How to Wash a Chicken

by Tim Calkins

  This logic is false. Being nervous, or not nervous, has no impact on your effectiveness as a presenter. I’ve known people who get exceptionally nervous and present very well. I’ve also known people who aren’t nervous at all, but fail to present well; they sometimes come across as cocky and arrogant.

  YOU SHOULD BE NERVOUS

  Most people are nervous when presenting, and they should be nervous. Getting up in front of a group isn’t a peaceful moment. Everyone is looking at you. You have an opportunity to shine or flop. The pressure is on. “Unlike most phobias, being frightened of speaking in public is entirely rational,” observes Lucy Kellaway.3

  Speaker Scott Berkun points out that presenting fear is grounded deep in human nature: “We are programmed to fear standing alone, in open territory with no place to hide, without a weapon, in front of a large crowd of creatures staring at you.”4

  I’ve been teaching classes at business schools for twenty years. In that time, I figure that I’ve taught more than 4,000 individual class sessions. That is a lot of time in the classroom. I still get nervous before each class.

  So, understand that feeling nervous is natural. Don’t expect to present with no fear. You can practice and practice and the feeling won’t go away. Ad executive Cary Lemkowitz says telling someone “Don’t be nervous!” may be the world’s dumbest advice. He writes, “If I tell you not to be nervous, it may drive you right over the edge.”5

  BEING NERVOUS WILL HELP YOU

  Fortunately, being nervous can be a positive.

  Fear is a good motivator. It can inspire you to spend time crafting a compelling story, proofreading the document and preselling the recommendation. Kellaway explains, “Fear fends off disaster. It discourages you from packing a speech with snarky, teasing asides which, though possibly amusing to you, might be less so to those who are the butt of them.”6

  It also generates energy. When you are nervous, you are on edge. You are alert. You are excited. All of this energy will turn you into a better presenter. You just have to channel it into the presentation. Scott Berkun observes, “If you pretend you have no fears of public speaking, you deny yourself the natural energy your body is giving you.”7

  If you look at stress as a positive, you can completely change your attitude. Being nervous is helpful. Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal explored this concept in her 2013 TED talk: “When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body’s response to stress.” When you feel stress, you should think, “This is my body helping me rise to this challenge.”8

  THE CONFIDENCE GAME

  While it is almost inevitable that you will be nervous when presenting, you also want to be confident. It is an interesting combination: nervous and confident, at the same time.

  Confidence is key to success. If you are presenting and feel like things are going well, you can develop momentum. You relax just a bit. Your mind opens up; you think about the topic and the audience, not yourself.

  The alternative can also happen; you get worried and insecure. You think, “Oh, this presentation is not going well” and “I am really bungling the presentation” and “I’m going to forget this key point. I know I will.”

  When you have the feeling things are not going well, your confidence fades. The nerves kick in and reinforce your insecurity. Your chest tightens. You focus on yourself: your sweat, your hesitant words. You start rushing, then worry that you are rushing, so you slow down, then realize that it all doesn’t look natural.

  Balancing confidence and nervousness can be powerful. You are on edge, excited, jumpy. At the same time, you are confident that things will go well. I get this feeling each year before the Chicago Triathlon. Before jumping in the water, I feel anxious and concerned. I am confident, however, that I will get through the event; I’ve done it more than a dozen times, so I know I can get through it.

  AN IMPORTANT PERSPECTIVE

  One way to boost your confidence is to remember this point: you know more about your topic than your audience.

  This is almost always the case. If you are presenting an update on your country’s performance to the regional manager, you know more than they do. It makes sense; you spend all your time studying one country, while the regional manager has to deal with several. When you are telling the CEO about recruiting trends on college campuses, you know much more than they do. They might have more experience and a broader perspective, but you know more about the topic. Someone who worked on your business years ago might understand the dynamics, but you know the latest information and trends.

  If you remind yourself of this point before your presentation, you put yourself in the right frame of mind. Say to yourself, “Nobody knows more about this topic than I do. I am the world’s expert.” This isn’t just pumping yourself up with empty motivational phrases; it is probably true.

  I experienced this dynamic when working on the A.1. Steak Sauce business. A.1. is a very profitable and important brand. Kraft acquired it with the purchase of Nabisco Corporation, and after the transaction closed, I was in charge of the business. I quickly realized that I knew more about A.1. than anyone at Kraft, especially since the prior management team did not stay at the company.

  With this insight, I made a series of important recommendations with my team on how to best manage the business. We suggested increasing the media budget, developing a new advertising campaign to reach a new target audience and restaging the struggling marinades line of products.

  Each of these recommendations involved a presentation. They all went well, in large part because I was confident about the plan. I knew that I understood the A.1. business better than my manager and his manager. All I had to do was explain my thinking and logic.

