Tag Archives: business presenting

Technique, Voice

Bad Voice

especially powerful personal competitive advantage
Just “loving your voice” won’t gain you personal competitive advantage . . . certainly not if you have a case of bad voice

On the issue of bad voice, much can be said.  But better than the written word are examples.

Particularly examples of bad voices.

Egregious voices.

Heinous voices.

Voices of persons in the public eye, who really ought to know better.

I encourage people to take control of their voices rather than allowing them to simply unspool by themselves.

Instead of watching the voice grow like a weed in a chaotic and undisciplined way.

Instead of mimicking the ignorant elite.

Voice development is essential for you to improve your business presentation delivery and crucial to gaining personal competitive advantage.

Here, I point out what makes a pleasant communicative voice and what makes for annoying, weak, distracting voices.

A voice that undermines your credibility.

CAVEAT:   Bad Voices . . .

Here I offer two examples from reasonably well-known personages.

Examples of heinous voices that irritate and grind upon the senses.  They offer textbook instruction on what not to do if you are presenting.

The first video features actress Demi Moore, who is afflicted with two glaring voice pathologies that result in an incredibly bad voice.

Her first issue is a verbal grind that sounds as if she needs to clear her throat of something thick and unpleasant.

Her voice gurgles and grinds along.  It sounds grotesque because she does not push enough air across her vocal cords to hold a steady, let alone mellifluous, tone.

Demi also is plagued with the infuriating verbal uptick – sometimes called the moronic interrogative – in which every declarative sentence is formed as a question.  She sounds as though she isn’t sure of anything she’s saying.  She seems to seek validation from you for everything she says.

The grinding and upticking go on interminably . . . truly painful to hear.  It begins at the 60-second mark . . .

 

 

This second example is a young lady by the name of Danica McKellar — an actress, author, and “mathematician.”  She is certainly not a public speaker, given her cartoon voice and her own vocal fry pathology.

She sounds suspiciously like a Disney Channel-trained former kid actor, possessed as she is with the tell-tale end-of-sentence rasp and shrill cartoon words.  Words sourced direct from a pea-sized voice-box.  Result?  Bad voice.

 

 

If you find yourself afflicted with these pathologies, you can correct bad voice with a few minor adjustments.  Push air across your vocal cords, use your chest as a resonating chamber, and stop inflecting your voice up at the end of each sentence.

With just a few changes, you can dramatically improve your presenting voice.

And with those changes, you can begin acquiring personal competitive advantage on the podium.

Case Competitions, Group Presentations, Imagination, Passion

“I never get an interesting topic”

Personal Competitive Advantage
Vintage Whine: “This topic just isn’t interesting.”

“I never get an interesting topic.”

I hear this lament more often that I care to.

No more vintage whine or self-sabotage  exists than this one, uttered in ignorance of its true meaning.

Here are two scenarios.  Both are possible.

You’re assigned your case, and you skim over it.

Ugh.  It’s not “interesting.”

And you find that you must write a memo on the case, analyzing it and teasing out its implications for the strategic direction of the firm, and then you must work with a group of folks you probably don’t hang out, probably don’t know . . . or even like.

You groan as you don’t recognize the company or the people in the case.

Such an “Old” Case

The case isn’t dated last week, so you think it’s “old.”

You complain that you don’t understand why you’re assigned this “boring” case instead of a “modern” case on something hip . . . say, an Apple innovation or a product you heard mentioned in a commercial during the latest Kardashian reality TV offering.

No, you don’t understand why it doesn’t seem to speak to you and your needs.

Now.

This minute.

Roll of the eyes.

“Whatever.”

Especially Powerful
Personal Competitive Advantage does not mean focusing on “me.”

Never pausing.

Never pausing to examine the central factor that your lack of understanding is the problem.

Your framework is so cramped, your context so self-circumscribed, your interests so few that it’s impossible for you to situate the case in its proper place with the tools at your disposal.

You complain that it’s not “relevant” and so you make no attempt to understand its “relevance.”

It’s not an “interesting topic.”

You never get an “interesting topic.”

That’s one scenario of how it goes.

Another scenario is the Embrace.  Opening the heart and mind to the new.

Embrace the Un-interesting Topic

You’re assigned your case, and you skim over it.

And you must write a memo on the case, analyzing it and teasing out its implications for the strategic direction of the firm, and then you must work with a group of folks you don’t know and probably don’t hang out with . . . or even like.

You scratch your chin, metaphorically, and you roll up your sleeves (again, metaphorically) and you ask yourself  questions like these . . .

“What can I learn from this process?  How can I turn this whole process into an experience I can craft stories about to tell in my upcoming job interviews?   How can I take this case, digest it, and make it part of my growing context of business knowledge?”

And as for the inevitable public group presentation, ask yourself:

personal competitive advantage
A classic case and topic that initiates you into the business fold

“How can I work best with these folks in my group to produce a spectacular presentation that will then become part of my resume?

How can I help mask the internal disagreements and personality conflicts so that our audience does not suspect that several of us detest each other?

How can I make this presentation interesting for my audience?”

Remember that there are no inherently interesting topics.  Every topic has potential for generating great interest, if you do your job right.

Because please understand . . . no one cares if the topic interests you.

As a professor, I certainly don’t.

I want to know what you plan to do with the topic and the case.

Your job is to infuse the topic with power and generate interest about it for your audience.  And if you do that, you gain tremendous personal competitive advantage.

Crown Cork and Seal is an example of such a case that many students don’t find “interesting.”  It’s a classic case that almost every MBA student must read and analyze.

The Crown Cork and Seal case is about making and selling tin cans.  And how a firm with resources identical to the other major can manufacturers managed to outperform the industry by a stretch.

That’s a mystery, and a great one to solve.

And it’s an interesting topic . . . if only you embrace the case.

For more “interesting topics” about personal competitive advantage, consult the Complete Guide to Business School Presentations.

Books, Confidence, General, Resources, Review, Technique

I Recommend this Presentations Book

A bit of prelude . . .

Presentations Book
The Best Advanced Presentations Book in the World

I teach at a university business school in Philadelphia and have been coaching student presentations for years.

My own book The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting addresses the needs of this particular niche audience.

I own perhaps the largest vintage public speaking book collection in the United States, outside the library of congress – more than 2,000 volumes, going back to 1762.  I buy presentation books even now, to see if there is, indeed, anything new under the sun.

Most often, I am disappointed.

Until now . . .

Again, I say all of this by way of prelude, because I am not given to exaggeration at all.

Presentation Skills 201

What I say next, I utter with the sincerity born of many years laboring in the vineyards of bad presentations – Mr. Steele’s Presentation Skills 201 is, page for page, the finest book on advanced presenting I have ever read.

Surely the most succinct.

It froths with superb and utterly essential advice on every . . . single . . . page.

Distilled into powerful instructional nodes, Mr. Steele’s book is spot-on again and again.  I thought that I had seen and heard it all, given that I view and judge 300 individual and 75 group presentations each year – but not so.

Mr. Steele’s work is a reminder that there is always “one more thing” that each of us can learn to hone and improve our own presentation skills.

Examples?

On rushing through your presentation:

One of the keys to sounding confident as a presenter is acting like you own the time.  If you were told you have 15 minutes to speak, you want to act like you own those 15 minutes.  Rushing makes you sound anxious to the audience.  It undermines the confident image you want to project.  You risk coming across like a nervous stage performer who expects the hook at any moment.  Limiting your content takes the pressure off.

