Episode #72: Experts Not Very Expert At Presenting

Five star luxury is always appreciated and the hotel setting for this presentation was clearly appropriate given this elite event. The speaker’s contribution to business acumen was being highly anticipated, judged by the number of people in the room. Numerous round tables with white tablecloths, mainly men in dark suits, reserved tables for the more important, Western breakfast buffet at the back – the usual setting. We are all gathered for the information we are about to receive because there may be some insights presented which may help our businesses. We are also all armed with our mental review sheet of the presenter’s competence and by extension his organization. We want to know how much we can trust what we are being told.

Experts are a problem when they come to presenting their knowledge because they don’t value the process. The data, the graphs, the trend lines, the insights, the market intelligence all have value, so a first rate treasure trove can be delivered in a second or third rate manner. This is their excuse at any rate, “I don’t have to be a good presenter, because everyone is assembled to hear my genius content”, they plead.

Usually economic and market related expert presenters are carrying around big brains which are highly analytical. They rely on the inherent quality of their information to carry the day. Worryingly, they are in the persuasion business without realising it. Despite what they imagine, the data doesn’t sell itself. There is a line of reasoning, some thesis, a discourse that is near and dear to the heart of the presenter. They are here because they want people to buy their analysis, to think highly of them and their company and purchase their firm’s widget or whatever

The buying process though hinges on trust and credibility. Experts need to show two things – that they know what they are talking about and that what they are saying is true. The “true” bit can be gauged by the quality of their sources of the data, plus the veracity of their analysis and argument made on that basis. The trust part though is a lot more personal exercise. Is the expert able to articulate the thesis in a way that the audience can agree? Is the presentation easy to follow? Is the data being presented easily digestible, so that we buy what they are selling?

This is where the problems start. The speaker is a poor speaker. We are now getting sidetracked by their inability to strings two sentences together. We have lost focus on the content and are now diverted by their delivery. Their monotone delivery is making us sleepy. The lack of tonal variety means that each word is assigned exactly the same value, so the gems, the pearls, the brilliant diamonds are not standing out as they should.

They are wooden in their body language, so the face is the same mask throughout, like one of those Japanese Noh masks. They are not lifting our belief in what is being said by getting their facial expression behind the words to drive home the point. They are not using much in the way of gestures, because when their hands are not holding the podium down with a vice like grip, they are flourishing the clicker around to advance the slide deck. Gestures can be very powerful to draw attention to key points and to engage the audience, but none of that is on display today.

The visual aids are not really helping all that much. There is too much information on each slide, so our attention is being dispersed across too many data points. Analytical types think that if one graph per slide is good them three must be a lot better. It isn’t!

Adding lots of text must be a good idea they think because it adds greater value. The concept that the presenter could speak to a key word hasn’t filtered in yet. They see the screen as an extension of their writing pad and so let’s pile on the words, to get everyone understanding the point. Whole sentences are more attractive than single words from their point of view.

Looking fixedly at the screen information is a favourite. It is as if they are totally mesmerized, captured by the data and can’t help looking at it, so they ignore their audience. This a big thing to give up, if your are in the persuasion business and trust me we are all in that business.

Being able to drive home your key points, while eyeballing the audience is a powerful weapon. We can engage our audience and draw them into us and what we are saying. We have had thousands of years of refining this in the Western world and we know the power of persuasion through the spoken word. The experts though, ignore history to their peril. By watching our audience, we can also keep a hawk like view of how our audience is reacting to what we are saying and showing them. The reactions are very helpful to where we need to place the emphasis of the talk and give us a heads up, on what questions we are likely to get in Q&A.

It was obvious that no thought had been put into how to open the presentation and how to close it. We went through the slides, went straight into the questions and then moved on to the coffee break before the next speaker. When we are presenting, the first words out of our mouth had better be pretty good. We need to tempt the audience to want to stay riveted to the presentation, because the content is valuable, the presenter is valuable and the presenter’s organisation is valuable. We need to hammer our prime message twice at the end, once before we go to Q&A and then again as we wrap it all up and head for coffee.

I heard from one of the organisers that this was this expert’s first foray into presenting the latest global research findings of this venerable organisation. It became obvious they hadn’t bothered to provide any training before his first outing and also that he wouldn’t be getting any after the tour either. It is a “work it out yourself” approach to harming one’s personal and professional brands.

Crazy stuff you might ponder, but this scenario is all too common. Don’t put people representing your organisation out there on public display, until they have had some training. We don’t want them to underwhelm or even worse screw it up. These are all own goals easily avoided, yet we see the same mistakes time after time, often from the same company! Don’t be one of them.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.