How to Wash a Chicken
Page 21
Behaviors that correlated with higher teacher effectiveness scores included nodding, laughing and smiling, while behaviors linked to lower effectiveness included sitting, fidgeting, frowning and gazing down.
EXPERIMENT 2
In a second experiment, the researchers trimmed the video clips. In one version they reduced the length from ten seconds to five seconds. In another version they brought the length down to just two seconds.
As in the first study, they asked participants to evaluate instructors across multiple dimensions based on the nonverbal cues.
This second study showed that overall scores did not change with the shorter clips, nor did the accuracy of the evaluations. After watching three two-second silent clips of an instructor, people could reliably predict end-of-semester student evaluation scores.
IMPLICATIONS
These studies highlight just how quickly and accurately people form impressions based on nonverbal behavior. In just a few seconds, people can reliably assess a presenter.
This means that you have to focus on your actions, especially early in a presentation. In just the first few seconds, or even before the presentation begins, people are making judgments. Smiling, laughing and nodding—all positive actions—have a large impact.
19
TWENTY-FIVE PRESENTING TIPS
* * *
This book has covered a lot of material, from suggestions to academic studies. Here are twenty-five specific things to remember.
Before You Start
Only present if you need to. Do you really have to do that presentation?
Clarify your objective before developing an outline or pages.
Creating the Presentation
Include the basics in every presentation: title page, objective page, agenda, executive summary and conclusion.
Always have a headline on a page.
Remember that a headline should be a sentence.
Make one point on each page.
Connect the headlines. One should lead to the next.
Keep charts simple and easy to follow.
Don’t use many complicated analyses. Be selective.
Include credible sources for your information.
Preparing for the Presentation
Polish the deck: check spelling, formatting and grammar.
Use an easy-to-read font such as Arial.
Double-check every number in the presentation.
Practice in front of other people.
Presell the presentation. Avoid surprises!
Setting the Room
Get to the room early to set up.
Arrange the room. Think about where people will sit and where you will stand.
Hide your computer screen and the confidence monitor.
Play music to put you in the right frame of mind.
During the Presentation
Look at your audience and tell them a story.
Remember that you are the expert; you know more about your topic than your audience does.
Trust your presentation. Follow the flow.
Explain your analyses and note the data sources. Don’t move too fast.
Read your audience and adjust: speed up or slow down.
Finish early and leave time for questions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
Over my career I’ve had the opportunity to learn from many terrific presenters. It is impossible to name them all.
My first official presentation was that 4-H talk on washing a chicken. My 4-H leaders Walt Hallbauer, Sue Buyer, and Pat and George Jenny got me started on this journey. They were my first coaches and provided encouragement and advice.
At Kraft Foods, I worked with a talented and supportive group. My first boss at Kraft, Sergio Pereira, gave me many opportunities to present and taught me how to do it well. His support launched me on my marketing and teaching career. Susan Lenny held me to high standards. Hugh Roberts tested my strategic thinking, always searching for flaws in the logic. Presenting to Hugh was always an intellectual challenge. Bob Eckert showed me how to be both friendly and commanding in front of a group. It was a pleasure to work with and learn from Rick Lenny, Carl Johnson, Betsy Holden and Mary Kay Haben, four strong leaders with very different styles. Dana Anderson, my agency partner on Miracle Whip, is both brilliant and a stunning presenter.
Since joining Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, I have had the chance to watch and learn from remarkable colleagues. Deans Dipak Jain and Sally Blount are model presenters; they command attention and stay on point. Professors David Besanko, Vicki Medvec, Leigh Thompson, Sergio Rebelo, Alice Tybout, Mitchell Petersen, Florian Zettelmeyer, Eric Anderson, Derek Rucker, Greg Carpenter, Lisa Fortini-Campbell and Lakshman Krishnamurthi are just some of the terrific teachers I admire and learn from. Keith Murnighan was a gifted teacher and taught me the power of classroom activities to engage a group and bring a point to life.
