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Presentation skill #65: Getting attention for the right reasons

SimsBeth — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:00:14 +0000

Last September, the malevolent toadstool you see in the picture on the left thrust its slimy head out of the familiar soil of my front yard. It got my attention.

I have rarely had mushrooms in my garden, and never a toadstool with an orange stem and a phallic tip topped by a red pimple on its nosecone.

I remain horrified by the sight of it, and worried about the malicious conspiracy transpiring under ground. What other alien life form is going to come out of the earth under the hydrangeas?

Sharon and I washed our hands after we touched it, but half an hour later, we still had to scratch an alarming epidemic of itches that popped up in unmentionable anatomical places.

An otherwise routine Saturday morning was made famous by this unexpected visitor. We will talk about it for years…but for all the wrong reasons.

Some people bring toadstools into their presentations and get attention for all the wrong reasons. They tell jokes that fall flat. They wear clothes that make them look cheesy. They talk about themselves too much. They show off, pontificate, grandstand, ham it up. They go over the time limit. They scratch in the wrong places. They mispronounce key technical or industry terms that they should know. Or they use their own technical language despite the fact that the audience doesn’t know it.

It’s good to be memorable, but only for the right reasons. Not for being outrageous, or shocking, or sensational. Rather, be memorable for your expertise, warmth, and relevance.

Don’t bring toadstools into your talk to get attention. You will quickly wear out your welcome.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

How science presentations should work, but don’t

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:21:02 +0000

In the idyllic vision of the uninitiated, a scientific presentation tells a story, starting with a clear description of a problem, then outlining a series of steps taken to address that problem, and ending with a special reward: a glistening kernel of new knowledge.

The speaker tells the story using a vocabulary accessible to anyone with a similar breadth, though not necessarily depth, of scientific knowledge so that all in attendance can bask in the final, glorious revelation.

This is an attractive fiction. The ugly truth is that few scientists take the time to describe the situation from which the project emerges, or the particular social or technical problem that remains to be solved, and the consequences of that problem remaining unsolved.

Because of this, many scientific presentations lack drama, and drama is, after all, one of the main reasons why we gather together.

The talks lack drama because they begin with something procedural, e.g., “I am going to talk a little bit about the following nine things.” Or they begin with the protocol, the study design, or the objectives of the study.

This approach is traditional and widely accepted, even expected. Unfortunately, it gives science a bad name, and turns the average person comatose. All drama is about the solution of problems, and to forget this fact, especially in science, is a terrible injury to the most important endeavor of the modern era.

Finally, to grasp what most scientists are speaking about, one must learn a new language. Few speakers that I have heard cease speaking their own language when addressing those who are not familiar with it. There are multiple reasons for this, some of them quite understandable, but again, the habit of doing so harms the enterprise.

I am a communications consultant. I learned a long time ago, and I have to learn it over and over again, that if we want to be heard, understood, and remembered, we must speak to our audience in the language of the audience about what the audience cares about.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact. Sign up for our presentation tips and learn more about us at http://www.simswyeth.com/.

Storyboarding your presentation

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:39:11 +0000

I recently came across Lillipip, a company that creates animated videos about your product, service, or concept. Check them out.

They have a simple storyboarding template of four blank squares. In the first, you draw or paste a picture of your client in pain, along with the exclamation that’s coming out of your customer’s mouth. Nice and simple.

Then, you draw or paste a picture of the visual metaphor for your product, service, or concept. For example, a health club might visualize itself as being able to turn a couch potato into an Adonis.

In the third panel, you draw or paste a picture of your client– happy after you’ve removed the pain. Again, you also draw the exclamation that comes out of the client’s mouth.

Finally, in the fourth panel, you draw or paste a picture of you, your logo, or your product, and write one thing you want the client to do or remember.

This is good stuff for presenters too. It helps us think visually. It keeps our presentations focused on our listeners’ problems, and forces us to present solutions. It makes us think about emotions in addition to information. It encourages us to use metaphor, which is the ability to link what is new to something familiar. And finally, it demands that we have a call to action at the end of our presentation.

Plus, it helps those of us who are word people speak the language of picture people, which gives us stereophonic input into the brains of both tribes.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Counting the words that count in high stakes presentations

admin — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:13:21 +0000

Harvard and Google got married (NY Times article, Fri Dec 17) and have given birth to a database containing all the words in all the books published between 1500 and 2008 in English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese and Russian.

