Professionally Speaking...

No Time for Presentation Practice

Over and over again I hear participants in my presentation skills training classes or colleagues in different organizations and companies complain that they don't have enough time to practice a presentation.

And I say...crap [or a nicer version, like baloney].

Lack of time to practice is a red herring, much more perception than reality.The truth is we're all busy but we find time for things we believe are important. The real issue is that most business presenters don't put enough [any?] importance on the value of rehearsing a presentation before delivering it.

Yet, practicing a presentation is the single biggest thing that can reduce anxiety, enhance confidence and maximize the likelihood that the audience will get value -- all things that are highly desirable outcomes for any presenter.

Here are my tips for finding some elusive time to practice a presentation:

• Change your perspective. Buy into the benefits of practice. Once it rises in importance on your 'to do' list, you'll find a way to re-prioritize other activities to find time to practice before a presentation.

• Take baby steps. Perhaps it's difficult to find a whole half hour or hour to practice the entire presentation. Find just a little time, say 5-10 minutes each day, and rehearse different sections.

• If time is scarce, be selective about what you practice. Focus on the most important parts of your presentation: the opening, the closing and the transitions. Focus on aspects of the presentation you're not as comfortable with. Leave the sections you know well for the end, in case you find more time.

• Take advantage of time when you are doing routine things that don't require all your attention: standing in line at the grocery store, exercising, driving to and from work. If you're in public, say your words in your head (never as good as practicing out loud but better than nothing). If you're alone, practice out loud. Don't worry so much about tone and inflection for these practice times, but concentrate on sentence structure, organization and clarity of information.

What other techniques have you found for carving out time to practice a presentation?

Photo Credit:
flickr/simpologist C.C. 2.0

A Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

I know you are terribly busy at this time of year building and packing all the toys, motivating the elves, polishing the sleigh and grooming the reindeer. But I could really use your help.
 
Business presenters all over the globe need to make better presentations so that the power of their messages will be truly heard and their audiences will be engaged and take action. Here are the gifts I send to presenters everywhere this holiday season. And Santa, any assistance you could provide in getting these presents distributed would be greatly appreciated.
 
Gift #1: Commitment to The Audience: an unshakable belief that an audience deserves your absolute best and an unwavering focus on making each presentation a valuable experience for those listening to you.
 
Gift #2: Minimal Use of PowerPoint Bullets: the time and energy to develop more visually meaningful and helpful slides to support audience comprehension and retention plus the courage to NOT use PowerPoint when you, the presenter, can communicate the message more powerfully.
 
Gift #3: Management of Presentation Nerves and Anxiety: a willingness to invest the time in learning how to manage the fear of speaking in front of a group so your audiences can benefit from the full impact of your message.
 
Gift #4: Acceptance of the Value of Rehearsing: the resolve to commit the necessary time to practicing every presentation so that your audience gets your most competent performance.
 
Thanks, Santa, for helping presenters everywhere to be their best! And do be careful on those slippery roof tops.
 
 
Professionally Speaking... will be on hiatus for the next three weeks, resuming publication the week of January 10, 2011. 
 
May you all have a very happy holiday season, filled with peace and joy, compassion and generosity.

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

Breaking Bad Habits in Presentations

"An unfortunate thing about this world is that

the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones."

                                                                                                                         
W. Somerset Maugham
British playwright

People who speak in public are often not aware of their bad presentation habits. That is until they see themselves on videotape.

If I had a nickel for every time participants in my presentation skills classes are surprised when they see themselves doing something annoying or distracting on videotape, I'd be writing this blog from my villa on a South Pacific island.

The annoying behavior videotape exposes may be avoiding eye contact with the audience, clenching hands into fists, using an abundance of filler words [um, ah, like, you know], putting hands in and out of pockets, absentmindedly fidgeting with glasses, hair or jewelry. Whatever it is, it's done without conscious thought.

And whatever it is, it's turned into a bad habit, often as a reaction to nervousness or fear.

Since habits are simply actions that are done so frequently they become involuntary, they don't have to be inherently bad. Luckily, the same pattern of frequent repetition can lead to good habits.

Exchanging bad presentation habits for good ones is hard work, but perfectly do-able.

