Rethinking Business Communications Blog

 

I had no warnings about the task prior to the call.

 

 

“We’d like you to give a presentation during the faculty induction”, explained the HR lady, after the protocol of enquiring about my day.

 

And that was it.

 

Details about the prospective date and time followed later.

 

 

I was expected to give a 30-minute presentation – and the topic?

 

 

How to Give Effective Presentations.

 

 

The coincidence made me smiled. Nevertheless, I realised that it was a topic I needed to take seriously. As the communications coach in the reputable business school that was ranked among the world’s top 50 for its executive MBA programmes by The Economist, the presentation was significant to my credibility. Moreover, I knew the business school would continuously attract faculty members who were knowledgeable in their fields and respected for their academic achievements and experience.

 

 

Therefore, I needed to review my existing content on the topic and adopt new best practices, which I’ve learnt in my relentless hunger for acquiring insights in the field.

 

 

Below are actions to take, which like mine, would lead to your presentation resonating with the audience and being remembered weeks after the event.

 

 

1) Get insights about the audience

 

 

The first thing I did when my presentation slot was confirmed was to find out critical information about the audience members.

 

 

I asked the HR lady about the number and names of faculty members, their academic qualifications and their new departments. I was told that they were six new faculty members in the two-day induction programme, three of whom had PhDs. Their departments spanned HR/organisational behaviour, strategy, finance, and marketing.

 

 

The information I received helped me to plan the content and work on my delivery.

 

 

Since the induction programme was already packed with a lot of information, I knew I shouldn’t overwhelm them with good-to-know but irrelevant material.

 

 

I imagined myself as a member of the intelligent audience and asked myself these questions:

 

 

a) What information do I need to know that I don’t already know about presentations?

 

b) How will this presentation help me in my new role as a faculty member of this esteemed business school?

 

c) Would recommendations given be backed by research, or am I expected to naively adopt the presenter’s advice?

 

d) Am I going to bombarded with information on cluttered slides?

 

e) How will this presentation be delivered that will keep me from tuning off?

 

 

The questions helped me tweak my existing content, especially as I had delivered a similar presentation the previous year to faculty.

 

 

I was ruthless with pruning my work and spent significant time tailoring the content to the expectations of the audience members.

 

 

Audience analysis is an important step to consider in every presentation. It’s also crucial if your audience members are academically superior or talented in ways that may exceed your portfolio.

 

 

Simply putting yourself in their shoes and addressing perceived concerns will make you better prepared and more self-confident. This is because you’d know that your presentation will impart undisputed value.

 

 

And that’s a powerful advantage to have.

 

2) Change the mode of preparation

 

 

 

After receiving useful information about the audience, I wrote down a rough outline of the structure of the presentation. I included the topics I wanted to cover by reviewing the questions I had earlier listed.

 

 

If a tip was of little benefit to the audience, I discarded it. My overarching goal was to offer value.

 

 

When I was satisfied with the content, I practised giving the presentation without visual aids. That exercise helped me to easily remember the format of the presentation. Moreover, it strengthened retention so that if there were technical difficulties, I could deliver the presentation without my PowerPoint slides.

 

 

You can’t be too prepared for the unknown.

 

 

It was only after I knew my presentation thoroughly that I opened my previous PowerPoint deck and revised the slides.

 

 

I then proceeded to rehearse the entire presentation with the PowerPoint slides.

 

 

In effect, I reversed the mode of preparation and used PowerPoint in the end, instead of at the beginning of the rehearsal. This method has been championed by David McGimspey,  the presentation blogger, and is incredibly helpful in remembering your content. It also prepares you for delivering your presentations whatever the circumstances – technical glitches included.

 

 

3) Boost your content with evidence

 

 

I knew that the audience members, being intellectuals, would appreciate research-backed recommendations. Therefore, where relevant, I provided current findings from neuroscience on ‘cognitive backlog’ and other themes.

 

 

I explained that although Death by PowerPoint was a humorous term, research has revealed that listeners experience anxiety when their brains are exposed to long verbal activities (presentations/speeches/addresses, etc.) if there’s no reprieve.

 

 

Notably, Carmine Gallo, in his book Talk Like TED, revealed research findings from Dr Paul King, a scholar in communication studies from the Texas Christian University, that highlighted how the brain usually processes information.

 

 

 

 

The term Dr King used, ‘cognitive backlog’, explains why for an audience member, critically listening to a long presentation is a physically exhausting exercise because of the accumulation of information in the brain, and the sheer amount of energy it expends.

 

 

Be mindful of that fact so that you don’t deliver long, tedious presentations. As Gallo noted, brain cells need twice as much energy as other cells in the body to thrive.

 

 

I thus suggested ways the faculty members could connect with their audiences—MBA participants—and keep them engaged during lectures and other activities so that the students stay ‘tuned on’.

 

 

For the faculty members who would be giving lectures on strategy and finance, I explained that the ‘soft breaks’ researchers recommend that should be taken every 10 minutes, help the listeners’ brains to avoid being overloaded and stressed by too much information.

