George was droning on. And no matter how hard he tried, his sounded like every other flat corporate presentation.
Not only was it boring, it made George boring. There was nothing of value in his work or in George. Nothing to pay attention to.
Never having had a real mentor, George was following in the footsteps of the thousands of other tiring corporate presenters he’d seen, all stamped from the same mold.
His presentations had devolved into a stream of words with no meaning.
But George always had the feeling that he was capable of more. And so he found his way to my executive coaching program.
No one has to stay stuck where they are.
I coached George on some key skills that would shake all the boring out of his presentations to create real substance. Impact.
First, George had a lot of data, but no message. What did all this data mean? Was it important? Why would the audience find this data interesting? Why would they want to know it? How would they use it?
George had to get past, “Well, they just want an update, it’s what I always present.”
I just kept asking, “Does it matter?”
It’s amazing how long it took George to answer that question. But if you can’t answer that question, your presentation doesn’t matter.
Finally, George came to life and almost shouted, “IT MATTERS!”
Me: “Good! WHY does it matter?”
George told me the reason it mattered, and I said, “Good. There’s your first sentence.”
Well, that of course changed the entire structure of George’s presentation – that was a good thing.
The next thing I told George is what I would also tell you. One way you can start to bring your presentation to life:
Be INTENTIONAL in your communication.
Bring your sentences to a complete stop at the end. Pause slightly between sentences, just a slight pause. Longer if you want that sentence to really sink in. Start to master “the power of the pause”. This gives your words a real depth of meaning.
And, most importantly, put meaning into the words. That’s the purpose of words. A word is a carrier of meaning. You can emphasize certain words, say them faster, slower, louder, softer, repeat them. You create meaning with HOW you say it, not just what you say. Start to play around with this. This is the top stratosphere of outstanding speakers. It’s also a remedy for monotone importance. That’s when every slide is just as important as every other slide and they all run together with no meaning and the poor audience is forced to multitask to save themselves from the hypnotic droning.
If you simply emphasize every word you think is important, you’ll sound mechanical and robotic.
What I’m saying is different. Don’t just emphasize the words, put your intention into the MEANING behind the words.
I want you to try this exercise. Read this out loud:
It was a very difficult quarter. But we managed to pull off some solid results. I want to tell you about it so you can see the good work our team is accomplishing. I’m very proud of our team. It’s a real team. Let me tell you what happened these last three months.
Now, read this next one out loud. This time I want you to EMPHASIZE each word that’s underlined with more INTENTION. Put MEANING into it. Say it like you MEAN it. And I want you to pause slightly when you see this: “…”.
It was a very difficult quarter… But we managed to pull off some solid results. I want to tell you about it so you can see the good work our team is accomplishing… I’m very proud of our team… It’s a real team. Let me tell you what happened these last three months.
Can you hear the difference in how you sound? Can you hear the difference in meaning? I can tell you the difference in how your audience would be paying attention.
Now, do the 2nd one again and try to make it flow so it doesn’t sound artificial. Just put your own feeling into the words.
Now, try this with something you would really say.
When you master this ability to create real MEANING, and you sound completely natural, it will help you prevent “flat” presentations.
George is now quite riveting. He brings his work, his accomplishments, his challenges, and best of all, his ideas, to LIFE!
George is now different from most presenters - he’s INTERESTING. What he says MEANS something.
And best of all, his audiences suspend all thought, they listen more eagerly and let his words affect them. George is creating real communication. Not surprisingly, he’s gained tremendous support for the initiatives he’s introducing.
Words are just sounds and symbols. Words have no meaning until you put the meaning into them. YOU are the meaning-maker.
Be the cause!