Present With Ease

A few weeks ago, I attended the annual conference of the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) at the beautiful Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta.

The keynote speaker during the college of fellows luncheon was Scott Stratten, president of Un-Marketing. And I must say it was one of the best presentations I’ve attended in a long, long time. 

Scott was witty, funny and interesting. He made points that were directly relevant to the people in the audience. 

More importantly, he used his visuals as an aid, not a crutch. 

Prior to Scott’s presentation, while I was talking to one of the people at my table, the conversation invariably turned to the use of slides during presentations (we were, after all, at a conference and I do, after all, specialize in presentation skills training). 

When we talked the title of my book, 5 Steps to Conquer ‘Death by PowerPoint’, she was intrigued. She asked whether the software program is the problem, or the people using it. “If people know how to use the software effectively,” she said, “wouldn’t that solve the problem?” 

I pointed out that if the solution was that simple, my book wouldn’t be necessary. However, at the end of Scott’s presentation, it was easy to say: “That’s how it should be done.”

Scott didn’t rely on PowerPoint. He told stories to engage the minds and hearts of his audience. I have no doubt that some of those stories will be remembered years—if not decades—from now. 

He broke my four-slide guideline, but every visual he showed added value. 

For example, at one point he told a story of getting frustrated in the security line at JFK airport in New York. First, people who were late for their flights were brought to the front of the line. Then the flight crews got shuffled to the front.

A Delta flight attendant bumped into him and said nothing. Under his breath, he suggested that she should at least apologize. Apparently, she responded by saying something like: “I did apologize. Maybe you should open your ears.”

“Now I’m on the 15th stage of Canadian anger,” Scott told us. “At that point, I thought there was nothing the company could do to make it better.”

So, while he was waiting to board his flight, he tweeted his frustration. During his presentation, he showed the tweet on-screen.

Yes, he seemed quite upset. But after we viewed the tweet, he pointed something out: “I spelled ‘Delta’ as ‘Detla’ I was so mad.” 

But, alas, there was something the company could do. He showed us Delta’s reply tweet, which arrived a scant few minutes later, in which the company delivered a sincere apology that made no excuses for the flight attendant’s behaviour. It was so sincere that poor Scott went from Canadian angry to Canadian humble in a heartbeat. 

His points? If you want a better brand, hire better people. When you’re under attack in social media, respond immediately. When you’re wrong, make a sincere apology that is completely devoid of excuses. 

This was just one small part of his highly entertaining one-hour presentation. Yes, he used slides. But, like all good presenters, he told interesting and relevant stories that supported his points. 

Some time ago, I was delivering a presentation to a conference of industry professionals, when the conversation turned to one of my favourite concepts: the question-and-answer process. 

Those who know me will tell you that my favourite Q&A strategy is to encourage my clients to P-A-S (pause, answer the question and stop talking). "But," countered one of the  participants, "what if the question requires 30 minutes of explanation?" 

I thought about that comment then, and I've been thinking about it since. I would give the same answer now that I gave then. I don't believe there is a question anywhere that requires 30 minutes of answer. (Actually, I have trouble thinking of a question that requires two minutes of answer.) And a  conversation with my son when he attended university highlighted this for me.

When Andrew was enrolled as a first-year business student in southern Ontario, he took calculus as a required course. At the start of the year, the professor informed the class that every second Friday morning would be devoted to answering their questions.

Prior to attending his first Q&A class, my son prepared a list of questions he was hoping to ask. That was at the start of the school year. When Andrew came home for the Thanksgiving holiday, we talked about his experience.

"How have the Q&A classes in calculus been going?” I asked him at one point.

"Not well, dad," he replied, looking a bit uncomfortable. "I only attended one class." 

I must admit I had fleeting thoughts of tuition dollars flying out the window. But before pursuing those thoughts, I asked: "Why only one?"

"Because it's the most boring hour you could imagine," he told me. "During the first class, the professor answered four questions." 

So much for 30-minute answers. With 15-minute answers, my son realized that he would be sleeping, whether in class or out, so he decided to exercise his rights as an adult and make it official. Every second Friday he slept in. 

What makes this story interesting is that this is not some half interested conference crowd, a semi-motivated group of workshop attendees or a prospect that someone needs to impress (and not bore). This was an undergraduate student who has clearly defined career goals, in which calculus is an important step along the path. 