Here are some steps to get you started:

• First of all, make the bad habits conscious. Watch yourself on videotape and become aware of what habits you've acquired that are distracting to an audience. By becoming conscious of what have been involuntary actions, you gain more control over them. Try and determine when and why you do these things -- in other words, look for triggers that produce the undesirable behavior.

• Clearly determine the desired replacement behavior. For most bad speaking habits, the replacement behavior should be quite obvious. But if you're not sure, consult with a public speaking coach or research the many books on effective presentations to determine the exact behavior you want to acquire.

• Pick one habit to work on. If there are multiple things you'd like to change, prioritize, picking the behavior you feel will have the most positive impact on your presentations if you change it. If, for example, you're not making frequent and meaningful eye contact with the audience, choose to work on this before you move on to eradicating ums and ahs.

• Write down a description of the bad habit and your commitment to changing it into a good habit. This creates accountability. Depending on the situation, you might make a public commitment and enlist the support of others to help keep you accountable.

• Give up your rationalizations. This is really another way of saying, "stop making excuses." Just because your peers and colleagues all say 'you know' in every sentence doesn't mean you should embrace that behavior.

• Engage in positive self-talk and visualization. Every time a negative thought comes into your head telling you this isn't worth it or you can't do it, replace that thought with a positive statement..."Once I eliminate those annoying ums and ahs from my presentations, I will sound more professional, confident and credible." Visualize yourself giving a presentation without all those filler words and having people come up after your talk to say how clearly they understood your message.

• Be consistent. The bad speaking habit you're working to change may be prevalent in meetings and conversations as well as in formal presentations. Keep focus on it in all these situations.

• Reward yourself when you successfully demonstrate the desired behavior and frequently thereafter as you work to make it involuntary. For example, when you've given a presentation and kept your hands out of your pockets the whole time, give yourself the reward of a movie, a day off exercise or whatever would seem like a treat.

• If you relapse and have a presentation where the bad habit comes back, don't beat yourself up. Acknowledge that this is a progression and sometimes you will revert to the old behavior until the new habit is firmly entrenched. The important thing is not to let this discourage you, but keep going in pursuit of your goal.

What other techniques have you used to change a bad speaking habit into a good one?

Photo Credit:
www.flickr.com C.C. 2.0
Jason Unbound's Photostream

Presentation Tip: Don't Memorize

Memorization works well for a lot of things: telephone numbers, Latin verb endings, the song lyrics for the holiday concert. Memorization doesn't work so well for presentations.

Yet far too many times, presenters -- novice and experienced alike -- resort to memorizing their material. Ironically, of all the preparation techniques for a presentation, memorization is the riskiest. Forget a word or phrase and that can derail your entire presentation as you struggle to remember what comes next.

ANOTHER PROBLEM WITH MEMORIZATION

Memorization makes it difficult to be really present with your audience. Since your mental energy is channeled into recalling what you've memorized, you have little or no bandwidth for engaging and interacting with your audience. Your focus is on not forgetting what you're supposed to say.

SO WHAT SHOULD YOU DO INSTEAD OF MEMORIZE?

• Know your subject matter well. Be very clear on what you want to say, the organization of your remarks and the specific message you want to leave with your audience. Rehearse your delivery at least 5-6 times to internalize the content, flow and examples.

• Let go of perfection. I know when I craft a presentation, I work hard to come up with just the right words and phrases to get my points across. And so I get quite wedded to these specific words. But in the moment of the actual presentation, it's far better to not worry about finding the perfect words and instead free yourself up to be natural and focus on your audience. As long as you have rehearsed adequately, you'll be able to communicate your points clearly even if you don't use the "perfect" words. And remember, the audience never knew what your perfect words were anyway.

• Feel free to use notes to jog your memory. Presenters sometimes have the feeling that if they present with notes, they'll lose credibility. But in my experience, I've never seen an audience yet who objects to a presenter referencing (not reading verbatim) notes throughout the presentation.

• Trust in the power of connecting with the audience. If you are truly "out there" with your audience, sharing information with them and engaging in dialogue, you're not likely to forget key points because you will be feeding off their energy, interest and questions.

So leave memorization for the more mundane things you need to remember and both you and your audience will find your presentation more enjoyable.

Photo Credit:
www.flicker.com  C.C. 2.0
Zen's Photostream

Presentations: 5 Boring Behaviors and How to Fix Them

                                                                                                                            

I'm pretty sure that no one sets out to give a boring presentation. Yet why do so many presentations end up that way?

