Chapter 5
Delivering Powerful Presentations
It was time to give the annual report to the board and shareholders. Suzanne, the vice president of finance, was shaking and sweating. The rolls of nausea began before she moved up to the podium. With clammy hands and short breaths, she went through her PowerPoint slides, breathing an audible sigh of relief when the 20 minutes were up. Though she had prepared a great report, her delivery was weak. After the presentation, it took hours for her to regain her composure.
Four years later, a new audience waited for Suzanne to speak. After the audio-visual team adjusted her mike, Suzanne stepped out from behind the lectern, smiling at members of the audience as they filed in. The debilitating nervousness of years ago had disappeared.
What happened? Suzanne had hired a speech coach to help her learn how to better organize and deliver presentations, and then seized every opportunity to hone her skills. As she transformed a potential career derailment into an asset, her confidence rose.
Renowned introvert financier Warren Buffet referred to public speaking as “our greatest asset or our worst liability.”32 Have you experienced what Suzanne felt in her early days of presenting? Are you able to give presentations with ease and confidence?
As with any leadership skill, strong presentation skills are not correlated with extroversion. Many introverts have developed high-profile careers that require presence and presentation skills, including singer Beyoncé, tech giant and philanthropist Bill Gates, actress Meryl Streep, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. All have mastered the skill of public speaking.
Author Susan Cain, who wrote the bestselling book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, is a strong introvert herself. In what she describes as her “year of living dangerously,” Susan found a way to manage her fear as she delivered a powerful TED Talk that has been viewed by almost 17 million people. In an article written for the New York Times, Susan was open about her fears and how she overcame them. “I believe it’s healthy for all of us (extroverts included) to stretch occasionally beyond our temperaments. . . . For the sake of a book on the value of quiet, I’m willing to make a little noise.”33
Introverted leaders need to educate, inform, and challenge people in their organizations. Speaking with impact and confidence is the way to do that. People need to hear what you have to say. I’ve worked with many introverted leaders who, like Susan Cain, motivated themselves to step out of their comfort zones and learn how to deliver messages effectively. The 4 Ps Process can be your strategy to become a more confident and competent speaker.
Prepare
In my early years as a corporate trainer, I spent days preparing for an important presentation. I studied the material and anticipated every question. On the day of the talk, I entered the room ready to be the expert, but even so, I was very tense.
Rashid was a presentation skills coach my company had hired, and he could see my anxiety. Approaching me, he gently said something I have never forgotten: “Jennifer, you know this material, and you can’t know everything. Now just enjoy the experience and relax.”
I smiled at Rashid and decided to do just that. When curve-ball questions or comments came my way, I asked others in the room for their input. Afterward, I did research and circled back to the people whose questions I had been unable to answer. By believing in myself and realizing I couldn’t possibly know everything, I grew into my role as a facilitator.
Successful introverted leaders also discover this essential knowledge—they must prepare the material and themselves. Preparation will help you to relax while delivering a presentation. Let’s address these two major elements of preparing for your presentation:
• Prepare the material.
• Prepare yourself.
Prepare the Material
Keep these in mind when preparing the material:
• Craft your presentation.
• Find stories.
• Create slides to support your talk, not replace it.
Craft Your Presentation
Just as a great film needs a strong script, a presentation’s foundation begins with the written word. Invest time in writing your speech, and build on it from there. As an introvert, your strength in preparation is an advantage. You can take the time to think through the purpose of your program. Be clear as to whether your intent is to inform, persuade, educate, or motivate. Once that purpose has been established, your talk should flow logically and be enlivened with examples and stories.
Know the big idea you want your audience to retain. For instance, when I speak about The Introverted Leader, the big idea is that introverts are leaders. I make sure that every point, story, and audience exercise serves that theme.
A production schedule is also a key part of your preparation. Speech coach Eleni Kelakos suggests you consider starting at the end of your presentation and working backward, scheduling milestone dates for rehearsing your program, preparing your slides, creating your script, and pulling material together. The discipline of doing this will contribute to a strong delivery on game day.34
Find Stories
Human beings respond to stories, and they are a powerful way to get your purpose-driven message across. Introverted leaders use stories to inspire and teach lessons to their teams, and the best ones come from personal experience.