Now, I'm sure that my son, who was of legal drinking age in Ontario before his first calculus class, consumed more amber fluid every second Thursday evening than he would like to admit or his father would like to think, but he has consistently proven over the years that he is committed to the goals he sets.

So the next time you're answering questions, and you think your answer has been too long, rest assured that it has. When any of us are answering questions about topics we're passionate about or on which we'd like to educate others, we're the last ones in the room to figure out that we've talked too much.

But before you ever get to that point, be aware of the other person (or people, if you're in a group setting) as soon as you begin answering. Engage them. Don't be afraid to answer their questions and stop talking. This encourages them to ask more questions -- which ultimately increases participation, understanding and buy-in.

I had a fascinating experience last fall that underscored everything I’ve believed about how PowerPoint kills interactivity and audience engagement—and that by simply shutting off the projector you can reverse those negative outcomes. 

I was the scheduled keynote speaker at an evening forum for aspiring professional engineers sponsored by a chapter of Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO). After my hour, a speaker from PEO headquarters was scheduled to spend about 40 minutes talking about the steps required to achieve the professional engineering (P.Eng.) designation. 

The title of my presentation was: Cognitive Science + Common Sense = Effective Presentations. Once I showed a short video during the first part of my presentation—to demonstrate that humans cannot read and listen at the same time—I shut the projector off. 

During the lull between my presentation and the next one, the speaker (we’ll call her Shauna) started up the projector, attached her laptop, and began loading her PowerPoint presentation. 

Watching this on-screen, one of the participants commented: “Wow, look at all the slides! Didn’t you hear anything Eric said during the past hour?” 

He said it quietly and politely, but his point was well made. Shauna looked a little lost, so I walked over and quietly said to her: “If you need your slides as notes, use them. But shut the projector off.” 

She did shut it off and, shortly after she started her presentation, an interesting thing happened. The group began asking questions. And they didn’t just ask questions, they fired them at her. 

“I’ve just changed jobs,” one person said. “What information do I need from my previous employer? Is there anything different I need from my current employer?” 

“I’ve just been laid off,” another said. “How will that affect my path to becoming licensed? Can I get an extension if I need it?” 

On it went. Shauna was easily asked more than 50 or 60 questions, which helped audience members shape the licensing information to their particular circumstance, which is when communication actually works. 

After the presentation, I asked Shauna if this was more questions than she normally receives. “Definitely,” she replied. “In fact, it’s more questions in one evening than I’ve received in the dozens of times I’ve delivered this presentation combined.” 

I also talked to a few aspiring engineers at the end of the evening. They told me they got great value from the presentation. They already knew the path to licensure. The interaction gave them the opportunity to relate that path to their specific circumstances.

And that is when face-to-face communication actually works. 

So, if you want to improve your next presentation, why not learn from Shauna’s experience? Shut off the projector and use your slides as your notes. 

Create an interactive exchange that has structure for you, but ultimately provides more value to them. 

During a period of more than fifteen years, I have asked more than twenty thousand people at workshops, seminars and presentations to raise their hands to each of the following statements in turn:   

Raise your hand if most of the business presentations you’ve attended in the past few years have made extensive use of visual aids.

Raise your hand again if you can say that 51 per or more of the presentations you attended in that period were a good use of your time.

Virtually every hand has gone up to the first statement. I think the only people who didn’t put up their hands are too tired, too skeptical or too independent. 

Everyone knows that modern presentations are accompanied by slides—either projected, printed or both. We’ve been visual-ed to death since acetates first met laser printers, and overhead projectors began popping up in meeting rooms, training rooms and boardrooms the world over. 

Response to the second statement has been interesting. At the workshops, presentations and seminars I’ve facilitated, about six to eight per cent of people put their hands up. With twenty thousand-plus people asked, there is no question that less than 10 per cent say that more than half the presentations they had attended were a good use of their time. 

No matter how you examine them, these are poor results. 

I once had a group of scientists challenge my informal results. One participant said that people could sense in my voice that I didn’t want them to put up their hands to the second statement. I countered that my persuasive skills are not that highly refined. 