On making slides:

Presenters routinely assign the lowest priority to their live audience when preparing slides.  They create slides to be their notes.  Slides that are speaker notes can be anemic or crammed with too much content.  Some presenters just need reminder notes, so they create slides with cryptic phrases that mean nothing to the audience.  Others need the slide show equivalent of a script, so their bullet points are complete paragraphs in 10-point type.  Either way, the slides are frustrating to an audience.

On handouts:

If you need a handout, realize that a good slide show is not a good handout – and a good handout is not a good slide show.

Money is Precious

I rarely recommend books in the presentation genre.  This is one of those rare times.

I have found wisdom on every page of Mr. Steele’s tome and it holds an honored place at my right hand.  I plan to reference it often as well as consult Mr. Steele’s website.

I recommend this presentations book to anyone who fancies himself or herself an outstanding presenter.  You can do better, and Presentation Skills 201 is the perfect tonic to take anyone to a higher level of performance.

For specific guidance at the Business School level, consult my own Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.
General, Passion, Principles, Technique

Aristotle, King, Jobs and Persuasive Presentation

The persuasive presentation has a long historyAristotle . . .

Martin Luther King . . .

Steve Jobs . . .

These three quite different men shared a respect for the power of the spoken word.

The power to deliver the persuasive presentation.

To deliver it with power and passion.

What is Rhetoric?

Twenty-three centuries ago, Aristotle gave us the means to deliver especially powerful presentations.  The best speakers know this, either explicitly or instinctively.

We all owe a debt to Aristotle for his powerful treatise on persuasive public speaking Rhetoric.

Rhetoric is the function of discovering the means of persuasion for every case.

These means of persuasion are delivered as a form of art.  Aristotle identified the three necessary elements for powerful and persuasive presentations – the ethos or character of the speaker, the attitude of the audience, and the argument itself.

The persuasive presentationAnd the value of this powerful tool?

Just this . . .

Aristotle identified four great values of rhetoric.

First, rhetoric can prevent the triumph of fraud and injustice.

Second, it can instruct when scientific argument doesn’t work.

Third, it compels us to act out both sides of a case.  When you can argue the opposite point, you are best armed to defeat it.

Finally, it’s a powerful means of defense when your opponent attacks.

As modern college texts wallow in the fever swamp of “communication theory,” Aristotle’s Rhetoric offers us a crystalline tool of power and efficacy – a sure guide to the proper techniques in business presenting.

Modern Persuasive Presentations

Two men as different as Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs understood the power of rhetoric to inspire people to action.

Dr. King for the transformation of society . . . Steve Jobs for the revolutionizing of six different technology industries.

Dr. King used one particular rhetorical technique that has become the touchstone of his legacy – his repetition of the phrase “I have a dream” during his famous 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

This technique is called the anaphora.

It involves the repetition for effect of a key phrase during a presentation.  Dr. King ensured that his Dream would be the emotive catalyst for action.

The anaphora is part of what Aristotle recognized as art in rhetoric and is an advantage that rhetoric has over straight “scientific” expository speech in calling people to action.

Dr. King recognized the emotive power of rhetoric.  It is this power that moves listeners to action when pure logic cannot.  It’s at the heart of the persuasive presentation.

The persuasive presentationA Different Venue

Steve Jobs, too, utilized the technique for a different purpose.

A more mundane purpose – the selling of electronics.

For example:

“As you know, we’ve got the iPod, best music player in the world.  We’ve got the iPod Nanos, brand new models, colors are back.  We’ve got the amazing new iPod Shuffle.”

The anaphora is just one example of an especially powerful rhetorical technique.  It can imbue your business presenting with persuasiveness.

And there’s more . . . so much more available to you.

Business Presentation expert Nancy Duarte provides a comprehensive list of 16 rhetorical devices that Jobs used for his business presentations.  Devices that you can use as well.

When we understand the power of rhetoric and how that power is achieved, it transforms us into more capable and competent business presenters.  And it can yield an especially powerful and persuasive presentation as we build our personal competitive advantage.

Perhaps not as transcendent as Dr. Martin Luther King’s, but certainly especially powerful and persuasive presentations in our own bailiwicks.

For more on the persuasive presentation, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Career, Personal Competitive Advantage, Technique

Bad Presenting . . . the Business Ritual of Pain

Are Bad Presentations necessary?
Break the Painful Business Ritual

Is there some law, somewhere, that dictates that business presentations must constitute a painful business ritual?

Boring.

Barren.

Bereft of Excellence.

Given the number of long, dull, pedantic, repetitious, confusing – bad – presentations I see both inside and outside of the business school, I suspect there must be.

This dullness seeps into the consciousness.  It numbs us, and begins to legitimize itself.  It’s like a business ritual . . . a ritual of pain.

Corporate America seems addicted to this ritual.

And yet a conspiracy of silence surrounds bad business presentations and those who give them.

The Ritual of Pain is Ubiquitous

Bad Business Presentations are everywhere . . . and because they are everywhere, we think that bad business presentations must be legitimate.

They must be the norm.  They must be bad, because that’s just the way it is.

And this bad presentation business ritual perpetuates itself, like some kind of awful oral tradition . . . like a ritual.

You see a bad business presentation that some people praise as good.  It looks like this . . .

Some Vice President from a visiting company stands in front of you hiding behind a lectern.  He reads from slides with  dozens of bullet points taken from a written paper and pasted onto PowerPoint slides.  He alternates looking at a computer screen and turning to look at a projection screen behind him.  He rarely looks at you.

A Wasteland On the Screen

Unreadable spreadsheets appear.

Legions of tiny numbers march in cadence on the screen.

The presenter reads slide-after-slide verbatim, his head turned away from you.

The slides themselves are unintelligible.

It’s a bad presentation, and you can’t remember a damn thing except the three texts you received during the presentation as you checked your iPhone between yawns.

Given this familiar exercise in bad presenting, you could legitimately ask yourself, “Is this all there is?”

If bad business presentations are the norm – if this is the business ritual – you scratch your chin and perhaps you think “That’s not hard at all.”

I can be as bad as the next person.

Just Cobble Together a Bad Business Presentation

Cobble something like that together, and you think you have a business presentation.  And why wouldn’t you think that?

It seems to have all the elements:  A speaker-reader of slides (you), a PowerPoint display on the screen with writing on it, some numbers, and a 10-minute time slot to fill with talk.

Bad Business Presentations are the career kiss of death
Stop giving bad business presentations!

But what you actually have is something awful – just awful.

You don’t know what you want to accomplish . . . or why.

You have no idea what you should say . . . or why.

And you don’t view yourself as benefitting from the process in any way.  Instead, you see it as something painful.  Because it is painful.

The Business Ritual of Pain.

Let’s repeat, so there’s no misunderstanding . . .  just awful.

This business ritual is painful and awful because of the way it’s been explained to you.

Because the explanations are incomplete.  Because you never get the whole story.

Teaching you how to deliver a cogent, competent, powerful business presentation is always someone else’s job.

This can be a problem.

A problem because your career often hinges on how well you can present.  And if you present badly, you needlessly handicap yourself.

