Professionally Speaking...

When Ego Gets in the Way of a Good Presentation

I attended an event recently where the presenter was the co-author of a well-known book on a hot business topic. He is also a senior executive in a prestigious firm whose name you would recognize. My expectations were high -- given his obvious expertise, I was counting on some valuable insights as well as an engaging presentation style.

But then his ego got in the way.

At first I thought his name dropping and rambling stories, where he was generally the hero, were perhaps just lack of preparation [although I'd bet he's given this presentation or some version of it hundreds of times]. But then he committed ego's cardinal sin.

He 'shushed' an audience member who tried to ask a question. In spite of his proclaimed willingness to take questions, he looked at this woman with her hand raised and said, "No...I'm sure I'll cover whatever it is you want to ask."

Absent a crystal ball, how would he know what the woman was going to ask? And even if he was correct in his assumption about her question, what an arrogant way of shutting down her [and perhaps others'] engagement with him and the material.

WHAT CAUSES EGO TO GET IN THE WAY?

Some degree of ego is healthy in a presenter. It helps you believe in yourself, manage anxiety and strive to make a valuable contribution to the audience. But when a presenter's ego runs amok, he's forgotten the golden rule: It's All About The Audience.

Fame and fortune can certainly lead to an over-developed ego where it's easy to believe that, since you know so much more about your topic than the audience, they should just hang on your words, not interrupting, not challenging, not probing. Yet, I'm sure we can all come up with examples of famous speakers who don't let ego rule their presentations -- people like Jimmy Carter and Steve Jobs come to mind.

The subject of ego has even made it into the TED commandments: "#6 Thou shalt not flaunt thine ego. Be thou vulnerable."

So the moral to my rant is...no matter how famous, how expert, how intelligent you are, it's not about you, it's about engaging with your audience to provide something useful, thought-provoking and relevant. In the end, they, not you, will be the ultimate judge of whether or not you've been successful.

What examples have you seen of ego getting in the way of a good presentation?

Review of Nancy Duarte's New Book: resonate

Like a great presentation, Nancy Duarte's new book, resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences is engaging, relevant and passionate. It is physically gorgeous with an appealing layout, evocative photographs and, no surprise, lots of visuals...diagrams, sketches, charts, graphs...that explain and clarify the content. But don't be misled into thinking that this is just another outlet for one of those creative types to show off her design skills. Even without the visuals, Duarte's content can transform the world of business presentations.

The book is fundamentally about how to use story to create presentations that produce an emotional impact on the audience. As Nancy says in the introduction, "This book is simultaneously an explanation, a how-to guide, and a business justification for story-based messaging." Using examples and lessons from the worlds of mythology, literature and cinema, she demonstrates how to incorporate dramatic elements into presentations which invite the audience to become more involved, more interested and more invested.

Learning how to do this effectively and consistently would be reason enough to buy this book. But Duarte offers many more applicable lessons such as how to plan the audience's journey, how to create meaningful content, how contrast creates interest, how to recall stories, how to turn information into stories and how to move from data to meaning. These topics, rich with case studies of people and companies you'll recognize, cover easily usable techniques that will improve any presenter, regardless of experience or job level.

One of the things I love most about this book is its focus on the audience. The clear truth that the audience is the raison d'etre for any presentation is proclaimed loudly and often. Contrary to what we experience in so many presentations, Duarte says,

"The audience does not need to tune themselves to you -- you need to tune your message to them. Skilled presenting requires you to understand their hearts and minds and create a message to resonate with what's already there. Your audience will be significantly moved if you send a message that is tuned to their needs and desires."

resonate is being called groundbreaking and magnificent. I don't think that's hyperbole. Presentations shape every aspect of our business lives and they have enormous power, much of which we don't leverage. If you have any interest in becoming a more compelling presenter and transforming your audiences...and who wouldn't consider that a worthy goal...rush out and buy resonate. It belongs on your bookshelf, to be consulted frequently.

Then you'll be much better equipped to accept Nancy's presentation challenge: be bold, stand out and go change your world.

 

How to Handle Presentation Surprises

There have already been thousands of words written and spoken about the presidential seal falling off the podium during President Obama's speech at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit two days ago. But I feel compelled to add more words because the episode so clearly illustrates one of the things so many presenters fear...disruptive presentation surprises.

And although most of us won't have to worry about misbehaving presidential seals, we will have to worry about power failures, slide projector malfunctions, microphone feedback, tripping on wires and more.

Shock, impatience, blaming others, being thrown off course are all normal human reactions when something goes wrong.

But as a presenter, you don't have the luxury of showing any of those reactions.

Your audience may feel similarly or they may not know what to feel. In either case, they are looking to you to guide them through the situation. If you overreact and seem upset or flustered, your audience will pick that up and assume the "surprise" is a big deal.

Given that your primary objective in the presentation is to ensure a quality experience for your audience, how do your turn those "surprises" into just an inconvenient, perhaps even humorous, blip?

Certainly your first concern is to put the audience at ease. Take a look at how President Obama handled the situation I referenced at the beginning. 

He took a moment to gather his own thoughts as he said, "oh goodness" and then, through humor, put everyone at ease by saying, "That's all right. All of you know who I am." The audience laughed and everything was fine. Contrast this with a different scenario: what if he had appeared upset and called for someone to come and re-affix the seal or pick it up? The flow of his speech would have been quite disrupted and the audience would have been aware of the president's annoyance which, in turn, would have made them uncomfortable.

Humor is an excellent way to diffuse any unexpected snafus, as long as you're comfortable saying something amusing. But what if you're not? Here are some other suggestions:

1. Use a factual statement to allay any concerns the audience might be feeling. For example, "Just hang in there for a minute and we'll be back on track." 

2. Make lemonade out of lemons. "We've been given an unexpected opportunity for some dialogue. Turn to the person next to you and answer this question." [something relevant to your presentation] 

3. If the disruption looks like it will last more than 5 or so minutes or if it will require help from other people [like the A/V crew], consider giving the audience an unplanned break. You could combine this with the point above and ask them to discuss something relevant to your presentation while on break.

Bottom line take-away: don't make a big deal of any disruptive surprises and focus on making your audience comfortable that you're not flustered and confident that you will still deliver value.

What other techniques have you used or seen used when there are unexpected presentation surprises?

Photo Credit:
Flickr/apdk's photostream C.C. 2.0