To quote a phrase from our son’s favorite movie, Die Hard, if my persuasive skills were that effective, I’d already “be sitting on a beach earning twenty per cent.” But let’s suppose that I convinced half the people who wanted to put up their hands to not do so, the standard would still be extremely poor. 

What does this tell us? 

The vast majority of people use visual aids when attempting to communicate with their fellow human beings. We know that. But the vast majority of those visuals are ultimately wasting people’s time. 

According to a recent article in Symmetry magazine, a group of physicists working on the Large Hadron Collider project at Fermilab has banned the use of PowerPoint at biweekly meetings in favour of whiteboards. 

The move came as a direct result of the project's leadership seeking ways to enhance engagement from the audience who, until that time, was like every other audience trying to follow a series of PowerPoint slides. 

The result of the ban? The physicists say the move has led to more "interaction and curiosity," made it easier for the group to discuss the project's "ongoing work and future goals," and enhanced the connection between speaker and audience to improve decision-making. 

Are there lessons here that can apply to others? 

Absolutely: 

As I've written before, Amazon and LinkedIn have banned PowerPoint presentations at their meetings, resulting in enhanced productivity and improved decision-making.

I have long believed that  boards of directors should ban PowerPoint presentations at their meetings to achieve the same results: save time and enhance the overall quality of decisions made. 

Most conference organizers I know would like to enhance engagement. It's a bold move, but banning slides (not just PowerPoint, but Keynote, Prezi, SlideRocket, Haiku Deck and others) would force speakers to use a variety of tools that lead to greater engagement. 

A recent Gallup survey indicated that only 30 per cent of employees are engaged. Fewer than one in three! Care to make a wager on how most of those employees receive information from their leaders? What has an organization got to lose by banning slides at internal meetings?

Planning a sales meeting? Why not ban slides? The sales force undoubtedly has knowledge to contribute. Like the physicists, if the sales force was more engaged, wouldn't the group benefit from the collective experience of others?

The list goes on. 

There is one important universal rule regarding presentations. It should be obvious. But it must be said because, for some unknown reason, it keeps happening.

Under no circumstances whatsoever should you read your information aloud to your audience. Do not read your slides. Ever. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve projected them, printed them, or both. People who read slide after slide to their audience should spend eternity listening and following along while someone else reads to them. 

Actually, they won’t need eternity. One full weekend will usually suffice.

If you put a quote or case study up on the screen, stop talking until we read it. To ourselves. In silence. Most of us can read twice as fast as someone else can talk. And usually we can do so with high levels of comprehension, unless someone is disturbing our concentration by reading the same material to us, or even talking about or around it while we’re trying to read it. On this, the science is clear. We get less than if you simply stop talking and let us read for ourselves. 

Please, in the name of all that is good, beautiful and merciful on this planet, stop reading to us. If you want us to read something, send it to us in advance. If we haven’t read it, that’s our problem. Don’t read it to us when we get together. In fact, don’t ever present the same information you sent in advance. 

When we get together, create a conversation so we can explore your ideas further, ask about them, and relate them to our specific situation in ways that aid understanding and retention. 

I must admit that I was a bit disappointed when I received my "Call for Proposals" e-mail from the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) and, upon clicking the link, was directed to a web page that informed me:

"New this year: Chosen speakers will be required to build and deliver their presentation on a CSTD power point template."

To me, this almost guarantees mediocrity in the vast majority of presentations delivered by an organization that should be setting the highest possible standard in communication and training effectiveness.

And I'm not alone in that thinking:

A training organization in the UK talks about "The Curse of PowerPoint," suggesting "managers and trainers really should wake up with PowerPoint and focus more on effective training skills" and "overuse and over-reliance should be stopped at once." Aren't overuse and over-reliance likely outcomes when a requirement for slides is posted on a website?

LinkedIn and Amazon have eliminated PowerPoint presentations at their meetings. Why? Because the CEOs of those "high-tech" organizations realize that humans cannot read and listen at the same time. The result? Both organizations have strengthened communication, enhanced decision-making and improved productivity. Wouldn't CSTD's training programs and conference presentations benefit from the same logic?

In a New York Times article on the use of PowerPoint in the military, one of the commanders is quoted: "PowerPoint makes us stupid." Anyone who has been unable to escape a boring conference presentation knows the truth of that statement.