I Feel Your Pain

Sure, there are “presentation”courses.  But it seems that the good folks who actually provide you some sort of presenting instruction in school are often disconnected from your business courses.

They teach you “How to give a speech” or “How to introduce yourself.”  But you don’t have the opportunity to engage in a complex group business presentation.

Oftentimes, these folks aren’t even in the business school.  They can’t show you how to incorporate business content into your presentations – tools like the SWOT, value chain analysis, financial analysis, PEST, Competitive Intelligence, and such like.

And on occasion, professors in your business can seem indifferent to this business ritual.

For most of your professors, presenting is secondary.  This makes sense, as each faculty has a specialty or functional discipline he or she is charged with teaching.  Business “Presenting” is no one’s functional discipline, and so it goes un-addressed, orphaned to expediency and neglect.

It is the same in the corporate world.  Your presenting woes are the same woes that scourge the American business landscape.

Boring, dull, numbing . . . all of this is equated wrongly with “serious.” We get the bad business presentation as the standard.

The Business Ritual in Corporate America

I attended a business conference on the west coast not long ago to watch the Business Ritual in all its ignominy.

Monotone voices.

Busy slides with tiny letters.

Listeners shifting in their seats.

Motionless speakers planted behind a lectern.

Aimless and endless talking with seemingly no point.

It seemed that no preparation and no practice had preceded these presentations.

Papers shuffling in the audience, because handouts were given prior to the talk.

This is more common than you might imagine.  Communications consultant Andy Goodman conducted major research on the issue in 2005, surveying more than 2,500 public interest professionals and asking them to evaluate their presentation viewing experiences.

He then codified responses to this business ritual.

The average grade public interest professionals gave to the presentations they attended was C-.  The average grade given to the visuals that respondents observed in presentations they attended was also C-.

When asked to recall presentations they had seen over the last few months, survey respondents said they were more than likely to see a bad business presentation as to see an excellent one.

This is the current state of presentations in corporate America and in business schools.  Is it uniformly bleak?  No, of course not.

Glimmers of Hope . . . Gigantic Opportunity

Generalizations are just that – general in nature.  I have seen a sufficient number of fine presentations to understand that, somewhere, superb instruction holds sway.

Or, at the very least, young people whose early development has trained them for the stage have found their way to the business platform.  Good for them.  But for the most part, it is as I have described here.

And this presents a magnificent opportunity.

Now that you understand the situation and why it exists, it’s time for you to join the ranks of especially powerful presenters.  Becoming a superior presenter means gaining incredible personal competitive advantage that is difficult to imitate.

By investing your presentations with passion, emotion, and enthusiasm, you deliver especially powerful shows with persuasive power.  Presentations that are anything but dull.  So . . .

It’s time to revamp your business ritual.

Time to end the business ritual of pain.

Interested in more on fixing bad business presentations?  Consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Case Competitions, General, Resources

Business Case Competitions Worldwide!

The Business Case Competition builds skills and tests your mettleI often judge presentations in business case competitions, and I never fail to be impressed at the high caliber of students competing.

Versed in the intricacies of wealth-building and savvy in the ways of Wall Street, the next generation of business leaders is well-armed for the competitive battles of tomorrow.

And case competitions are the way to display those skills.

Case Competitions Worldwide

In my last post, I described the crucible of case competitions and how they can lead to increased opportunities in the business world.

If it interests you (and it always interests the best), then review this site that was recently passed to me.  Appropriately enough, it’s called www.studentcompetitions.com, and its motto says:  Compete. Show Your Skills. Get Awarded.

The site features a constantly updated database of student  competitions worldwide.  As of this writing, 334 contests and competitions are listed.

So if you are serious about bringing to bear all of your business acumen in a public demonstration of your abilities to collaborate across a range of sub-disciplines in business, then go now to http://studentcompetitions.com and see what awaits you.

No Time for Modesty or Mediocrity

The Case Competition is your chance to demonstrate a wide range of corporate business skills in a collaborative effort.  You receive recognition, valuable experience, sometimes monetary reward, and perhaps an open door to corporate employment.  The competition is a showcase for your skills.

You can also win anywhere from $1,000 to $75,000 in a single business case competition.

Click for more information on how to deliver Especially Powerful Business School Presentations and learn the key secret techniques of how to win the business case competition.

Appearance, Video

An Especially Powerful Presentation Appearance

Presentation Appearance - one source of personal competitive advantage
Your presentation appearance transmits a message throughout your show

Oftentimes, we don’t consider that our presentation appearance transmits messages to those around us.

Most certainly, the appearance of a speaker before an audience conveys non-verbal signals.  This happens whether you are conscious of it or not.

Your presentation appearance sends a message to your audience, and you cannot decide not to send a message with your appearance.

You cannot tell an audience to disregard the message your appearance transmits.

And you can’t dictate to an audience the message it receives.

Your Presentation Appearance . . .

What message does your presentation appearance transmit to people?

That you don’t care?

That you’re confident?

That you’re attentive to detail?

That you care about your dignity, your physique?

Is your appearance one big flip-off to the world because you fancy yourself an ageless rebel, shaking your fist at the “man” and refusing to “conform” to the “rules?”

If so, then you pay a dear price for so meager a prize.

That price comes in the form of ceding competitive advantage to your peers, who may want to spend their personal capital for more luxurious rewards.

Are you the “ageless rebel” battling the “Man”?

Many young speakers seem unaware of the messages that their appearance conveys.  Or worse, they attempt to rationalize the message, arguing instead what they believe that the audience “ought” to pay attention to and what it “ought” to ignore.

You simply cannot dress for lazy comfort and nonchalance and expect to send a message that conveys seriousness, competence, and confidence.  This is the lesson that so many fail to grasp, even on into the middle management years.

“I’m a rebel and exude confidence and independence!” you think, as you suit up in the current campus fashion fad.  The message received is likely much different:  “You’re a slob with no sense of proportion or clue how to dress, and I’ll never hire you.”

The best public speakers understand the power of presentation appearance and mesh their dress with their message.  Take President Barack Obama, for example.  He is a superb dresser, as are all presidents.

On occasion, you will see the President speaking in open collared shirt, his sleeves rolled up in “let’s get the job done” fashion.

And that’s usually the message he’s trying to convey in such dress:  “Let’s get the job done . . . Let’s work together.”

Politics, Schmolitics . . .  He’s a Sharp Dresser

You will never see President Obama address the nation from the Oval Office on a matter of gravity with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled-up.  The messages must mesh.

The lesson here is that your dress ought to reinforce your message, not offer conflicting signals.

Here are some basic suggestions for ensuring a minimum pleasing appearance . . .

For more on creating an especially powerful presentation appearance, as well as the other six elements of your personal style, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Charisma, Professional Presence

No Presentation Change? No Hope . . .

Presentation Change is difficultOne of the biggest disappointments I experience as a presentation coach is watching potential go unrealized because of stubbornness against presentation change.

An inability to change.

A disinclination to accept coaching.

A refusal to recognize improvement is needed.

No Presentation Change . . . No Improvement

And possibly the worst tendency of all:  A proclivity to redefine what one already does as somehow acceptable rather than to change behavior in ways to become truly excellent at a skill.

This last proclivity – redefinition – pops up in the expected ways.  Unfortunately it appears quite often, especially in our current zeitgeist, which is loath to offer criticism of any sort and is equally eager to validate any behavior that carries “strong feeling.”

