How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

I must first confess my love of Formula 1 racing before I begin writing this post. I have been a huge fan of Formula 1 since the early 1990s when Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna were drivers, and I remember the tragic accident in 1994 when Ayrton Senna died.

Photo courtesy of Flickr creative commons - Photo owned by fox2mike

Yesterday saw the opening of the 2010 Formula 1 Grand Prix, and as usual I was sat riveted to my seat watching both the qualifying and the race. While I was watching it I was struck by the awesomeness of the pit crews. (For those of you wondering what a pit crew is – the pit crew are the people responsible for changing the tyres on the car when it comes in for a pit stop) The pit crews involved in yesterday’s Bahrainian Grand Prix, were changing four tyres in less than four seconds! – that is incredible.

But this got me thinking – how do you prepare for such a high pressure event, where just one simple mistake can cost your team a winning race? The simple answer is practice. Pit crews of all the teams involved in the world of Formula 1 practice, practice and practice again until they can do the tyre change with their eyes shut. They even practice for things going wrong. They simulate problems and they work out the best and quickest solutions to these problems, then they practice handling these problems over and over again until they can deal with the problem in the quickest possible time.

When we do a presentation, quite often there is a team of people involved. You may be the presenter, the driver, but behind you are the people who are making the projector work, your computer sing and for large events someone ensuring that your audience are comfortable. These people are your pit crew.

I wonder how many companies involved in giving presentations today, think about the people who are making sure everything works? How many of these companies have their ‘technical’ staff practice for when things go wrong? My guess in pretty much none of them.

And therein lies a problem. In today’s world we need to be well practiced – and that includes you, the presenter, we need to be prepared for anything and we need to know what to do when things go wrong. We need to work together as a team, because quite often when we present to a customer, the prize for success can run into millions of dollars.

So next time you present, make sure that your team is prepared, practiced as much as you, and ready for anything. Not only will you look incredibly professional, but you will dramatically improve you presentation success.

Having spent a number of years teaching business English to large numbers of students where English was not their native language, I very quickly learned that one of the key requisites for any speaker when speaking to an international audience is to speak slowly.

Now, I am a native English speaker, most of you may not be. But the same rules apply to non-native English speakers. In fact, speaking slowly is probably more important for a non-native speaker than a native one because of possible pronunciation difficulties.

When you are presenting you are not in a race to finish. Your job is to communicate your message in a way that your audience a) understands and b) remembers. If you fail at these basic communication goals your whole presentation fails.  

When you are preparing your presentation, always practice your presentation in front of someone and get their feedback. They will tell you if you are speaking too fast. I always remember a very wise man who told me that when you are doing a presentation in front of a group of people, if you think you are speaking at a normal speed, then you are speaking too fast.

It is unlikely that you will ever speak too slowly when you present because your nerves will automatically speed you up. So focus on your words, think slow and try to relax a little. Focus on the stress and intonation of your words, pause before saying an important word, or an ‘action verb‘ to give it more impact. These little tips will help you to slow down.

I always find that when I feel very strongly about a subject, my passion speeds me up without me realising it. A tip here is to stop when you think you are going too fast and take a breath.

If you take a look at the Jamie Oliver speech at TED 2010, Jamie’s passion and enthusiasm floods out of him. It was a brilliant presentation, but at times he speaks too fast. But if you watch carefully, when he realised he was speaking too fast he stopped himself. He took a breath and started again more slowly.

I know there is a lot to think about when you are presenting in a foreign language, and having to worry about your speed is yet another thing to worry about. But most of the things you have to worry about can be dealt with before you begin your presentation, by proper planning and preparation, but speaking too fast is something you really do need to watch for during your presentation, and when you do find yourself speaking too fast be brave enough to slow down.

One of my students pointed me to this great little software called “Prezi” It is an online presentation tool that could dramatically improve the style of your presentations.

I did a quick two minute sample that you can view below.

Like most people here in Korea I was enamoured with the amazing skating of Yuna Kim at the Vancouver Olympics. She truly was fantastic. But this got me thinking. What is it that makes her so much better than everyone else. And can we learn anything from this when we do our next presentation.

First, I want you to take a look at Yuna Kim’s performance. This is the short programme that Yuna did last Wednesday:

The first thing that came to my mind was the almost perfect transitions between the beat of the music. It was seamless. Yuna Kim moves from one part to the next part in complete synchronisation with the music. And from this we can learn that when we present we need to move from one slide to the next seamlessly, not looking around at the screen and making sure the slide has changed, but have the confidence to know that the slide has changed. (alternatively, you can use the ‘presenter mode’ on your computer to check so that you do not need to look around)

The next thing you should notice is that Yuna has an amazing ability to tell a story in her skating. The music and her moves tell the story of romance and drama and even without words she conveys the story so that the audience is in no doubt where she is in her routine. When we present we need to make sure that the story within our presentation flows, it should inform our audience where they are in the presentation at any time and it should be relevant to your theme. In Yuna’s case the theme is James Bond, and she ably told the story of romance and action, we also need to make sure our theme tells the whole story.

Here’s something you will notice – the whole routine lasts a little under four minutes, but when you watch it, it feels much less (to me it felt more like two minutes) Because the whole routine was so smooth and flowing as well as entertaining and exciting time seemed irrelevant. When we present we are always up against the feeling from our audience that this is going to be yet another boring presentation. By presenting a flowing and entertaining, as well as relevant presentation your audience will feel they have been in the room with you much less that they really have. This should always be a goal. Your audience must leave the room wanting more, make your presentation flow with relevance, excitement and theme and you too can achieve this.

Yuna Kim really enjoys every moment of her routine and this clearly shows on her face. Because she is so well rehearsed, she does not even have to think about what is coming next, she knows. This leaves her with the opportunity to get out there and really enjoy her performance. When I saw a few of the other skaters the concentration on their faces was intense. They looked like they were thinking about what was coming next, and because of this they did not look like they were enjoying the performance. Yuna’s facial expressions and movement clearly shows she was loving every minute of her performance. If you know you presentation thoroughly, you know what is coming next, you too can enjoy your presentation.

Finally, what really makes Yuna Kim so good is her work ethic. Yuna Kim practices and practices and practices every little move until she is happy that it is perfect. This is one area that most people presenting today neglect and it shows. Without practice you will be an amateur and your audience will know this. To really make a presentation great you need to practice, practice and practice. Practice every emphasis on a sentence, practice even where you will move when you say a certain sentence. Make this your number one priority.

So design your routine (your slideshow) then practice and practice every slide. By doing this you will not need to look round at your screen to remember where you are. You will know, and you will really enjoy delivering your next presentation.