Episode #158: Should I Go Over The Top When I Present

In our High Impact Presentations Course we have exercises where we ask the participants to really let go of all their inhibitions and let it all hang out – and “go over the top”. By contrast, we are all usually very constrained when we speak in public. Our voices are very moderate, our body language is quite muted and our gestures are rather restrained. This often carries over into our presentations and we find ourselves speaking in this dreadful monotone, which is putting everyone to sleep. Our body language is minimal and our gestures rather weak, perfunctory. The exercises we put everyone through are there to expand their range of possibilities as presenters and to do this, we exaggerate the levels and scope. Of course, in its raw form, it is too much for a professional presentation, but fine as a training tool. I am often asked though, how much is too much, when it comes to being more powerful as a presenter? How much “over the top” is appropriate?

I definitely think there is a place for going “over the top” in a business presentation. The degree to which you push the envelope though is dependant on the subject, your message and the audience. There is no simple scale where the excessive bits are neatly marked in red for our calibration and warning.

If you are giving your talk and you outraged by something, then expressing your outrage during your talk will be entirely congruent. You may do that with a higher level of voice volume, hitting certain key words harder, combined with strong body language, a matching facial expression and bigger gestures backing up the message.

You can’t keep going at that “over the top” level though, because you will wear out your audience and its real impact begins to unwind pretty quickly. Clinical, well planned bursts are more effective, because of the contrast between the storm and calm. It is a bit like classical music with its crescendos and calms.

When presenting, our body language is very powerful and very expressive. It can really jumpstart an idea. We are firm devotees of this concept. For example, in our morning meetings or chorei, we have a couple of set pieces. Each day a different person leads the group. We go through the Vision, Mission, Values, one of Dale Carnegie’s principles, motivational quote, etc. In our Mission Statement component we say, “By providing customised business solutions, based on the Dale Carnegie Principles, we exceed our client’s expectations”. When the chorei leader says the word “exceed” everyone does their version of thrusting a pointed finger as high as possible, upward toward the sky.

At another point in the chorei we talk about our mantra, which is to “10 X our thoughts and our actions”. We used to do this by crossing our arms across our chests, opening up the fingers of both hands, so that we are expressing the symbol of an X shape and the number ten. One of the team had the genius idea of going more over the top. So now we stand with our feet well apart and push both our arms out and upward at 45 degrees, so that the effect is to create a cross symbol, in the same shape as the letter “X”. It is a very dynamic movement and very powerful in communicating the idea behind it.

What has this got to do with presenting in public? The difficult part is to free ourselves from the limitations of normal daily conversation, where we are so restrained and let some pizzazz come into our presenting persona. Our daily chorei gets us used to going over the top. Now when speaking, hitting a key word very loudly or elongating its pronunciation is very dynamic and will grab your audience’s attention. It helps us to break through all of the mental clutter and minutiae that is dominating their thoughts and preventing them from giving us their full attention.

When we combine a key word with a very big gesture, then the amplification of that message becomes very powerful. I noticed this when I was presenting to an audience of five thousand people. The venue was large, the seats at the back were far away and the top tier guests in the last rows saw me as about as big as a peanut from that distance. In this case, you have to use the whole stage, center, left and right sides and the stage apron. You have to employ very exaggerated gestures to overcome the tyranny of distance from your audience seated at the back.

Props are another area where some showmanship can work well. In a speech in Japanese in Nagoya, I was making the point that Australia was very much focused on the Asian region. I decided to reverse an 18th century Meiji era slogan for effect. In the original, Japan was being encouraged to leave Asia and follow Europe. It said “Datsu A Nyu O”. I reversed it to “Datsu O Nyu A, meaning for Australia to stop following Europe and to follow Asia instead.

By itself, reversing the well known slogan was a powerful idea. It was a new construct for a Japanese audience to have such famous a Meiji era call to action, which they all studied at High School, reoriented to a completely new meaning. The ”over the top” contribution was to have it hand written in Japanese kanji brushstrokes, pasted on to a traditional roll such as you will often see with Japanese paintings. I attached small weights to the bottom of the roll, so that when it was unfurled, it dropped like a stone and made a slight snapping sound when fully extended. It was a very dramatic unfurling of a surprising usage of the Japanese language and culture by a foreigner. It was “over the top” but congruent.

We can take the chance to stand out at different times. We need to pick our moments and decide how far we will push things. None of us need another vanilla presentation from some entirely forgettable speaker, but we don’t need pyrotechnics every time either. Find some spots for hitting a word hard, or using a big gesture. Use a powerful facial expression of wonder, disgust, surprise, joy or anger, where it is congruent with what you are saying. “Less is more” though is a good rule and leave the amateur theatrics to the aspirant thespians. But where it works, do go “over the top”.