If that “strong feeling” can be attributed to “culture” in some way, then there is almost no hope for improvement.  None.

How can there be improvement when shortcomings can be redefined as “difference,” coupled with wheedling others to “respect difference.”

So poor presenting is transformed into someone else’s problem.  The entire audience’s problem, in fact.

But What About . . . ?

Several years ago, in a lecture on “charisma,” I had just related the elements of charisma to an audience.  I had given examples and had launched into a doable program of how most any speaker can develop charisma.  That’s when a young woman asked me:  “What about ‘quiet charisma?'”

Say what?

“You know, quiet charisma.”

She was serious.

Charisma requires presentation Change“No, I don’t know,” I said.

“There is no such thing.  You have something in mind, obviously, and you are attempting to describe it, certainly, but whatever else it is, it is not charisma.  Moreover, it is the exact opposite of the type of behavior we have talked about for the past 30 minutes.”

The young woman wanted charisma . . . but she did not want to develop the traits of charisma.

She wanted charisma, perhaps, but she wanted it on the cheap.

She wanted to be told that what she was already doing was charisma.  She wanted to hear that her current performance was somehow “okay.”

I’m okay . . . you’re okay . . . we’re all “okay.”

She wanted me to redefine her own behavior as “charismatic” when it, in fact, was not.

This type of phony validation is all too frequent in our modern world of nonjudgmental-ism, where for some, improvement is almost an impossibility because every suggestion is viewed as an insulting challenge to someone’s humanity.

And So We See No Presentation Change.  None.

Instead, the result is soothing assurance akin to the awarding of a T-Ball participation ribbon . . . to everyone, regardless of performance.

Unfortunately for the precious and rough-hewn, the business world is not as charitable as is the local T-Ball league.

The solution?

Humility.

That, and recognition that all of us can improve by embracing tested techniques, some of them proven over the course of two thousand years.  In fact, great business presenting is a journey that never really ends, because we always must try new methods while steadily sharpening our mettle on the ones we embrace.

In other words, we must be willing to change what we do to reflect acquired knowledge.

Don’t seek phony validation, which is like wearing a medal for valor without demonstrating valor.  Seek, instead, the wisdom that leads to especially powerful presentation change.

For the road to especially powerful presenting, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

 

General, Resources

Great Business Presentation Sites

awful presentationYou have arrived at the most important website on the internet . . .

. . . on delivering the great business presentation in business school.

In fact, it’s the only site in the world in English devoted exclusively to business school presenting . . . and that’s out of almost 1 billion sites.

One billion?

Great Business Presentation Websites

The internet should reach the 1 billion website milestone by the end of 2014.  And while no other site focuses on the challenges of business school presenting, plenty of other sites offer superb advice on this or that aspect of delivering a great business presentation.

I’ve compiled a great many of the best presentation sites, and links to them appear on the right of this site’s home page.

So go up-top to the menu, click “home,” and then look for great links to great sites . . . on the right, in its own column.

Go ahead . . . take a look.

Click and enjoy . . .

General, Personal Competitive Advantage, Slides, Technique

Touch the Cave Paintings for a Powerful Business Presentation

Touch your own cave paintings in your especially powerful business presentation
Take ownership of your business presentation and embrace 10,000 B.C. technology

It’s 10,000 BC, and you’ve painted a detailed graphic on your cave wall for your upcoming business presentation.

It depicts your keen analysis of the recent successful hunt.

Now, you offer to show it to your group, perhaps young hunters seeking essential knowledge.

How would you deliver your hunting presentation?

Would you stand to one side and gesture vaguely at your cave wall graphics as you give your presentation on how to take down a mastodon?

Would you?

More likely, you’d take ownership.

And if you did, you’d take your first step to achieving personal competitive advantage.

Here’s how you’d do it . . .

Own the Business Presentation . . .

You’d step over to the wall and run your fingers over the colored lines.

You’d trace the outline of the images as you shared the story that the painting illustrates.  You’d use the graphic to bring your presentation to life.

Likewise, in your own business presentations today, when you interact with your PowerPoint slides, I suggest that you use 10,000 BC technology – you should  “touch the cave paintings” to meld with your presentation.

Especially Powerful Mastodon Business Presentation
Breathe life into your Business Presentation!

Take ownership of your business presentation, and touch the cave paintings you’ve created to flesh out and support your message.

Step to the screen when you’re ready to refer to a chart or a graph.

Orient us to what we’re about to see.

Explain the vertical and horizontal axes so that we can quickly grasp the data.

By stepping to the screen and gesturing, you enhance your participation in the presentation, becoming the animation for the slides under review.

And you preclude using one of the most heinous devices ever created that can destroy potentially outstanding business presentations.

The Laser Pointer.

Think of the Laser Pointer as a Presentation self-destruct button.

That’s right . . . self-destruct button.

Don’t Self-Destruct!

Even the best of us occasionally thumb that laser pointer self-destruct button that is built into most remote control clickers.

Personal Competitive Advantage
Lose the laser pointer, Skywalker

But you want to deliver a Laser Pointer Presentation, don’t you?

You’ve waited your entire life for the chance to legitimately use that laser pointer!

Haven’t you?

You’ve pictured yourself be-suited and commanding the room . . . standing back, perhaps with a jaunty posture, as you sweep the screen behind you with the little bobbing speck of red light.  The meekest among us is invested with bombast and hauteur by even the most inexpensive laser pointer.

Don’t do it.

Put down the light saber, Skywalker.

The laser pointer is 21st century overkill technology.  It distances you from your presentation message at the exact moment you should meld yourself with it.

How so?

If something is so crucially important on your slideshow – perhaps a graph or a series of numbers – that you must direct audience attention to it, then step into the presentation.  Gesture to the data with your hand.

Use 10,000 B.C. Technology

Merge yourself with the data.  Step into the presentation so that you, in essence, become the animation that highlights your points of emphasis.  Don’t divide audience attention between you, the data on the screen, and a nervously darting red speck.

Instead, concentrate your audience focus on your major points, touching the screen, guiding us to the facts and figures you want us to internalize.  It’s a cave painting, so run your hands over the cave wall.

Show us what you want us to see with your hand.

Now, I issue a caveat here.

If the screen behind you is so high that you cannot reach it, then you might be justified in using the pointer.

But probably not.

Instead, if you want to highlight or draw attention to your points of emphasis, then utilize the highlighting animation available on most multimedia platforms.

Nothing is more gratuitous in modern business presenting than the laser pointer.  And few things more irritating than the laser pointer presentation.

Rid yourself of this awful affectation today.  Pledge never to deliver another laser pointer presentation in your business life.

Instead, run your hands over the cave wall, touch the cave paintings to meld with your presentation and communicate with your visuals in especially powerful fashion to gain especially powerful personal competitive advantage.

For more on Business Presentations, consult my book The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Case Competitions, Confidence, Group Presentations

Business Case Competition Preparation . . . Step II

Business Case Competition Preparation is key to victory
Business Case Competition Preparation is key to victory

Phase 2 of your business case competition preparation begins when you’re issued the case.

Recognize that the nature of this case may differ from what you are accustomed to.

It could be more incomplete and open-ended than the structured cases you’ve dealt with before.

