HBRs 10 Must Reads on Public Speaking and Presenting

1.How to Give a Killer Presentation

• Frame your story :figure out where to start and where to end

• Plan your delivery: decide whether to memorize your speech word for word or develop bullet points and then rehearse it—over and over

• Work on stage presence: but remember that your story matters more than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous

• Plan the multimedia: Keep it simple, whatever you do, don’t read from Power- Point slides

• Put it together: play to your strengths and be authentic


10 Ways to Ruin a Presentation

• Take a really long time to explain what your talk is about. 
• Speak slowly and dramatically.Why talk when you can orate
• Make sure you subtly let everyone know how important you are 
• Refer to your book repeatedly. Even better, quote yourself from it.
• Cram your slides with numerous text bullet points and multiple fonts.
• Use lots of unexplained technical jargon to make yourself sound smart. 
• Speak at great length about the history of your organisation and its glorious achievements. 
• Don’t bother rehearsing to check how long your talk is running.
• Sound as if you’re reciting your talk from memory.
• Never,ever make eye contact with anyone in the audience.

2.How to Become an Authentic Speaker

Rehearse your speech with them in mind. Try practicing it four ways...Forget about rehearsing specific gestures. 

 

What Underlies an Authentic Speech - SHOW EMOTION

• The intent to be open with your audience
• The intent to connect with your audience
• The intent to be passionate about your topic
• The intent to “listen” to your audience

3.Storytelling That Moves People

Executives can engage listeners on a whole new level if they toss their PowerPoint slides and learn to tell good stories instead...

There are two ways to persuade people:

• The first is by using conventional rhetoric, which is what most executives are trained in. It’s an intellectual process, and in the business world it usually consists of a PowerPoint slide presentation in which you say, “Here is our company’s biggest challenge, and here is what we need to do to prosper.” And you build your case by giving statistics and facts and quotes from authorities. But there are two problems with rhetoric. First, the people you’re talking to have their own set of authorities, statistics, and experiences. While you’re trying to persuade them, they are arguing with you in their heads. Second, if you do succeed in persuading them, you’ve done so only on an intellectual basis. That’s not good enough, because people are not inspired to act by reason alone.
• The other way to persuade people—and ultimately a much more powerful way—is by uniting an idea with an emotion. The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story. In a story, you not only weave a lot of information into the telling but you also arouse your listener’s emotions and energy.

Businesspeople not only have to understand their companies’ past, but then they must project the future. And how do you imagine the future? As a story....

• acknowledging the dark side makes you more convincing->The great irony of existence is that what makes life worth living does not come from the rosy side...The energy to live comes from the dark side. It comes from everything that makes us suffer. As we struggle against these negative powers, we’re forced to live more deeply, more fully

• a story that embraces darkness produces a positive energy in listeners->Audiences appreciate the truthfulness of a storyteller who acknowledges the dark side of human beings and deals honestly with antagonistic events. The story engenders a positive but realistic energy in the people who hear it... "We’ll be lucky as hell if we get through this, but here’s what I think we should do,” they will listen to you.

Self-knowledge is the root of all great storytelling. A storyteller creates all characters from the self by asking the question, “If I were this character in these circumstances, what would I do?”

4.Connect, Then Lead

Decades of sociology and psychology research show that by first focusing on displaying warmth—and then blending in demonstration of competence—leaders will find a clearer path to influence.

...trust provides the opportunity to change people’s attitudes and beliefs, not just their outward behavior. That’s the sweet spot when it comes to influence and the ability to get people to fully accept your message.

The happy warrior by pairing her assertiveness and authority with a big smile and a quick wit that made it clear she did not let the rough-and-tumble of politics get her down. During crises, these are the people who are able to keep that influence conduit open and may even expand it. Most people hate uncertainty, but they tolerate it much better when they can look to a leader who they believe has their back and is calm, clearheaded and courageous. These are the people we trust. These are the people we listen to...

The Need to Affiliate: People have a need to be included, to feel a sense of belonging.

...when facing a high-pressure situation, it is useful for leaders to go through a brief warm-up routine beforehand to get in the right state of mind, practicing and adopting an attitude that will help them project positive nonverbal signals.

5.The Necessary Art of Persuasion

• If you are like most businesspeople I have encountered, you see persuasion as a relatively straightforward process. First, you strongly state your position. Second, you outline the supporting arguments, followed by a highly assertive, data-based exposition. Finally, you enter the deal-making stage and work toward a “close.” In other words, you use logic, persistence, and personal enthusiasm to get others to buy a good idea. The reality is that following this process is one sure- fire way to fail at persuasion.