Bill Stainton, an introverted keynote speaker and speech coach mentioned previously, suggests you ask yourself the question: “When did something go wrong?” The memories that spring from this question can be shaped into stories. Look for conflicts you can explore to keep your audience interested and engaged. Bill uses the three-step method to structure stories. Beginning: Get your hero up a tree. Middle: Throw rocks at the hero. End: Let him down.35
In his stellar TEDx Talk, Bill uses this hero framework as he relates a powerful story about a missed opportunity. While traveling, he was seated on a plane next to a Russian woman he had mentally written off as uninteresting. Unfortunately, just before his five-hour cross-country flight landed, he discovered she had studied under the great Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Ironically, Bill had been listening to Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” on headphones throughout the flight. He had avoided conversing with his fellow traveler because he judged her as different. As he shares so poignantly in the speech, Bill missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn more about his idol Stravinsky.36 By staying hidden in our cocoons, he points out, we rob the world of our creativity. His story, acted out on stage, powerfully underscores this lesson.
6-Step Method Another approach to finding stories that helps establish connection between you and your audience is the 6-Step Method.
1. Describe the Situation What is the background?
2. List the Task What is the problem or opportunity?
3. Actions Taken What happened?
4. Results Achieved What tangible results occurred?
5. Lessons Learned What is the key lesson of the story?
6. Application What can you (audience member) do?
An example of this approach can be found in a story about Jessica Alba, actress and CEO of The Honest Company.37
1. Describe the Situation Before having her first child, actress Jessica Alba’s mother gave her detergent that was marketed as safe for children. When Jessica tried it herself, she broke out in hives. After doing research, she discovered that some baby products have chemicals that can cause allergic reactions.
2. List the Task Alba wanted to create safe and effective consumer products that were beautifully designed, reasonably priced, and easy for parents to get.
3. Actions Taken Alba hired top consultants and sought funding from venture capital firms. Even after multiple rejections, she pressed on and became a champion for safe products. In 2011, she appeared on Capitol Hill to ask members of Congress to cosponsor the Safe Chemicals Act.
4. Results Achieved Alba’s research paid off. In 2012, sales reached $10 million in her company’s first year. The company now offers over 135 products online and in stores, and sales have passed several hundred million dollars.
5. Lessons Learned Acting on your values can make a difference for others and lead to business success.
6. Application Can you make a commitment to something in which you believe?
Keep a small notebook with you, or type your everyday observations into your phone. You will find stories waiting to be told, and when you practice them, you will tighten them up. Watch your presentations come alive.
Create Slides to Support Your Talk, Not Replace It
PowerPoint is a great tool. However, it’s easy to go overboard on bullet points or turn your presentation into little more than a narration of the slides. An introverted marketing manager said, “The audience showed up to hear you talk about a solution to a problem that’s causing them pain, not to hear you perform PowerPoint karaoke.” Know your material so well that, if technology fails, you can give your presentation without slides.
Tom Nixon’s practical book, Fix Your Lousy PowerPoint, provides tips for creating strong PowerPoint presentations.38 Based on my experience as a presenter, integrated with Tom’s ideas, here are a few of my favorite tips:
• Keep slides simple. It takes five seconds for people to absorb a visual, so minimize the amount of words on the screen.
• You should be the focus of your presentation, not your slides. Deliver essential points verbally, and let the slides support you as the expert.
• Illustrate and summarize numbers with graphs, illustrations, and oversized numbers.
• Include video clips, and run them from within PowerPoint not from the internet.
• Quality images are worth the cost.
Prepare Yourself
As you prepare yourself to step onto the platform, remember to take these steps:
• Reprogram negative thoughts.
• Breathe.
• Visualize success.
• Create a ritual.
Reprogram Negative Thoughts
Stage fright is often tied to negative messages spinning through your brain. Do these statements sound familiar?
• “I am not qualified to speak to these [fill in the blank] people.”
• “I should have spent more time reviewing the data before I got up here.”
• “What if I can’t make a convincing argument?”
In addition to preparing so you know the content cold, one way to mitigate the anxiety of speaking in front of people is to reprogram your brain with positive messages like these:
• “I have a message of value that I want people to hear.”
• “I am prepared and will do the best I can do.”
• “I don’t have to be perfect.”
