Be Intent on Your Intention

The photograph attached to this post is of a Japanese taiko drummer from the group Kodo at a performance in Singapore. What is so impressive about these performers is their absolute focus and intensity. As an audience member, I marvelled at their inventiveness and musicality, but also at their precision and clarity. They are intent on every beat of the drum.

We all know that in a presentation it’s important that you understand the point you are trying to make, and that your audience is also clear about this message. Yet, time after time it’s an issue for presenters. I see hundreds of presenters every year and at least 50% of them are unclear with their objectives, and so they deliver without intent and consequently without impact.

When you are presenting it’s not enough to have a general idea of what you are doing - to think that you are just going to share some information. That will usually create a flat and unfocussed presentation. Think about what you want to happen or change because of your presentation. That will put some energy and intent into your delivery, much more than if you are just sharing data. So, you are delivering some monthly sales figures. Wouldn’t you be more impactful if you were also to suggest some related action? Improving the sales process from the customer’s point of view, making better use of customer data, including other products in the portfolio…?

On a broad level, your presentation should have a purpose, and generally it pays to make your audience aware of that intention. In most presentations, you do not want them guessing. It’s so frustrating for the listener to get halfway through, or even to the end, and to then realise what the presenter was trying to say. They then have to re-evaluate everything already shared through this new understanding. Why not just let your audience know from the beginning? You can tell them what questions your presentation is going to answer if you don’t want to give the game away. Or you can just tell them, ‘I’m going to show you our February sales figures. Things are pretty even like last month, so I’m also going to suggest a customer-focussed change to our process that could help create an increase.’

On a more micro, drum-beat level, each slide should have a clear intent. Very often, people ask me how to improve a slide. The first question I ask them is ‘What do you want the slide to achieve?’ It’s surprising how many people cannot answer that question.

If you know what you want to happen because of your presentation and you know how each slide fits into achieving that, then you have some intent. And consequently, some dynamism. Then you can deliver with impact, like the Kodo drummers do.

To see and hear the Kodo drummers, check out the video below.

4 Presentation Lessons from a Rock Band

I went to a concert recently and as I thought about it afterwards it reminded me of many things I talk to presenters about. At the time, I was caught in the moment, just relishing the experience of a truly excellent gig. I really like Explosions in the Sky and they did not disappoint. As any good gig should be, it was better than listening to the albums. The energy, passion and commitment of the band was tangible. The lighting was dramatic and fit the music perfectly. The music was dynamic, sonically varied, layered, powerful, at times so quiet and at times so very very loud.

That concert will stick with me, just like a good presentation should. So, what can we learn about delivering a presentation from a rock band?

1. Be better than listening to the album – In presentation terms that means that what you offer has to add more value than what is in the presentation deck. Otherwise you might just as well send an email. How are you going to add value? What insight are you going to provide? Remember, someone has asked you to present because they value your opinion.
2. Perform with some passion – One of your jobs as a presenter is to get your audience to care enough about the topic to take action. Why should they care if you don’t look like you do? Sometimes people tell me they are just delivering data, or just delivering a report. The ‘just’ is a problem here. In any presentation you need to work out what is interesting about it, what your audience should be concerned about, what strikes you as curious, dangerous, fantastic. And that is what you need to get across.
3. Make the lighting fit the music – Get your visuals right. Make sure that the slides support and compliment your message. If you have a lot of text on the slides and you just read off what is there, again, you might as well have sent an email. If you have text or graphics on the slides and then don’t refer to them directly, then that is really confusing for the audience. It’s like you are playing two different tunes. And it’s about timing too. The lights change when the music changes. Your slides should reveal a point when you want to talk about it.
4. Have a dynamic sound – Make best use of your voice. There will be quieter moments, louder moments, faster sections, slower sections, emphatic words and statements. All of this helps your audience understand how you feel about what you are saying and keeps the delivery interesting. There are very few people who want to listen to truly monotonous music and probably even fewer that want to listen to a monotonous presenter.

Next time you have a presentation to do, think about a great concert you've been to and what you can learn from those performers.

And if you are curious, check out Explosions in the Sky

Success: Do You Have What You Need?

A few weeks ago I visited a friend in Australia. He wanted to photograph a waterfall inland from the Great Ocean Road. Not the kind of thing I usually shoot, but I took it as an opportunity to try something new. I even bought a tripod so I could do it justice.

I was very pleased with the results; this shot looking away from the waterfall is my favourite. But so many things could have stopped me getting this image. We miscalculated where the place was by maybe an hour and half of driving. When we realised, we went ahead anyway. When we got to where we thought we were going, it turned out we’d taken a wrong turn. The wrong dirt road. But lucky for us it lead to another waterfall. Except that the sign for the walking track said ‘DANGER! Do not enter. Falling trees.’ We pressed on. I hadn’t anticipated that the track would cross a stream several times. I had the wrong footwear. I got wet feet. We pressed on. I’d never used my tripod before. I’d never taken longer exposure shots. I’d never used the HDR function on my camera before. I’d never adjusted the white balance so specifically on this camera. But we did it. We experimented. We got the shots. But even if we hadn’t, we’d still have learned something: about the environment, the conditions for success, the tools needed to do the job. And the next time would have been easier.

It doesn’t matter whether you think you have everything in place to guarantee success, because you might be successful anyway. And if you don’t get the optimum result, you will still get something valuable.

A few weeks ago I was working with a group on a high-intensity sales presentation programme. There was a part of the programme where the participants had to break into groups of 4 to deliver their presentations to each other using PowerPoint. The organisers suddenly realised that there weren’t enough projectors for all the groups. That could have been a problem for a lot of people, but not the Regional Sales Director. Quick as a flash he helped one group open a laptop flat and prop it up against a whiteboard with the keyboard resting in the pen tray. Not perfect, but it worked. And that was all it needed to do. I got a strong feeling that the Sales Director always felt he had what he needed to be successful. And he is.

Do you have what you need to be successful? You know, you just might. Have a go. Press on. Use the resources around you. Learn from what happens. Stay focussed on the result but value the journey.

How Do People Know You're Good If You Don't Tell Them?

This rack of neatly stacked and colour-coded lengths of metal really impressed me. Of course it's highly photogenic (these are the genuine colours, unphotoshopped), but aside from that I felt that the person that created it really knew what they were doing. Everything has its colour, everything is in the right place. Now imagine it without the colour coding. Would everything still be in the right place? No doubt. These guys know their stuff. They might be more likely to make a mistake, but generally things would be fine. But what would I think when I saw it? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be as impressed. To find out if they had done a great job I would have to investigate. And frankly, I don't have the time. 

In the workplace we have to find ways of letting people know we've done a good job, otherwise how are they going to know? If they are deeply embroiled in our project then yes they will probably know. But there are lots of situations that are not like that. Now nobody likes a showoff, and many of us feel very uncomfortable about blowing our own trumpet, so where can we find some balance?

Delivering a presentation? Why not talk about the problems you overcame and how you did it rather than just presenting the results? Handing over a report? How about including a little note with it praising the support you got from another department or recognising the various sources of your data - something that shows the breadth of your work or the skillful liaising that was done to get it completed? There are lots of non-chest-thumping things you can do that might gain you a little of the recognition you deserve. Put a bit of paint on it so that people can see what you did. Otherwise they might make the mistake of thinking it was nothing at all.

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Does the photo stimulate your thinking in a different way? Do you feel getting recognised is important?