There are a number of classic presentation behaviors that will send you off the charts on the boring meter. Now these aren't mysterious things that we don't know are boring. They are simply behaviors we don't pay enough attention to.

So here's a tune-up for the new year, reminding us how to banish boring presentations.

[Yawning Koala Bear from the archives of the National Media Museum, used here under a Creative Commons License]

BORING BEHAVIOR: Reading Your Presentation

SOLUTION: More rehearsal to internalize your content so you don't have to rely on a script. | Add stories, metaphors, personal anecdotes and examples to make your material easier to remember, for both you and the audience. 

BORING BEHAVIOR: Slides Filled with Text

SOLUTION: More graphics, illustrations and charts that are pertinent to the message and enhance understanding for the audience [generally, though, design doesn't beget boredom, so don't go crazy jazzing up slides]. | Stories and examples that don't rely on slides. | More rehearsal so you don't have to depend on the slides for your notes.

BORING BEHAVIOR: Monotone Voice

SOLUTION: More rehearsal [are you seeing a pattern here?] where you audio record yourself so you can hear the monotone; this makes it easier to work on increasing the inflection in your voice. | Voice coach. | Try to imagine you are having a one-to-one conversation with various members of the audience -- we are less likely to speak in a monotone in an actual conversation.

BORING BEHAVIOR: Too Much Content

SOLUTION: Be ruthless in editing your material when preparing the presentation. | Do your homework to find out the audience's needs so you can tailor your message and content to what is relevant to them. | Be clear yourself on your key message. | Ensure that your material has a logical flow [ask someone else to review, if necessary].

BORING BEHAVIOR: Not Allowing or Encouraging Any Audience Interaction

SOLUTION: Recognize that all audiences need a break from listening and some time to process what they're hearing. | Build places into your presentation where you ask the audience a question, ask them to write something down or interact with the person next to them. | Never ask an audience to hold their questions until the end -- this may help you not lose your train of thought, but it certainly doesn't serve the audience's needs.

Follow these simple guidelines and not only will you improve your presentations, you won't have to wake anyone in the audience when you're finished.

What other boring behaviors have you encountered? What solutions have you employed to avoid boredom?

Tips From the Acting Stage, Episode #3

If you've ever attended live theatre, you know how riveting the experience can be, to the point where you feel you are right in the middle of the action on stage, aligned with the characters, experiencing their emotions. Have you ever wondered how the actors create such an engaging experience?

And if you could figure it out, wouldn't you want to duplicate that engagement the next time you're on the business stage?

Pshaw, you say, that's entertainment [well, perhaps you wouldn't say pshaw]. What does that have to do with a business person standing in front of a business audience, armed with bushels of PowerPoint slides?

Plenty, I say. There are three key lessons we can adapt from the acting stage.

LESSON #1

By the time stage actors get in front of their audience, they are well rehearsed and well prepared. They know their lines. They know where to pause for a laugh, for a tear or to let a point sink in. They don't stumble over their words. They don't forget what they wanted to say. They don't speak too fast or too slowly, because they have practiced their lines until they get just the right tone and pace.

I am certainly not advocating that, as business presenters, you memorize a script, word for word. But I am saying that if you practice your presentation enough times to become very familiar with your content and how you want to say it, you can come across as polished and intentional as an actor delivering lines. Once you know your content backward and forward, it frees you up to focus on fine tuning: for example, where is it best to pause to let the audience absorb what you've just said or where should you speak very distinctly to give added emphasis to a significant point.

LESSON #2

In a play there is a story line. There is a beginning where the overall premise is set forth, characters are introduced and some conflict is presented. There is a middle where action takes place, the story is advanced and potential solutions to the conflict are considered. And there is an end where the characters resolve (or don't) the conflict they've been grappling with.

A business presentation benefits from a story line as well. You should structure a beginning, a middle and an end, each section distinct yet integrated with the rest. Add a dollop of conflict to engage the listeners. 

Now I'm not suggesting that you insult someone or pick an argument to create conflict. In theatre, conflict is a technique where problems and obstacles are introduced into the action for characters to confront. Makes for a good story, because without conflict, nothing would happen. So in the business presentation, introduce conflict by describing the existing problems that the new system (or process or product) will overcome. Or talk about the skepticism and apprehension that everyone is feeling about the reorganization.