A number of people helped make this book a reality. My HBS classmates Brenda Bence and Stever Robbins, and my Kellogg colleagues Alex Chernev, Carter Cast and Andrew Razeghi, gave me terrific advice on the publishing process. Shana Caroll, Eben Gillette, Jonathan Copulsky, John Parker and Craig Wortmann contributed detailed and invaluable input on the book. Jonathan had the idea for the title. I have learned an enormous amount about the creative process from Dan Blank. Julie Hennessy, Eric Leininger, Mike Marasco, Roland Jacobs and Art Middlebrooks, great friends and colleagues, all provided support, encouragement and suggestions.
The production process went smoothly thanks to the help of my editors, Erin Parker and Angela Denk, and the team at Page Two Strategies, especially Trena White and Gabrielle Narsted.
I am particularly thankful to my students. They challenge and inspire me every day in the classroom. Many provided valuable input on this project. More important, they helped me understand the opportunity for a book like this.
Finally, I am thankful to my wife, Carol Saltoun, and my three children—Claire, Charlie and Anna—for making life exciting, rewarding and fun.
NOTES
* * *
CHAPTER 1
1 My estimate comes to 5,264 presentations since business school. My calculations:
11 years at Kraft, 2 presentations per week = 1,144
4 years as an adjunct professor, 2 courses per year, 20 class sessions per course = 160
15 years at Kellogg, 8 courses per year, 20 class sessions per course = 2,400
15 years at Kellogg, 2 executive classes per week = 1,560
CHAPTER 2
1 Chris Anderson, TED Talks (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), 8.
CHAPTER 3
1 Eric Jackson, “Sun Tzu’s 31 Best Pieces of Leadership Advice,” Forbes, May 23, 2014 (forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2014/05/23/sun-tzus-33-best-pieces-of-leadership-advice/#6222694d5e5e).
CHAPTER 4
1 Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (USA: Empire Books), 43.
2 Jerry Weissman, Presenting to Win (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), 2003, 8.
3 Peggy Noonan, “Make Inaugurals Dignified Again,” Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2017.
4 Quoted in James Humes, Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln (Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing, 2002), 27.
CHAPTER 5
1 Quoted in Natalie Canavor, Business Writing in the Digital Age (Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2012), 25.
2 Peter Drucker, “Managing Oneself,” Harvard Business Review, January 2005, 103.
3 Quoted in Ed Crooks, “GE’s Immelt: ‘Every Job Looks Easy When You’re Not the One Doing It,’ ” Financial Times, June 12, 2017 (ft.com/content/17ee8244-4fb9-11e7-a1f2-db19572361bb).
4 Tony Robbins, “Robbins’ Rules: How to Give a Presentation,” Fortune, November 17, 2014.
5 Quoted in Sam Leith, “Bright Spots, Post-It Notes and the Perfect Speech,” Financial Times, March 1, 2016.
6 Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), 62.
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CHAPTER 6
1 Scott Berkun, Confessions of a Public Speaker (Cambridge: O’Reilly, 2010), 61.
2 Anderson, TED Talks, 33.
3 Pinker, Sense of Style, 38.
4 Berkun, Confessions of a Public Speaker, 61.
CHAPTER 7
1 Quoted in Nick Werden, “Language: Churchill’s Key to Leadership,” Harvard Management Communication Newsletter, June 2002.
2 Carmine Gallo, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs (New York: McGraw Hill, 2010), 1.
3 Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 60.
4 Sam Leith, “Churchillian Flourishes That Can Structure a Speech Today,” Financial Times, November 24, 2015.
5 Anderson, TED Talks, 64.
6 Nancy Duarte, “The Secret Structure of Great Talks,” TEDxEast, November 2011 (ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks#t-1075501).