In fact, it could be a contemporary real-world case with no “solution.”  It could be a case crafted especially for the competition by the competition sponsor.

Business Case Competition Preparation

Your first step – your team members read the case once-through for general information and understanding.

You inventory issues.

You define the magnitude of the task at hand.

Here, you draw a philosophical and psychological box around the case.  You encompass its main elements.

You make it manageable.

Business Case Competition Preparation is your Edge
Business Case Competition Preparation Readies you for any Challenge

You avoid time-burn in discussions of unnecessarily open-ended questions.  Your discussion proceeds on defining the problem statement.

At this point, your expertise and skills gained in years of business schooling should guide you to develop your analysis and recommendations.

The difference in acumen and skill sets among teams in a competition is usually small, so I assume that every business team will produce analytical results and recommendations that are capable of winning the competition.  This includes your team, of course.

Victory or Defeat?

The quality of teams is high, and the output of analysis similar.  This means that victory is rarely determined by the quality of the material itself.

Instead, victory and defeat ride on the clarity, logic, power, and persuasiveness of the public presentation of that material.  I have seen great analyses destroyed or masked by bad presentations.

The Presentation is the final battlefield where the competition is won or lost.

And so we devote minimum time here on the preparation of your arguments.  Many fine books can help you sharpen analysis.  This post concerns how you translate your written results into a powerful presentation that is verbally and visually compelling.

We are concerned here with the key to your competition victory.

Here is your competitive edge:  While 95 percent of teams will view their presentations as a simple modified version of the written paper that they submit, your team attacks the competition armed with the tools and techniques of Power Presenting.

You understand that the presentation is a distinct and different communication tool than the written analysis.

Your own business case competition preparation distinguishes you in dramatic and substantive ways.  This translates into a nuanced, direct, and richly textured presentation.

One that captivates as well as persuades.

Cut ’n’ Paste Combatants

Many teams cut-and-paste their written paper/summary into the presentation, unchanged.  This usually makes for a heinous presentation that projects spreadsheets and bullet points and blocks of text on a screen.

These monstrosities obscure more than they communicate.  It is a self-handicap and a horrendous mistake.

Sure, at times you will see winning presentations that do this – I see them myself on occasion.  This usually happens for one of several reasons, none of them having to do with the quality of the visual presentation . . .

1) Substance trumps:  The business analysis and recommendation is substantially better than all other entries and overcomes deficiencies in presentation.

2) Mimicry:  All entries utilize Business Case Competition Preparation front-loads your competitive edgethe same defective method of cutting-and-pasting the final report onto PowerPoint slides.  This levels the playing field to a lowest common denominator of visual and verbal poverty.

Don’t present all the fruits of your analysis.

Too much information and too many details can cripple your initial presentation.  Remember – hold back details for use and explication during the Q&A period.

A parsimonious presentation should deliver your main points.

Deciding what to leave out of your initial presentation can be as important as deciding what to include and emphasize.

For in-depth training on the Case Competition, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Next . . . Phase 3
General, Preparation

Awful Presentations?

Are Awful Presentations necessary?

Is there some law, somewhere, that dictates that awful presentations must be norm?

Is there a Law of Awful?

LAwful Presentations?

Given the number of overly long, dull, pedantic, repetitious, boring, confusing – bad – presentations I see both inside and outside of the business school, I suspect there must be.

This dullness of the awful presentation seeps into the consciousness.  It numbs us, and begins to legitimize itself.

Awful presentations can be a career-killer.

Of course, no one will tell you this.  A conspiracy of silence surrounds awful business presentations and the people who give them.

And yet, they are everywhere.

Awful Presentations are Everywhere

Awful presentations are everywhere . . . and because they are everywhere, we think that bad business presentations must be legitimate.

They must be the norm.  They must be bad, because that’s just the way it is.

But this is myth.

And this myth perpetuates itself, like some kind of awful oral tradition.

You see an awful presentation that some people praise as good.  It looks like this . . .

Some Vice President from a visiting company stands in front of you hiding behind a lectern.  He reads from slides with  dozens of bullet points taken from a written paper and pasted onto PowerPoint slides.  He alternates looking at a computer screen and turning to look at a projection screen behind him.  He rarely looks at you.

A Wasteland On the Screen

Unreadable spreadsheets emerge on the screen.  Legions of tiny numbers march in cadence.

The presenter reads slide-after-slide verbatim, his head turned away from you.  You realize, finally, that he is reading the slides together with everyone in the audience.

It’s boring.

It’s unintelligible.

The slides are unreadable or irrelevant.

It’s an awful presentation, and you can’t remember a damn thing except the three texts you received during the presentation as you checked your iPhone between yawns.  You could legitimately ask yourself, “Is this all there is?”

If awful presentations are the norm, you scratch your chin and perhaps you think “That’s not hard at all.”  I can be as bad as the next person.

Just Cobble Together an Awful Presentation

Cobble something like that together, and you think you have a business presentation.  And why wouldn’t you think that?

It seems to have all the elements:  A speaker-reader of slides (you), a PowerPoint display on the screen with writing on it, some numbers, and a five-minute time slot to fill with talk.

Awful Presentations are the career kiss of death

But what you actually have is something awful – just awful.

You don’t know what you want to accomplish . . . or why.

You have no idea what you should say . . . or why.

And you don’t view yourself as benefiting from the process in any way.  Instead, you see it as something painful.  Because it is painful.  It’s painful and awful.

Let’s repeat, so there’s no misunderstanding . . .  just awful.

It’s an awful business presentation that is painful because of the way it’s been explained to you.

Because the explanations are incomplete.  Because you never get the whole story.

Teaching you how to deliver a cogent, competent, powerful business presentation is always someone else’s job.

This can be a problem.  A problem because your career often hinges on how well you can present.

And if you present badly, you needlessly handicap yourself.

I Feel Your Pain

Sure, there are “presentation”courses.  But it seems that the good folks who actually provide you some sort of presenting instruction in school are often disconnected from your business courses.

They teach you “How to give a speech” or “How to introduce yourself.”  But you don’t have the opportunity to engage in a complex group business presentation.

Oftentimes, these folks aren’t even in the business school.  They can’t show you how to incorporate business content into your presentations – things like the SWOT, value chain analysis, financial analysis, PEST, Five Forces, and such like.

And on occasion, professors in your business courses demonstrate the same malaise that plagues business at-large.

For most of your professors, presenting is secondary.  This makes sense, as each faculty has a specialty or functional discipline he or she is charged with teaching.  Business “Presenting” is no one’s functional discipline, and so it goes unaddressed, orphaned to expediency and neglect.

It is the same in the corporate world.  Your presenting woes are the same woes that scourge the American business landscape.

Boring, dull, numbing . . . all of this is equated wrongly with “serious.”  What what we get is the awful presentation as the standard.

Awful Presentation Malaise in Corporate America

I attended a business conference on the west coast not long ago.  I had the occasion to dip my toes into some of the worst speaking I have ever heard coupled with use of incredibly bad visuals.  Primarily PowerPoint visuals.

Monotone voices.

Busy slides with tiny letters.

Listeners shifting in their seats.

Motionless speakers planted behind a lectern.

Aimless and endless talking with seemingly no point.

No preparation and no practice attended these presentations.

Papers shuffling in the audience, because handouts were given prior to the talk.

This is more common than you might imagine.

