Working on Presentation Skills

In her popular series that looks at the trials and tribulations of a trainer, Monica Murphy helps a group of engineers to acquire presentation skills

Giving a presentation is one of the most useful skills anyone can have; and the ability to apply it to numerous different situations in both a professional and personal capacity is one of the reasons why it’s one of my preferred soft skill lectures.

The Fear of Public Speaking

According to research, many people place public speaking above everything else when it comes to rating what they fear most. Some place it above flying, heights and some even put it above death. Put another way, ‘Most people would prefer to be lying in the casket than giving the eulogy.’ I definitely was one of those people, and I wish my first delivery of a training course, almost eight years ago, had been recorded so I could use it today as an example of how not to present. I have tried many times to block the whole thing out of my memory but I can easily recall reading straight off the slides without any kind of elaboration and not once making eye contact with anyone in the huge auditorium. Thanks to many years of practice, speaking in public barely features on my fear list now.

Knowledge is King

My most recent delivery of a presentation skills training session was to a group of highly competent engineers. They had reached the point in their careers where they were being prised away from drawing boards and theodolites and asked to present to potential clients on various engineering-related topics.  So, though they had the knowledge, they were in need of guidance on presenting that knowledge effectively.

We kicked the day off with viewing a recording of a presentation, during which they had to pick out the things in it that helped to make the presentation interesting and those that helped to ruin it.

It was reassuring to hear them all comment on how obvious it was that the guy in the recording was not at ease with his material.  There were various other problems, such as failure to introduce himself and reading from the slides. However, they had grasped the lesson of the recording; and indeed of the entire course: that nothing destroys a presentation faster than the presenter’s lack of knowledge on the subject.

As many Trainers will identify with, I always learn a great deal from the participants, once they trust me enough to share their experiences.  So I try to incorporate plenty of two-way communication during training and prefer lots of interaction with participants. The reason for this is, not only does it help to keep the participants engaged, but it also helps them to remember what they learned. We remember only twenty percent of what we hear compared with ninety percent of what we actually do. I use this information as leverage when informing the participants of the objectives – which include each person delivering three presentations. They must deliver a two minute presentation at mid-morning, later a five minute presentation and towards the end of the day, a ten minute presentation, complete with slides if they so wish. On hearing that this final, ten minute presentation will be recorded and played back to them, they tended to pale a little but I assure them that practice really is the only way they will make any headway in this area and that it’s actually quite amusing.

There is some time spent on PowerPoint basics in the course and one participant commented that his presentation technique was fine, and so he really only came along for the Power Point and he was eager to know when exactly that would be starting. Alarm bells went off in my head fearing that he would kill any pre-existing skill he had for presenting with an overdose of PowerPoint. I assured him that we would spend two hours of the afternoon on it, and he could use it for his grand finale.  Once we became familiar and gone through the basics of presenting, it was time for them to prepare for their two-minute presentation.  I assured then that it could be on anything they liked – so long as they were totally comfortable with their topic.

The Trainee Becomes the Trainer

I always have mixed feelings about watching the participants take the floor while I take their seat. I’m acutely aware of how difficult it is for some of them and feel like telling them that they are exempt, and can sit down.  I’m also aware that I will have to give them some feedback after their performance and am rooting for them not to make too many obvious blunders so that I don’t have to remind them of it later. All the same, I’m glad that they get a chance to experience the whole different world that awaits them at the top of the room.

Many of them chose their first job, or most embarrassing moment to talk about. I had spent some time earlier on the importance of a good beginning to a presentation. Introducing yourself, establishing your agenda, communicating your brief and then telling your story. I tried to emphasise the importance of finding common ground with the audience early on in the presentation; for example, making reference to a topic that you know interests many, if not all, of them and weaving it into your presentation.

Even though many of them rocked and swayed and avoided all eye contact as can only be expected at this initial frightening trial, they made a decent attempt at a good beginning to a presentation. A common trend emerged however, and it was the mid-air ending that obviously fell victim to their good beginning efforts. A comment from Lord Mancroft comes to mind: “A speech is like a love affair.  Anyone can start it, but to end it requires considerable skill.”

