Presenting With Impact
Presenting With Impact
Presenting is an art form that’s all about connecting with audiences. Time to pack away that tired 50-slide PowerPoint?
In business, technical expertise is simply not enough to secure a successful career. The need to speak in a clear and compelling way remains at the heart of being truly influential and successful.Sadly, all too often corporate communications are focused on delivering slides and discussing technical performance rather than how effectively we connect with the people we are talking to. The result is that much of the effort we put into communication is wasted because the critical messages are lost, unclear or perhaps forgotten.There is a clear need in business to create a narrative in presentations that sells the commercial context to the audience without the ‘weight’ of typical management presentations.
Unfortunately, the general standard of presenting in organisations is poor due to a number of critical factors which undermine your potential to be powerful:
1) Fight or Flight
You will most likely to be familiar with this principle. In the context of presenting we can see the fight or flight response in the impact of having ‘all eyes on us’. The more primitive part of our brain is wired to respond negatively to being in this situation.When we are stood in front of an audience we perceive a potential threat and are put into a fight or flight mind-set, often accompanied by adrenaline and anxiety. Of course in today’s world the ‘threat’ is looking foolish or embarrassing ourselves.