If you stand in front of your audiences and drone on about whatever it is you do, you're in good company.
The "sage onstage" model in education is as old as universities, which got going around 1050, and this approach has generally been in use as long one person thought he knew more than another one and got up to try to prove it.
So that would take in some of your old guys like, say, Aristotle.
However, it's not always the best way. Biologist Scott Freeman of the University of Washington, Seattle, analyzed 225 studies of undergraduate STEM teaching methods.
The meta-analysis concluded that teaching approaches that turned students into active participants rather than passive listeners reduced failure rates and boosted scores on exams by almost one-half a standard deviation.
“The change in the failure rates is whopping,” Freeman says. And the
exam improvement -- about 6% -- could, for example, “bump a student’s grades
from a B– to a B.”
I don't see why this wouldn't apply to a business environment.
Although there is no single definition of active learning approaches, they include asking students to answer questions by using handheld clickers, calling on individuals or groups randomly, or having students clarify concepts to each other and reach a consensus on an issue.
Freeman says he’s started using such techniques even in large classes. “My introductory biology course has gotten up to 700 students,” he says. “For the ultimate class session -- I don’t say lecture -- I’m showing PowerPoint slides, but everything is a question and I use clickers and random calling."
Think your boss invented long, boring speeches? Consider the story of Eutychus, as related in the New Testament book of Acts.
On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!” Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.
Oh dear. Even the great preacher Paul managed to lose them. Let this be a cautionary tale.
This information comes from a blog, St. Eutychus, authored by Nathan Campbell, who is studying for the ministry in Australia.
I’ve decided to canonise Eutychus and make him the patron saint of both my dalliances around the Internet, and clear and non-boring communication. Look. I don’t think Paul was boring – quite the reverse. But the story is funny, and it’s funny that Eutychus will forever be remembered as the guy who fell asleep while arguably the second most influential preacher of all time was speaking.
Campbell used to be in public relations. Now he's in the ministry. I will let you take what meaning you need to from that.
I once attended a casual cookout to celebrate a gentleman's extraordinary achievement. He was invited to say a few words.
I was standing near the back of the small crowd. As the chicken grew cold and the ice cream melted, a friend wandered next to me and whispered, "Are we up to the Civil War yet?"
If you are ever called on to say a few words, please don't tell your life story.
Bill Murphy Jr., a journalist and author in Washington DC, offers some worthwhile advice for these occasions:
1. Strip it down. There's an unfortunate temptation in a short speech to try to cram everything you have to say into a short time. Instead of trying to make the time fit the speech, however, recognize that you have to make your remarks fit the time allotted. If you've got five minutes to talk, you shouldn't have more than three main points.
2. Plan and rehearse. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that short remarks require less preparation. In fact, giving a good short speech can be harder than giving a long one.
3. Cut yourself off. In the history of the entire world, I don't think anyone has ever said, "I wish that speech had been longer." So keep track of time, and by all means don't ramble. If you've run out of time to make a major point, either work it into the questions people have for you afterward, or send a follow-up note to the members of the audience.
4. Use milestones. For a five minute speech, you want to organize in roughly one-minute intervals, and you want to offer milestones to the audience at the top of each minute. You get one minute for your introduction, during which you explain what you plan to say. Then you get 60 seconds each for your three main points. That last 60 seconds can be used either for a short conclusion, or as a buffer in case you run long.
Think how much you appreciate speakers who respect your time. If you suddenly find yourself arriving at the Civil War, shut up and sit down.
As a courtesy to you, I condensed Murphy's piece. Read it all here.
I used to do a good bit of after dinner speaking to advertisers in the magazine where I was an editor. My practice was to show up at the site a full hour before the dinner was to begin.
You just never know.
Once I arrive at this outdoor restaurant on the beach on one of the islands. The tables where the audience would sit were on one side. Off on the other side, behind some potted palms, was the podium.
"You'll have to move it over here," I said, wondering why I would even have to say it.
"But the microphone won't reach," the person in charge said.
"In one hour it will reach," I said.
This is one of the rules Jacquelyn Smith advises in Business Insider.
Check out the meeting room and audiovisual set-up. As the speaker, be sure you know the environment, including the seating arrangement, presentation electronics, microphone, and lighting. Get to the room early and ensure you're comfortable with the set-up.
I don't know how many times I've shown up to hear a presentation only to watch the presenter struggle with his projector or laptop or microphone or notes. Can't these people show up a few minutes early to see if it all works. Really, people.
Here are few suggestions.
Use the restroom.
Meet and greet the audience before you speak.
Take several deep belly breaths.
Practice the first minute in your mind.
Before you start, stand at the podium. Look at the audience. Let them see you. Get used to what it feels like. And make sure the podium is where it should be. Sheesh.
Since the celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday in January, I have been thinking about his talent as a speaker, particularly the power he brought to his revered "I have a dream" speech in Washington.
I've learned a few things.
