Books
Duarte, Nancy. HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.
Terrified of speaking in front of a group? Or simply looking to polish your skills? No matter where you are on the spectrum, this guide will take the pain out of presentations by giving you the confidence and tools you need to get results. Written by presentation expert Nancy Duarte, the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations will help you:
• Win over tough crowds.
• Organize a coherent narrative.
• Create powerful messages and visuals.
• Connect with and engage your audience.
• Show people why your ideas matter to them.
• Strike the right tone, in any situation.
Harvard Business School Publishing. Harvard Business Essentials: Business Communication. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.
With advice and tools for improving a wide array of communication skills—from delivering an effective presentation to drafting proposals to the effective use of e-mail—Business Communication helps managers deliver information effectively.
Harvard Business School Publishing. HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Communication. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.
The best leaders know how to communicate clearly and persuasively. How do you stack up? If you read nothing else on communicating effectively, read these 10 articles. We’ve combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you express your ideas with clarity and impact, no matter what the situation. Leading experts such as Deborah Tannen, Jay Conger, and Nick Morgan provide the insights and advice you need to:
• Pitch your brilliant idea—successfully.
• Connect with your audience.
• Establish credibility.
• Inspire others to carry out your vision.
• Adapt to stakeholders’ decision-making styles.
• Frame goals around common interests.
• Build consensus and win support.
Morgan, Nick. Give Your Speech, Change the World: How to Move Your Audience to Action. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2005.
Do you remember the topic of the last speech you heard? If not, you’re not alone. Studies show that audiences remember only 10% to 30% of speech or presentation content.
Given those bleak statistics, why do we give speeches at all? We give them, says communications expert Nick Morgan, because they remain the most powerful way of connecting with audiences since ancient Greek times. But as we’ve evolved to a more conversational mode of public speaking, thanks to television, we have forgotten much of what the Greeks taught us about the nonverbal aspects of speech giving: the physical connection with audiences that can create an almost palpable emotional bond. Morgan says this “kinesthetic connection” comes from truly listening to your audience, not just with your brain but with your body.
In this book, he draws from more than 20 years as a speech coach and consultant, combining the best of ancient Greek oratory with modern communications research to offer a new, audience-centered approach to public speaking. Through entertaining and insightful examples, Morgan illustrates a three part process—focusing on content development, rehearsal, and delivery—that will enable readers of all experience levels to give more effective, passion-filled speeches that move audiences to action.
Articles
Denning, Stephen. “Telling Tales.” Harvard Business Review. May 2004 (product #R0405H).
A carefully chosen story can help the leader of an organization translate an abstract concept into a meaningful mandate for employees. The key is to know which narrative strategies are right for what circumstances. Knowledge management expert Stephen Denning explains that, for optimal effect, form should follow function. Challenging one professional storyteller’s view that more is better, Denning points out that it’s not always desirable (or practical) to launch into an epic that’s jam-packed with complex characters, cleverly placed plot points, an intricate rising action, and a neatly resolved denouement. If the aim is to motivate people to act when they might not be inclined to do so, it’s best to take an approach that’s light on detail; particulars can bog down listeners and prevent them from focusing on the message.
Drawing on his experiences at the World Bank and observations made elsewhere, the author provides several dos and don’ts for organizational storytellers, along with examples of narratives that get results. Denning also presents seven distinct types of stories, the situations in which they should be told, and tips on how to tell them. Leaders with the strength to push past some initial skepticism about the enterprise of storytelling will find that the creative effort pays off.
Elsbach, Kimberly D. “How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea.” Harvard Business Review. September 2003 (product #R0309J).
Coming up with creative ideas is easy; selling them to strangers is hard. Entrepreneurs, sales executives, and marketing managers often go to great lengths to demonstrate how their new concepts are practical and profitable, only to be rejected by corporate decision makers who don’t seem to understand the value of the ideas. Why does this happen?
Having studied Hollywood executives who assess screenplay pitches, the author says the person on the receiving end—the “catcher”—tends to gauge the pitcher’s creativity as well as the proposal itself. An impression of the pitcher’s ability to come up with workable ideas can quickly and permanently overshadow the catcher’s feelings about an idea’s worth. To determine whether these observations apply to business settings beyond Hollywood, the author attended product design, marketing, and venture-capital pitch sessions and conducted interviews with executives responsible for judging new ideas. The results in those environments were similar to her observations in Hollywood, she says.
Catchers subconsciously categorize successful pitchers as showrunners (smooth and professional), artists (quirky and unpolished), or neophytes (inexperienced and naive). The research also reveals that catchers tend to respond well when they believe they are participating in an idea’s development. As Oscar-winning writer, director, and producer Oliver Stone puts it, a screenwriter pitching an idea should “pull back and project what he needs onto your idea in order to make the story whole for him.”
To become a successful pitcher, portray yourself as one of the three creative types and engage your catchers in the creative process. By finding ways to give your catchers a chance to shine, you sell yourself as a likable collaborator.