You—yes you—can find this database on line and search for a single word or particular phrase up to five words long and track its birth, life, decline, ascent or long-term flat-line existence. You will see, in graphic terms, how frequently your word or phrase appears from year to year.

This is very cool for language historians: they will be able to track the evolution of words and phrases. The question is what will the rest of us use it for?

We can use it to recognize this truth: key words repeated throughout a speech or presentation will live a long life in the minds of our listeners, and as a result, can have considerable influence over them.

For instance, if you use words such as “slow,” “patient,”, and “easy” when speaking to a group, and then ask them to go stand on a line to wait for something, they are more likely to wait placidly and politely than another group that did not hear those words spoken prior to waiting.

Speech has power to change behavior. Using a word repeatedly has power too. Choose your key words strategically and speak them often to create the behaviors you’re looking for.

Ideas for better Investigator Meetings

admin — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:21:26 +0000

You may be aware that I’ve been going to investigator meetings and finding them kind of out-of-date.

We’ve got to get away from what’s easy for the sponsor, and instead move toward what is effective for the investigators and their associates.

What is easy for the sponsor is to have the usual cast of characters give PowerPoint presentations—all day, if need be.

What is effective for investigators and their associates is engagement with the information being presented.

When adults engage with new information, they assimilate it more easily into their already crowded store house of information.

Engagement with the information includes, but is not limited to:

- Spot quizzes

- Small group problem solving

- Case studies

- Competitive games for small groups or teams

- Live enactments with faux-patients and product

- Small group role plays in which investigators and associates play themselves, the patient, and individuals from the sponsor company who will be interacting with them during the course of the study.

- Hands-on experience with data systems

- Social time with sponsor personnel

Not only would investigators and their associates retain more of the information. They would enjoy the experience, and that enjoyment would attach to their perception of the sponsoring organization.

A win-win, right?

What’s the point you’re trying to prove?

admin — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:01:32 +0000

Right now I’m sitting in the back of a hotel meeting room near Washington, DC, where two dozen physicians are rehearsing for a presentation to the regulatory authorities. They are debating what point they are trying to prove.

The question has to do with the use of a certain methodology to measure, in clinical trials, the efficacy of a class of drugs.

There is no agreement amongst those currently engaged in the discussion as to what the point is. Does the proposed methodology relate to clinical outcomes? Will it yield usable data? Should it be used only in high risk patients? Should it be mentioned in the label?

These people have been working on this issue for months, and yet here they are, not quite clear on what point they are arguing.

Because the key point in this situation is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to explain, they are instead discussing the relative value of certain pieces of evidence.

Evidence of what they are not sure, but they have evidence, so they are determined to use it. And maybe the debate will lead them to what they can and cannot claim.

It is interesting to consider whether, in situations like this, we determine our point by wrestling with our evidence and beating it into a clear point, or whether we decide what point we think we want to make and then test it against the evidence we have in our possession.

It seems to be me that rehearsal, or debate, is the forum in which we test our hypotheses against our evidence. It is the trial by fire, the stress test, by which we learn if we ourselves, and others, hear the ring of truth in our talk. If we have trouble making our evidence support our point, we must change our point, not our evidence.

Although if we want, and if we have time, we can look for more evidence to support our point, except in this case—in this room, at this moment—we don’t have time, and we’re still trying to agree on the claim that we want to make.

I think the key point is buried in our pile of data, like a needle in a haystack, and while we can see it glistening through the stalks, we can’t quite reach it with our mental tweezers, or find the right words that would pull it, like a magnet, out of the confusion.

Presenting for Results^SM Update:

We have scheduled our 2nd public seminar called Presenting for Results^SM.If you are so inclined, please join us on Nov 18 & 19, 2010, at the Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, NJ, which is on Rte. 3 East, just east of the Garden State Parkway. The program is fun, eye-opening, highly experiential and beneficial to your confidence and career, and thus good for your company as well. Or let somebody who could benefit know about the program. There is very limited enrollment to keep it practical and interactive. Click here to learn more.

Presenting for Results is Reborn

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:55:36 +0000

I am excited about the rebranding of our public program, an executive education experience called Presenting for Results^SM.

