Episode #256: If You Want To Be Enthusiastic

The idea of having enthusiasm would seem to be pretty obvious for someone presenting. In some cases, though we are just presenting information and getting massively enthusiastic about a bunch of not particularly illuminating numbers would be difficult. Often internal meetings are like this. We have to give our report on the revenue and client numbers or the trend with visitors to our stores or whatever. These are factual reports and if we were to suddenly start gushing with breathless enthusiasm, our bosses and colleagues may regard us with deep suspicion that we had lost our marbles. If we want our listeners to agree with our suggestions or to take action, then we definitely need enthusiasm. If we are in the persuasion business, then enthusiasm has to be a staple of our presentations.

Last week’s episode was all about the dark failings of Prime Minister Suga as a communicator. I had the unfortunate bad luck to be watching his media conference announcing the extension of the state of emergency. It was seriously painful to watch. I was reminded of how important enthusiasm was, by sitting through his long press conference, where there wasn’t a trace of enthusiasm in his presentation. In the end, I couldn’t take any more and turned the television off.

I am not being facetious, when I talk about pain in this case. Whether it is Suga or anyone else, if their job is to influence us or persuade us and they attempt that without marshalling any enthusiasm, it is physically painful to sit there and be exposed to that. So let's flip it around and think about when it is our turn to be the influencer, the persuader. How are we approaching this task? Are we just buffeting our audience with a data dump, with an extended avalanche of statistics?

Numbers are dead, by the way. They only have life injected into them by having context applied. When we do that, the relativities become clearer. Explaining the background helps explain their relevance. How often though have we been served up spreadsheets on screen or a bunch of line graphs, crowded together on screen? This is very common speaker behaviour and a big pain receptor.

We need to find poignant stories about those numbers that make them really come alive. We need to place them in context with the current business situation and commercial trends. What do they portend for the organisation? We need to contrast them with other figures, so we have some sense of perspective.

Instead, what do we get? “I know you can’t see this but….”, as the speaker drones on throwing up a spreadsheet in tiny fonts, overwhelming us with a blizzard of numbers. Why do they do that? Obviously no clue and no training would be the answer. Rather, they could use animation and show a pop up a balloon, with a single number displayed in very large font, so we can read it easily. They can then enthusiastically tell us the story of that number and what it represents. That will be memorable and impactful.

When speakers talk with zero or very low energy like Suga, they mystically suck all of the energy out of the room and suddenly you feel worse than before they started. In the opposite case, that transfer of speaker energy to the audience has an uplifting effect and the world looks better immediately. Their enthusiasm becomes contagious and suddenly the world looks a lot better to us. Which variety of speaker would you like to be known as – the uplifter or the energy thief?

Having passion for your subject is required. Even if the topic itself is rather humdrum and mundane, let’s try and find something in there that will be of interest to an audience. When we tell the stories we have selected, let’s do so with verve. We don’t need to be at max power all of the time, but at certain key junctures, we need to rev up the engine and go hard.

Watching Suga, you felt like this guy never gets out of first gear and the engine is barely ticking over. Until we can find the techniques for bringing energy to our talks, we should refrain from giving them, because the world doesn’t need another energy assassin roaming free.

We should get coaching, get the training, work hard and put a lot of emphasis on rehearsal. No one is born as a great presenter. It is a learnt skill and one we can achieve, if we give it the priority it deserves. Never forget, once we get up to speak, our personal and professional brands are in jeopardy. Suga will leave the Prime Ministership a total nobody and will soon be forgotten, except perhaps as an abject lesson in what not to do. We don’t want to join that crowd do we?

Let’s bring our enthusiasm to our subject and inject it into our audience, thereby adding to our reputation and making the whole exercise a personal branding triumph.