Entrepreneur 1.0 - Sesson Three - Delivering Dynamic Presentations
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Michael Sider, Assistant Professor of Management Communications at the Richard Ivey School of Business led Entrepreneurship 1.0, session three on Delivering Dynamic Presentations. Sider has taught literature, writing and public speaking at the University of Western Ontario, and developed a small consulting business in business writing seminars, and corporate writing services. His clients have included supervisors, managers and employees from Ford, 3M, GM, Purina, and local London hospitals. He has also worked as an intercultural communications consultant for the Asahi Fund Bangladesh, a Japanese non-profit organization. He currently teaches in the HBA, MBA and EMBA programs at the Richard Ivey School of Business.
Sider led a dialogue with the entrepreneurs on the importance of presence: the ability to walk into a room and fill it up with personality even when you’re not talking. Presence creates buy-in and influence; it’s an intangible confidence that makes people pay attention, and is invaluable for any entrepreneur.
Sider offered a number of useful points to create presence:
Eye Contact
Eye contact is more than just looking someone in the eye, its touch and personal contact, it says, “I’ve sought you out, I’m interested in you.” Sider suggested to hold the eyes, but not past the point of discomfort. He suggests not moving away until you’ve finished a specific thought. Realizing that it is difficult to make eye contact with everyone in a room, you need representative members of the audience to make contact with – this way others around them feel touched as well. You do not want to get to the end of a speech or session and feel that you haven’t connected with the audience.
Hand Gestures
Delivering a presentation is not about the material, it’s about engaging the people in the room. To help engage an audience, good speakers use hand gestures which give visual impact to a speaker’s words. Used well, the hands flow along the current of speech, helping shape the speaker’s meaning. Some of the best CEOs in the world use a wide range of gestures to enhance their messages.
The Three P’s
A good speaker should be able to quiet an audience with her body language by properly utilizing the Three P’s: Plant, Pause, Project. When walking to the front of a room to begin a presentation, plant your feet, hold your arms loosely at your sides and pause for moment. Good speakers are comfortable with silence (pausing), and are able to pause as a means of conveying meaning, emotion and confidence. Pausing for emphasis also allows you to filter out the “ums”, and “ahs”.
To project your voice, breathe from your abdomen like an opera singer. You should be speak loud, soft, slow and fast – always with pauses for emphasis (“Bond…James Bond”). Good speakers sound natural and their intonation is congruent with the message and mood they’re trying to convey.
Be Natural
Speakers often feel that they need to deliver an ‘information dump’: a plethora of statistics, data, facts and studies. In fact, the more data you provide, the less likely an individual is to act - people act because of an emotional appeal, not because of the data. Great speakers are able to read a crowd and draw others into their own rhythm thereby dictating the terms of the interaction.
Practice
Although many great speakers seem to be “naturally good”, many practice diligently. Contrary to popular belief, even the most well-known communicators in recent history had to practice. John F. Kennedy for example was not a “natural” communicator or public speaker. Kennedy used to fumble for words, speak too fast, and project a tense, high-pitched voice. His slow beginnings show that any leader can learn the skill of presenting. Sider emphasized, “The key to effective presentations is making it all seem natural – even though your presentation skills are the result of a lot of practice.”
Communications is not just about making formal presentations; it’s about presenting your ideas effectively whether it is in a formal or informal setting.
For more information on communications skills or creating presence, see Professor Sider’s article entitled, “Understanding How We Communicate Is Key.”
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