Persuasion consists of these essential elements: 

1. establishing credibility-Your credibility grows out of two sources: expertise and relationships. 
2. framing to find common ground-When no shared advantages are apparent, adjust your position. 
3. providing vivid evidence-Ordinary evidence won’t do. Make numerical data more compelling with examples, stories, and metaphors that have an emotional impact.
4. connecting emotionally-Adjust your own emotional tone to match each audience’s ability to receive your message.

• A persuader must frame his position to illuminate its benefits to everyone who will feel its impact. Persuasion then becomes a matter of presenting evidence— but not just ordinary charts and spreadsheets. The most effective persuaders use vivid—even over-the-top—stories, metaphors, and examples to make their positions come alive. Finally, good persuaders have the ability to accurately sense and respond to their audience’s emotional state. Sometimes, that means they have to suppress their own emotions; at other times, they must intensify them.

The best persuaders not only listen to others but also incorporate their perspectives into a shared solution...Persuasion, in other words, often involves—indeed, demands— compromise. Perhaps that is why the most effective persuaders seem to share a common trait: they are open-minded, never dogmatic. They enter the persuasion process prepared to adjust their viewpoints and incorporate others’ ideas. That approach to persuasion is, interestingly, highly persuasive in itself. When colleagues see that a persuader is eager to hear their views and willing to make changes in response to their needs and concerns, they respond very positively.

Four Ways Not to Persuade:

1. They attempt to make their case with an up-front, hard sell. I call this the John Wayne approach. Managers strongly state their position at the outset, and then through a process of persistence, logic, and exuberance, they try to push the idea to a close. In reality, setting out a strong position at the start of a persuasion effort gives potential opponents something to grab onto—and fight against. It’s far better to present your position with the finesse and reserve of a lion tamer, who engages his “partner” by showing him the legs of a chair. In other words, effective persuaders don’t begin the process by giving their col- leagues a clear target in which to set their jaws.

2. They resist compromise. 

3. They think the secret of persuasion lies in presenting great arguments. In persuading people to change their minds, great arguments matter. No doubt about it. But arguments, per se, are only one part of the equation. Other factors matter just as much, such as the persuader’s credibility and his or her ability to create a proper, mutually beneficial frame for a position, connect on the right emotional level with an audience, and communicate through vivid language that makes arguments come alive. 

4. They assume persuasion is a one-shot effort. Persuasion is a process, not an event. Rarely, if ever, is it possible to arrive at a shared solu- tion on the first try. More often than not, persuasion involves listening to people, testing a position, developing a new position that reflects input from the group, more testing, incorporating compromises, and then trying again.

6.The Science of Pep Talks 

Most winning formulas include three key elements:

Direction giving, or describing precisely how to do the task at hand

Expressions of empathy, or concern for the performer

Meaning-making language, which explains why the task is important

A good pep talk—whether delivered to one person or many— should include all three elements

...It’s important to note, however, that Alioto’s instruction, empathy, and meaning making don’t stop when the salespeople file back to their desks. After her speech, she walks the sales floor, talking individually with more than a hundred reps and continuing to employ the different elements from motivating language theory.

7.Get the Boss to Buy In

Use the seven tactics effectively: 

Tailor your pitch
Where does my audience stand on this issue?
What does my audience find most convincing or compelling?

Frame the issue
How can I connect my issue to organizational priorities?
How can I best describe its benefits?
How can I link it to other issues receiving attention?
How can I highlight an opportunity for the organization?

Manage emotions on both sides
How can I use my emotions to generate positive rather than negative responses?
How can I manage my audience’s emotional responses?

Get the timing right
What is the best moment to be heard? Can I “catch the wave” of a trend, for example, or tap into what’s going on in the outside world?
What is the right time in the decision-making process to raise my issue?

Involve others
Which allies from my network can help me sell my issue, and how can I involve them effectively?
Who are my potential blockers, and how can I persuade them to support me?
Who are my fence-sitters, and how can I convince them that my issue matters?

Adhere to norms
Should I use a formal, public approach to sell my issue (for example, a presentation to upper management)? Or an informal, private approach (casual one-on-one conversations)? Or a combination of the two?

Suggest solutions
Am I suggesting a viable solution?
If not, am I proposing a way to discover one instead of just highlighting the problem?

8.The Organizational Apology

This is the substance of the apology—the words you say and the actions you take. It’s important to keep three goals in mind: candor, remorse, and a commitment to change.

9.What’s Your Story?

To demonstrate stability and earn listeners’ trust, emphasize continuity and causality—show that your past is related to the present, and convey that a solid future is in sight. If you can make your story of transition cohere, you will have gone far in convincing the listener—and reassuring yourself—that the change makes sense for you and is likely to bring success.  

