The Presentations Japan Series

The education system in Japan from the early stages, right the way through varsity to most corporate training, is based on the lecture model.  The instructor provides the information, and the participants write it all down.  It is a very one directional, passive approach.  When we are presenting, what do we do when we are using the "inform" model?  Where are we supposed to draw the line between ju...

There is a famous speech construct which we have all heard; "Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you just told them".  Basically, this says open the talk by flagging what your central thesis is, expound on that thesis and then, in the summary, revisit the key points.  There is nothing wrong with that approach, except that it is a bit basic and boring.  Apart f...

"I want to be perfect when I speak". No, you don't! Let me tell you a tale of two CEO presenters with different approaches to addressing their audience s .  One CEO used recent movies as his navigation for his speech.  Actually, I had watched none of them, but he added enough context for me to get the point he was making about his own journey as a CEO , in a tough industry, in tough times.  Actual...

The Master of Ceremony (MC) goes to the microphone to get the programme underway but the audience are simply oblivious, caught up in their own riveting conversations. The situation is much worse at receptions where alcohol is already flowing and the people down the back are generating a roar, a positive din, that drowns out the speakers. Apart from  bona fide  members of Imperial Families, everyon...

Best intentions, higher callings, righteousness – all good stuff but without good communication, our efforts fail. Instinctively, we all know storytelling is a great communication tool, but the word itself is a problem. We associate it with bedtime stories and therefore the idea sounds a bit childish. In the modern era, Hollywood talks about the arc of the story or in politics, the media punishes...

Public speaking throws up many fears and challenges for all of us. As part of High Impact Presentations, one of our public speaking courses, we have been surveying the various participants for the last four years about the types of things they most want to improve. The most common request, from both Japanese and English speakers, is to "be clear when presenting". What do they mean by clear? The sp...

It is a big crowd, yet the conversation suddenly dies and a hushed silence now sweeps through the room. All eyes are fixed forward, as the MC tears at the envelope and announces this year's award winner. Polite applause fills the air as the proud selectee stands up, glances around smiling, shakes hands and navigates between the maze of tables and chairs up to the podium. Receiving the prize, obedi...

We are such a judgmental lot aren't we! We form opinions about people within seconds of seeing them, often even before we hear them speak. We judge their dress, their body language, their style without knowing anything about them as a person. We are slow to unwind our first impression as well, so those first seconds of any interaction are vital. We are all critics too, when it comes to presentatio...

There are a number of common structures for giving presentations and one of the most popular is the opening-key points/evidence-closing variety. We consider the length of the presentation, the audience, the purpose of our talk and then we pour the contents into this structure. Generally, in a 30 minute speech we can only consider a few key points we can cover, so we select the most powerful and th...

Our mental approach to our activities determines our success.  We know this in sports and in business, but when it comes to speaking in public, we somehow manage to forget this vital point.  We know we have to make a presentation, so we get straight into the details and logistics, without spending even a moment on our proper mindset for the activity. Given we are putting our personal and professio...

  We may not have the chance to give that many public presentations in a year, but usually we will have some common themes which we can speak on.  As businesspeople, we will have our areas of expertise and experience and based on those attributes, the hosts will invite us to present.  Basically, in the lull between hostilities, we do nothing and just wait for the next chance to speak.  If we want...

  The chances of this happening anywhere is pretty remote, but especially so in Japan.  Audiences here are polite and wouldn't be so rude as to interrupt the speaker.  Having said that, things can happen for which you are not prepared.  I was delivering my debut speech in Nagoya, as the founding Australian Consul, in Japanese, and the unexpected happened.  A local representative of one of the main...

  We often mix up words like metaphor and analogy, using them in the wrong context.  Anecdote is another word we often use, but sometimes are not sure what it means.  Basically, it is storytelling about a real incident or about a person.  I was reminded of the power of the anecdote the other day, when listening to a presentation to a select private group, by an international captain of industry. ...

The chances of this happening anywhere is pretty remote, but especially so in Japan.  Audiences here are polite and wouldn't be so rude as to interrupt the speaker.  Having said that, things can happen for which you are not prepared.  I was delivering my debut speech in Nagoya, as the founding Australian Consul, in Japanese, and the unexpected happened.  A local representative of one of the main J...

I had an interesting collision of presenting styles recently.  We were conducting one of our High Impact Presentations Courses and I was one of the two instructors for this programme.  On Day One, a very important pivot takes place.  They do three presentations that day and during the third one, they stop focusing on themselves.  In the first two, they are consumed with nerves and trying to rememb...

Presenting is physical labour.  We can do it with minimal energy or we can expend large amounts of effort.  There are dangers with both extremes.  The dull speaker, barely getting the words out of their mouth and hard to hear, isn't going to ignite much interest from the members of the audience.  The nervous speaker, pacing across the stage like a junk yard dog prowling the fence perimeter, is ver...

  Japanese culture is pretty specific about making eye contact with people.  In ancient times, a commoner might lose their head if a samurai felt they were making eye contact with them in an arrogant or disrespectful way.  Even amongst samurai, in the presence of superiors, you would only raise your eyes to make eye contact when invited to do so, otherwise your right place would be looking down at...

It is a mystery why more people don't bring storytelling into their presentations.  Technical subjects may seem to be oblivious to storytelling, because we are only dealing with hard data.  Absolutely not the case.  This type of dry talk really benefits from injecting stories into the presentation.  Numbers can be brought to life through telling stories.  Our minds are geared up to absorb stories...

In some professions, there is a lot of media scrutiny on what the speaker is saying.  The organisation they represent also has very strict rules around who can say what.  This makes giving the presentation very restrictive and difficult.  Usually, the people in that line of work, are used to giving these types of presentations, so they are accustomed to be being very guarded in their remarks.  The...

We know that being formal and stiff creates distance between the speaker and the audience.  We also know that a "conversational tone" is ideal, as it creates a strong feeling of inclusivity between the presenter and those in the room.  That conversational tone means a relaxed style on the part of the speaker, but how relaxed?  We gauge people's education and intelligence level by the way they spea...

There are facts, provable information, data, research results and opinions.  What is the right mix when presenting?  Should we just marshal the detail, lay it out for the audience and let them draw their own conclusions or do we need to direct them?  How expert do we have to be to start handing out advice to others?  Are we seeding the emergence of opposition to what we are talking about, because...

I was held up at the hospital, which those who live in Tokyo will know, is a typical occurrence, so I was late to the presentation. One of the speakers had just started, as I slid into my seat at the back.  The screen was hard to read, because the scale of the content was small.  The presenter was speaking in a voice range which was probably fine for those seated at the most proximate tables, but...

"You are too loud", "You are too high energy".  These were some survey comments following some training I was delivering for 60 managers for a client.  You can imagine that the venue to hold ten tables of 6 participants each has to be quite large and spacious and that was the case.  To project to an audience that size, in such a large venue, means you have to really lift yourself and pump out a lo...

  "I have been presenting since I was 17, but I am not good at engaging the audience".  This comment from a man in his fifties was telling.  He was in a very technical area which requires a highly acute mind and he is a leader in that field.  He has a big job today for a famous brand name firm.  If he has been getting lots of practice presenting since a young age, why has he not been able to trans...

How much is too much?  For the expert, the boundaries on this equation can be quite broad.  For them, we are only tapping into the very superficial elements of this worthy subject.  They have so many layers at their disposal and they can go to exquisite depths of complexity and nuance, within a heartbeat.  When they are addressing the great unwashed, the best l aid plans can go astray. I was one o...