After completing a study on instructional design, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists—a professor emeritus of education, no less—is quoted: "The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster. It should be ditched." It's very difficult to argue with someone whose life has been devoted to understanding how the brain processes information to learn.

So what should CSTD do? Honestly, and my bias is showing through here, all training organizations (and all organizations that sponsor learning and development programs) should adopt an audience manifesto (or something like it) to facilitate the effective design, development and delivery of programs to its dues-paying members and conference attendees:

Put the audience first.

Structure a conversation, not a presentation.

Minimize visual aids (and use only where absolutely necessary).

Facilitate a two-way exchange.

Answer questions throughout.

Two of the business world’s top CEOs—Jeff Bezos at Amazon and Jeff Weiner at LinkedIn—have eliminated slide-driven presentations from their meetings. 

During an interview with Charlie Rose, Amazon.com’s CEO talked about why he would take such a seemingly radical step, which not only includes eliminating projected presentations but printed decks as well.

“All of our meetings are structured around six-page memos,” Bezos says, pointing out that this also eliminates bullet points. “When you have to write your ideas out in complete sentences and complete paragraphs, it forces a deeper clarity of thinking.”

Bezos believes that PowerPoint is easy for the presenter but difficult for the audience. Meetings may start with up to 30 minutes of silence while everyone reads the documents. 

The result of separating the written word from the spoken word? “It saves a lot of time,” he points out. 

In a blog post, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner points out that “at LinkedIn, we have essentially eliminated the presentation.” Information is sent 24 hours in advance, giving people an opportunity to review it. However, not everyone can find the time, so five to 10 minutes is set aside at the start of the meeting to give everyone time to review the written document. 

"Once folks have completed the reading, it's time to open it up for discussion,” Weiner writes. “There is no presentation.”

The benefit? “You may be pleasantly surprised to see a meeting that had been scheduled for an hour is actually over after 20-30 minutes.”

Are these leaders are on the right track? Absolutely. Cognitive science tells us that humans cannot read and listen at the same time. In fact, trying to do both is absolutely the least effective option and a virtual waste of time—terrible news for the “average” PowerPoint presentation delivered in boardrooms, meeting rooms, training rooms and conference halls.

Organizations that wish to regain lost productivity, and to communicate most effectively to make the best decisions, should learn to separate the written word from the spoken word. There is a time to read and a time to discuss. For best results, those times should never, ever be the same time. 

I just came across this interesting YouTube video and I couldn't help myself — I had to share it.

Those who know me know that I have never said:  "Don't use PowerPoint."  Instead, my position has always been that if you're going to use it, use it properly.  

First and foremost, if people can read your PPT deck and understand your presentation, you have too much detail on your visual aids.  

Second, use visuals as a spice.  And, as we all know, too much spice can ruin the meal.  

Third, some visuals speak for themselves.  So let them.  You don't have to fill the silence with verbal diarrhea.  

Fourth, it can be very effective to build your information one small step at a time. Think of how you would explain something to someone by drawing pictures on a napkin.  The information you drew and the order in which you drew it can often be a guide for creating an effective slide.  

Finally, like all aspects of your presentations, the speed at which information goes from you to the audience should be driven by their needs, not yours.  

The following video exemplifies these basic principles.  In particular, notice how he doesn't ever say the words "nuclear bomb."  And see how he builds the final slide.

I had the pleasure of recently speaking to public relations students at a local college. Like I’ve asked many groups, I asked them to respond to two statements:

Raise your hand if most of the presentations you’ve seen in the past few years have made extensive use of visual aids like PowerPoint.

Raise your hand again if you can say that 51 per cent or more of the presentations you’ve seen in that time frame have been a good use of your time.

Every one of the 30-plus students in the room put their hands up to the first statement. These are young people who have spent five years in post-secondary education; four years to get their degree and one year in this post-graduate program. They’ve seen their share of PowerPoint.

Not one hand went up to the second one. In other words, not one of them could say that 51 per cent of the presentations they’ve seen (in the classroom and elsewhere) were a good use of their time. 

Tens of thousands of dollars spent in post-secondary education. Incredible amounts of time wasted. 

Food for thought, isn’t it?

But on the positive side, the two panelists and I tried to provide students with insight into managing controversy, issues and crises. We answered dozens of questions. Everyone was engaged. 

And we managed to do all this without a single PowerPoint slide. 

