Stop Talking AT People and Start Engaging People Instead
Many years ago, my son’s senior school invited us to parent’s evening with a presentation afterwards by an Olympic Rower. All hopes were up for an engaging presentation.
We wandered the corridors of the school, lost like all the other parents. Eventually, we saw one teacher after another asking ourselves, ‘Are the teachers getting younger?’. Then came waiting for ‘Johnny’s’ embarrassed parents to finish as he was being given a right rollicking, before our 3 minutes with Jack to find his fate.
Two Takeaways From the Rower
Next, we moved to the school hall, where parents and kids sat as the audience welcomed the Rower with huge applause. I forget his name (there’s a reason for that). He spoke for an hour, and I realised two things – this man can row, but presenting he can’t.
If I tell you that his timeline involved talking about his blue canoe, then his red canoe with the longer handles, and that the blue canoe was made of a slightly better shine, you are catapulted to where I was. Add to this his monotone voice, robot body status, and a general lack of personality. I was bored out of my mind, disengaged and praying that Johnny would press the fire alarm for fun. He didn’t. Dam. Not even when I slipped him a tenner.
The rower knew his stuff, had got the t-shirt and was clearly excelling in his field. Yet his content was boring, and he was not engaging. Let’s look at the second part together – Engagement. We have all been guilty of ‘just doing another presentation’ and slipping into talking AT the audience with the content we want to share as we had spent days writing all the dam slides. Engagement is about how you engage first with your presentation. If you’re monotone, don’t move, and aren’t engaging then it is likely that the audience won’t engage either.
Presentation Compass
The good news is that we can significantly improve our engagement by using the ‘Presentation Compass’. A simple model that will hopefully nag at you to make at least one change when you present next. Imagine a compass:
- North: Increase your volume – get louder.
- South: Decrease your volume – get quieter.
- East: Decrease your rate of words per minute.
- West: Increase your rate of words per minute.
- Centre: Pause.
- North East: Use your hands more.
- South West: Use your hands less.
Use the presentation compass to be more engaging, even if you own a shiny blue canoe!
