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Write Tightly and Speak Loosely

by R. L. Howser on December 10, 2011 · 1 comment

Congratulations! You’ve been granted 15 minutes to argue your case. All you need to do now is write and deliver a persuasive presentation.

Fortunately, writing a presentation is easy. All you have to do is think about your subject and write down the words that come to mind, start a new paragraph for each new point and stop when you reach the end of your thoughts.

When you finish typing 15 minutes worth, for most people around 1800-2000 words, you’re done. You’ve reached the level of the average speaker; even surpassed the many that don’t bother to write anything down at all.

Writing a good presentation is harder. You have to first think about what you are trying to achieve and what message you want the audience to remember. You have to build your argument around that message, support your positions with facts, figures and anecdotes and shape a logical flow to the ideas that makes them easy to follow. Then you have to craft an opening that will get the audience’s attention and prepare them to hear and accept that message and an ending that will sum up your argument in a compelling and memorable way and direct the audience to do what you want.

A speaker with a compelling message, a well thought out and supported argument and a clear, logical structure is already so far ahead of the game that it’s tempting to stop there.

But why stop at good? Why not go for great?

Writing a great presentation can be excruciatingly difficult. It’s not about what you add to the speech, at that point, but rather what you take away. It’s the stripping away of every paragraph, every sentence, every word that doesn’t contribute directly to the clear communication of your message.

“Killing your babies”, as it is often called, usually involves deleting all of the parts of your speech you like most; the funny stories, the intriguing statistics and the fascinating digressions that feel like the best-written, most entertaining parts. They are usually the parts that you spent the most time working on too and it hurts to kill them, but it’s absolutely necessary.

In the words of Strunk and White, “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

I would add that a presentation should contain no unnecessary paragraphs, stories, examples, slides or data, either.  Keep going back to the purpose of your presentation for guidance and cut, rewrite and tighten until there is absolutely nothing else you do to make it shorter and have it still make sense.

What’s left should have all the cold, hard beauty of a high performance sports car or jet fighter, engineered for speed, strength and control, and nothing else.

The crisp, clear simplicity of the structure is what makes it easy to remember when you are on stage. It gives you a solid framework to work from should you need to improvise or adjust to circumstances. It gives you a rock solid base to return to, should you get sidetracked.

So if you did your job right, you should go on stage or stand up in the meeting with 10 lean, mean, persuasive minutes of material; not even enough to fill your 15 minute time slot. That’s what you want.

Now there’s no need to rush. You can speak with the measured pace of authority. You can take the time to pause, to let them think about what you are about to say or reflect on what you said. You can field questions from the boss or client. You can digress to explain a fundamental concept.

You can take your time, relax and speak like the confident, competent professional that you are.

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A Natural-Born Star

by R. L. Howser on December 3, 2011 · 0 comments

The last two posts I’ve put up, about speakers that fly by the seat of their pants (Coulda / Woulda / Shoulda) and grinders who memorize every word and gesture (The Uncanny Valley), represent the two extremes of preparing speeches and presentations, but there is a better way that takes the best of the two approaches.

I had a roommate in university, named Rich, who wanted to be a veterinarian. It’s even tougher to get into veterinary school than medical school, so Rich needed to get straight A’s to even have a chance.

When final exams came around in his freshman year, and all of his classmates were grinding away at their studies, Rich announced that he was going to Panama, where his father was stationed with the military. As a dependent of a military officer, he could fly free on military transports. He told everyone who would listen that he planned to take full advantage of that little perk and relax during the week before finals.

His classmates all told him he was crazy, as he blithely packed his bags for a week of swimming, hiking and drinking on the beach. He even got a call from his university faculty advisor warning him that he needed to take his studies more seriously.

When he returned, suntanned and full of stories of wild parties and grand adventures, to everyone’s amazement, he aced all of his tests with some of the highest scores in his class. And thus, the legend of Rich, the natural-born genius, began to spread among both the students and the faculty.

What his classmates and advisor didn’t know, but he later confessed to me, was that he had never gone to Panama. He had driven out of town and spent a week in a cheap motel, studying night and day under a sun-tanning lamp.

Rich was an early believer in personal branding, and the reputation for academic brilliance that he cemented with that little stunt served him very well in the remainder of his time as an undergraduate.