(I first published this article nearly 10 years ago. Today, the term "mehrabian myth" is searched up to 50 times per month. Ergo, the tale bears telling again!)

When it comes to the use of body language in presentations and broadcast interviews, most of us have seen some sort of statistic that indicates:

55% of the overall message is how the person looks when delivering the message.

38% of the overall message is how the person sounds when delivering the message.

7% of the overall message can be attributed to the words the person uses.

If you take these numbers and explanations at face value, they seem to imply that you can watch a foreign movie without subtitles.  By simply observing how two actors converse, you can listen to how the words sound, watch the actors' gestures and get 93 percent of the message. 

However, this is not the case. You will recognize emotion, but if you don't understand what is said, you comprehend significantly less than 93 percent of what transpires between the actors.

The numbers 55, 38 and 7 first appear in a 1971 book entitled Silent Messages, written by Albert Mehrabian and based on his research at Stanford University.  But the way these numbers are now commonly misused bears little resemblance to what Professor Mehrabian originally intended.   

Mehrabian uses two equations in Silent Messages (on pages 44 and 45) to describe the results of one section of his research, in a chapter titled "The Double-Edged Message":

Total liking = 7% verbal liking + 38% vocal liking + 55% facial liking

Total feeling = 7% verbal feeling + 38% vocal feeling + 55% facial feeling

The bottom line is Professor Mehrabian's assertion that words, voice and body language must be consistent with each other. If the receiver of information senses an inconsistency, he or she relies on more than the words spoken to get the overall message. 

In other words, if you use body language to be someone other than who you are in a presentation or broadcast interview (i.e. by trying to create the right image to get as much as possible out of the 55%), the audience will sense this inconsistency and will be less likely to believe what you're saying.  As Mehrabian writes, "when actions contradict words, people rely more heavily on actions to infer another's feelings."  

This emphasizes the importance of "be yourself" as a fundamental principle of presentations and/or broadcast interviews.  You certainly want to be on your best behavior; there are certain parts of your anatomy you should not scratch or pick at when delivering a presentation or during a TV interview. 

Quite frankly, if you use gestures when you're engaged in a conversation on the telephone (and virtually all of us do), you should bring those gestures to your presentations and broadcast interviews.  Let them happen naturally.  They are an integral component of who you are as a human being, and therefore fundamental to the concept of "be yourself."

Using gestures naturally is the best possible way to ensure consistency between the words spoken, how they sound when they're spoken and how you look when they're spoken. In that scenario, total liking and total feeling will be as close to 100 percent as possible. 

And your effectiveness at influencing others will be enhanced.

There’s a “new” form of presentation making the rounds called pecha kucha.

This approach originated in Tokyo in 2003 as an evening in which young designers could meet, network and show their work in public. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for "chit chat," this format is based on showing twenty images for twenty seconds each. 

You set the timing on your slide program and talk for twenty seconds as each slide is shown on-screen. In theory, it makes presentations concise and keeps things moving. 

While pecha kucha has the potential of reducing ‘Death by PowerPoint’ to six-minute-forty-second bites, it’s another example of the medium dictating the message. 

During a two-day presentation skills workshop I was conducting last week, a participant asked:  "Should there always be a call to action in our presentations?"

In a business presentation, the answer is almost always "yes."

As a general statement, there are three types of speeches or presentations:  traditional, informative and persuasive.  

A traditional speech or presentation would be something like an eulogy at a funeral, an acceptance speech for an award or a 25-year service awards gala for a corporation.  Generally, you don't need to have a call to action for a traditional presentation, although I have occasionally seen a call to action to be very effective.

In an informative speech or presentation, you are informing the audience about something that should be relevant to who they are as human beings.  It is important that you tell them why your information is relevant, and clearly state how you hope they will apply this information to their job, to their personal life, or to their professional life.

A persuasive presentation encourages the audience to take fairly immediate and direct action — vote for a candidate, sign a petition, or even get feedback from users by a specific date to ensure that a new software package is truly meeting the needs of the organization.  

As those who have been through my workshops know, I believe the call to action in an informative or persuasive presentation should be stated up front and again at the end in clear, concise terms.  In a modern business presentation, if you don't want the audience to apply what you're saying, or you don't want them to take some form of action as a result, I have a critical question to ask: