Forster N. - Maximum performance (2005)(en)

130 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

What facilities are available?

The availability of break-out rooms, movable chairs and tables, OH, PowerPoint, whiteboard and video facilities creates many options in the way a presentation is delivered.

Having considered all this, you can then turn your full attention to the structure and content of the presentation.

Structuring the presentation

It takes at least three weeks to deliver a good ad lib speech. (Mark Twain)

Strangely, many people overlook the importance of the foundations and structure of a talk, preferring instead to write the content and create the PowerPoint slides to go with this. Quite often, they’ll even prepare their PowerPoint presentation before writing the talk. This is odd, because can you think of any other activities that are not based on solid foundations and structures? For example, would you get in a car without having done some foundation courses in driving? Climb up or ski down a mountain? Build a house without a solid structure and foundations? Can you name a single good film or book that does not have a solid structure?

This is important because people need to ‘see’ what you are doing (a mental map) and this needs to be reinforced as you go through your talk, and there are a number of methods that can be used for creating good structures for presentations. One of the most popular of these is The Spider (see Figure 3.1). The purpose of this is to help us to think laterally about what could go in our talk, and also forces us to write this down as a visual mental map that we can refer back to. For example, imagine you have been asked to do a presentation on ‘Explaining extra-terrestrial life forms’ to a class of eight-year-olds for one hour. What would you talk about? To get started, think about the main areas that you would cover, and most importantly, think about those things that would interest and excite a group of eight-year-olds. There may also be sub-topics under the main headings. If you’ve got kids around this age, ask them what they would like to see in the presentation.

When you’ve done this, you can turn to planning the running order of the talk in Exercise 3.8. Get in touch with your inner-child and imagination. How would you communicate information about ET to a group of grommets, and what audio-visual aids could be used to bring the presentation to life?

COMMUNICATION AT WORK 131

Figure 3.1 The spider

Exercise 3.6

132 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

This process may appear to be time-consuming and even pedantic, and this is often how people describe this when first introduced to it. But this works because it helps us to develop the discipline to customize our presentations to fit with our audience’s expectations and needs, not our own. This does not mean that we have to compromise on the content of the presentation, just the manner in which we deliver it. This echoes one of the principles of active listening mentioned earlier in this chapter: to think first about others before we consider the things we want to say to them. In time, this becomes second nature, and you will find that you can create spider diagrams and running orders in your mind’s eye, without the need to actually write them down.

Enhancing the content of the presentation

Having created the basic framework of the talk, the next step is to establish what type of talk you are going to deliver. There are just five types: to inform, to motivate/inspire, to direct, to promote action or to promote learning. The most memorable talks contain all five elements, and so you should try to include at least two or three of these in any presentations that you give. Writing the opening paragraph is the next step. The opening of a talk should be snappy and engaging, because we don’t get a second chance to make a first impression with an audience. If we can’t grab their attention within the first minute, it is unlikely that we will get it at all. So we have to engage with the audience by, for example, referring to them or the occasion or thanking them for giving you the time and opportunity to talk to them. Another tactic is to refer directly to someone in the audience: ‘David made a really interesting point to me during the coffee break when he said . . .’. Use direct questions to members of the audience (‘What is the single biggest challenge facing you/your company/this industry?’) or cold statements of fact (‘It’s the year 2008 and our entire industry has disappeared, swallowed up by the second wave of e-business. . . .’), to grab their attention. Short stories, or anecdotes, that capture the theme of a presentation always create an immediate emotional bond with audiences.

Then we have to tell them what we are going to do, do it and then tell them what we have done. This means that the punchy, attention-grab- bing introduction is followed by sequentially linked sections. In these, the main messages or themes of the introduction are revisited. These are then followed by a solid conclusion, where the main points of the talk are revisited for the last time. There should be clear links between these parts and mini-summaries throughout, where you refer back to your central themes. Or, as Plato put it to his students, more than 2400 years ago, ‘Every discourse ought to be a living creature; having a body

COMMUNICATION AT WORK 133

of its own and a head and feet. There should be a beginning, middle and an end, adapted to one another and the whole.’