It put him on the radar of the faculty members as an up-and-coming star and ensured that he got the benefit of the doubt in his tests and course work. He became the guy that other students wanted to work with on projects and study with before tests. When it came time to apply for veterinary school, he had no shortage of high-powered personal recommendations in his pocket and he got into the school that was his top choice.

I haven’t heard from Rich since, but I have no doubt he is a successful veterinarian somewhere. He was aware of something that all speakers would be smart to learn; that by preparing hard, you can make it look easy, and when you make it look easy, everyone assumes you are just naturally talented.

By all means, work harder than everyone else. Prepare to the hilt. Be ready for any contingency. Rehearse until you know your material backward and forward.

But when it is time to step up in front of your audience, throw that all out the window. Connect with your audience. Respond to the feedback they are giving you. Use all of that preparation to adjust your course on the fly to better serve their needs and address their concerns.

Make it look easy and natural. Let them think you’re making it up as you go. Let them assume you’re just a natural-born speaking star.

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The Uncanny Valley

by R. L. Howser on November 19, 2011 · 2 comments

Not long after writing my last post, Coulda / Woulda / Shoulda, about poorly prepared speakers, I happened to see a speaker who had taken the exact opposite approach.

This guy was so totally prepared that it hurt to watch him.  Every word, every gesture, every pause was so carefully memorized, so deliberately presented that he reminded me of  the computer animated graphics of human characters that we sometimes see in the latest video games and movies.

There’s an odd effect that occurs in CG animation. While most of us are perfectly willing to suspend disbelief and enjoy the antics of computer generated toys (Toy Story), fish (Finding Nemo) and blue-skinned aliens (Avatar), the  closer the characters get to looking like real humans, the less convincing they become and the creepier they seem.

This phenomenon, known as the “uncanny valley”, is caused by the lack, or the incongruence, of the very subtle cues of voice, expression and gesture that we have come to expect from our fellow humans. We are all exquisitely sensitive to the meaning of even the most nuanced tilt of the head, slant of an eyebrow or the twitch of the lip in another person. The absence, or mismatch, of these very subtle signals, in even the most artfully rendered digitally generated characters, gives them an empty quality that just creeps us out. They look like robots, vacantly mouthing the words coming from their mouths.

The presenter I saw, whose every word and move was so carefully choreographed, failed because he was so focused on doing his presentation perfectly that he lost sight of his audience. He failed engage us as a human being, with all the attendant social signals that we’ve come to expect from our own species.

His presentation was technically excellent – his content was well structured, he clearly knew his subject well and his assertions were very well supported by statistics and anecdotes – but it was an impersonal performance, as wooden as a computer-generated character, rather than a personal conversation.

You may be the on only one speaking, when you are on stage, but you can’t forget that every presentation is still a conversation. If you’re not connecting with your audience, you’re not communicating.

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Coulda / Woulda / Shoulda

by R. L. Howser on October 31, 2011 · 3 comments

“The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by a period of worry and depression.“
-John Preston

I meet a lot of speakers who seem to wear their lack of preparation as a badge of honor. They show up for their presentation at the last moment, with a few notes scribbled on a napkin and a borrowed set of slides, and count on their wit, charm and charisma to carry them through.

Sometimes they manage to pull it off. A shoeshine and a smile will still take you a long way, as will a confident attitude, a deep knowledge of your subject and a quick wit, but an improvised presentation will always fall short of what it could have been.

It’s the coulda / woulda / shouldas that always come back to bite you. You realize during the Q&A that your data is not as up-to-date as it could have been, you would have been more effective if you had customized your PowerPoint file specifically for the client or you should have checked that the data file was compatible with the operating system version of the computer you are using.

There are three simple ways to guard against falling short of your presentation’s potential; preparation, rehearsal and feedback. These are not specialized techniques for advanced speakers. They are the fundamental requirements for getting the most out of the time and attention that your audience gives you.

Pay your audience the respect they deserve. Take the time to make your presentation more than the best you could do on the fly.

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The Sound and the Fury

by R. L. Howser on October 17, 2011 · 1 comment

I’ve addressed this before, but when I teach delivery skills to my clients or students, they sometimes get the impression that I’m saying it’s all just a magic show; that a powerful delivery, full of drama and intrigue, will somehow hypnotize their audience into doing what they’re told. But of course, that’s not true at all.

A dynamic, confident delivery style will grab their attention long enough to get your message across, but it won’t make a poorly thought out, valueless or irrelevant message, or worse the lack of a coherent message, any more compelling. That’s particularly true if you are trying to effect a long-term change of beliefs or values, or build a lasting business relationship. Trying to dazzle the audience into doing something that is against their own interests is simply hucksterism. I’ll leave that to the politicians and the late-night infomercial barkers.