This is not like other executive education programs. It is creative rather than analytical. It calls on the imagination more than the intellect. It asks that you work from the neck down as well as from the neck up. It demands presence more than subject matter expertise. And it attempts to get you to care more about audience outcomes than you do about how you look.

Presenting for Results^SM is designed to serve our client base in New Jersey and the larger metropolitan area, where so many large organizations must attract and retain executive talent. Talent is considered the scarcest commodity in business, and perhaps the key differentiator.

While I agree with the premise, (that talent is important), I think the statement is missing a qualifier. It would be more accurate to say that “developed talent is the scarcest commodity.” Everyone has talent lying dormant in the cells of their body. It requires effort to wake it up and get it in shape.

Presenting for Results^SM is designed to develop the most valuable talent that a person or a business can have—the ability to communicate well. Most of our careers depend largely on how we speak, write, and think, in that order. But nobody knows or cares what we think until we speak or write, and these days, no one has time to read. (Geez, why am I writing this?)

So speaking is crucial to those of us who aspire to leadership and influence. And speaking not so much about information that we’ve mastered, because information can be gotten in any number of ways, but speaking in order to make people feel something.

Feelings create actions, and that’s what good speaking is about, and what Presenting for Results^SM is about too.

To register, or to download the brochure, go to http://www.simswyeth.com/services/pfr/ And if you know people who could benefit from an invigorating educational experience, would you please forward them this post?

The New is hard

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:21:38 +0000

On the first day of a workshop, an accomplished client delivered an effective presentation with verve and style. On the second day, I asked him to reorganize his talk to make it more customer-centric, a challenge he embraced with enthusiasm. However, when he delivered it, he was tentative and less effective. Why?

The simple answer is that the new is hard. Learning to play a musical instrument is hard, as is hitting a golf ball, or hitting a golf ball with a new grip, or getting used to being alone when you’ve been accustomed to being with people, or being with people when you’ve been flying solo for a while.

This is odd when you consider all the recent neuroscience demonstrating the plasticity of the brain. The research suggests that our gray matter can rearrange itself quite readily. Patients with damaged areas of the brain can, in some cases, recover lost abilities because another part of the brain steps in to lend a hand.

I assume the brain responds to demands placed on it. Maybe not right away. You have to keep knocking on the brain’s door before it will wake up and pay attention. But when it does, it gets busy figuring out how to meet your request, and puts together the infrastructure that will allow you to do what you’re trying to do.

The same is true of muscles. You put consistent demands on them, and they get stronger, more efficient. It’s not easy, but if you push yourself through your own resistance, they respond to the challenge.

I had to leave my client while he was still in a state of uncertainty, frustration, and diminished capacity. He was calling on other parts of his brain, and it wasn’t leaping out of bed and rushing to his rescue. He was in pain.

Here’s the $64,000 question: will he continue to try the new approach to his presentation, which I am certain will raise the level of his game? Or will he give up, and drop back to his default operating system?

The new is hard. If he’s like most of us, he will take the path of least resistance and stick with the tried and true. If he’s got an engine in him, he will drive himself into his pain and frustration, and come out on the other side with a sense of self-mastery and a new skill. He will have made the new familiar, and with the awareness that he is able to persist, he will continue to grow.

At least that’s my hope. I’m going to send him this post to light a fire in him.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Fierce Conversations

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:32:21 +0000

I read the following in The Alternative Board’s newsletter today and want to pass this on to presenters and persuasive speakers.

What conversations are you avoiding? Maybe it’s with a good friend you don’t want to hurt. Maybe it’s with a difficult person and you are concerned about their response. Or maybe it’s with a family member in your business.

Susan Scott, the author of the book “Fierce Conversations,” tells us that people want to hear the truth, even if it is unpalatable. There is something within us that responds deeply to people who level with us.

The Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations:

Interrogate reality: Get everything out in the open. Identify the issue, check for understanding and agreement.
Make it real: What are you pretending not to know? Authenticity is not something you have; it is something you choose.
Be in the moment: Simply paying attention to someone, really asking, really listening can evoke a wholehearted response.
Tackle your toughest challenge today: Go directly to the source and confront the person, one-to-one, privately.
Find a way to say the things that can’t be said: Bring some of your private thoughts into the conversation without labeling them as truth, only conjecture to be explored together.
Take responsibility for your emotional wake: Deliver your message without the emotional load – blaming, sarcasm, exaggerating, labeling. Leave every conversation with the other person feeling better than before.
Use silence: Fierce conversations require silence. Ask a question that expands possibilities, then, wait.

