Paul May

In most surveys of fears and phobias, public speaking comes close to the top.  There is rarely a week where I don’t have to stand in front of a group to present a concept, a proposal, or a piece of work. It’s a skill I’ve had to learn and think about more and more as time goes by, and I still get it spectacularly wrong on occasion, but less than I used to.

In this article I wanted to write down a few of the points I’ve noted while giving talks, a few I’ve noted while watching others, and offer some basic advice to anybody interested in getting better at presenting their work or ideas.

What’s In This for You?

Good ideas communicated effectively and in person have the power to engage people in a very special way; if you can learn to communicate and talk about your work and your ideas you’ll have a very useful tool at your disposal - and you’ll enjoy (not dread) public speaking.

What Not to Do

I’m not going to harp on too much about what not to do. I have noticed that most talks and presentations succeed or fail on the personality/energy communicated by the speaker, the quality of the content, the level of detail of the content, the structure applied to the talk and the ability to thrive on the unexpected (problems, questions etc.).

The goal of any talk should be to leave the audience with the key information they need and the enthusiasm to find out more.

What to Do

Before

By observing others, preparing and practising you will get better at public speaking in a very short space of time. Before you speak in public, here are a few activities you can do to prepare:

• Research - Find out who you’re talking to, why they care, what they need/want to know, where you’ll be speaking, how and when you’re going to get there (that last bit is important; it’s hard to look calm, collected, knowledgable if you’re late).
• Know your Material - Avoid winging it at all costs. If you get into difficulties and you know your stuff, you’ll be okay. If you get into difficulties and you only just skimmed through the material beforehand you are totally screwed.
• Don’t confuse knowledge of the material with knowledge of how to present it - This is like “reverse-winging it”. You know a lot, but you you still need to have a plan, a structure, a point, and you still need to engage the audience.
• Decide on a Format - Is this a presentation, a speech, a workshop, a Q&A session?If it’s a presentation or speech then you have an opportunity to structure your thoughts in advance. If it’s a workshop then you will need to plan activities that help you meet some objectives and gain insight. If it’s a Q&A session then think about the questions you’re likely to be asked and maybe prepare some answers, or at least think about them.
• Structure Your Talk - Every talk is about leading the audience on a journey. Most journeys have a beginning, a middle and an end. Your talk should have a strong beginning, a purposeful middle (the actual talk), and a controlled ending.  Even if you are a good public speaker you should  know what you are going to say first, how long you will spend on each section of the talk, what your key points are going to be, what examples you’re going to use, what insight you can bring, what conclusions you will draw. What are the 3 key points you would like the audience to leave the room with? This is all totally under your control, so it’s good to get a handle on it before hand. Scribbling down a few notes, then refining them into a plan is time well spent (see my own scribbles below).



• Practice in front of people - If you can run through the talk in front of others you’ll quickly find out what works and what doesn’t, and you’ll be able to get some feedback.

During

• Relax - Get there early, fiddle around with the projector, relax, breathe, have a glass of water.
• Remember that people are generally nice - Nobody wants you to fail, or enjoys when you do. Be confident in the fact that your audience wants to hear what you have to say, and is eager to see you succeed.
• Say Hello - Greet your audience, say hello, introduce yourself. Communicate the energy you have for the topic in the first few sentences, let the audience know that you are the speaker and that you are ready to begin.
• Introduce your Talk - Give the audience a potted version of the talk. Say what you’re going to cover, why you think it’s relevant, what you hope to achieve. Maybe mention if there’s going to be room for questions and give them some insight into the structure (timeframe) of the talk. Now the audience knows who you are and what you’re going to talk about; you’ve successfully avoided the most common mistakes in public speaking.
• Speak Deliberately - You should be controlled, understandable, calm and human in your pacing and tone of voice. Not too slow, not too fast. Pause if you need to, take a drink of water if you need to. The adrenaline in your body will drive you to speak quickly. Breathe slowly, relax, pace yourself.
• Two feet on the ground - Body language is very important. If you’re shifting around, looking at the ground, people will assume you don’t want to be there, and will start to wish they weren’t. Stand still, face the audience, make eye contact, address all the different sections of the room. Moving around is fine, but I would generally advise against talking as you wander around the stage - if you need to move somewhere do, but then stand still and face the audience. It should feel like a conversation with the audience.
• Stick to the Plan - Lead the audience on a structured journey through your concept or idea. Make sure to address one point at a time, and address the most important points first so that if you get short of time you can skip the less important ones. It is okay to improvise and to respond to the needs of the audience, but try not to wander off the point.
• Keep Going - If you drop a page, keep going. If the projector breaks, keep going. If the building is on fire…you should head calmly towards the nearest exit.
• Draw conclusions, then stop - Finish by outlining your key points, in the order that you presented them, and draw a set of conclusions from each one. Then you should stop, tell the audience you’ve finished, thank the audience and invite questions.

After

• Follow Up - If you didn’t have time to cover some of your points you might want to follow up with an email to the audience. You can hand out your card, take names and email addresses, whatever. It’s good to do what you said you would do - so if you say that your slides are available online, say where and when they’ll be available and make sure they are.
• Learn from your mistakes - There is no need to pore over every talk you do, beat yourself up, over analyse; but it’s helpful to look at your original plan and ask yourself how you did, and it’s useful to get informal (word of mouth) or formal (survey) feedback. You can roll this insight into your next talk; you might want to do more preparation next time, you might want to do less.

That’s It

You’ll find that if you prepare and practice your public speaking you will gain more confidence and get better each time.

This is just a quick introduction. There are countless resources online that are better than mine, but I hope you find it useful. I would love to hear your feedback, please leave a comment.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Featured, Miscellany, Triathlon.