First, the "I have a dream" sequence was improvised on the spur of the moment. What happened was that he he was several minutes into mostly reading his prepared text when the singer Mahalia Jackson, sitting nearby, said out loud to him: "Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream."
So on the spot he began to extemporize on the dream theme, which he'd used before. This shows an extraordinary ability to tune into his audience -- not just hearing Mahalia Jackson, but sensing the mood of the massive crowd.
He used the phrase "I have a dream" eight times to begin sentences. That's an example of anaphora, "the intended use of repetition that is applied to secure emphasis, to heighten the style, intensity, distinctness, or charm."
(In contrast, an epistrophe(or epiphora) is repeating words at the clauses' ends. The combination of anaphora and epistrophe results in symploce, a figure of speech
in which a word or phrase is used successively at the beginning of two
or more clauses or sentences and another word or phrase with a similar
wording is used successively at the end of them.)
Anyone can use this device in speaking or writing, of course. It is indeed powerful, but so is dynamite. Better not play with it if you're not completely sure of what you're doing.
From the mouth of someone lacking King's skill, it can blow up in a face.
Another thing I learned: King was the 16th of 18 speakers that day! Huh? How many of the others do you remember?
Yeah, like that other guy who spoke at Gettysburg.
Extended metaphor is, for me, the most important rhetorical device. This figure is at the heart of some of Lincoln’s greatest speeches and Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Persistent metaphors pump life blood into the Bible, into Jesus’ parables and Psalms.
Romm details its use in Lincoln's famous address.
The speech is only 270 words long -- almost precisely the same length as the “To be or not to be speech.” Lincoln makes it unforgettable using an extended metaphor of birth, death, and resurrection to increase the coherence and impact of his brief remarks.
Lincoln delivers a variety of references to birth from the very beginning, “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” He says the civil war is testing whether “any nation so conceived … can long endure.”
Lincoln then moves on to images and words of death, as befits the horrific battlefield in front of him, with phrases such as “a final resting place for those who here gave their lives” and “the brave men, living and dead” and “these honored dead” and “these dead.”
He finally returns to the original metaphor of birth, but with a twist: We must resolve that “this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
Birth, death, rebirth and immortality (“shall not perish”) -- in a place that we will make sacred (“hallow” and “consecrate” and the key repeated word, “dedicate”) -- is a stunning extended metaphor that turns into an biblical allusion of hope for transcendence even during the worst suffering, with the Battle of Gettysburg becoming a symbolic national crucifixion.
No wonder Winston Churchill termed Lincoln’s speech “the ultimate expression of the majesty of Shakespeare’s language.”
Churchill should know -- he, too, was a master of the language. A study of the art of persuasion might very well begin with these two leaders.
Think of your talk as a story that will take your listeners from one place to another, from where they are now in relation to your topic to where you want them to be.
Every story has a beginning and end, and the storyteller gets to choose them. There's more to that than you think. When I was a magazine editor we let our writers just type away and have a good time. When they turned in the manuscript, we would have to find the true beginning. Usually the writer had to get a lot off his chest before getting to the real story.
I once worked in the New Orleans bureau of The Associated Press. The joke there was that when we were picking up a local newspaper story for distribution on our wires, we'd immediately go the seventh graf to find the real lead.
So don't assume that, for instance, your personal story begins when you were born. Of course it does, but not when you're telling someone else. It must begin at a point that will immediately engage your audience. Your story will end when you die, but that's for you and not your audience, so you also have to decide where to stop.
Chris Anderson, a former journalist, is the curator of the TED Conference, which features the world's most important speakers. Anderson advises this:
If you frame the talk as a journey, the biggest decisions are figuring out where to start and where to end. To find the right place to start, consider what people in the audience already know about your subject—and how much they care about it. If you assume they have more knowledge or interest than they do, or if you start using jargon or get too technical, you’ll lose them. The most engaging speakers do a superb job of very quickly introducing the topic, explaining why they care so deeply about it, and convincing the audience members that they should, too.
Many of the best talks have a narrative structure that loosely follows a detective story. The speaker starts out by presenting a problem and then describes the search for a solution. There’s an “aha” moment, and the audience’s perspective shifts in a meaningful way.
If a talk fails, it’s almost always because the speaker didn’t frame it correctly, misjudged the audience’s level of interest, or neglected to tell a story. Even if the topic is important, random pontification without narrative is always deeply unsatisfying. There’s no progression, and you don’t feel that you’re learning.
Ah, the aha! moment. That's where you pause for effect and end it. Why step on the punch line? You're done your job. Get outta Dodge.
From Wikipedia: The Eureka effect, also known as the aha! effect, refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. Unfortunately, the writer of the Wikipedia entry says that, "It is difficult to predict under what circumstances one can predict an Aha! moment."
