Doing Words

Afraid of presenting? Guilty, your Honour!

// October 10th, 2008 // Presentation

Last week I found my knees trembling as I was asked to speak in front of an audience. Who, me? A guy who trains people to be better presenters? I’ve confidently presented to audiences of thousands, done pitches worth millions. What could possibly freak me out?

I was a jury spokesperson last week. All I had to was announce our jury’s guilty verdict in a packed courtroom. All I had to do was say “guilty” twice, yet I was more nervous than the first time I asked a girl out on a date.

Fortunately there’s always lessons to be learned from scary situations. I hope you never have to pronounce someone guilty, but the following tips can be applied to any speaking gig.

 

 

 

Never go in cold

When the jury walked back into the court to deliver its verdict, the public gallery of the court had suddenly filled. I knew the judge and staff of the court could be counted on to be dispassionate, but who were all these new people? Friends of the defendant? There was no way to tell. That was a bit scary – I didn’t want to meet any of them in the street afterward, or be heckled after I’d spoken. It took a moment to bring my nerves back under control as I saw them staring at me, not knowing how much they cared about the verdict.

Always research your audience before you present. Knowing who your audience is, what their level of engagement is, and whether they’re with you or against helps you frame your presentation appropriately and set some reasonable goals you know you can achieve.

For instance, if you’re invited to speak in a debate, can you find out whether the audience is likely to be stacked on one side of the debate? Will they be passionate or dispassionate about the topic? Is it worth trying to sway the other side of the audience or should you aim just to deliver your argument well? If delivering on a technical subject, should you deliver something deeply technical for experts in the field, something higher-level for management,  or something lightweight on the fundamentals for an audience only peripherally interested?

 

Warm up

There was definitely an air of anticipation in the courtroom. I had to force myself to even glance at the defendant. Everything and everyone was waiting for me to speak. If you’re opening a conference, first up in a boardroom pitch, or greeting a lecture theatre of quiet and attentive students for the first time, it might feel a bit that way.

If the situation allows, don’t hit your audience with your major point right up front – warm them up with some preamble. (I love the word “preamble” because that makes the main body of your presentation your “amble” and whatever happens after your “post-amble”.)

The courtroom doesn’t allow this, of course. There’s no chance to warm up the courtroom with, “A funny thing happened to me on the way to court this morning…” but one exercise that helped me was to practice delivering the verdict in front of the mirror in the jury room bathroom prior to being summoned for the verdict. Then, while waiting to be asked to stand, I visualised delivering the verdict successfully. It really helped me get a lid on my nerves.

Visualise

I’m highly allergic to bullshit communications theories, but positive visualisation can really help in presentation situations. To some extent, visualisation depends on imagination, and if you’ve never been the imaginative type, it’s a technique that may never work for you. But if you try not to watch scary movies by yourself at night like I do, then you have all the imagination you need to get a big lift in confidence.

You can increase the success of your visualisation by making sure you don’t go in cold – do your research on the setting, the format, the composition of the audience and the other participants beforehand.

In this case, I called the jury officer aside at a previous break and asked a few questions to establish exactly what would happen and when – who would ask me to deliver the verdict? Would I need to stay seated or stand? Did I need to hold the jury decision on a note and hand it to someone, just read it out, or deliver it from memory? Most importantly, what would happen when I’d given the verdict? How would I know if I’d done it right or wrong? The jury officer probably thought I was a little crazy, but I’d rather embarrass myself a little in front of one person than embarrass myself a lot in front of a crowded court room! 

Key points

I had to focus on just three things – two charges and one optional charge to be decided if the second charge didn’t stick. Two “guiltys” or one “guilty” or none at all, nothing more. At most I might speak six words. Yet my mind was full of extraneous stuff which was driving me to distraction; would the complainant be in the gallery? Would the defendant have some dramatic reaction to the verdict? If guilty, would the defendant be led away to prison? Was the defendant already in jail during his trial? Too much detail, and not necessary for the job I was there to do.

When working with clients on their presentation style, I often focus on getting them to simplify their presentation. How little does your audience really need to retain in order to achieve your goals? Take the rest of the guff that surrounds that key message and set it aside. Chances are, you know it all off by heart anyway – that’s what makes you the expert on this – and you can recall enough of it if questions from the audience give you an opportunity to expand.

But focusing on just the key message doesn’t just make presentations simpler to deliver, it dramatically increases your chances of success. Audiences are surprisingly distractable, prone to seize on one random thing you say or tiny piece of data in a slide and run away with it in a hundred different directions.

The fewer distractions, the clearer you will be and the more your audience will retain.

Practice

All I had to say was either “Not guilty, your Honour” or “Guilty, your honour” twice. Is it possible to improve my presentation by practicing? You betcha.

Short presentations can actually be messed up more than longer presentations, when you have time and permission to take another shot at a key point and try again during your summary.

Tag along to the recording of a radio commercial sometime if you can make a friend in an ad agency. You’ll learn during the course of an arduous day just how many different ways there are to say one simple thing, and how many different meanings can be packed into every single syllable.

I didn’t want to come across like Bill Clinton or Winston Churchill when delivering the jury verdict, but I didn’t want to sound timid, or afraid, or uncertain of the decision, or light-hearted, or sad, either. When you have so few words to deliver, it’s critical to get the sound and the pace just right. The only way to do that is to practice, practice, practice. But do it somewhere no-one can see or hear you!

So what have we learned?

Even the shortest presentations can be challenging and prone to calamity, and even saying a few words in some situations can be terrifying. But by practicing what you need to say, focusing on your key message, visualising yourself presenting well, warming yourself up beforehand, and researching your audience, you can reduce your nerves and increase your chances of a successful delivery.

…in case you were wondering, the result was guilty on the first two charges, and the person in question is awaiting sentencing. And I didn’t sound like Winston Churchill…