7 Duarte, “Secret Structure of Great Talks.”
8 Robert McKee, “Storytelling That Moves People,” Harvard Business Review, June 2003, 52.
9 Quoted in Pinker, Sense of Style, 27.
10 Geoffrey James, Business Without the Bullshit (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2014), 151.
11 Cary Lemkowitz, An Audience of Cowards (Bloomington, IN: Author House, 2005), 94.
12 Gallo, Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, 13.
13 Pinker, Sense of Style, 144.
14 Barbara Minto, The Pyramid Principle (London: Prentice Hall, 2002), 42.
15 Stever Robbins, Get-It-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010), 95.
16 Jack Welch, Jack: Straight from the Gut (New York: Business Plus, 2001), 396.
17 Bob Rehak, 96 Proven Principles of Marketing Communications (Kingwood, TX: Rehak Creative Services, 2015), 69.
CHAPTER 8
1 Canavor, Business Writing in the Digital Age, 175.
2 Humes, Speak Like Churchill, 159.
3 Humes, Speak Like Churchill, 160.
4 Sam Leith, “The Pedants Are Wrong—And More Tips for Clear and Effective Writing,” Financial Times, October 16, 2017.
5 Anderson, TED Talks, 36.
6 Eli Lilly and Company submission to the US Food and Drug Administration, August 10, 2004, 15 (fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/04/aug04/082404/04d-0042-c00034-vol3.pdf).
7 Rehak, 96 Proven Principles, 69.
8 Gallo, Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, 88.
9 GE, “GE 2017 Fourth Quarter Performance” (presentation, January 24, 2018) (ge.com/investor-relations/sites/default/files/ge_webcast_presentation_01242018_0.pdf).
10 Gifford Booth, letter to the editor, Harvard Business Review, September 2013.
11 James, Business Without the Bullshit, 170.
12 Leo Burnett, 100 Leo’s: Wit and Wisdom from Leo Burnett (Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business Books, 1995), 73.
13 Rehak, 96 Proven Principles, 132.
14 Gallo, Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, 84.
15 Leith, “Pedants Are Wrong.”
16 Pinker, Sense of Style, 9.
17 Pinker, Sense of Style, 116 and 121.
CHAPTER 9
1 Ricardo Marques (presentation, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, March 3, 2017).
2 Bernardo Hees (presentation, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, October 10, 2016).
3 Burnett, Wit and Wisdom, 50.
4 Anderson, TED Talks, 13.
5 Craig Wortmann, What’s Your Story? (Evanston, IL: Sales Engine, 2012), 58.
6 Wortmann, What’s Your Story? 39.
7 Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 63.
8 Hees (presentation).
CHAPTER 11
1 Gallo, Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, 179.
2 Weissman, Presenting to Win, 190.
3 Brenda Bence, How You Are Like Shampoo (Las Vegas, NV: Global Insight Communications, 2008), 170.
4 Gallo, Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, 194.
5 Quoted in HBO video, “Warren Buffett Praises Dale Carnegie Training,” February 9, 2017 (youtube.com/watch?v=ucD7fVZ7W3k).
6 James M. Kilts, Doing What Matters (New York: Crown Business, 2007), 77.
CHAPTER 12
1 Lucy Kellaway, “My Tips for Overcoming a Fear of Public Speaking,” Financial Times, November 6, 2016.
2 Lemkowitz, Audience of Cowards, 65.
3 Anderson, TED Talks, 194.
CHAPTER 13
1 Kellaway, “How to Land on Your Feet When Speaking in Public,” Listen to Lucy, Financial Times, November 28, 2009 (ft.com/content/966d1d74-1d1a-40db-a797-a76076a8ec4f).
2 Quoted in “The Columnists,” WSJ Magazine, February 26, 2016.
3 Kellaway, “How to Land on Your Feet.”
4 Berkun, Confessions of a Public Speaker, 14.
5 Lemkowitz, Audience of Cowards, 29.
6 Lucy Kellaway, “My Speech Was a Car Crash Because I Am Too Confident,” Financial Times, April 24, 2017.
7 Berkun, Confessions of a Public Speaker, 18.
8 Kelly McGonigal, “How to Make Stress Your Friend,” TEDGlobal 2013 (ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend#t-723551).