In many speeches, we have to connect emotionally with people, particularly if we are trying to change the way they do their jobs, or when trying to get them to follow us down a new road, way or path. This occurs because of the way the brain processes information from the environment. All our basic senses, such as sight, sound, touch, taste and smell are processed by the ‘old’ brain (known as Area 17). This is the most primitive and reptilian part of the brain. If this doesn’t react, information will not be passed on for processing to the ‘new’ brain (Table 3.1).

Table 3.1 Communicating with the whole mind

To connect with people emotionally, we have to be able to use language and imagery that taps into at least two or three of these senses. So, in the text of your talks, try to create mental pictures through imagery (‘I have a dream today’ or ‘We have nothing left to fear, but fear itself’). Use similes and metaphors, anecdotal stories, good illustrative examples, jokes and funny one-liners where appropriate. A good starting point for these is McKenzie’s 14 000 Quips and Quotes for Writers and Speakers

(1980). To maintain this emotional connection with your audience, refer back to the larger picture throughout the talk: for example, ‘I am cutting stone’ versus ‘I am building a cathedral’. Whenever possible, use stories, stories and more stories. As soon as you say, ‘I’d like to tell you a story . . .’, watch the audience wake up and come alive. Why is this important? Well, compare the kind of language that is used in company reports or in-house videos with your favourite novels or movies.

134 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

Which do you prefer to read or watch? Which inspires, engages or entertains you?

Other techniques that can be used to spice up presentations include the ‘Twenty Minute Rule’, where you shift tack, introduce something new, involve the audience, play a video-clip and so forth. Whatever it is, do some different things during your talk to keep your audience’s attention at a high level. Some writers on presentation skills even talk about the need for a ‘6–7 minute sizzle’, but this is really only necessary if you’re in front of an audience with a very low attention span. You can also emphasize important points by using the ‘Stuck Record’, an ancient iterative technique, used by orators throughout the ages. For example:

•‘The first reason why we should implement this new strategy is . . .’

•‘The second reason why we should implement this new strategy is

. . .’

•‘The third reason why we should implement this new strategy is . . .’

There is another ancient technique called chiasmus, a figure of speech in which the order of parallel words or phrases is reversed. Figures as diverse as John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Jimmy Carter, the American actor Mae West, William Shakespeare and many other political and business leaders have made use of this technique in the past. Here are a few examples of this technique in action:

•Ask not what your country can do for you, ask instead what you can do for your country.

•War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil.

•I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if they are to get better.

•It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.

•Never judge a corporation by how many employees the CEO reaches, judge it by how many employees can reach the CEO.

•You shouldn’t motivate employees with fear, any more than you should fear employees with motivation.

•Creativity comes without structure and conformity as much as structure and conformity come without creativity.

•If we treated our employees like we treat our customers and treated our customers like we treated our employees, who would benefit?

A rhetorical technique, often used by salespeople, is ‘Head–Heart–Hip’. For example, ‘Renting is the equivalent of pouring money down the drain [head]. Investing in a property of your own means security for your family, and it will be an inheritance to pass on to your children [heart]. Furthermore, all the evidence accumulated

COMMUNICATION AT WORK 135

over the last twenty years shows that buying a house is a good financial investment over the long term [hip-pocket]’.

While it’s clearly important to use engaging and emotive language, and the linguistic techniques described above, it’s equally important not to ‘lecture’ people. Amongst other things, this means to ‘admonish at length’ and, unfortunately, this is what many presenters do. As the English writer Thomas Huxley once remarked, ‘A lecture is a process whereby information is passed from the notebook of the lecturer to the notebook of the student, without passing through the minds of either.’ This comment leads us naturally to the problem of professional jargon. Can you make any sense of the following real-life dialogue?

‘Shag. Well done on your McDonald, my old China. Can you do me a Hawaii of jungle books? I’ve stepped on the plate and I need to take a punt or I’ll end up being legged-over. And I’ll have to do some nerdling for the toss-pot.’

‘Yeah, I’m a fly-boy for that. I’ve got a spoon-muppet in the jubb office who’ll do you a buck if you want. And what about the eight Ayrtons you owe me?’

