12.2. WALKING THE STYLE TIGHTROPE
Style discussions are tricky because personal attire serves more than one purpose. It keeps us out of prison, hides our flaws, and provides a basic level of protection from the environment. It also communicates who we are and how we see ourselves to others, as well as how we would like to be seen. This latter sense of style means that your fashion sensibility is as much billboard as anything, an opportunity to advance your personal brand to a group of people.
As such, I can't make across-the-board statements about what should be worn in a presentation. Being the sixth guy on stage at a conference donning a charcoal gray suit and blue tie can be as damaging as being the only guy on stage in a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and Birkenstocks. It really depends on the situation. If your professional platform is teaching people to run a successful business from home, then those Birkenstocks may communicate the level of freedom you enjoy in your own occupation—proof that you're living the dream. If you want people to listen to the message, not the messenger, then that gray suit will really go a long way toward looking professional but not flamboyant.
Every presenter needs to think critically about the brand they want to display. Is the set of qualities wrapped up in your physical body and brain a pivotal element of your message, or are the two unrelated? Defining yourself through style is an extremely easy way to provide an audience with immediate context clues as to how they are supposed to listen and engage.
My advice, then, really only pertains to presenters whose message is king. This is the majority of business presenters, politicians, and any other presenter whose purpose is wrapped up in what he or she does, rather than how he or she does it. Entertainers, authors, philosophers and the like often have the bulk of their message wrapped up in themselves and must do the hard work of cultivating a style that suits them.
For starters, let's talk clothing.
12.2.1. Color
Color is key, both for presenting a healthy-looking version of you and for achieving situation-appropriate style. As a general rule, navy and gray suits will be your most conservative, business-appropriate colors. Navy tends to look more crisp, whereas gray—especially darker shades—travels better, hiding the incidental spills that seem to be unavoidable while on the road. Thus, if you're speaking the same day as your arrival, a gray suit may be the best choice. Otherwise, pick your favorite.
Browns, olives, and tans tend to be empathetic colors—they're good for human resources representatives, hiring and firing, and any other activities where achieving empathy and mutual understanding are paramount. These colors tend not to be authoritative or powerful, though, so be careful using them on stage.
Black is almost always best reserved for the most formal presentation events. In past times, a black suit was a day-to-day standard in the financial world, particularly on Wall Street. But clearly, past times were more formal than our present time. Situations calling for black will be accordingly infrequent.
Of course, these are very basic rules. Coordinating suits with shirts and ties, plaids with stripes, and shoes with all of the above is an art as deep as you're willing to dive. Skin tone plays a key role in how clothing looks once worn—red or pale skin tones do best with navies and grays; warmer complexions fare well with navies and earth tones. But in every category, the complexity goes much deeper. So how do we get it right?
There are entire books on appropriate business dress—Dressing the Man by Alan Flusser or The Little Black Book of Style by Nina Garcia are must-reads—but we're presenters, not fashion magnates. Some people don't like the idea of asking for help, but it signifies a very respectable reality: we spend our entire lives attempting to be experts in our fields. Shouldn't we be comfortable letting someone who spends more time in fashion than we do give us counsel?
For men, this is sometimes as easy as consulting a wife, girlfriend, or daughter. But it's dangerous to assume that all women are style experts; have you seen some of the women walking around lately? As many females are confused about good style as males, so choose your advisors carefully. Truly expert advice, often found at reputable local clothing stores, is often free of charge and helps you get back to curing cancer or whatever it is you do. If you don't know whom to trust, hedge your bets by paying attention to the world around you. Maybe GQ and Detail magazines are too edgy for you—we can't all be 21 with rippling abs—but what about Forbes or Entrepreneur? Paying attention to what successful leaders are wearing will help you achieve a basic level of awareness that can shed light on the difference between good and bad advice.
12.2.2. What to Wear
Business style has become undeniably casual in the past several decades. This is partly due to the lax standards of the dot-com startups during the 1990s and partly due to the rapid increase in telecommuting and work-from-home jobs. In the midst of so much "business casual," it can be difficult for a presenter to know what to wear to the big event. Overdressing, for some, is looked down upon as stodgy and outdated. Underdressing, for others, is a cardinal sin and completely disrespectful. You have a 50/50 shot at getting it right—not good odds when something significant is on the line.
So why not just ask? We frequently forget that this is an option and instead put mountains of pressure on our shoulders as we try to guess what is and isn't appropriate. Save yourself the agony: No one will discredit you for being the one to ask. It's practical, it saves time, and it communicates that you have better things to do than sit around postulating about garb guidelines for an upcoming presentation. Call the event coordinator and ask what people will most likely wear to the event. There will almost certainly be a spread, from casual to business casual or business casual to suit and tie. Always land on the more formal side of the spread and get on with your life.