A compelling presentation is about the compelling logic of your message. It’s about offering your audience something of value, something that will benefit their lives or their bottom line. The distillation of that value into a short, simple message that they understand and remember is what determines the success or failure of your presentation.

The mechanics of effective delivery are simply about making sure your message cuts through the noise and confusion, so they will hear it and remember it.

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The Illusion of Communication

by R. L. Howser on September 24, 2011 · 0 comments

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.“
-George Bernard Shaw

As a teacher, I struggle with a very simple problem. All too often, my students don’t seem to hear, understand or remember what I tell them. They are smart kids and good students, but sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter how many times I explain it to them, how simple I try to make it, or how many different ways I present it. It just doesn’t register. I may have said it, but if no learning has taken place, then I can’t really say I taught it.

That’s also the fundamental problem facing all presenters and speakers. We tend to operate under the illusion that a presentation or speech was successful if we clearly and accurately said what we intended to say, but the effect we have on our audience often depends not on how well we said something but on how prepared they were to hear it.

Sometimes, our audience simply doesn’t know enough to understand or appreciate what we are telling them. Sometimes, their own biases, blind spots and preconceptions prevent them from hearing us or distort our message into something completely different from what we intended to convey. Sometimes, they are preoccupied, tired or just in a foul mood. Sometimes, they just don’t like us or what we’re selling, and we’re always selling something when we speak.

It’s not enough, when you speak, to say what you meant to say. You also have to pay attention to your audience and confirm that they heard what you said, understood what it meant and processed its implications.

Only then can you say you successfully communicated.

 

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Of Polar Bears and Penguins

by R. L. Howser on September 14, 2011 · 2 comments

I was leaving Haneda Airport in Tokyo, recently, when I ran across the following sight in the parking garage. This is a panel next to the elevator buttons.

 My first thought, I must admit, upon seeing the animal pictures next to the numbers for each floor was that it was taking the Japanese fondness for cute and cuddly a bit too far.

Yet upon reflection, I realized just how brilliant it was. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has found themselves in a parking garage trying to remember which floor I left my car on. Even worse, at the airport it’s often been several days since I left the car. My brain has probably processed dozens of floor, room, street, telephone and other numbers in that time. I’ve probably thought about a lot more numbers than I have polar bears, penguins or dolphins.

Written numbers are abstract concepts. The concept of using “4” to represent X, X, X and X may seem childishly simple, but as evolutionary advances go, it was a profoundly important development. As far as we can tell from prehistoric art and symbols, we’ve been doing it for less than 100,000 years.

Yet our prehistoric ancestors have had the ability to recognize and remember images, such as what other animals looked like, for millions of years. Their survival depended on it. Those ancient visual memory systems are far more robust and reliable than our rather recent and tenuous grasp of the abstract. That is why you are far more likely to forget someone’s telephone number than you are to forget what they look like.

Parking garage patrons are more likely to confuse 2 with 5 than they are to confuse penguins with dolphins, so to make it easier for them to remember their floor number, the designers gave them a more tangible association.   They just have to remember that they parked on the penguin floor.

As a speaker, you can use this same technique to make your abstract concepts easier to remember.

You can use PowerPoint to associate images with your ideas. If you are selling computer network security, an image of a bank vault door will anchor the concept far better than a dozen bullet points of technical data can.

You can use a prop to make a metaphor concrete. If you are trying to motivate your staff after a bad quarter, a glass half filled with water and placed dramatically on the podium can anchor the metaphor that a glass half empty is also a glass half full, and drive home the point that they need to keep the bad news in perspective.

You can use an action, a sound, an image, an analogy, a story or an acronym to anchor your abstract concepts to something that is easier to understand and remember.

Take a tip from the designer of the elevator panel. Make it easier for your audience to recall what you’ve told them. Give them something tangible to associate with your concepts.

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I Guess It’s Not Just Me

by R. L. Howser on September 5, 2011 · 0 comments

Just hours after I put up my last post, The Narrative and the Message, I ran across this on the blog Crooks and Liars, one of the best and most entertaining political websites on the left side of the national divide.