‘Ship it in your size and I’ll give you your wad back during knobs-out, OK?’

If you had worked on the London Stock Exchange in the 1980s, this would have made perfect sense, as follows:

‘Hello. Congratulations on the quarter million pound deal you just made, mate. Can you exchange £50 000 worth of Japanese Government Bonds please? I’ve taken a large market position and I’m going to have to gamble or I’m going to lose some serious money on a bad deal. And I’ll have to massage the figures for my boss.’

‘Yeah, I’ll help you out with that. I’ve got an ex-public school junior trader working in the back office who’ll do you £100 000 worth if you want. And what about the £80 you owe me?’

‘I’ll take whatever you’re offering and I’ll give you your money back in the bar after work.’

Here’s another example from Scott Adams’ The Dilbert Principle (1997: 149): ‘This change will allow us to better leverage our talent base in an area where developmental roles are underway and strategically focuses us towards the upcoming business transition where business literacy

136 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

will be essential to maintain and to further improve service levels to our customer base going forward.’ In other words, ‘This change will improve services to our customers.’ Working in the university sector, I’m regularly exposed to brain-numbing and soulless jargon. However, no one has ever demonstrated that it serves any useful purpose whatsoever. Occasionally, to audiences from your area of expertise, it might be warranted, but you will alienate non-specialist audiences very quickly. While linguistic precision, sophistication and flair are all important, jargon is dull, and boring an audience is the ultimate crime for any public speaker. So, as far as possible, remove this and replace it with visual and connective language that can capture the audience’s imagination, via Area 17.

If you have to get a lot of facts and information across during a presentation, focus on the strongest evidence, rather than trying to bombard or overload people with data. Numbers and statistics lose their impact very quickly with most audiences. Choose examples that the audience can relate to and be simple in your logic. Use facts, not opinions, to support your arguments. Another way of getting detailed information across is to put this in their handouts, so they can relax and enjoy the talk. If you do this, it’s important to control how they use these, or they might decide to read the handouts instead of listening to you.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains.

The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. (William A. Ward)

When you are happy with the content of your talk, write it out in conversational language, as if you were going to deliver it during a normal conversation with one or two people you know well. This can include the full text of your opening lines, because even the most experienced speakers sometimes forget what they were supposed to be talking about. However, the rest of your talk should be written in note form only. Avoid reading word-for-word from a written text unless you have an auto-cue and practised this a lot, because this tends to take all the emotion out of a talk. If you know your subject matter well (the preparation phase), you can rely on something called ‘the stream of consciousness’. All you then need are trigger words or key phrases to remember the content of your talk, which is all contained in your medium-term memory. It doesn’t matter if you occasionally forget something. Unless you are talking to a convention of telepaths, no one is ever going to know this. However, you can still keep detailed notes with you, just in case you do forget something important. These can be in electronic form on your PC, on A4 paper

COMMUNICATION AT WORK 137

or on small cue cards. It really doesn’t matter which; use whatever you feel comfortable with. But it’s important to avoid clutching your notes or other paraphernalia such as pens and laser pointers all the time, because this can have a negative effect on your non-verbal communication during presentations (described later in this section).

One of the hardest parts of a formal presentation is the ending. As the English peer Lord Mancroft once put it, ‘A speech is like a love affair. Any fool can start it, but it requires considerable skill to end it’ (McKenzie, 1980: 429). Aim to conclude with a decisive, punchy big idea or come full circle to your opening statement or question, ‘Well, ladies and gentleman, at the beginning of this presentation I asked four questions. I hope I have now answered these for you. Thank you for your time and inputs.’

Choosing which audio-visual aids to use

Most people would respond to the question ‘Why use audio-visual aids?’ by saying things like ‘It helps the audience remember the most important parts of my presentation’ or ‘It helps to emphasize the points I want to get across.’ Used in the right way they can emphasize key points, provide variety in presentations and simplify complex information. They may improve participants’ recall and make key messages more memorable, but how often do they achieve these objectives? Think back to the last few PowerPoint presentations you’ve sat through. Can you recall anything of lasting value that was on the slides used by the presenters? Or have there been occasions when you were able to remember the bells and whistles on the slide show, but not the actual content of the talk? For what it’s worth, my advice would be to minimize their use in presentations, because they are a ubiquitous, monopoly technology used by everyone. They are usually dull, often featuring the speaker reading in monotone parrot-fashion style from wordy slides. Or there is the ‘my special effects are better than yours’ scenario, with a succession of speakers trying to outdo each other with the latest presentation software.