Introverted clients have told me that messages like these help them reprogram their thoughts and rise above a debilitating fear of speaking.
Breathe
It is difficult to remain anxious at the same time you are consciously breathing. Focusing on slow, deep breaths can be an effective way to get centered. Breathing gets you into your body, out of your mind, and helps you focus on the present. It can be a useful method to quiet the mental chatter. Take a few minutes to breathe deeply and calmly before you speak, which should help you slow down and relax.
Try it right now. Take in a slow breath in and out. Now do it again. How do you feel? Notice how your body relaxes. Are your arms and legs uncrossed? Are you sitting up straighter? Try speaking. Your voice probably is more clear and confident.
Like breathing, a walk or other physical exercise helps get your blood and energy flowing. These steps can help you feel alert and more alive when you’re about to give a presentation.
Visualize Success
Many champion athletes rely on visualization to prepare for competition. They run through the event in their minds. As a result, their brains believe that the situation has already occurred in their minds when they arrive, and they are ready to perform at their peak. Many studies have indicated that your mind does not distinguish between the imagined and the physical. When you are visualizing a physical action, all the same pathways in your brain fire up the way they would if you were actually doing it.
Consider taking these steps before your next presentation. Imagine a great experience. Try listening to calming music with your earphones. Then picture yourself in the room, giving your presentation. Imagine responsive faces, smiles, questions being asked, and your clear, compelling answers. Your brain is being wired to expect a positive experience, and the pleasant feeling created as you visualize a successful presentation will last. You will experience a déjà vu feeling when you are in the actual room.
Create a Ritual
As an introverted leader, you likely prefer not to feel rushed when you get up to talk. Take the time you need to calm down, clear your mind, and practice any last-minute lines you want to say. Rituals can give comfort and prepare you to perform. Run in place, do yoga stretches, tense and relax areas of your body, take a walk, or repeat a prayer or mantra. Experiment, and when you discover what feels right for you, try repeating it the next time you are “on deck.”
Presence
You’re prepared and you know your material cold. Now it’s time to speak. Let’s consider how to make all that preparation time pay off so you can stay present. Here are three key ways to be fully present:
• Connect with your audience.
• Pause.
• Attend to your body language.
Connect with Your Audience
The late Marilynn Mobley, a brilliant media consultant, shared a great technique for connecting with your audience. “People love to eavesdrop,” she said.39 She practiced locking eyes with one person in the audience and found that everyone else in the room became engaged with that connection.
Eye contact was a challenge for Richard, an introverted CFO. Before working with a coach, he stood stiffly behind a lectern with his head down while he read his presentation into the microphone, eyes glued to the written text. “Talk about a rest break—this was a complete snoozer!” his coach, Amelia, told me. After coaching and a lot of effort on Richard’s part, he made eye contact with his audience, and his presentations became a completely different experience. “His team walked out buzzing about how they finally ‘got it,’” his coach said. “They were energized by his call to action—something he never had when just reading financial results!”
Making it about the audience and letting go of the worry about how you sound will also help improve your presentation skills. Riley, an introverted sales trainer, said, “When I shifted my focus from what I am doing or saying to what the audience is receiving, everything changed. I was less nervous and more effective.”
Pause
As an introvert, you likely know the tremendous value of the pause. It provides space to think, collect your thoughts, and recharge. A significant pause before you deliver your point gets listeners’ attention. It helps prepare them for the important information to come.
A pause after your point allows time for the idea sink in. Effective speakers use pauses to help the audience process what has been said. Building these spaces into a presentation gives people the gift of allowing the words to settle in so your message can be heard. Think of pauses like commas or periods, and use them when you want to underscore an important point.
“A pause isn’t a moment of nothing,” speech coach Patricia Fripp says. “Used strategically, it is a tool that helps you build intellectual and emotional connection with your audience.”40
When people are nervous, they tend to talk with more speed. Conscious pauses will also help you to slow you down.
Attend to Your Body Language
How Body Language Detracts from Your Message
The first time I reviewed a videotape of a training session I did, my attention was arrested by the game of catch I played with the marker in my hand. As I spoke, the marker flew from right hand to left and back again, and the whole time, I was oblivious. I’m certain the “pearls of wisdom” I was dispensing were lost as eyes and ears tuned into the marker’s metronome action. This is a great example of how body language can derail a presentation.
