This is the brilliant formula

There’s nothing magic about this, you just need to listen to the professionals. Follow the ‘brilliant presentation’ format and work really hard at it. And remember, the idea of a quick fix is appealing but is as misguided in its effect as a crash diet:

• To start with you need to be honest about how good or bad you are.
• You need to practise really hard to get good.
• You need to devote more time to planning, writing and rehearsing than you could imagine possible.
• The biggest change that you’ll notice is that the more you practise the more you will begin to want to present and, however much you may protest, a certain thrill will fire in your stomach as opposed to a dread of anticipation. If you’ve read this book and are prepared to devote time to improvement then it is likely that you’ll have improved massively already.

This is a very competitive world and there are many very young people who find the act of standing up in front of their peers a lot less alien than it used to be for those a generation older than them. In modern life, do not underestimate how important and career-defining being a brilliant presenter is. People are judged on how they perform in public because it shows:

• how good the company they represent is – the better they are, the better their company seems and the better they seem for representing it;
• how confident they are in their own ability;
• how well prepared they are;
• how knowledgeable they are;
• how attuned they are to their stakeholders;
• how inspirational they are as leaders or potential leaders;
• how responsive and flexible they seem to be;
• how with-it they are.

How with-it are you?

In a world shaking up and shaking down as much as ours is, a world in which the ‘American dream’ declines in the face of the ‘Asian explosion’, we’d better have a global viewpoint and a sense of why what The Economist mischievously called ‘Chindia’ is so important. These are not just ‘emerging economies’, they are the future of the world.

Our ability to deal with the new icon of the twenty first century, St Paradox, and communicate the challenges that exist to those around us in a clear and inspiring way will be what distinguishes the best from the average executive.

In both India and China I’ve found the concept of the ‘presentation’ still a little novel but increasingly becoming normal. A well put together and thought out presentation is good business and it’s also good manners.

If you want to give a presentation some oriental spice, you’ll struggle to find the word presentation in any book on China. But if you read Laurence Brahm’s book When Yes Means No (or Yes or Maybe) you’ll get a good grasp of 36 key Chinese business strategies. It’s a great read.

Here are three to be going on with:

1. Kill with a borrowed knife – i.e. make use of someone else’s resources to do your job.
2. Retreat is the best option – i.e. do not play the game your competitor wants you to play.
3. Turn yourself into being a host from being a guest – i.e. reverse your position to salvage a situation.

If these don’t begin to give you a clue that presenting in China might not be entirely simple that would be a surprise.

Communicating change vividly, with compassion and real understanding, will become one of the most vital assets any executive can possess. To keep up with the latest issues and launches check out Fast Company (www.fastcompany.com) and Springwise (www.springwise.com) on a constant basis.

Presentation has never been more important

It’s more important in business generally and to you specifically.

First of all to you. You’ve decided it matters to you and spread the ground bait showing you are more than an ordinary presenter. You have quite simply raised expectations. If, like anyone half competitive, you have raised your game there’s only one way and that’s up. You are no longer (to use that golf expression) a weekend golfer.

Second of all in business, brilliant presentation to stakeholders – workforce, peers, competitors, customers, consumers, suppliers, investors, media, analysts, business experts and opinion formers – has never been so important because it sells ideas, changes minds and makes business move forward. Brilliant presentation comes, more than anything else, from clarity of thinking and empathy with the audience, and the clear thinking and understanding that will give us the best chance of building a better world. Yes, that important. Communication has become the number one skill.

The tools of the discipline have been described already – but, as any brilliant presenter will tell you, repetition does not go amiss.

• Decide how good you are. Analyse your strengths and weaknesses. Given how important the art and craft of presentation are, do not try to wriggle away from your shortcomings. Talk to others even if you think you are perfect because their comments may be helpful. Get a fix on where you stand and what a reasonable improvement target is. This is about planning your future, not just hoping for the best.
• Contextualise your presentation. Spend as long on this as it takes before you even start thinking about what you are going to say and how you are going to say it. Work out why you are doing the presentation, to whom, how they feel and what they think, what’s going on around them, where you are doing it, how many will be there. Leave nothing to chance – be very clear about the context in which you are performing. Get your understanding of context wrong and the rest will unravel.

• Refine the story. The message, the big idea. How does it develop? How can you tell it clearly and compellingly? Do you have the ‘elevator pitch’ or synopsis of the plot absolutely clear – so were someone to say ‘Richard, you have only two minutes to do your presentation to us, not half an hour’ could you do it? Become a great storyteller and you could become a great leader – it’s that simple.
• Add splashes of colour. The stuff that enlivens, dramatises and makes it all exciting. The bits of contemporary fact, anecdotes, data, evidence that makes the story unforgettable and convincing. These are the spear carriers, the crowds, the extras, the props that make the story more fun. Remember that stage direction in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, ‘Exit, pursued by a bear’ – great stage direction, great fun. But it’s more than fun we’re talking about. It’s about character, attitude and intelligence and they all add colour and memorability to a presentation.
• Get the visual backup absolutely right. The slides, the staging, the ‘toys’ you use to make a memorable point. These are there to enhance but never to run the show. Make sure they are good enough so they don’t hamper the rest. Learn to do your own by all means but take professional advice when it comes to a big show so that you are up with or ahead of other speakers. Good slides speed you up, make you feel good and keep the audience on your side without demanding too much of them. Be proud of your material; don’t accept that it’s just good enough, or it almost certainly won’t be good enough.

• Give a great performance. A nerveless tour de force is what you should be aiming for. Tame those butterflies in your stomach, make sure you are in good voice, use coaches to transform you from being apologetic (very bad) into a good-humoured energy source (very good). You are on stage – act like you own the space, the story and, for so long as you are up there, as though you single-handedly own the attention of the audience. Have fun. This is not a board meeting, this is theatre.
• Be in control. You are a control freak or, better still, you are surrounded by control freaks who’ll leave nothing to chance. You have created a brilliantly unusual agenda and you have great takeaways. You are thinking of ways to break the ‘me up there and you down here’ paradigm. This is your show – go for it. Before the show, during it and afterwards. And if you do all this, this audience will be yours forever.