Guber, Peter. “Four Truths of the Storyteller.” Harvard Business Review. December 2007 (product #R0712C).
A well-told story’s power to captivate and inspire people has been recognized for thousands of years. Peter Guber is in the business of creating compelling stories: He has headed several entertainment companies—including Sony Pictures, PolyGram, and Columbia Pictures—and produced Rain Man, Batman, and The Color Purple, among many other movies. In this article, he offers a method for effectively exercising that power.
For a story to enrapture its listeners, says Guber, it must be true to the teller, embodying his or her deepest values and conveying them with candor; true to the audience, delivering on the promise that it will be worth people’s time by acknowledging listeners’ needs and involving them in the narrative; true to the moment, appropriately matching the context—whether it’s an address to two thousand customers or a chat with a colleague over drinks—yet flexible enough to allow for improvisation; and true to the mission, conveying the teller’s passion for the worthy endeavor that the story illustrates and enlisting support for it.
In this article, Guber’s advice—distilled not only from his years in the entertainment industry but also from an intense discussion over dinner one evening with storytelling experts from various walks of life—is illustrated with numerous examples of effective storytelling from business and elsewhere. Perhaps the most startling is a colorful anecdote about how Guber’s own impromptu use of storytelling, while standing on the deck of a ship in Havana harbor, won Fidel Castro’s grudging support for a film project.
Morgan, Nick. “How to Become an Authentic Speaker.” Harvard Business Review. November 2008 (product #R0811H).
Like the best-laid schemes of mice and men, the bestrehearsed speeches often go astray. No amount of preparation can counter an audience’s perception that the speaker is calculating or insincere. Why do so many managers have trouble communicating authenticity to their listeners?
Morgan, a communications coach for more than two decades, offers advice for overcoming this difficulty. Recent brain research shows that natural, unstudied gestures—what Morgan calls the “second conversation”—express emotions or impulses a split second before our thought processes have turned them into words. So the timing of practiced gestures will always be subtly off, just enough to be picked up by listeners’ unconscious ability to read body language.
If you can’t practice the unspoken part of your delivery, what can you do? Tap into four basic impulses underlying your speech—to be open to the audience, to connect with it, to be passionate, and to “listen” to how the audience is responding—and then rehearse your presentation with each in mind. You can become more open, for instance, by imagining that you’re speaking to your spouse or a close friend. To more readily connect, focus on needing to engage your listeners and then to keep their attention, as if you were speaking to a child who isn’t heeding your words. To convey your passion, identify the feelings behind your speech and let them come through. To listen, think about what the audience is probably feeling when you step up to the podium and be alert to the nonverbal messages of its members. Internalizing these four impulses as you practice will help you come across as relaxed and authentic, and your body language will take care of itself.
Morgan, Nick. “The Kinesthetic Speaker: Putting Action into Words.” Harvard Business Review. April 2001 (product #R0104G).
Speeches and presentations offer an interesting catch-22: Executives don’t want to spend long hours creating them, and people don’t want to sit for long hours listening to them. Ultimately, though, executives can’t live without them. That’s because a good speech or presentation has the power to inspire people to act on the speaker’s behalf and create change.
Author Nick Morgan, a longtime speechwriter and speaking coach, says what’s most often lacking in today’s speeches and presentations is what he calls the “kinesthetic connection.” Many good speakers connect aurally with their audiences, telling dramatic stories and effectively pacing their speeches to hold people’s attention. Others connect visually, with a vivid film clip or a killer slide. Some people do both, but not many also connect kinesthetically. Morgan says the kinesthetic speaker feeds an audience’s primal hunger to experience a presentation on a physical, as well as an intellectual, level. Through awareness of their own physical presence—gestures, posture, movements—and through the effective use of the space in which they present, kinesthetic speakers can create potent nonverbal messages that reinforce their verbal ones.
In this article, Morgan describes techniques for harnessing kinesthetic power and creating a sense of intimacy with an audience—a closeness that is more widely expected from speakers since the advent of television. For instance, kinesthetic speakers should make use of audience proxies—individuals in the crowd who serve as representatives for the others. Ultimately, the author says, a speech or presentation offers something of great value to business executives: It’s the best vehicle for winning trust from large groups of people—be they employees, colleagues, or shareholders.
Tannen, Deborah. “The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why.” Harvard Business Review. September 1995 (product #R9977).
Most managerial work happens through talk—discussions, meetings, presentations, negotiations. It is through talk that managers evaluate others and are themselves judged.
Using research carried out in a variety of workplace settings, linguist Deborah Tannen demonstrates how conversational style often overrides what we say, affecting who gets heard, who gets credit, and what gets done. Tannen’s linguistic perspective provides managers with insight into why there is so much poor communication. Gender plays an important role. Tannen traces the ways in which women’s styles can undermine them in the workplace, making them seem less competent, confident, and self-assured than they are. She analyzes the underlying social dynamic created through talk in common workplace interactions. She argues that a better understanding of linguistic style will make managers better listeners and more effective communicators, allowing them to develop more flexible approaches to a full range of managerial activities.