LESSON #3

Stage actors clearly know what emotion they want to evoke in the audience with each section of the play. Word choice, vocal tone, body language and physical movement are the tools they use.

As business presenters, we often don't think about what emotion we want our presentation to elicit from our audience. But having a vision of where you want the audience to empathize, where you want them to be outraged, where you want them to be enthusiastic, where you want them to be proud helps you choose the most effective combination of tools to accomplish that.

Emotions play a key role in comprehension, so proactively engage your audience's hearts as well as their minds to make your message even more powerful.

What other techniques can we learn and apply from the acting stage?

Tips From the Acting Stage, Episode #2 

Tips From the Acting Stage, Episode #1

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 5

These lazy, languid, dog days of late summer provide the perfect opportunity to catch up on valuable presentation advice from some of my favorite bloggers. Read on for insights into better PowerPoint, better speaking and better preparation.

• Angela DeFinis has written a great post on The Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint Design, where she outlines the problems with PowerPoint slides and how to fix them. It fascinates me that in spite of the volume that has been written about bad PowerPoint and all the great suggestions for improvement, so, so many business presenters still refuse to change. An interesting comment on human behavior! Here are some of my suggestions for jump starting better PowerPoint practices.
  
  
• One thing that causes many presenters anxiety is worrying they won't be able to effectively handle audience questions and interruptions, particularly ones that are confrontational or argumentative. Ian Griffin, in How To Deal with a Hostile Audience tells us not to rely solely on logic, but to be conscious of the emotional concerns underlying a question.
  
  
• As only Seth (Godin) could explain: How To Make Graphs That Work. Advice that is simple, easy-to-use, provocative...and right on the money.
  
  
• Learn from the TV newscasters how to handle slips of the tongue in Lisa Braithwaite's Stumbles, Fumbles and Mumbles.
  
  
• You've often heard me extol the benefits of practicing and being prepared in this blog, so I'm happy to pass along a very critical checklist from Nick Morgan: 10 Points To Check Before You Speak.

PREVIOUS "DON'T MISS THIS" LISTS:

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 4

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 3

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 2

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 1

Rehearse More Effectively

I am a huge advocate of rehearsing a presentation multiple times before giving it (even though I hate rehearsing as much as the next person). Rehearsal has a multitude of benefits:

• It helps you internalize content, making it less likely you'll forget what to say.
• It makes your delivery sound more polished and confident.
• It helps minimize nervousness because you know you're prepared.

One of the key methods I recommend is rehearsing out loud so you can hear what you sound like. But recently a wise colleague challenged me when I recommended this approach in one of my bi-weekly Presentation Tips communiques, saying, "...you are making an unvoiced assumption of competence."

He went on to say, "If I don't know how to hit a golf ball correctly, practicing hitting one before I play a round of golf serves to erode my confidence. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, benefits a great deal by practicing before a round as he knows how to correct any swing flaws that surface during the practice."

It's an excellent point. The crux of the issue is whether or not the person rehearsing knows: how to do the activity correctly AND how to assess or evaluate the result.

HOW TO DO THE ACTIVITY CORRECTLY

With presentation skills, the trial and error method is a possibility, but it has potentially serious consequences. If you repeatedly employ poor presentation techniques, because of lack of knowledge or lack of awareness, you will get a reputation as a poor presenter and audiences will punish you with lack of attention and lack of response.

Learning the best practices of presentation skills through formal training, coaching or reading books is certainly the most effective way to improve.

HOW TO EVALUATE THE RESULT

Once you have acquired knowledge about what's effective and what's not effective in a presentation, then your rehearsal takes on a different face. Now, like Tiger Woods in the earlier example, you are better equipped to assess when you are deviating from what's effective. Moreover, you have a better idea of how to correct it.

At this point, you will get value from rehearsing out loud. Here are some other ways to help you evaluate your performance and effectiveness:

• Videotape yourself. When you can see as well as hear yourself, you get a fuller picture of your likely impact on an audience.
• Better yet, rehearse in front of colleagues who can give you feedback on how you come across.
• Even better, rehearse in front of a professional who can not only assess your skills but also provide coaching on how to correct or enhance aspects of your presentation.