March 2013
1 post
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them...”
– Carl W. Buechner
February 2013
1 post
2 tags
“Designing a presentation without an audience in mind is like writing a love...”
– Ken Haemer
January 2013
1 post
Practice Makes Perfect II: Fear and Anxiety
In my previous article I talked about perfect practice. By this I meant that the closer you can mimic the real presentation in your practice presentations, the more prepared you will be once the time comes. Perfect practice can also help with fear and anxiety by desensitizing you to presentations. Let’s dig deeper…
One tactic psychologists use to help people overcome their fears is systematic...
December 2012
2 posts
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you...”
– Dale Carnegie
“An actor is an expert at being someone else. A speaker is an expert at being...”
– Olivia Schofield
November 2012
3 posts
“Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how...”
– Jack Nicklaus
7 tags
Practice Makes Perfect
No it doesn’t.
If we took out a chess board right now and started practicing would we become perfect at it eventually? Not even close because most of us don’t know what or how to practice chess. We have no understanding of advanced chess tactics like trapping, gambits, checkmate patterns, opening principles, and compensation. The point is that it takes a lot more than just practice to get really...
“My presence speaks volumes before I say a word”
– Mos Def
October 2012
1 post
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
– Mark Twain
September 2012
3 posts
5 tags
Slow the Game Down
Its football season and this year we have more starting rookie quarterbacks than ever before. After the first few games, many of them look downright confused on game day. But how can you blame them? They are new to the NFL and there is a lot to consider at quarterback: what formation is the defense in? How many rushers are coming? Who is my first, second, and third option at receiver? Truth is it...
“Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how...”
– Jack Nicklaus
Did you ever hear the one about the drowning...
When you are presenting in your own culture it is easy to get comfortable. Sometimes a bit too comfortable…
You begin to feel the connection with the audience and take a risk. Often these risks come in the form of humor. Making an audience smile is very reinforcing, and making them laugh and share a moment with you while you are presenting is worth a million bucks.
It sounds odd, but...
August 2012
2 posts
4 tags
Revisiting Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule
Now that it’s been a few years (well, about seven give or take), what do you think of Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule?
If you’ll recall, the Apple Evangelist and Silicon Valley venture capitalist got a lot of play for his slimmed down approach to PowerPoint decks. In a nutshell, he suggests: -No more than 10 slides -Plan for 20 minutes of presentation, even if given more time -Use a...
How to practice everyday
Don’t have time to practice your presentation skills? You are dead wrong. Let’s assume that there actually isn’t any time you can set aside to practice your presentation. This doesn’t mean you can’t practice. Every time you speak throughout the day, consider your presentation skills. Maintain eye contact when speaking one-on-one and make sure to evenly distribute that eye contact in groups....
July 2012
3 posts
“Confidence doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the result of...”
– Roger Staubach
Can better slides make you a better presenter?
In most presentation skills training – even going back to high school speech class - the point is often hammered home that it’s not about PowerPoint or visual aids; rather, it’s all about the speaker. From trite, sarcastic advice like, “slides are a crutch” to “don’t put the cart before the horse” or “you can’t polish a turd”, the embattled PowerPoint format is often portrayed as a hindrance...
Change Your Perception of Presenting
It’s you against them. They want to fail. You want to survive. You have been put in front of people with very little in your control. You must be spontaneous, you must be smart, you can’t screw up at all or else you are dead.
No, No, No. You are perceiving your role as a presenter all wrong. You’re not a gladiator. You haven’t been thrown into a foreign arena pitted against lions in front of a...
June 2012
1 post
3 tags
“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain”
– Mark Twain
April 2012
5 posts
4 tags
“Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed...”
– John Kotter
4 tags
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a...”
– Mark Twain
1 tag
Meet Matt
Hey all
I recently finished my M.S. and am working towards my Ph.D. in Industrial Organizational Psychology. I’ve been conducting research presentations workshops since 2009. Currently a research associate and a consultant; my research interests lie mostly in cross-cultural applications of I/O psychology and communication through social media.
Unrelated, I am tempted to play golf everyday for...
5 tags
Cultural Understanding: making the jump from...
As a successful presenter, you’ve heard this advice before: don’t memorize a presentation script word for word. When you present, you must have a deeper understanding of the content in order to enable you to freely speak to the key points while also listening and understanding your audience and their needs.
This instruction applies to cross-cultural communication...
March 2012
7 posts
7 tags
“Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
You still get nervous don’t you?
Manage your presentation anxiety with a little help from presentations coach Matt Abrahams. His Speaking Up Without Freaking Out (ISBN: 0757596606) has been newly updated and expanded, offering tips for managing nervousness and maximizing your confidence in front of an audience.
Abrahams takes you through a trip through your presentation anxiety, offering up an assortment of various causes...
1 tag
“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”
– Rudyard Kipling
11 tags
Nervous about the Presentation? Breathe.
Starting to lose it in the presentation? BREATHE. The vast majority of our clients who show signs of nervousness (e.g. voice quiver) aren’t really nervous. They just aren’t breathing well. Once the presentation starts, presenters tend to speed up, breathe shallowly, and forget to pause. Next thing you know they feel like they are edgy. They feel anxiety. Oxygen is important stuff;...
4 tags
“The purpose of an elevator pitch isn’t to close the sale. The goal isn’t even to...”
– Seth Godin
9 tags
Zip up your fly and connect with your audience
There are more than 30 million PowerPoint presentations conducted in business settings every single day. Do you really think you can capture your audience’s attention by dumping your data on them and reading your slides? If that is your game plan, you better leave your zipper undone. Because brother, that is your only chance at getting your audience’s attention for more than 2...
8 tags
When you are presenting, who is the home team?
I was recently coaching a group of international program managers for a large multi-national organization when the lead executive in the group asked me “Rich, so when we present to an international group, how do we know who the home teams is? Do we attend to our audience’s culture when we present overseas, and expect them to adapt to our culture when we present here?”
After reflecting...
February 2012
9 posts
2 tags
“Culture hides much more than it reveals and, strangely enough, what it hides, it...”
4 tags
“There is a profound difference between information and meaning.”
– Warren Bennis
7 tags
Presenting Abroad? Don’t try to look smart, be...
How do the visuals in your presentation translate in the region where you are presenting?
So let’s say you are a high tech company with an eye on global expansion. You have the product that is in demand, your supply chain is agile, and you can keep manufacturing costs competitive. All you need is a presentation that can convey this to your new customer base. Being on top of your game, you grab...
4 tags
“There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you...”
– Dale Carnegie
5 tags
Want to Kill an Audience? Put Some Bullets in...
Do you want to know the quickest way to kill an audience’s enthusiasm?
Bullets. PowerPoint Bullets. Typical presentations slides are wordy sentences that come after a little dot. The Bullet. It is hard to fault the presenter for the inclusion of bullets. When you open PowerPoint the first thing you see is a little gray dot that says “c’mon give me a bullet”. So...
2 tags
Meet Rich
Richard Griffith, Ph.D. is a presentations coach who works with global executives and management professionals. He is the editor of the upcoming book, The Age of Internationalization. His work has been featured in Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal.
4 tags
Get Real or Get Lost
Why do otherwise engaging people disconnect and resort to reading slides while presenting?
I am always amazed when I meet a professional before a workshop and they are an engaging conversationalist in a casual setting, but freeze up, get mechanical, and start “presenting” when they get in front of the room. Usually the issue is that the presenter steps out of their genuine persona and slips...
“The single greatest barrier to business success is the one erected by culture”
– Edward T. Hall 