  FIND YOUR ENERGY

  Your own personal energy can have a big impact on the presentation. So you want to put yourself in the right frame of mind. People do this in different ways. An extrovert might gather a group of people to generate excitement. An introvert might take a completely different approach, spending some time alone.

  One way to do this is with music. Kellogg professors Derek Rucker and Loran Nordgren recently worked with several other researchers to study the impact of music on emotions. Through a series of interesting studies, the team found that certain types of music generated feelings of empowerment and confidence. Songs with a heavy bass, such as Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” were particularly effective at making people feel powerful.9

  Start Strong

  The first few minutes of a presentation matter most. You want to get off to a good start. This is true for two very important reasons.

  First, with a good start you will have momentum. This will settle your nerves and get you feeling confident. These feelings will propel you forward.

  Second, your audience will quickly form an opinion. They will decide if you are credible and if the topic is important. As economist Daniel Kahneman notes, “When the handsome and confident speaker bounds onto the stage... you can anticipate that the audience will judge him more favorably than he deserves.”10

  These judgments will form quickly. Penn Jillette, half of the comedy team Penn & Teller, observes, “When you go out on stage, you’ve got two minutes to get the audience thinking ‘This is important’ or ‘This is grabbing my heart.’”11

  Jillette is actually being generous with his timing. Studies have shown that people make judgments in just a few seconds (see Chapter 18 for more on how quickly people form opinions).

  DRESS THE PART

  How you dress has an impact on perceptions. Great presenters know this. Winston Churchill carefully crafted his image through apparel, gestures and symbols. Steve Jobs used attire to define his brand. Personal branding expert Brenda Bence observes, “It’s a proven cold, hard reality that people judge you first and foremost based on the way you look, from head to toe. We all do it. It’s simply human nature.”12

  Think carefully about what you will be wearing. “Clothes make a statement. The selection of a garmen
t should not be casual or by chance,” recommends James Humes, author of Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln.13

  When presenting, leave your New England Patriots jersey at home, along with the T-shirt that proclaims, “My parents went to Hawaii for vacation and all I got was this stupid T-shirt.” Dress well. Look like you care.

  You should be sensitive to the work environment. If you work for a casual company where shorts are the norm and the CEO is likely to show up to the meeting in flip-flops, you shouldn’t put on a tie.

  In general, you should consider your audience and try to dress a little better. If the senior vice president will be in jeans, you might want to wear dress slacks. If the CEO will be wearing a stylish dress suit, you should put on a suit as well.

  STAND UP

  You should almost always stand up when presenting. When the presentation starts, get out of your chair, head to the front of the room and begin.

  The main reason is that standing gives you control of the scene. If you are standing and everyone else is sitting, then you naturally are the center of attention. People will look at you. You have the power to guide and shape the discussion.

  Anyone standing in front of a seated group has a notable amount of power. You can go faster or slower. You can call on people, or not. You can encourage them by looking at them and nodding. You can cut them off by turning away. You can write certain things on the flip chart, or not.

  If you are sitting down, you lose much of this influence. People will tend to look at the most senior person, who may then set the pace for the discussion. It becomes much more difficult to cut someone off. How do you stop someone from going on and on with their comments if you are sitting at the other end of the table? You can’t.

  This isn’t the case if the gathering is a team meeting. In that situation, you may well want to remain seated. Your goal is to involve people and promote an idea of team unity and spirit. Sitting draws people out and opens the meeting to discussion.

  FIND YOUR SPOT

  As you start your presentation, be sure you are standing in the right place. One of the simplest things you can do when presenting is find the right spot.

  There are three things to keep in mind. The first thing is that you want to be the center of attention, so you need to find a spot that is prominent. Where will people naturally look? That is where you want to stand.

  Second, you want to be diagonal from your key person. There is always a key person, the most important person in the meeting. This is usually the most senior person, but not always; it might be someone who is particularly influential.

  If you stand on the same side as the key person, you will block their view of the screen, as in Exhibit 13-1. Don’t do this.

  Exhibit 13-1

  By standing at the diagonal, you give your key person a clear view of the screen and a clear view of you. This will always work better.

  Exhibit 13-2

  Third, remember not to stand in front of the projector. Anytime you are in front of the projector, you look unpolished. Half the words on the screen are shining on your chest, which makes you look odd and blocks the presentation. You also have a bright light shining in your eyes, which is painful and makes you squint. You are not at your best.

  Of course, if you’ve set up the room properly and walked your space, this all should be easy; you know the right spot to stand and there will be plenty of room to move around.

  FOCUS ON THE FIRST PAGES

  The first pages will set the tone, so you want to focus on these when you develop the presentation and practice.

  There are different ways to start the actual presentation. One approach is to do something crazy and dramatic to get everyone’s attention. A different approach is to start with the meeting objective and agenda to get people settled down.

  My advice is to get right to the point and start by highlighting the purpose of the meeting. This is not an exciting way to start but it is effective. It is expected. It certainly won’t get you into trouble. It is safe.

  The dramatic start is difficult and risky. The first problem is that you have to constantly come up with dramatic, unexpected things. In big organizations, people present frequently; there might be several presentations a week. How do you identify all these stunning introductions?

  In addition, many meetings have a fairly messy start. Some people will still be talking. Others will be looking at their phones checking emails as you begin. A few people will probably wander in late. It isn’t like the theater, where people lock the doors before the show starts. This all makes a dramatic start hard to pull off.

  An even bigger issue is that the dramatic start is risky. By nature, a surprising start must always be new, so you are never quite certain how it will go. This means that there is a reasonable chance that your presentation will get off to a rough start. There is nothing worse than a dramatic introduction that falls flat.

  So be safe and start with the expected and logical approach. You aren’t trying to win the prize for Best Dramatic Performance in a Business Presentation. You are simply trying to get agreement on your pricing recommendation.

  Of course, if your audience loves dramatic starts, go with a dramatic start. Ultimately, you are trying to connect with and delight your audience.

  Tell the Story

  Delivering a presentation is simply telling a story. On each page, you want to stop, explain the main point and then go through the data. You should call attention to the critical pieces of information and explain your analysis.

  DON’T READ THE SLIDES!

  It is tempting to just read the slides. The words are there, so no thought is required. You can just look at the words and say them. Simple!

  Don’t do this. Your audience can read; you aren’t presenting to small children. As soon as you show a new page, they will get busy reading. If you then read the words that they’ve already read, they will be bored. You will look stilted and nervous.

  Instead of reading the slide, you should just talk about the page. Start with the headline, which presumably has the most important point. You can expand on this in your discussion and move on to the rest of the page.

  USE EYE CONTACT

  Great presenters look at their audience. Simply looking at someone creates rapport and connection.

  This makes perfect sense. If you are telling someone a story, you naturally look at them. It is hard to tell a story to a piece of fruit; you want to see the reaction and watch the engagement. Chris Anderson from TED understands this. He explains, “At TED, our number-one advice to speakers on the day of their talk is to make regular eye contact with members of the audience.”14

  Balance is important. You want to look at someone long enough to establish a connection, but not so long that it seems awkward or makes them uncomfortable. Shana Carroll teaches communication skills at Kellogg. She recommends holding the connection with a single person for a thought or phrase, then moving on to a different person.

  TRUST YOUR PRESENTATION

  Stick to the presentation! You presumably built a solid, tight deck, so you should trust yourself and your work.

  This means that you should talk about each page, in the order presented. When you do this, your audience feels like you are in control. You are sticking with the flow, as you should.

  When you deviate from the presentation flow, you send the wrong signal. If you jump from page 5 to page 10, your audience will only think bad things. They might conclude that you didn’t create a very strong presentation, so you have to jump around. They could conclude that you are not organized. Who jumps around in a presentation? Most people would agree that would be someone who is a little scattered and disorganized. People who are confident and competent don’t do this. If the presentation works better with page 7 presented before page 3, then you should have changed that before you got to the room.

  It is particularly important to stick to the flow if you distribute a copy of the slides in advance. If you skip a few pages, your audie
nce may well get lost. Some people will be flipping ahead, trying to find the page you are presenting. Other people will try to read the pages you skipped, in a bid to get all the information possible. Either way, straying from your prepared flow doesn’t work well.

  Use Precise Facts and Figures

  One of your top priorities when presenting is to appear knowledgeable. You want your audience to think that you know the business well. In most cases, you do, so your task really is to ensure that perceptions match reality.

  To seem smart, you have to know your facts and figures. Understanding the data is critical.

  Now the problem is that there is simply too much data on a business to know it all. There is almost an infinite amount of data. You can’t know everything. At the same time, getting your figures wrong can be damaging; it really can hurt your credibility. So what do you do?

  There are three easy ways to appear smart and in command of the information. First, you can hedge your statements with general words. This will limit the risk of being wrong. Sometimes you’ll get a specific question. Your division general manager might ask, “What percentage of our sales came from Australia last year?” This is a difficult question; there is a right answer and it is easy to check it. How should you respond?

  Option one is to say simply, “I don’t know. Let me check on that and get back to you.” This isn’t a terrible answer; it is honest and it addresses the question. The problem is that this doesn’t make you seem smart. If you have a good reputation, you will be fine. If you have a troubled reputation, this will be one more reason why you’ll eventually be fired.