Communications consultant Andy Goodman conducted major research on the issue in 2005, surveying more than 2,500 public interest professionals and asking them to evaluate their presentation viewing experiences.

The average grade public interest professionals gave to the presentations they attended was C-.  The average grade given to the visuals that respondents observed in presentations they attended was also C-.

When asked to recall presentations they had seen over the last few months, survey respondents said they were more than likely to see an awful presentation as to see an excellent one.

This is the current state of presentations in corporate America and in business schools.  Is it uniformly bleak? No, of course not.

Glimmers of Hope . . . Immense Opportunity

Generalizations are just that – general in nature.

I have seen a sufficient number of fine presentations to understand that, somewhere, superb instruction holds sway.  Or, at the very least, young people whose early development has trained them for the stage have found their way to the business platform.

Good for them.

But for the most part, it is as I have described here.

And this presents you with magnificent opportunity.

Now that you understand the situation and why it exists, it’s time for you to join the ranks of superior presenters.  Becoming a superior presenter means gaining incredible personal competitive advantage that is difficult to imitate.

By investing your presentations with passion, emotion, and enthusiasm, you deliver especially powerful shows with persuasive power.  Presentations that are anything but dull.  So . . .

It’s time for your debut.

Time to break the Law of Awful Presentations.

Interested in more on fixing awful presentations?  Consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Movement, Technique

Move Around During Your Presentation

Business Presentation Shouldn’t you move around during your presentation?

Consider this.

A student approached me after class and shared this experience:

“I stand in one spot for the most part during my presentations,” he said.

“But another professor told me to move around when I talk.”

Hmmm.

Move around when you talk.

“Did he tell you how?” I asked.

“Tell me what?”

“Did he tell you how to ‘move around?’  Did he tell where to go . . . what to do . . . when to do it . . . tell you what it would accomplish?”

“No, he just said to ‘move around’ when you talk.”

“Just ‘move around?’”

“Yes.”

Ponder that piece of advice a moment.  Ponder that advice and then reject it utterly, completely.  Forget you ever read it.

What Rotten Advice

Never just move around during your Business Presentation.

Don’t wander aimlessly.

Never just “move around” the stage.

Everything you do should contribute to your message.  Movement on-stage is an important component to your message.  It’s a powerful weapon in your arsenal of communication.  Movement can and should contribute force and emphasis to your show.

But some people move too much. Like the professor urged, they just “move around” because they don’t know better.

And why should they know better, when some professor urged them to start prowling the stage for the sake of it.

Just as some folks are rooted to one spot and cannot move while they speak, some folks just can’t stop moving.  They stalk about the stage like a jungle cat.

They move constantly, as if dodging imaginary bullets. They fear to cease pacing lest their feet put down roots. Business Presentation

This kind of agitated movement is awful.

Aimless pacing around the stage is worse than no movement at all.

Aimless movement indicates indecision, the sign of a disorganized mind.

It’s usually accompanied by aimless thoughts and thoughtless words.

“Move around when you talk.”

It’s not the worst piece of advice a professor has ever given a student, but it’s incredibly naive.

At first, the advice seems innocent enough.  Even sage.  Aren’t you supposed to move around during your presentation?  Don’t we see powerful presenters “move around” when they talk?  Didn’t Steve Jobs “move around” when he presented at those big Apple Fests?

Yes, we see them “move around” quite well.

But do you know why they “move” and to what end?  Do you understand how they orchestrate their words and gestures to achieve maximum effect?

Do you recognize their skilled use of the stage as they appeal to first one segment of the audience, and then another?  Do you think that Bill Clinton or Barack Obama just “move around” when they talk?

If I tell you to “move around during your presentation,” what will you actually do?

Think about it for a moment, how you might actually follow-through with that sort of vague advice.

Will you flap your arms?  Do Michael Jackson isolations with your shoulders?  Shake your fist at the crowd?

Move Around During Your Presentation, You Say?

How?  Where?  When?  Why?  How much?

Awful advice. We will never know how much damage such well-meaning naiveté has done to our presentation discourse.  Like much of what is said, it carries a kernel of truth, but it is really worse than no advice at all.

Centuries of practice and delivery advise us on this question.  Edwin Shurter said in 1903 . . .

Every movement that a speaker makes means – or should mean – something.  Hence avoid indulging in movements which are purely habit and which mean nothing.  Do not constantly be moving; it makes the audience also restless.  Do not walk back and forth along the edge of the platform like a caged lion.  Do not shrug your shoulders, or twist your mouth, or make faces.

You are well on your to mastering your voice and to speaking like a powerful motivator.

Now it’s time to incorporate essential movement.  What must you actually do during your talk?  Where to do it?  How to do it?  Why should you do it . . . and when?

In my next post, I answer those questions and show you how to incorporate meaningful movement into your presentation – exactly the types of movement that add power, not confusion.

Interested in more especially powerful techniques for your business presentation?   Click here and discover the world of business presentations.

General, Structure, Technique

Business Presentation Structure that is Foolproof

structure

Design a Business Presentation structure with this simple framework: Beginning . . . Middle . . . End.

Every presentation – every story – has this framework.

Let me rephrase.

Your presentation ought to have this framework, or you’re already in deep trouble.

You should build a business presentation, whether individual or group, according to this structure.

Beginning . . . Middle . . . End

If you’re engaged in a group presentation, each segment of the show has this structure as well. Your segment has this structure.

In fact, every member of a team has this same task – to deliver a portion of the presentation with a beginning, middle, and an end.

In other words, when you are the member of a 5-person team and you are presenting for, say, four minutes, during that four-minute span, you tell your story that has a beginning, middle, and an end.

In the diagram below, each of the boxes represents a speaker on a five-person team delivering a group presentation. The first speaker delivers the beginning. The second, third, and fourth speakers deliver the middle. The final speaker delivers the conclusion or the “end.”

Note that each speaker uses the same beginning-middle-end format in delivering his portion of the show.

How to Build a Business Presentation Structure

This framework is not the only way you can build your presentation.

You can be innovative. You can be daring, fresh, and new.

You can also fail miserably if you plunge into uncharted “innovative” territory just for a false sense of “variety” or “fresh ideas” or self-indulgence.

Sparkle and pop spring from the specifics of your message and from your keen, talented, and well-practiced delivery.

Sparkle and pop do not spring from experimental structures and strange methods that swim against the tide of 2,500 years of experience that validate what works . . . and what fails.

A Sturdy Business Presentation Structure

Beginning-middle-end is the most reliable and proven form, tested in the fires of history and victorious against all comers.

I suggest you use it to build your presentation in the initial stages.

You may find that as you progress in your group discussions, you want to build a business presentation structure to better suit your material.

Please do so. But do so with careful thought and good reason.

And always with the audience in mind and the task of communicating your main points concisely, cogently . . . and with über focus.

One way to think of your part of the presentation is material sandwiched between two bookends. You should Bookend your show. This means to make your major point at the beginning and then to repeat that major point at the end.

Hence, the term “Bookends.” And in-between, you explain what your bookends are about.

Build a business presentation within this structure and you’re on your way to a winning presentation.

To learn more on how to build a business presentation structure that has power and impact, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

General, Practice, Preparation, Technique

Three Ps of Business Presentations

The Three Ps of Business Presentations
The Three Ps of Business Presentations can greatly enhance your presentation delivery for a winning show every time

It’s always helpful when the key words that describe your especially powerful program all start with the same letter, and in this case we speak of the Three Ps of Business Presentations.