Key Elements of a Classic Story

• A protagonist the listener cares about. The story must be about a per- son or group whose struggles we can relate to.
• A catalyst compelling the protagonist to take action. Somehow the world has changed so that something important is at stake. Typically, the first act of a play is devoted to establishing this fact. It’s up to the protagonist to put things right again.
• Trials and tribulations. The story’s second act commences as obstacles produce frustration, conflict, and drama, and often lead the protagonist to change in an essential way. As in The Odyssey, the trials reveal, test, and shape the protagonist’s character. Time is spent wandering in the wilderness, far from home. 
• A turning point. This represents a point of no return, which closes the second act. The protagonist can no longer see or do things the same way as before. 
• A resolution. This is the third act, in which the protagonist either suc- ceeds magnificently or fails tragically.

"By this time, it was clear that I wanted to move on to something different,” she said. “But I needed to build more confidence before taking a bigger chance on reinventing myself. So I decided to stay in the high-tech environment, which I knew well, but also to go back to school. I started a master’s program in organizational development, thinking it would at least make me a better leader and hoping it would be the impetus for a real makeover.” Still, Lucy agonized for months over whether to focus exclusively on school, convinced that it wasn’t sane to quit a job without having another one lined up.

Three incidents in quick succession made up her mind. First, she attended a conference on organizational change where she heard industry gurus speak and met other people working in the field. She decided this was clearly the community she wanted to be a part of. Second, her firm went through an acquisition, and the restructuring meant a new position for her, one fraught with political jockeying. Third, as she tells it: “One day my husband just asked me, ‘Are you happy?’ He said, ‘If you are, that’s great. But you don’t look happy. When I ask how you are, all you ever say is that you’re tired.’”

If transition stories, with their drama and discontinuity, lend themselves so well to vivid telling, why did so many people merely recount the basic facts of their careers and avoid the exciting turning points? Why did most of them try to frame the changes in their lives as incremental, logical extensions of what they were doing before? Why did they fail to play up the narrative twists and turns? 

To begin with, it’s because they were attempting to tell the story while they were still in the middle of the second act. Look back over Lucy’s story, and you’ll realize that the turning points she  described were not very different from incidents all of us experience daily. They assumed great significance for Lucy only because she made them do so. For most of us, turning points are like Lucy’s rather than Saul’s; they tend to be much more obvious in the telling than in the living. We must learn to use them to propel our stories forward. 

Additionally, stories of transition present a challenge because telling them well involves baring some emotion. You have to let the listener know that something is at stake for you personally.

Structure Your A Presentation Like Story

I’ve found that the most effective presenters use the same techniques as great storytellers: By reminding people of the status quo and then revealing the path to a better way, they set up a conflict that needs to be resolved. That tension helps them persuade the audience to adopt a new mindset or behave differently—to move from what is to what could be. And by following Aristotle’s three-part story structure (beginning, middle, end), they create a message that’s easy to digest, remember, and retell.

Craft the Beginning:

Start by describing life as the audience knows it. People should be nodding their heads in recognition because you’re articulating what they already understand. This creates a bond between you and them, and opens them up to hear your ideas for change.

After you set that baseline of what is, introduce your vision of what could be. The gap between the two will throw the audience a bit off balance, and that’s a good thing—it jars them out of complacency. For instance:

What is: We fell short of our Q3 financial goals partly because we’re understaffed and everyone’s spread too thin.
What could be: But what if we could solve the worst of our problems by bringing in a couple of powerhouse clients? Well, we can.

Develop the Middle:

Now that people in your audience realize their world is off-kilter, keep playing up the contrast between what is and what could be.

Let’s go back to that Q3 update. Revenues are down, but you want to motivate employees to make up for it. Here’s one way you could structure the middle of your presentation:

What is: We missed our Q3 forecast by 15%.
What could be: Q4 numbers must be strong for us to pay out bonuses.

What is: We have six new clients on our roster.
What could be: Two of them have the potential to bring in more revenue than our best clients do now.

What is: The new clients will require extensive retooling in manufacturing.
What could be: We’ll be bringing in experts from Germany to help.

As you move back and forth between what is and what could be, the audience will find the latter more and more alluring.

Make the Ending Powerful:

Definitely include a call to action—but make it inspiring so people will want to act. Describe what I call the new bliss: how much better their world will be when they adopt your ideas.

Call to action: It will take extra work from all departments to make Q4 numbers, but we can deliver products to our import- ant new clients on time and with no errors.
New bliss: I know everyone’s running on fumes—but hang in there. This is our chance to pull together like a championship team, and things will get easier if we make this work. The re- ward if we meet our Q4 targets? Bonuses, plus days off at the end of the year.