After watching that tape, I was more conscious of where I placed my arms and how I held objects in my hands. I am still mindful of these types of distracting behaviors when I speak because of that first painful experience.
How Body Language Can Enhance Your Message
But body language also can be used to facilitate your message. For example, the power pose, a term coined by Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy, involves putting out your arms and taking up the room, or placing your hands on your hips to feel a sense of power and control.41 These physical acts can help to build your confidence both before and during your presentations.
Lena, an engineer who delivers training, said that when speaking, she chooses someone that represents who she wants to be and “steps into them.” She often has modeled Oprah Winfrey’s posture, stance, and even her low assured voice to give her the confident feeling she craves when presenting.
Push
The push step in delivering presentations will raise your game. Here are three key push steps to consider:
• Know how far to push.
• Say it aloud.
• Get creative.
Know How Far to Push
One day at the UPS store where I collect my mail, I was greeted by Jeremy, a soft-spoken young man who also was a student at the local college. He proudly shared that he had registered for a public speaking class. I told him I was impressed that he had taken that step, and he gave me a big grin.
“Yes! And do you know the best thing about it?”
“No,” I responded.
“It is online!”
I had to smile. Isn’t it an oxymoron to take public speaking in the privacy of your house?
Fast forward—Jeremy earned his degree and got a great job as a software designer. Now when I run into him, he exudes confidence and has shared how glad he is that he stepped out of his comfort zone to take that public speaking class. Upon further reflection, I realized that for Jeremy, taking this action was a push step. What would be a push step for you?
Say It Aloud
Practicing out loud is a great strategy for editing your presentations. Rehearsing this way helps you hear what you’ve written. As written words come alive, you can capture phrases that sound better spoken than written. You’ll also discover words and commentary that don’t serve your talk or that you tend to stumble over, so you can rephrase or delete them.
Practice aloud until you are sick of hearing your presentation. Listen to how you sound, including inflections, word emphases, pauses, and timing. Follow the lead of actors and break your practice time into segments, which will help you better learn each part.
Consider joining Toastmasters, a worldwide nonprofit organization with a stated mission to help people become more competent and comfortable in front of an audience. With regular opportunities to practice speaking in a nonthreatening atmosphere, you get supportive feedback that will lead to developing stronger public speaking skills.
Get Creative
What can you do to be creative when you present? Think about adding provocative questions, demonstrating points to the audience, showing video clips, and even using props. Note what kind of reactions you get from these creative elements and approaches. Keeping your content and delivery style fresh will not only help you better connect with your audiences, but you will also feel more motivated and fresh each time you present.
Sales trainer Marty Mercer used an innovative approach for the presentation he was giving at a conference. He arrived the night before, and with camera in hand, wandered around the hotel taking shots of conference attendees, including some executives. That night Marty downloaded the photos and interspersed them into his slide presentation. He added humorous comments to go with the photos, and his audience was totally engaged throughout his presentation. He did vet the comments with the conference planners just to be safe.
Practice
Look for Every Opportunity to Practice
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is a master at his craft, but he didn’t get that way by accident. Take a lesson from his playbook when it comes to public speaking. “If I don’t do a [comedy] set in two weeks, I feel it,” he said. “I read an article a few years ago that said when you practice a sport a lot, you literally become a broadband: the nerve pathway in your brain contains a lot more information. As soon as you stop practicing, the pathway begins shrinking back down. Reading that changed my life. I used to wonder, why am I doing these sets, getting on a stage? Don’t I know how to do this already? The answer is no. You must keep doing it. The broadband starts to narrow the moment you stop.”42
Here are some ideas about how you can practice.
• Give a recap of a recent training class at your next staff meeting.
• After you attend a conference, report back to your team what you learned about competitive trends.
• Suggest to your supervisor that you are available to present a project status report to another team.
• Volunteer to help inspire people to attend a fundraiser.
Opportunities are all around you to get up and speak, even in small segments, if you take the time to notice them.
Be sure to ask respected peers for specific feedback on your eye contact and the organization and flow of your engagement techniques. By telling people what you want to receive feedback on, they can target their help.
Practice is the only way to improve. By following the 4 Ps ideas in this chapter and practicing diligently, you soon will be on the road to delivering powerful presentations that make an impact on others.