The “Three Ps of Business Presenting” encompass everything you must do to deliver especially powerful presentations every time.

They are, in order . . .

Principles

          Preparation

                     Practice

If you have spent any time at all in this space, you already know about the “Seven Secrets of Power Presenting.”

Now, you might be head-scratching and wondering how the “Seven Secrets” mesh with the “Three Ps of Business Presenting.”

A fair question.

Implement the Three Ps of Business Presenting

The “Principles” referred to are the Seven Secrets, the pillars of your transformation into an especially powerful presenter.

Learning and improving on the Seven dimensions of power presenting is essential to your presentation quest in a broadest sense.  You don’t improve on the seven dimensions of presenting overnight . . . it requires application and adoption of the proper habits of behavior.

This may appear intuitive, but too often I see students who appear to understand the seven secrets but do not apply them for a host of reasons.  Perhaps good reasons, in their own minds.

And yet, the choice cripples them in their presentations.

When it comes to individual presentations, you must apply your principles.  And this means preparation.

It means practice.

Don’t assume that you know what I mean by preparation and practice, because we likely have different conceptions of both, and I’m betting you’ll like the results you get from the approach presented here.

So, settle in . . . and for the next couple of days, we will explore the Three Ps of Business Presenting and how their assiduous application can transform you into the Especially Powerful Presenter that you always knew you could be.

Personal Brand, Personal Competitive Advantage, Professional Presence, Technique

Reluctant Presentation Tips . . .

Presentation Tips for fun and profit
I have always considered presentation tips – “McTips” – to be the fast food of instruction

What about those ubiquitous articles that offer “presentation tips” to help improve your business presenting?

I hate ’em.

Even so, I sometimes relent . . . and give a tip.

In fact, I’m often asked for “quick tips” to improve a presentation or a speech, and I invariably oblige . . . even though I’m philosophically opposed to the “McTips” school of presentation instruction.

Why do I relent?

Utility.

A hasty presentation McTip can sometimes offer the exact solution needed.  Often, all it takes for a fine speaker to vault to the next level is the correction of a tic or bad habit.

These tics affect us all, and they’re like barnacles on a ship, slowing us down.  They prevent us from reaching our full potential.

And so, I acknowledge that sometimes a single “tip” can make a powerful difference in the presenting trajectory of an individual person striving to tweak his delivery in a meaningful way.

So here’s a tip.

Here’s a “McTip” for the Day

We all engage in a particular debilitating phrase.  We’re all guilty of it at some point.  This phrase is like a leech, fastened onto our presentation, sucking the lifeblood from us.

No, not a lot of blood.

That’s why it’s so insidious.  It seems so harmless.

It sucks not a lot of energy.  But one leech leads to another.  And soon . . .

Well, let’s not dwell on the horror.

Instead, just stop saying it.

Stop saying this power-leeching phrase:

“As I said before . . .”

That’s it.  And it’s insidiously mundane, isn’t it?

Nondescript.  Seemingly harmless.

Don’t Say It!  Just Don’t!

I know how this phrase creeps in.  It ambushes me at times.

Deep into our presentation, we glance at the screen and we begin to make a point.  Then suddenly, we realize with horror that–

Presentation Tips can be . . . okayWe already said it.

Our minds furiously spin . . .

In a flash, our imaginations suppose that the audience is filled with Gotcha! types who are poised to leap to their feet and point accusing fingers at us, shouting “You already said that!”

So we reflexively qualify what we say by telegraphing that, indeed, we said it already:  “As I mentioned before–”

“As I said before–”

Or someone else on our team already said it:   “As my colleague already mentioned–”

This drags down your presentation with every utterance of this putrid phrase.  This putrid phrase, in fact, adds no value whatever, and it detracts significantly from presentation flow.

It’s a distraction.

More Presentation Tips . . . ?

It upends audience attention, sending their minds back to some previous point in the presentation that they missed any way.

Go ahead and say it again.  And again.  And again.

And again.

Say it in different ways.  Say it in the same way.

Hammer home your main points with repetition and emphasis.

And never, ever announce that you’re repeating yourself.

You’ll find more presentation tips – ugh – in my book The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

General, message, Slides, Technique

The Laser Pointer Presentation – the Self-Destruct Button

Laser Pointer Presentation Destruction
Even Skywalker doesn’t give a laser pointer presentation

Your remote control clicker that advances your slides can have other features allegedly designed to “enhance” your presentation.

The chief culprit among these enhancements is a horrid little device called – the Laser Pointer.

Even the best of us occasionally thumb that laser pointer self-destruct button built into most remote control clickers.

That’s right . . . self-destruct button.

No Laser Pointer Presentation!

But you want to deliver a Laser Pointer Presentation!

You’ve waited your entire life for the chance to legitimately use that laser pointer!

Haven’t you?

You’ve pictured yourself be-suited and commanding the room . . . standing back, perhaps with a jaunty posture, as you sweep the screen behind you with the little bobbing speck of red light.  The meekest among us is invested with bombast and hauteur by even the most inexpensive laser pointer.

Don’t do it.

Put down the light saber, Skywalker.

The laser pointer is 21st century overkill technology.  It distances you from your presentation message at the exact moment you should meld yourself with it.

How so?

If something is so crucially important on your slideshow – perhaps a graph or a series of numbers – that you must direct audience attention to it, then step into the presentation.

Gesture to the data with your hand.

Use Cave Man Technology

Merge yourself with the data.

Step into the presentation so that you, in essence, become the animation that highlights your points of emphasis.  Don’t divide audience attention between you, the data on the screen, and a nervously darting red speck.

Instead, concentrate your audience focus on your major points, touching the screen, guiding us to the facts and figures you want us to internalize.  It’s a cave painting, so run your hands over the cave wall.  Show us what you want us to see with your hand.

Now, I issue a caveat here.

If the screen behind you is so high that you cannot reach it, then you might be justified in using the pointer.

But probably not.

Instead, if you want to highlight or draw attention to your points of emphasis, then utilize the highlighting animation available on most multimedia platforms.

If you’re uncertain what I mean by this, have a look at this brief video:

Nothing is more gratuitous in modern business presenting than the laser pointer.  And few things more irritating than the laser pointer presentation.

Rid yourself of this awful affectation today.

Pledge never to deliver another laser pointer presentation in your business life.

For more on Business Presentations, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

General, Personal Competitive Advantage, Professional Presence, Technique

Business Jargon in Presentations

Business Jargon in PresentationsOur profession contrives business jargon and then clutches it to its breast.

It’s useful.

Especially as shorthand for keen concepts well-understood.

But the more Machiavellian among us sometimes enshrine it as a code for entry into a priesthood of the knowledgeable.

And so we have the conundrum – one man’s obfuscation is another man’s sharply drawn argument, both using “jargon.”

Who with compassion would strip a man of his outlet for facile expression, the utility of shorthand “jargon,” simply because there exist unscrupulous cads who abuse the privilege of a profession’s lexicon?

Business Jargon Struggles for Hearts and Minds?

The struggle is for clear and original expression against the encroachment of weasel-words.  The struggle is for meaningful distinctions between useful locutions and the vulgarity of “jargon.”

