Lessons I wish I'd learned 30 years ago #11 : PRESENTING SKILLS

My first public presentation was aged 21 when I had to present my undergraduate dissertation to external examiners. Contrast that with my children who gave their first presentation at junior school, aged 5 - changed days indeed. Since then, giving a good presentation has been an ever-present requirement for all the jobs I've ever done, and if you're reading this, probably yours too.  

My all-time favourite presenter was someone you've likely not heard of, my post-graduate supervisor Professor Stan Openshaw. He specialized in a highly 'kinetic' and humorous style: he'd have a box of 100 pre-written acetate sheets which he'd place on the overhead projector (remember those?) for no more than two seconds each, then proceed to throw them into the audience. But the main thing was his humour, preparation and comprehensive grasp of the subject - awesome: even his lecture on the arguably dry subject of "The modifiable spatial areal unit problem" was stunning. 

Now, one of my favourites is Microsoft's own James Whittaker - awesome, funny, definitive and entertaining - if you've not seen him, do so (and check out his 'Storytellers Manifesto' and 'The Storytellers Spellbook') and see him in action here.

So what are my tips for good presentations? - here's what I think.

1. First, and most important, tell a story. As Whittaker notes on storytelling:

"If there is a stronger force in all of human behavior, I can’t name it. Where else do habits, beliefs, attitudes, and culture get formed except as a result of the stories we tell? And our storytellers, those great orators who make stories come alive, are a tidal force for societal change"

2. Know the subject - intimately! - you should be able to deliver your entire presentation without slides or any other aids - think Simon Sinek and his single blank chart and pen. 

3. Assume the technology and all your visual aids will fail. This is related to knowing your subject. How many times has your projector not worked, your laptop blue screened or had a mandatory update? Be prepared to deliver it without any aids at all - be warned. An extreme example of this happened to a colleague of mine - due to an issue with the building he ended up delivering the majority of the Prosci® 3-day certification class in a field next to the office. Respect!

4. Prepare, Prepare, Prepare - partly that's knowing your subject, partly its having experience but mostly it's about doing the hard graft - for a new presentation, I'll have prepared and practiced (out loud) at least one hour for every minute delivered. 

5. Practice out loud - stuff written on a page and read-over likely won't sound right when spoken out loud.  You need to say it out loud and adjust accordingly.  Make it your spoken voice and style, not your written voice and style - you are speaking it after all.

6. Make it personal - we're all individuals, right? and our personalities are unique, and we've all got a story to tell - so illustrate your points with personal observations. With the Prosci® certification classes I teach, it's critical to illustrate concepts with personal stories - over one-hundred in this case - it makes it real.

7. Talk about things that went well AND things that went badly - Have you ever made a mistake? If you haven't then I'm in awe of you. We've all made mistakes - share them. Then talk about how you fixed it and how that relates to what you're talking about. Remember Churchill's great axiom

"a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty"

or Beckett's "Ever tried. Ever failed. No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better".

It also illustrates that no one is an expert and beyond question, including you. It shows that as the presenter, at that moment, you are the one with something to say, but you're not perfect.  

8. Realize that you're not young enough to know everything - When I was 21 and recently graduated for the first time, I knew everything - of course I did. But now I'm not 21 anymore, and Wilde's eponymous observation is more and more true. As with the point above, for the duration of the presentation, you're the one people are listening to but that's temporary - listen to other points of view, acknowledge them and integrate them if relevant. That way you learn and grow. It also means you involve the audience and acknowledge that they all likely have something to contribute.

9. Make it passionate/interesting - if you're not passionate about your subject, why should your audience care? Sure, sometimes you've got to present boring stuff, but why not make it passionate, make it interesting. 

One time at a global team event in Thailand I was asked to present the most boring subject of the week, what could I do to make it interesting? Well, the week before I'd just had a large, new tattoo done on my right thigh. So midway through the presentation, I took off my trousers and showed the audience my new ink! Why? Well the tattoo consisted of a large 'Carpe Diem' (seize the day) motif - and the message was: now is the time to act - seize the day - see what I did there? (oh and I'd taken the precaution of putting on my swim shorts under my trousers in advance to save any embarrassment!). The audience told me they appreciated the gesture and now, the time has passed and that's about the only thing they remember from the presentation. 