Giving Feedback

We discussed each person’s presentation.  They all agreed that even though they had only been up there for two minutes, it felt like an eternity. Not only does this exercise help to get over the initial fear of presenting, it also loosens the participants who now tend to lead discussion and offer feedback to each other. I believe that they learn much more when learning from each other with plenty of laughs thrown in (largely due to embarrassing moment empathy). The trick with giving feedback is to beseech participants not to take it personally. In fairness, most of them don’t and end up being more critical of themselves than they have need to be. The discussions that follow throw up enough hooks to introduce the next lot of best practice material I have for them.

We go through many concepts that can enhance a presentation including the importance of body language, using hands for emphasis, using voice for variation, the importance of eye contact, tactfully questioning your audience to ensure understanding and even what clothing is appropriate. We also spend some time on how to close a presentation well. In terms of attention, it’s one of the peak times for your audience so the closing should be well constructed. I have asked them to remember just two out of nine concepts and to practice their use in their next five-minute presentation.

The Art of Multitasking

The five-minute presentations get underway: they are given a newspaper report to present on... The participants, while trying to get a handle on their topic, coupled with dealing with their nerves, have also to try and remember to use two good presentation techniques.  I see people experimenting with a whole range of techniques from the guy who periodically throws his arms into the air because he suddenly remembered that he was to try and use his hands for emphasis, to sudden bursts of speeding up and slowing down of speech.  Someone else decided to try the moving around the room technique so that the audience eyes would follow him, but ended up resembling an army officer in a march. At feedback time, one person commented that it’s difficult to think of all the things at the one time. I’m glad that they get a taste for multitasking while presenting, because that skill of appearing calm and controlled while you prepare many other thoughts and ideas in your head is key to becoming an excellent presenter. And as I suspected, many of them only realised mid sentence that they should try to incorporate one of the key concepts discussed earlier, so they ended up doing something spontaneous which ended up being blatantly obvious to their audience.

Love at First Slide

After lunch, we fired up the laptops and I spent some time going through the basics of PowerPoint. In my experience, anyone unfamiliar with the application loves it almost immediately. People are amazed at how quickly PowerPoint can produce a presentation. I spend just a minute on a demonstration of animation techniques and try to move quickly on, but there is always someone who wants to try out all the animation styles. I am hesitant because I have seen how animations can ruin an otherwise good presentation. Amid the all singing, all dancing text, the all-important message gets well and truly lost.

Lights, Camera, Action!

I allowed them 45 minutes to prepare their final presentation of the day. After getting my tripod and camera set up, I wander from monitor to monitor to see how the presentations are progressing. All the time, I am offering diplomatic warnings of having fantastic visual aids but not spending enough preparation time on what you are actually going to say. Some people heed the warnings and spend more time with a pen and paper than on the keyboard. Others don’t even hear the warnings because they are busy checking out sound effects for their presentation.  The ten-minute presentations are the chance for participants to try out all of today’s theory and practice. All of them are noticeably more relaxed at this stage and I have to wonder if that is because they have the crutch of PowerPoint with them for this one.

Some of them abandon their audience and look instead at their masterpieces being projected onto the screen behind them. Others have completely forgotten to have sentences formed around the bullet points. One or two have managed to get the mix right –opting for three or four slides with minimal detail; preferring to rely on their own expertise for that.

The Critic Becomes the Critiqued

Next we have lots of fun playing back the recorded presentations. So really we are back to where we started in the day – except this time, they must pick out things that they themselves did to help or hinder their presentation.  At feedback time, many concur with my advice to make sure that PowerPoint takes a back seat when preparing a presentation.  Because they have seen themselves presenting, they can see areas to improve on clearly. 

Owing to time constraints, this course was just a day in length, and becoming a good presenter takes so much longer than that – it’s essentially an exercise in changing behaviour, and it is important not to fool yourself into thinking that that is something which can be done in a day. What you can hope for, however, is that people come away with a clear understanding of the basics of a good presentation – Knowledge, Preparation and Practice. 

Monica Murphy