9 Dennis Hsu, Li Huang, Loran Nordgren, Derek Rucker and Adam Galinsky, “The Music of Power: Perceptual and Behavioral Consequences of Powerful Music,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 6, no. 1 (2015): 75–83.
10 Alison Beard, “Life’s Work: An Interview with Penn Jillette,” Harvard Business Review, October 2016, 128.
11 Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 4.
12 Bence, How You Are Like Shampoo, 187.
13 Humes, Speak Like Churchill, 15.
14 Anderson, TED Talks, 50.
15 Lemkowitz, Audience of Cowards, 51 and 58.
CHAPTER 14
1 Welch, Jack: Straight from the Gut, 384.
CHAPTER 16
1 Gallo, Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, 3.
CHAPTER 17
1 Weissman, Presenting to Win, 111.
2 James, Business Without the Bullshit, 171.
CHAPTER 18
1 Daniel Oppenheimer, “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 20 (2005): 139–56.
2 Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, “When Choice Is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 6 (2000): 995–1006.
3 Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz, “If It’s Hard to Read, It’s Hard to Do,” Psychological Science 19, no. 10 (2008): 986–88.
4 Kimmo Eriksson, “The Nonsense Math Effect,” Judgement and Decision Making 7, no. 6 (2012): 746–49.
5 Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal, “Half a Minute: Predicting Teacher Evaluations from Thin Slices of Nonverbal Behavior and Physical Attractiveness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64, no. 3 (1993): 431–41.
INDEX
* * *
A. 1 Steak Sauce brand, 26–27, 163
active vs. passive voice, 88–89, 221–22
agenda, 58–60, 62
airplane flights, 76–77
Alice in Wonderland (Carroll), 35–36
Ambady, Nalini, 230–31
analysis, of data, 30–31, 108–9, 112–14, 117–18, 229–30
Anderson, Chris, 10, 59, 66, 89–90, 107, 152, 170
animations, 96–97. See also visuals
arrival, 141–42
attention span, 61
audience, 41–53; introduction, 41–42; agenda, 59; analysis mistakes and, 31; attention span, 61; beliefs held by, 51; choosing people to attend, 131–32; clarity about target audience, 43; disagreement from, 29, 175; distractions from other crises, 31–32; goals of, 48; group preferences, 44–45; influencers, 45, 131; marketing approach to, 42–43; opinion formation, 164; perceptions held by, 49–51; polishing presentations for, 99; preferences held b
y, 43–47; preselling presentation to, 121–24; in presentation brief, 52–53; previous knowledge of topic by, 49–50; priorities held by, 47–49; readers vs. listeners, 45; reading audience during presentations, 173–75; relationship with, 91; research on, 51–52; themes, 48–49; thinking preferences, 46–47; topic importance, 48. See also questions, audience
avoidance, of presentations, 21–23. See also cancellation and rescheduling
beginnings, see starting points
Bence, Brenda, 135, 165
Berkun, Scott, 58, 61, 161
Besanko, David, 18
Booth, Gifford, 95
Booz Allen, 4, 106, 133
boss, 27–28, 91, 209. See also audience
brand, personal, 7, 22, 99, 165
brief, presentation, 52–53
Buffett, Warren, 107, 138
bullet points and lists, 70, 91–92
Burnett, Leo, 96, 106
Canavor, Natalie, 88
cancellation and rescheduling, 28–34; introduction, 28, 29–30; distractions from other crises, 31–32; lack of clarity and preparedness, 28–29, 30; lack of confidence in analysis, 30–31; lack of support for recommendations, 29, 32–34; more effective alternative communication methods, 28. See also avoidance
Carroll, Lewis: Alice in Wonderland, 35–36