 

 

Now it’s wise to boost your content with statistics, research results, images, videos and other data, to improve your presentation and make you more convincing. Nevertheless, take heed: ensure that the tools you use support, and don’t overwhelm your audience.

 

 

There’s a fine line between being helpful by sharing important, relevant data, and being dreaded.

 

 

Don’t cross it.

 

 

4) Work on your delivery

 

 

 

 

You might have the most relatable content that addresses the audience’s needs but if your delivery is lacklustre, you wouldn’t inspire action or change.

 

 

Apart from ensuring your opening is memorable and your closing is strong, the way you deliver your presentation would determine how receptive the audience would be to your ideas.

 

 

In the first three minutes of my presentation, I got the audience members involved in a short activity. I asked them to do me a favour: each person was to pair up with another. They formed three groups of two people each. I then asked them to think about the best presentation they had seen or witnessed in the past year. They were told to write two adjectives that best described their experiences.

 

 

Being academia, they asked additional questions and became analytical. So I kept the instructions as simple as possible, to avoid the discussions going off on a tangent.

 

 

That activity sparked discussions, arguments, and laughter.

 

 

Next, I wrote down the six adjectives the three groups provided and declared that I’d return to their findings at the end of the presentation.

 

 

I proceeded with the presentation, occasionally asking questions to ensure that they were active participants and not passive observers.

 

Making the closing statement, I declared that if they adopted the recommendations listed in the presentation, three things would be guaranteed.

 

 

“One – you will hook your audiences from the moment you open your mouths. Two – you’d make them believers of your messages. Three – you’d inspire them to adopt the actions you want”.

 

 

Looking around, I continued, “You’d also be assured that they’d describe your presentations as…”. I paused dramatically, whipped up the paper on which I had written the six adjectives they had provided at the beginning, and read each adjective slowly and loudly.

 

 

As I thanked them, they erupted in applause. They exclaimed that my presentation could, in fact, be described by the adjectives they had supplied.

 

 

Work on your delivery. When appropriate, think of ways you can make your content fun, interactive, engaging, and informative. Introduce a simple activity, use stories, and share lessons you’ve learnt. Avoid the boring and the predictable.

 

 

By differentiating yourself from the pack, your presentation would continue to resonate with your audience members, no matter how knowledgeable they are, after your exit.

 

 

5) Use communication skills to develop rapport

 

 

 

This suggestion goes hand-in-hand with the previous point.

 

 

You cannot connect with your audience, even with superb content and good delivery, if your oral and nonverbal communication skills are not congruent with the image you want to project.

 

 

a) For oral communication

 

Your vocal variety, (tone of voice, volume, pitch, etc.) can be used to emphasise points, to persuade, and to get your audience to listen to you.

 

During my presentation, a few members occasionally interrupted to make a comment, to highlight a point or to say something humorous. I allowed them to express their thoughts, but by increasing the volume of my voice and changing my tone, I firmly directed them back to the subject matter.

 

 

b) For nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication is often underrated as an effective tool when giving presentations.

 

And that’s a mistake.

 

Nonverbal cues such as smiling, maintaining good eye contact, and keeping an ‘open’ position by ensuring your arms are visible, make you trustworthy. Similarly, using movements to heighten transitions, gesturing purposefully and pausing, help you build rapport with your audience.

 

Your audience members, no matter how intelligent or experienced, want to feel prioritised and special. Therefore, using ‘positive’ body language cues will make you more likeable, and will coax them to accept your ideas.

 

Remember that giving a presentation is actually an exercise in communication since you use all three types of communication to advance a goal – the oral, the nonverbal and the written.

 

Thus, give yourself the ‘unfair’ advantage by honing your communication skills to deliver that presentation that will ‘wow’ your audience.

 

 

Conclusion

 

 

When faced with the task of giving a presentation to a learned audience who might seem intimidating, don’t panic.

 

 

 

 

Recall that you were chosen for a valid reason – you were the best person to deliver the presentation. Encouraged by that realisation, use the points listed in this piece to help you prepare and rehearse.

 

 

As I’ve stated in a previous post, preparation begets confidence. Thus,  the more you prepare and practise, the less nervous you’d feel, and the more confident you’d become. A confident presenter is reassuring to audience members because they know they’d be treated to an experience. They’re actually secretly rooting for you.

 

 

So advance and deliver that presentation people would remember long after you’re done.

 

 

And now over to you:

 

 

What other tips have helped you when presenting to an accomplished audience?

 

 

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N.B:  First and third images are courtesy of Stuart Miles, via freedigitalphotos.net. Second image is courtesy of Fotographic1980, via freedigitalphotos.net. Fourth image is courtesy of Simon Howden, via freedigitalphotos.net. Fifth image is courtesy of iosphere, via freedigitalphotos.net. Sixth image is courtesy of Sira Anamwong, via freedigitalphotos.net. Last image is courtesy of Digitalart, via freedigitalphotos.net.