The Three Steps in a Fierce Conversation

Make a clear, concise opening statement: Name the issue; give examples; describe your emotions; clarify what’s at stake; identify your own contribution to the problem; indicate clearly your wish to resolve the issue; invite the other person to respond.

Inquire into the other person’s view: Really try to understand their perspective, but don’t be satisfied with defensiveness or surface explanations. Ask for more, saying “I see things quite differently.”

Resolution: What have we learned? Where are we now? Make an agreement and determine how you will hold each other accountable.

What fierce conversations are you avoiding? Or what fierce presentation are you avoiding?

Maybe it’s time for a fierce conversation. Maybe it’s time for a fierce presentation! Thank you Susan.

Scientific research on communication

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:41:51 +0000

I was steered to a web video the other day by an e-mail from a friend, and found myself in a garden of presentation skills coaches (also on video), many of whom quoted research done by Dr. Albert Mehrabian of Stanford University.

You may be familiar with the data, which suggests that voice and body language carry much of the message spoken by a presenter, while the actual words used carry much less meaning.

I have spoken to Dr. Mehrabian, who is now retired and dealing in antique musical instruments. He is powerless to do anything about this misunderstanding of the findings of his research.

As a professor at Stanford, his research investigated how human beings communicate emotion. His data do not suggest that the fine distinctions needed for strategic plans, legal arguments or scientific presentations are communicated predominately by voice tone and body language.

His data do suggest that humans communicate emotion primarily through tone of voice and body language, which confirms intuition and/or common sense. They do not suggest that the entire meaning of your careful and thoroughly prepared presentation is carried by your voice and body.

How you feel about your content is important, but it’s not the whole story. Of course your delivery is important, but it is in service to ideas made of words that delivery earns its value.

Your speechwriter: How to get the most out of him

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:18:53 +0000

A good speech has a voice. It sounds like an individual—specifically, the individual who is delivering the speech. It should not sound like the speechwriter.

And yet us speechwriters are often given only a brief time with the speaker to determine what she wants to say. From that brief meeting, we are expected to extract the message she wants to impart, and the sound, tone, texture, and rhythm of her verbal personality.

So, if you are a speaker, and you are working with a speechwriter in New Jersey or New York, (or anywhere else for that matter) how can you maximize the few minutes you have with your speechwriter?

Be prepared for the meeting with the speechwriter. Know the DNA of what you want to say. You can come up with this DNA by imagining that an audience member is considering coming to hear you, and asks, “What’s your speech about?” You’ve got less than 30 seconds to tell her. What do you say? Your answer should be one sentence long, and should contain the benefit that the listener will derive. For instance, President Obama might have said about his speech on race relations, “ My speech urges every American to have the difficult conversations about race so that our country can move beyond the historical divisions that have plagued our nation.”

Next, in order to help your speechwriter (and yourself), figure out the question to which your information is the answer. At the heart of what you will say is the information that you have mastered and your own interpretation of its meaning. But you can’t just dump the info on your listeners. You’ve got to figure out what emotional concern drives their interest in your topic. What question would the audience have to have in mind in order to make that information a fascinating, provocative question? Believe it or not, you have to spend about a third of your speech asking the question—even more if they are not that familiar with the topic or the issues. For instance, when trying to raise new rounds of venture capital, a biotech president might have to answer the question, “Why do we have to spend millions of dollars creating a new formulation for the molecule when it already demonstrates efficacy in its current formulation?”

Finally, give your speechwriter plenty of time to ask questions. Encourage him/her to get to know you. Take her out to lunch. Have a glass of wine with him. He or she needs to soak up who you are, what you care about, how you think, what you like and dislike, and your personal verbal style.

Only by inviting your speechwriter into your inner circle will you get what you want and need—a speech that captures not only what you want to say, but how you want to say it.

Facts Make the Speech Writer

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:32:44 +0000

The famed defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, was once asked what the key was to a successful case. People expected him to say a spellbinding closing statement or a good jury selection process or an impressive cross-examination of a crucial witness.

Instead his answer was “investigation”—knowing the facts of your case up and down, forward and backward.

