Presentation training teaches you how to drill down and make what's important interesting
What can you learn about authentic communication from one simple question?
In my last post I talked about the difference between how participants at the Center for Creative Leadership come across during a TV interview when asked about personal questions versus business questions.
While the week-long program is not billed as a presentation training course, executives do go through a seven minute TV interview that most say seems to last much, much longer. There are a number of psychological reasons for this. When under stress the brain seems to shift into a higher gear. This is why traumatic events—not that being on TV is traumatic—that actually take but seconds (think auto accident), seem to play out in our memories in agonizing slow motion detail.
The questions our executives get asked have been carefully prepared and are based on interviews with their peers, direct reports and superiors. They are all about real-life business challenges and, while not always easy, they are completely familiar to the participant. They answer earnestly, objectively and even for those without presentation skills training, quite skillfully. And why shouldn’t they? Aren’t they, after all, one of the world’s top authorities on this particular topic?
But, and this is a big but. Too often their answers are overly technical or abstract or detailed in ways that aren’t meaningful to a wider audience. They lapse into what I would call execuspeak. And unless you are a reporter from the Wall Street Journal, an analyst or a direct report, the answers can be, well, boring.
In a world where “basic” cable includes 100 channels, where attention spans are measured in eight-second sound bites (the average length now of a TV news clip) our tolerance for anything not entertaining, meaningfully informative, immediately useful or easily digestible is very close to zero—unless, of course, you are on drugs.
Our executive may have answered the question spot on but because his or her responses lacked a few key vital elements it is doomed to be channel fodder, an easy victim to anything even minutely more interesting… and the airways are filled with minutely interesting programs.
So what are those vital career-saving elements? What will keep the viewer glued to you?
To find out let’s go back to the interview for a moment. At the very end we ask one question about a personal interest and almost without exception the executive lights up, either out of sheer relief or because they finally get to talk about something that’s fun and interesting and something they have a personal passion about. That’s not to say their work can’t have all those elements too. It’s just that they have a much harder time showing it. Sure, there are exceptions, but not as many as you might think. And you know who they are immediately.
As our executives talk about their fishing hobby, or new sports car or grandchild a funny thing happens. They talk to you like a person and not as if they were standing in front of their PowerPoint slides. They smile. Their natural humor bubbles up. They finally become human (in the best and most authentic possible way) and yes, interesting.
Being interesting is one of those vital elements. Unless you are a gifted actor it’s not something you can fake, which is why people who are genuinely interesting are often felt to be authentic presenters.
Now maybe you are thinking (and you wouldn’t be the first). “Well, I can’t honestly think of anything interesting about what I do.”
I understand. Some jobs are quite technical and just trying to explain what you do can be a challenge. You can’t imagine how anyone, short of the people you work with and for, would find what you do interesting, even if you could explain it. And that’s ok. Lot’s of people are in that boat.
But there are techniques for drilling down and making whatever you do (challenge me on this!) interesting and for making yourself, in the process, come across as authentic.
I’ve rambled on long enough in this post and will get to those techniques straight-away next time.
Until then may your light burn bright (at least brighter than whatever else is playing!)
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Using industry jargon is often a defense mechanism I think. When interviewees feel under pressure it’s nice to be able to cling to a language they are comfortable with and that is totally familiar to them – a verbal comfort blanket if you like. The difficulty is that this blanket is of little comfort to an audience who want to be engaged by the narrative!
I once asked my pal Martin Stanford a Sky News anchor in the UK what was the one thing he hoped for when an interviewee sat down beside him live on the studio set. He said “I hope they are going to be interesting”. It sounds simple doesn’t it, but being interesting is something we all need to work at and develop constantly.
Michael and I think this blog site can help towards achieving this lofty goal.