It is also intellectually suspect, because it often reduces complex ideas to meaningless bullet points. PowerPoint is often the equivalent of bad managerial television, encouraging passivity, rote learning and a complete lack of audience participation. To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s speech after the Battle of Britain in 1940, ‘Never have so many people been so bored to death, in so many venues and on so many occasions, by monotonous talking-heads droning on through dull and/or complex PowerPoint shows.’ The main problem with most PowerPoint presentations is that they are full of words. Words are dull.

138 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

Words are bland. Words have no intrinsic meaning or value. If you then read your slides, word for word and directly from the screen, you will also lose all emotional impact with your audience. For example:

Really, really dull and wordy slide, no. 253

‘There can be problems if you simply repeat to your audience what is on this slide. If you do this, they may not be sure if they should be listening to you or reading what is on the slide. They will realize immediately that this is exactly what you are saying anyway. They’ll also be thinking that you think they are complete morons because you are reading something out loud to them that they can read just as well as you. And, because they can read this lengthy slide much faster than you can read it out to them, they will have read the whole thing long before you get to the end of it. So, far from enhancing presentations or emphasizing a point, this method is simply irritating.

So avoid being a monotone parrot . . . and if your audience then decide to write all this stuff down, you will have to hang about for two or three minutes while they do this.’

Effective public speaking does not need PowerBore used in this fashion. This may be why Sun Microsystems chief Scott McNealy has banned its use and, allegedly, even Bill Gates has banned his employees from using it on occasions (Holland, 2001). By all means use PowerPoint or OH slides. They can be useful, particularly in large auditoriums. But, the KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) principle applies here. Try to use a maximum of six or seven bits of information on each slide and try to use catchy or weird bullet point titles to get people’s attention. For example, here are two slides conveying the same messages.

Crazy Ways for Crazy Days

The Boss-Test

Making Pancakes

Small Is Beautiful (But Big Can Be Bountiful)

Learning – Innovating – Changing

All The World’s A Stage . . .

What If We . . .?

COMMUNICATION AT WORK 139

The challenges facing organizations in the 21st century

Leaders must move from a command and control style of management to one that encourages coaching, mentoring, employee empowerment and self-learning

Organizations must become less bureaucratic and hierarchical, and create flatter cultures that are more responsive both to the external environment and to internal processes

Organizations must create a balance between large-scale strategic processes and the need to respond quickly to local and regional customer needs

Organizations have to promote change, innovation, perpetual learning, knowledge management and the more effective use of intellectual capital in order to remain competitive

Organizations must embrace global strategic ‘mind-sets’ if they are going to cope with the internationalization of trade and commerce in the 21st century

Organizations must develop new competencies that enable them to adapt quickly to changes in the environment, such as ‘mental modeling’, ‘scenario-mapping’ and ‘future-casting’

Which one do you prefer? The second slide reminds us of the wise old saying, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words, but a picture of a thousand words ain’t worth much.’

What can be used instead of words? What about cartoons, pictures, short film-clips, press cuttings with shocking and funny titles, or simple diagrams? As we saw earlier, our visual faculties are the first to respond to information from the environment. In order to target ‘Area 17’ of the brain we have to use visual imagery, so pictures can be powerful communication devices. Perhaps also consider other aids that you can use to involve the audience. For example, how could you use food, chocolates, audio-tapes and videos, role-plays, pair work, group work, pyramid work, group quizzes, juggling balls and fancy dress in your presentations in the future? Whatever you do decide to use to pep up your talk, don’t overuse these, because YOU are by far the most important audio-visual aid that you will ever be able to use. Your delivery and actions will always speak more loudly than slick PowerPoint presentations or any number of fancy gizmos.1