The same holds true for a successful speech or presentation. The key is research: knowing everything about your audience, about the place where the remarks will be delivered, about everything that has led up to the planning of the event, and then tailoring a speech to those facts.

In his new book Speech*Less, Matt Latimer, a presidential speechwriter, tells the story of how he prepared a speech for President Bush to deliver on National Adoption Day.

The first thing I did [as a speech writer] was consider the audience. I pictured the president standing before a large group of adoptive parents and their kids. I thought about the portraits of presidents that people would see just outside the East Room, including a portrait of an adopted son named Gerald R. Ford and another of an adoptive father named Ronald Reagan.

And then I thought of the large pictures of George Washington that would be just to the president’s left as he spoke. George Washington had been an adoptive father too, raising two children who weren’t his by birth. (They were the children of his wife, Martha.)

Searching the internet, I found a letter that Washington wrote to his stepson while he was in college, complaining about his lack of attention to his studies. (I had our researchers verify its existence.) This led to a perfect joke for President Bush. After reading the excerpt to the audience, the president said, “Come to think of it, my dad once said the same thing to me.”

I noted that Thanksgiving was approaching and so many new adoptive parents and children, including those in that room, would have the blessing of celebrating it together as a family for the first time. That thought made people cry. The president teared up. Even Mrs. Bush, who usually stood motionless while the president delivered his speeches, took an interest. She leaned forward and stole glances at the president’s note card, as if to see how this was happening.

When writing a speech, or in working with a speech writer, spend plenty of time thinking about the occasion, the audience, the location, and anything else that might give you an “in” with the audience.

Do plenty of research, on line or in a library. Ask your speech writer to do the same. Knowing the facts makes your speech more original and gives you confidence. And that feeling can make your delivery livelier, and your audience more engaged.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

How to work with a speech writer

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:38:50 +0000

Senator Howard Baker said that he and his speech writers had a great relationship. “They write what they want me to say, and I say what I think.”

They got along just fine.

The remark points to the essential challenge of speech writing: it needs to be done in the voice of the speaker.

This is important because the speaker will be more effective if the text of the speech is aligned, in style and substance, with the way he thinks and talks.

There are great speakers who can read anything from a page or a teleprompter and make it sound like them. President Obama is good at this, as was President Reagan.

In fact, anyone continuously in front of crowds develops a knack for reading text.

But most of us are not up at the lectern every day, and so we need a speech writer who has the ability to collaborate with us—who has a good ear for our speech patterns, and can get our thoughts into the right words.

A collaboration with a speech writer should begin with your thoughts about what you want to say and what you want your audience to think, feel, and do after hearing your speech.

Your speech writer should also explore with you the problem that you are trying to solve for your audience. Audiences like it when your speech is all about how they can solve a problem or capitalize on an opportunity.

Audiences like speeches that are short, humorous, and generously sprinkled with stories. But make sure that the humor is your own, not offensive, and takes a back seat to the point you want to make.

Similarly, the stories in the speech should be your own. A good speech writer should spend time with you talking about your life experience and pull some stories out of your memory. Of course, if your speech writer offers you a story that you can make your own, use it. Just make sure you practice enough so that it feels natural.

For some of us, the chance to speak is rare, and so it leads us to want to say everything. Your speech writer should be firm. You can only say a few things to an audience before they get dazed and confused.

Make sure your speech writer doesn’t use any big words that are undeliverable. Undeliverable is one such word. So is indomitable, which can come out as “indominabubble.”

William Safire, the great speech writer for President Nixon and columnist for the New York Times, was once asked for a synonym for indomitable and gave indefatigable. He was fired on the spot when someone nearby suggested steadfast. Safire says in retrospect that he now sees he was intransigent.

In plain language, your speaking style should never be fancier than you are.

Above all, when you deliver your speech that someone has helped you prepare, you must feel comfortable with it and sound natural. The pleasure of listening to a good speech depends on the connections that can exist between the elements of the occasion.

First, there is the speaker and the speech. They need to connect.

Then, there is the speaker and the audience. The speech should help the speaker create that connection, and not get in the way.

And within the speech, your own thought should connect with the writer’s language deployed to express it.

Finally, the speaker needs to connect with his own feelings, and rehearse enough so he can bring to the occasion, with his voice, gestures, and the vivid words of his speech writer, a full-throated belief in what he is saying.