10. Don't try to win any awards - sometimes they come, but are not what you expected.  I've only ever received one award for a presentation. At that same Thailand event, there was a simultaneous text/subtitle translation service. At the end of the week, and following numerous presentations in English, by people with all sorts of accents from all over the world, I received the 'highest percentage of unintelligible words from the translation service' award - an I'm a native English speaker, albeit with Scottish accent. Did it matter? Not really. The audience remembered my key message: seize the day, do it now.

11. Be spontaneous (if there's an opportunity) - One time I was chairing an international event in Berlin. It was a great event with great people and for the closing event, I had the words and music for the Scottish song 'Auld Lang Syne' prepared. As I closed, I invited everyone to stand, link arms and sing the song - they all did. What a great way to close such a fantastic event. But, I only decided to do it an hour before the close - I got the inspiration and did it, and it worked. If you think you can make something work - do it! It won't always land, but you learn and get better the more you try.

12. Use images, not words - who hates presentations with thousands of words? How many times have you heard: "sorry, you can't read the small text but I'll read it for you" - just no!!!, Don't do it! Sometimes I'll use three slides for an hour presentation. Sometimes I'll use 100 if its full of memorable images that illustrate my points - say the words, illustrate them with images.

13. Don't stand behind the podium. Use the entire stage/space. Prowl, look people in the eye. Nod, engage, smile, use your posture, use props if you're confident and they move your message along, laugh, sing, dance if you feel like it. Body language is physical behaviour that conveys information - so use your body to convey your message.   

14. Be prepared for anything. My final interview for joining Microsoft was great experience. I had to do a presentation. So I followed all the advice in this article. I turned up, and one of the two interviewers was a blind* colleague, something I didn't know in advance. He had a great device that plugged into a laptop and would read out loud the words contained in a presentation. Unfortunately most of my slides were images. So I gave my presentation and described my images as I went along. A very valuable experience for me; and I got the job.   

15. Make 'em laugh - most important of all. Sometimes I meet people who heard me present over twenty years ago and they still remember my talk. Why? because they laughed a lot. One thing I used to do was illustrate what an easy to use computer system would look like by showing a huge picture of my 80-year old grandmother standing next to a computer, and asking: what would we have to do to make it easy enough for my granny to use it?. People still ask me: "how's your gran"? 

The first time I saw Microsoft's James Whittaker present, he opened with:

"the organizers told me not to swear, but I'm from Kentucky so why the f*** not!" 

From that moment he had the audience hooked and howling with laughter - but his message was clear too. When I think about James, he's like an elemental force of nature in the room - take note!.

16. Deal with Hecklers/Disruptors - unless you're a world-class comedian, dealing with hecklers or serial interrupters is tough and a lot of it comes down to your personality. Leave excellent retorts to the experts like, Ricky Gervais'

"This is a big venue, I can't really get into one-to-ones. In a smaller room, I'd still ignore you"

or Billy Connolly's

"Hey, you, stop telling me how to do my job. Do I come to your work and tell you how to do your sweeping up?" 

Mostly its either about ignoring the interruption and continuing; responding in kind (in the same manner as the heckler) or using good-natured humour. Sometimes, if I've got a microphone I say "I've got the microphone and I can talk louder than you", making sure to talk very loudly and in my best Scottish accent. 

When I'm running training classes, it's different. Then it more about trying to accommodate the point/s being made. But if that doesn't' work I usually combine humour with calling a break and talking to the person one to one, making the point that I've got stuff to cover and they are disrupting the flow for the others, then pointedly asking what they are going to do to fix their conduct (again in my best Scottish accent). 

17. Enjoy yourself - the way I look at it is: people are giving me their full attention for the duration of my talk: sometimes its for 10 minutes, sometimes an hour, and in the case of the Prosci training I do, its for the best part of three days (or 0.00004% of an average lifetime - think about that!). That's a privilege. So have a good time and make it worth people's while - make it worth their investment of precious life-hours. Anyone can read slides for hours but why do that when you can have fun

 //Al - 26 June 2018

** (Note: For those who wonder why I use the term 'blind' I do so intentionally per the guidance issued by the National Institute for the Blind here).