You could study your audience's faces, I suppose. You might learn over time as you hone your presentation. Often a powerful anecdote illustrating your thesis can be used to generate the epiphany you desire. Achieving this, of course, forces you to understand the one thing you want to convey in your speech. Knowing that will help you know where to start and where to end.
How many speeches do you remember? Why do you remember them?
You pretty much know the ones you won't remember, even as they're happening, and that's most of them.
Nancy Duarte, who advises executives in making presentations and has written about the subject extensively, explains why some presentations might as well never be given:
1. Failing to engage emotionally. You risk losing your audience when you just "state the facts," even in a business setting. No presentation should be devoid of emotion, no matter how cerebral the topic or the audience. Speak to people's hearts as well as their minds. Look for ways to add emotional texture to your exhibits, data, proofs, logical arguments, and other analytical content. Try opening with a story your audience can relate to, for example, or including analogies that make your data more meaningful.
To unearth the emotional appeal of your ideas, ask yourself a series of "why" questions. If you're requesting funding to pay for cloud storage, for instance, start by asking, "Why do we need cloud storage?" Your answer may be something like "to facilitate data sharing with colleagues in remote locations." Then ask why you need to accomplish that — and you'll eventually get to the human beings who will be affected by your ideas. Suppose your answer is "to help remote colleagues coordinate disaster relief efforts and save lives." That's your emotional hook. Once you've found it, it's easier to choose words and images that elicit empathy and support.
2. Asking too much of your slides. PowerPoint can be a great tool. But know what you're trying to accomplish with it. Do only that, nothing more. Problems crop up when you place too many elements in a slide deck. If you cram in all the points you're going to cover so you won't forget anything, you'll end up projecting entire documents when you speak.
No one wants to attend a plodding read-along. It's boring, and people can read more efficiently on their own, anyway. So don't try to spell everything out bullet by exhausting bullet. Keep your teleprompter text hidden from the audience's view, in the "notes" field, and project only visuals that reinforce your ideas. And if you need to circulate documents afterward? Create handouts from all that text you've pulled off your slides and moved into "notes."
I would add that nearly everyone in the audience will be reading your clever slide and not listening to you. Some will be ahead of you, some behind. They certainly won't be looking at you, so you're free to pick your nose.
When I worked at IBM I was once in the audience when speaker after speaker got up. Many of them used IBM's version of Power Point, and the graphics in their slides were identical -- so much so that people began to laugh.
How effective were the speakers? I don't remember what that day was about. I don't remember any of the presentations, except the repeating graphics. All I remember was the music they played during the breaks. It was similar to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, which is what the DJ told me to buy. I've been a fan ever since. So it was a successful day for me.
I've given a lot of presentations in my time. Mostly they were stand up comedy that gradually morphed into a serious message. If I'm ever called on again, I'm going to invite Big Bad Voodoo Daddy along. I'll be remembered forever.
You have to make a presentation to senior executives, or you have to prepare one for your boss. How do you think about it?
Nancy Duarte teaches this and has written several books about it. Here's what she suggests.
Senior executives are one of the toughest crowds you'll face as a presenter. They're incredibly impatient because their schedules are jam-packed. So they won't sit still for a long presentation with a big reveal at the end. They'll just interrupt you before you finish your shtick. So quickly and clearly present information that's important to them, ask for questions, and then be done. If your spiel is short and insightful, you'll get their ear again.
Summarize up front: Say you're given 30 minutes to present. When creating your intro, pretend your whole slot got cut to 5 minutes. This will force you to lead with all the information your audience really cares about — high-level findings, conclusions, recommendations, a call to action. State those points clearly and succinctly right at the start, and then move on to supporting data, subtleties, and material that's peripherally relevant.
Set expectations: Let the audience know you'll spend the first few minutes presenting your summary and the rest of the time on discussion. Even the most impatient executives will be more likely to let you get through your main points uninterrupted if they know they'll soon get to ask questions.
Create summary slides: When making your slide deck, place a short overview of key points at the front; the rest of your slides should serve as an appendix. Follow the 10% rule: If your appendix is 50 slides, create 5 summary slides, and so on. After you present the summary, let the group drive the conversation, and refer to appendix slides as relevant questions and comments come up. Often, executives will want to go deeper into certain points that will aid in their decision making. If they do, quickly pull up the slides that speak to those points.
Give them what they asked for: If you were invited to give an update about the flooding of your company's manufacturing plant in Indonesia, do so before covering anything else. This time-pressed group of senior managers invited you to speak because they felt you could supply a missing piece of information. So answer that specific request directly and quickly.
Rehearse: Before presenting, run your talk and your slides by a colleague who will serve as an honest coach. Try to find someone who's had success getting ideas adopted at the executive level. Ask for pointed feedback: Is your message coming through clearly and quickly? Do your summary slides boil everything down into skimmable key insights? Are you missing anything your audience is likely to expect?
My experience in presenting to boards and senior execs confirms Duarte's opinion. Think of these people as the Supreme Court. They're going to control your time. The best-laid plans ...
