large audience will go far. They give the impression that they can handle anything, and they will speak for the firm in the most professional way. The work that they do can stand on its own, rather than being burried under a steam of ums and ahs, or behind a pile of superfluous words.

If you don’t feel comfortable presenting in front of a group, that lack of confidence or lack of skill may well be holding you back from showing your true worth to your company. It is an unfortunate truth that the lack of the ability to speak clearly and appropriately in day to day interactions around the office can mask you true worth to the organization.

Tomorrow: Improving Your Presentation Skills

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Want to be the best presenter in your company? Ditch the slides and spend your time writing and practicing to deliver a great story.

There is a quiet revolution underway in the presentation rooms of the world. Slowly, the standard presentation known as “death by Powerpoint” - slide after slide of bullet points, clip art and endless reams of data - is being replaced by skilled presenters backed by supportive visuals. If you haven’t already seen any, there are outstanding resources out there that you should look at if you ever step in front of a group to present. Garr Reynoyds’ site Presentation Zen and his book by the same name are my favorite resources. I also have a copy of Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson, which takes an excellent look at presentations as storytelling. Watching great presentations on-line is well-spent professional development time.

In becoming a better presenter there is a danger though- one I alluded to in my post on how to be more effective by focusing on getting the one most important thing done. In it I made the point that it is all too common to avoid the most important thing, often because we don’t feel comfortable dealing with it. How does this apply to presentations? 99% of people trying to improve their presentations do so by working on improving their slides. Even if you had Garr Reynolds himself at your disposal, creating better slides is not the most important thing to do, for the vast majority of us, if you want to become a better presenter. In fact, it just might be a better use of your time to show up with no slides at all!

For almost everyone, the best thing that can be done to make better presentations is to practice. Rehearse your presentation so that it becomes a natural dialogue with your audience and you will be a better presenter than almost anyone. It is not about memorizing your list of bullet points and slide titles. And please - it is never about reading your slides to the audience - it is about being able to get up and tell a story. Create a conversation. Be a teacher.

Take a few minutes and consider - what is it that makes the vast majority of speakers absolutely mind-numbing and sleep inducing? What are the failings of the worst presentations that you have seen? Remove all those things and what is left? A story. And in a great presentation, a masterful storyteller who could engage a room without a projector and a deck of slides.

For the next presentation you have to give, start well in advance and prepare a story that you can tell without the aid of slides. When you are ready - practice. Practice, practice and practice until it is a natural presentation done without aid. Practice in front of trusted colleagues who will honestly evaluate your message and your delivery. Do you think Steve Jobs gives keynotes off the top of his head? Did Al Gore shoot An Inconvenient Truth on the first take, off the cuff? Yet, so many people will spend hour after hour refining their bullet point laden slide decks, and then assume that they can get up in front of their peers - or worse their superiors - and speak to them without any practice. As if the point of the slides is to remind them what to say next.

Now I’m not suggesting that you get up in front of a group without aid of any visuals. Follow the advice of Presentation Zen and you will impress. What I am suggesting, is that if you took as much time preparing a good story and the ability to deliver it as you take to make slides, you would deliver the best presentation of your life.

Tomorrow: Everyone can benefit from mastering presentation skills.

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‘Difficult’ people keep us on our toes and challenge us in a healthy way.

Yesterday I wrote about dealing with difficult people with empathy. Trying to understand what is driving a person who may be hard to work with can make dealing with them easier. Many people might say - just get rid of them! In Good to Great, Jim Collins wrote that the first thing to do in transforming an organization from Good to Great is to “get the right people on the bus” and, by extension, get the wrong ones off the bus.

Certainly every organization has a certain group of employees that it would be better off without. Those that drag others down around them, or collect a salary without adding anything of value to the company. It should be said though that not all people who choose not to toe the ‘company line’ are necessarily bad to have around. In fact, I would argue that many of them are very healthy influences; however, it takes a strong leader to realize this and take advantage of it.

What sort of people are good to have around?

People who are constantly challenging our thoughts, suggesting change and positive new routes to take are good to have around. They inspire innovation. They shake us out of our daily routine, they push us to reinvent the way we do things and what we stand for. This might be the person who always thinks that there must be a better way. This could be the person pushing the company to ‘go green’ or to focus more on employee happiness. They even include the person who pushes the boundary of what is permitted in the company, always asking “why?” There are any number of good things they do. Their agenda can keep an otherwise slow moving organization pushing forward just like a strong competitive influence from outside.

You have to be a strong leader to take advantage of difficult people

In many ways challenging employees are competitive influences from inside the organization. This is where it takes a strong person, a strong leader, to recognize their value and work with them. After all, so many people have the natural reaction to try and stifle or defeat their competitors. The leader who lacks confidence can see these people as internal challenges to their authority. They become defensive and fail to take advantage of this challenging ‘asset.’ Many leaders have strong egos and cannot step aside to allow others to be heard or to allow contrary opinions to be fairly evaluated. We’ve al met them, they are the people who believe that “if it’s not my idea, it’s a bad idea.”

The leader who lacks confidence can see these people as internal challenges to their authority…and fail to take advantage of this challenging ‘asset.’

I do not mean to suggest that every idea from every challenging employee must be accepted and acted upon. I do not mean that everyone must be allowed to run roughshod over company policy. Leaders must set down the direction and goals of the company, not the people who have the ‘idea of the day.’ It is true, though, that the challenging person can help us as leaders question and justify what our choices are. Like the child who always asks “why” when told to do something, employees are just as surely wondering to themselves why the company is doing what it does at every turn. And you had better have a good answer for them. The difficult employee is probably one of a much larger group - but he or she is the one who has the courage to speak their mind and challenge authority.

As a leader these people can be your barometer for what is happening in and out of your firm and can help you respond accordingly. Sometimes they will have great ideas that you should honor. Other times they will be wrong. Fine. Make sure everyone knows why you do what you do. It will lead to a happier, more productive workplace.

When does the difficult employee have to ‘get off the bus’?

These difficult people who are otherwise hard-working, strong contributors to your organization can be valuable if you can work with them. There are times though that their disturbances become unacceptable. The way that they challenge of course is important. Every leader will have a different level of tolerance for challenge. Some can handle the occasional outburst in public, while others will expect military-like respect even as they leave their door open to private discussions and ‘challenges.’ Whatever your personal level of comfort, if you are dealing with a difficult person on your team you owe it to them to be honest and up front about what you will accept and what you won’t. Expect some slip-ups, but guide this person to the proper way to work effectively on your team.

That said, some folks really do have to get off the bus no matter how much they accomplish on a daily basis. For me, that means the person who takes their gripes outside the team or company. Those that question your leadership or the direction of the company outside the office. That might be on the phone with a client, commiserating or otherwise slagging the company with an important customer. It also might be in a public forum where they will share their gripes, but don’t have the courage to say the same things to your face. These folks bring down a team faster than you will believe. They erode the trust of your customers. They destroy the spirit of the other employees as bad feelings begin to magnify over lunchroom chatter.

Deal with the difficult ones and move you company forward

Before you start throwing every challenging person off the bus, stop and think. Chances are they have some valid opinions and will help you and your company.

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