In the post, Brutal Look At The “Cult Of GOP” By A Former Staffer, the writer, Karoli, has the following to say about the current state of the Democratic party and the Obama administration:

“I do not understand why Democrats can’t master simple messaging. It always has to be nuanced, complicated, and wonky. Things I might understand but would have to boil down into far simpler terms for the average voter. It boggles my mind that Democrats (and this includes the President) cannot get a simple, easy message out there and hammer it home. Republicans seem to have mastered that.”

A simple, easy message doesn’t seem like too much to ask for, especially from the highly paid political “professionals” who advise the President and the Democrats in congress. But I guess I shouldn’t expect too much from a team that can lose an argument over whether to pay our nation’s debts or end the tax cuts for billionaires.

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The Narrative and the Message

by R. L. Howser on September 4, 2011 · 1 comment

“I belong to no organized party. I’m a Democrat.“
-Will Rogers

That distinction has never seemed more apt than it has recently. Personally, I fall somewhere between liberal and libertarian in my political beliefs, I generally hold my nose and vote for Democrats, though I wouldn’t call myself one.

But my own politics aside, on issue after issue in American politics, it seems clear that the Republican / conservative / right-wing / Tea Party leaders understand far better how to communicate their messages to the average American than the Liberal / Democratic / Progressive / Leftist / Kenyan Socialists do.

The genius of the conservative political machine is to simply ignore the facts and build a narrative­­  –  a story  –  that serves their interests and then to sum up that narrative in a single, crisp message statement.

“Global warming is a hoax”. “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”  “Taxes are bad for the economy.” “The free market regulates itself.” “They hate us for our freedom.”  “Patriots support the troops.” “Conservatives have family values.”

Through consistent repetition in multiple media outlets, such statements eventually take on the veneer of common wisdom. The fact that reality has shown all of these to be marginally true, at best, and to the extent that they mean anything at all, often to be blatantly and objectively false, seems not to matter. A consistent narrative with simple, clear message will always be understood and remembered better than complex and confusing facts.

The political left may gnash its teeth and scream, “It’s not true”, but the narrative is what sticks, not the facts. The facts don’t speak for themselves. Until they realize that, the left will continue to get slapped around in the media and the court of public opinion. And that’s just as true for us, when we present.

Let me say that again, THE FACTS DON’T SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

Whether your are discussing the latest political tempest, presenting corporate strategy or selling your products or services, it’s your message that matters, when you speak, not your facts and data. There is a story lurking within the most complex and abstract set of data, and there is a message that will crystallize the meaning of that story for your audience.

That’s what they need to hear. That’s what they’ll remember. That’s what will affect their behavior and attitude. Your job is to find it and present it to them.

 

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Find the Story

by R. L. Howser on August 30, 2011 · 0 comments

The legendary speaker, Bill Gove, had a simple formula for effective speaking, “Tell a story and make a point.” But like most simple formulas, that can be devilishly difficult to do well.

Tossing in a story merely because it’s on roughly the same subject is not what effective speakers do. An ill-fitting story is like a cheap toupee, it does more to distract than to enhance.

Even worse are the old chestnuts that everyone has heard a dozen times before, like the boy throwing the sand dollars back in the ocean “because it makes a difference to that one,” or the guy that “doesn’t have to outrun the bear. He just has to outrun you.”

Effective stories are those that come out of the experiences that first led you to, or continue to remind you of, the point you are trying to make.

In my younger days, I was a white-water river rafting guide. One of the first lessons I learned on the river, and learned the hard way I might add, was that when you find yourself hurtling directly towards a large rock in the river, you have to quickly move your boat to either the left or the right. One might be a better choice than the other, but hesitating and doing neither is the worst choice of all.

If I’m giving a speech, and the point is that in business, or in life, it is usually better to commit decisively to a choice than it is to dither and delay, then the story of how I learned that, and of the cold, nasty, violent swim that followed my hesitation, can serve as a cautionary tale to illustrate the point.

I guarantee that story will make the point a lot more clearly, and stick in the minds of my audience a lot longer, than a logical explanation of the importance of prompt action. And every time they think of the story, they’ll remember the point; when confronted with a problem, make a decision and act on it.

If you believe what you are saying is true and important, then you must have learned it somewhere. Don’t just give them the result; take them through your journey with you. Show them how you learned the critical importance of customer service. Show them how someone first taught you that the first sale has to be to yourself. Show them how you first discovered the three simple rules of successful investing.

Use your stories to illustrate your points, not just to fill out the speech or get a cheap laugh.

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