12.2.3. Maintenance
Everything in your possession is a reflection of you. Shoes, briefcases, wallets, purse, and any other accessories you carry can demonstrate your professionalism or your lack of organization. If you're inherently disorganized, you don't have to become someone else to be a good presenter. You just need to put together an organized and respectable presentation. If you don't make your bed when you leave for the big presentation, fine. Just make sure your briefcase is age appropriate (no monogrammed backpacks from high school) and your shoes are shined. Start thinking about the details; those are the elements that people notice. Details separate individuals from one another and provide the most obvious clues about who you are personally.
12.2.4. The First Impression
We all know by now that we have seven seconds to make a first impression. Depending on where you are seated when being introduced, that time frame includes your walk to the stage, navigation of the stage stairs, and first utterances. So what are you going to do with those seconds?
Let's assume that, while people are rapidly coming to conclusions within the first seven seconds of seeing you, they actually spend the first minute or two finalizing their thoughts and cementing them in their brains. The rest of your presentation depends upon a good introduction, so what can we do to make sure it is absolutely riveting?
Obviously, planning ahead really helps. Consider their expectations: What do they usually hear? Who are they usually listening to at presentations? While you absolutely want to communicate warmth and kindness from the stage, qualities like humor, inspiration, expertise, or other qualities depend on your subject matter and objectives. Whatever you do, whether it's going for a laugh or for tears, catching an audience off guard is essential to sidestepping minds and reaching hearts.
Any audience's number one expectation of a speaker is that he or she will speak. I've never presented to an audience that didn't fully expect me to open my mouth and form words in patterns that make sense to human ears. You can't show up at a speaking engagement and not speak, right?
Well, therein lies your first point of authority: No one else is allowed to speak; you are in complete control. If you don't speak, no one does, which means the room is completely silent. Silence, if you haven't noticed, can be uncomfortable—and becomes increasingly so with time. We think a lot about how we're going to use our words, but very little about how we use the absence of them. Silence can be very powerful.
I've experimented with this before. I once arranged my slide deck at the beginning of a presentation to speak for itself. The images were clear and to the point, and any text that appeared was concise and purposeful. The narrative was there, with or without me. Rather than narrating the story line, I simply clicked through the slide progression until reaching the conclusion (in this case, a punch line). To my surprise, the audience laughed. They got the whole thing, and I hadn't even opened my mouth. Furthermore, they were completely engaged with the slide deck because I took myself out of the picture.
Though this is an extreme example of using silence, it really shows the latitude we have in creative presentation tactics. The primary thing I don't want to do when I stand up in front of an audience is exactly what they're expecting. I want to get them outside of normal because, most of the time, normal is why I'm giving the talk. Normal is not doing business with my firm and I want to change that. Normal is giving routine presentations, and I want to change that. Normal is not good enough for me; I want to change that.
What will normal get you during your presentation? What does safety get you? Humans are fascinating creatures: we like mountains, we like volcanoes, we like rushing rivers, we like oceans. The dynamic is thrilling; normal is routine.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is talking right away. Skip the introduction: Move it to the middle or the end, for instance. After all, what could be more boring than your name, where you're from, and what you do? Those are the three most stock bits of information you could produce to a group of strangers, yet that's how 99 percent of presentations begin. You're basically telling audience members that you're just like everyone else. Your entire presentation may be designed to prove that you're different, but you'll be fighting that first impression all the way.
Skipping the standard introduction changes everything. I've seen this done in many different ways—opening with a quote, asking a question, posing a problem or statistic—but my favorite method is beginning with an artifact. You need something interesting and completely analogous to the presentation topic; otherwise, you're gambling with irrelevance. But by moving the focus from yourself to thoughts, the business at hand, or an object, you take a dynamic step toward deciding what the audience's focus will be during the presentation—and it won't be you!
The simple act of holding an unexpected object in your hand accomplishes the task of redirection. The audience expects you to step on stage and be the pompous ego that fills their eardrums with humming for the bulk of the near future. Even if their expectations aren't half that pessimistic, they're still not great. However, once they see that something other than a laser pointer or slide clicker is in your hands, their curiosity is immediately piqued.
Curiosity is the little bird that a presenter holds in his or her hands. For as long as the presenter possesses it, the audience cares about him or her. The presenter can nurture it and, ultimately, provide the sought-after answers that satisfy this primal yearning for information. Your artifact, whatever it may be, cultivates curiosity immediately.