So it’s a struggle, yes, but it’s also an internal struggle.

I’m torn, because it is my bane to be charged with teaching the lexicon, the “jargon” to vulnerable young minds.  Minds to which business jargon sounds fresh and innovative, when it’s actually already stale and reified.

It’s an axiom that once something makes it into a textbook, it likely is already outdated.

Business Jargon in PresentationsBut business jargon does perform valuable service.  If used judiciously and properly and with clear intent to the purpose for which it was created.

If it’s wielded not to obfuscate.

If it’s wielded not to mind-taser the listener into a kind of numb dumbness.

For those of us in the profession that is home to our jargon, it serves as shorthand for many thoughts already thought, not simply a comfortable refuge.  Shorthand for many debates already concluded.  Many theories already expressed. Many systems already in place.

 In fact, a deep vein of rich discussion lurks beneath the glib façade of most of our jargon.

And thus business jargon presents us with a dilemma – if it were not useful, it would not exist.  And anything that is useful can be misused.

It should come with a warning label.

A Business Jargon Warning Label?

I provide such a warning label.  But only half-heartedly.

Half-heartedly, because it is my first obligation to ensure that my charges remember the “jargon” that I serve up to them.  They must imbibe deeply and, at some point during a seemingly interminable semester, they must regurgitate the jargon.

They must drink deeply from the cup of “competitive advantage.”

They must feast heartily at the table of “core competency” and ladle large portions of “market failure” and “pioneering costs” along with a light sprinkling of what some might consider the oxymoronic garnish of “business ethics.”

More insidious than the standard business jargon is the phalanx of “new” program buzzwords that march our way in endless columns, recycling ideas of old . . . and then recycling them yet again.

Business jargon in presentations“Best Practices,” “Re-engineering,” “Six Sigma,” “TQM, “Benchmarking,” “Balanced Scorecard,” and on and on . . .

For those of us who bathe regularly in the sea of “competitive advantage” and “market saturation” and “pioneering costs” and “core competencies,” we cannot exercise the luxury of contempt.

Instead, we must labor as any wordsmith must labor.  We must not ban the hammer because some use it to bash their thumb instead of the nail.

Just as any writer seeks and secures precision in language, the business writer must labor likewise.  Constant vigilance is our only guarantor against the debasing of the language.

This is true in business and in academia as it is true in the high-minded world of the literati.

High-minded?  It might be also useful to exercise constant vigilance that high-mindedness does not become high-handedness.

Humility and the hunger for clarity.

Uncommon qualities in the business and academic worlds?  Perhaps, but surely they should be considered corollary to the jargon that seems pervasive and inescapable and that nettles us so naughtily.

But enough!  Cast all of this aside and consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting for a jargon-free entre into the high priesthood of the finest business presenters in the corporate world!

Audience, Charisma, Confidence, Passion, Personal Competitive Advantage, Professional Presence, Stance, Video

Gangnam Style Presentation

Gangnam style Presentation Can elevate your own show
Gangnam Style Presentation is extreme, but instructive

Here’s a presenter who carefully follows the Three Ps of business presenting and quite obviously succeeds at his performance in a Gangnam Style Presentation.

The Three Ps, of course, are:  Principles . . . Preparation . . . and Practice.

The presenter calls himself Psy.

In this Gangnam Style presentation, Psy engages the Seven Secrets of presenting – the principles of Voice, Expression, Gesture, Appearance, Stance, Passion, and Movement – for a stunning performance.  Note that the acronym formed by those seven words is appropriate to this particular presentation:

VEGAS PM.

Applying the Three Ps

Moreover, while Psy exhibits incredible professional presence, he doesn’t rely solely on his charisma to carry his presentation.  He and his support team prepared meticulously for this performance, and they’ve obviously practiced much.

The presenter engages his audience, gives them exactly what they expected to receive, and encourages audience participation.

He exhibits tremendous focus on his main point, repeating his main point several times so that it isn’t lost – otherwise known as his song’s chorus – and he uses the same repeated choral movement to emphasize visually his song’s chorus.

View this Gangnam Style Presentation with these precepts in mind.

 

The comparison to superb business presenting is by no means a reach.

When you present, you give your audience a show.  Accordingly, you should prepare your show according to principles almost identical to those used by any stage performer.

You might not expect the kind of crazed enjoyment of your business presentation exhibited by the audience in the video (and I congratulate you if you achieve it).  But you can apply the precepts of presenting to meet your audience expectations, engage your listeners, and drive home your main point with repetition and focus.

Deliver a Gangnam Style Presentation

You can thoroughly prepare and practice your presentation, just as any worthy stage performer does.  Respect for your audience and your message demands no less than that you employ the Three Ps of business presenting.

Do this consistently, and you increase your personal competitive advantage tremendously as someone known for capable and competent business presenting.

For more on Gangnam Style business presenting, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.

Confidence, Expression, Passion, Personal Competitive Advantage, Technique

Earnestness, for an Especially Powerful Business Presentation

Earnestness, for a Powerful Business Presentation
Be earnest . . . for a Powerful Business Presentation

“Earnestness” is a word that we neither hear much nor use much these days.

That’s a shame.

Because the word captures much of what makes for an especially powerful business presentation.

Edwin Dubois Shurter was a presenting master in the early 20th Century, and he said way back in 1903 that:

“Earnestness is the soul of oratory.  It manifests itself in speech by animation, wide-awakeness, strength, force, power, as opposed to listlessness, timidity, half-heartedness, uncertainty, feebleness.”

What was true then is surely true today.

And yet, “earnestness” is frowned upon.  Perhaps some think it somehow “uncool.”

Showing Too Much Interest?

It is uncool to show interest, because . . .   If you appear too interested in something, and then you somehow are perceived as having failed, then your business presentation “defeat” is doubly ignominious.

Better to pretend you don’t care.

So the default student attitude is to affect an air of cool nonchalance.  So that no defeat is too damaging.  And you can save your cool.  You save your best – your earnestness – for something else.

For your friends, for your sports contests, for your facebook status updates.  For your pizza discussions, for your intramural softball team . . .

But this also means that all of your presentation victories, should ever you score one or two, are small victories.  Meager effort yields acceptable results in areas where only meager effort is required.

Especially Powerful Business Presenting

Mediocrity is the province of the lazy and nonchalant.  The sin of the insouciant.

Shurter was a keen observer of presentations and he recognized the key role played by earnestness in a successful presentation:  “When communicated to the audience, earnestness is, after all is said and done, the touchstone of success in public speaking, as it is in other things in life.”

Earnestness means wrapping your material in you.

Embracing your topic.

This means giving a powerful business presentation that no one else can give, one that no one else can copy.  Because it arises from your essence, your core.  It’s the source of your personal competitive advantage.

It means demonstrating genuine enthusiasm for your subject.  It means recognizing that the subject of your presentation could be the love of someone else’s life, whether it be their business or their product or their service – you should make it yours when you present.

In the process, you craft your persona, your powerful personal brand that differentiates you from the great hoi-polloi of undistinguished speakers.  And you achieve remarkable personal competitive advantage.

Embrace your topic with earnestness, and you will shine as you deliver an especially powerful business presentation.

For more on the power of earnestness and the key to delivering a powerful business presentation, consult The Complete Guide to Business School Presenting.