Episode #85: Outstanding Japanese Presenters

I spend a lot of time complaining about how poor is the professional quality of presenters in Japan. It is true, so when you come across people who can present properly, it so refreshing and gives you hope that the rest of them can do it too. I attended an American Chamber event here in Tokyo recently and the speaker was the President of Nestle Japan. In fact, Mr. Kozo Takaoka had become the first ever Japanese to succeed to the role of President for Nestle in Japan despite their 104 years in operation here. Watching his presentation it was easy to see why he was the leader of this well established operation in Japan.

He spoke in English, which was totally impressive, because so few Japanese company Presidents can give a half decent talk in English, unless they were reading it. He definitely didn’t need to read his speech. He was too busy engaging with his audience. He did this with his eye contact, as he spoke to us. He kept his focus on his audience, who were mostly representatives of small-medium sized enterprises. He was using a slide deck, but it was subservient to him and what he wanted to say, rather than the usual Japanese penchant of being the second fiddle to the screen.

The slides were well designed and well presented. Easy to understand and grasp within two seconds of viewing them. That two second rule is a good one. If your slides are too complex or too busy to be understood in around two seconds, then you need to simplify them. That is often best achieved be eliminating the slide entirely. Often they add little actual additional benefit to what you can convey in words. We tend to use them because, well that is what everyone else is doing. We do this on autopilot, without really analyzing what strength that slide deck medium can bring to the message you want to convey.

One thing I liked was Takaoka san’s use of video. They were very short and relevant to what he wanted to explain. What I really find irritating about Japanese company President presentations is how they will bung in a 10 minute video to pad out their talk. It is usually something cooked up by the PR or Marketing department and is aiming to be a propaganda triumph for the firm. Sadly, because it is all propaganda, we quickly switch off and take very little notice of it. It is also rarely related to the point the speaker is making. The real point is that it saves the speaker from having to speak, which sort of defeats the purpose doesn't it.

The flow of Takaoka san’s talk was also well designed. It followed a logical order and was well supported by his delivery, his slide deck and his short videos. You would think this was a relatively straightforward thing but it surpasses the ability of most Japanese presenters. He was able to draw out highlights and then could show something in visual form, which backed what he had just said. Seeing is believing and if the point we want to make can be reinforced visually then we should be trying to achieve that outcome.

His use of humour was also spot on. When we think about humour in speaking we are often drawn to compare ourselves to stand up comedy speakers, which is a very unwise move. They are there 100% to entertain, rather than to inform, persuade or convince. The latter areas are where we are placing ourselves when we are in the role of speaker to a business audience. Takaoka san’s humour was unforced and very natural. He was prepared to laugh at himself, which always goes down well. When we try to be funny as a speaker it usually flops. Professional comedians are refining their work on the content, timing and delivery side continuously, whereas we probably only get to speak publically a few times a year, if we are lucky.

Takaoka san also spoke from his own experience so he had total authenticity. Telling us about someone else’s marketing successes and failures has a certain distant, academic feel to it. He was there, he was doing it and he was relating those coal face incidents, so it became real and credible for his audience. Where ever we can, we should always trying to draw on things which have happened to us in business, to make the points we want to get across. They don’t need to be read to an audience, because we lived through them and so have no problem remembering them in detail.

Takaoka san was the full package and it was the best Japanese presentation I have seen to date. This type of role model forces all the excuses to disappear, because being Japanese is not a legitimate excuse to be unable to do a professional presentation. But that is often trotted out as the excuse. “We Japanese are no good at presenting, whereas you foreigners are all good”. Two totally fallacious points if ever there were any.