I observed a presentation seminar recently and once again felt my blood boil when a participant--asked what he got out of the experience--replied...

“I learned to use my hands more.” Uh? Two days of your time and $X later and you "learned to use your hands more?!"  If you have had a similar experience (“I learned to look at people.” “I learned to smile more.” “I learned to stop fidgeting.”), you have been conned.

You have been led to focus on external weaknesses that are really the consequences of missing the core driver of successful presentations. Focus on this core driver and your delivery skills will be just fine.

Many presentation training programs begin with video-taping participants. Naturally, when you are thrust in front of a group and asked to speak, you are going to feel uncomfortable. That discomfort will show up in your wandering eyes (undermining your credibility!), in aimless gestures (there goes your authority!), and irritating non-words (and you expect a listener to take you seriously?).

Now, think how you walk out of a room.

When you decide it is time to exit a room, you do not break down the physical movements of your feet and arms as you leave. You do not think, “I will put down my left heel, now lower my left toes, pick up my right heel, now lower my right toes, etc.” If you did that, you would be so distracted that you would either never get out of the room or trip. NO. You have a mental intention to leave the room and your limbs miraculously cooperate and get you there.

The same thing is true with impressive presenters. They are driven by their intention to get a message across and to move people towards a particular action. They are not driven by a mental checklist of correct body part movements. Thus, they are free to "get to the door," to get their message across persuasively and enthusiastically.

When your content is focused on your listener(s), when you have rehearsed, and when your intention is to get others to see your point of view or share some exciting information with them that will help them in some way, your delivery skills will be just fine. When we are passionate about content, we naturally look at people, use our hands to reinforce our points, and focus our energy out to listeners. Is it possible we may also move our eyes too quickly, or speak too fast, or say too many ums? Sure, but generally speaking, few people are guilty of multiple delivery distractions and any of these is easily fixed.  Moreover, when you fix one, the others tend to fall into place. For example, when people strengthen their eye contact, they tend to reduce their non-words as well. 

Good delivery skills and good content  work together.  They are like fuel and your car. Delivery skills help drive your message to where you want it to go, but if you only have the fuel, and no car--your strategically crafted story--you won’t get anywhere.

Beware the coach or course that tricks you into separating delivery from content.

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Start With Why by Simon Sinek. He really nails the difference between those we follow because we have to and those we follow because they inspire us. Lively stories included. Not unrelated to my point in today’s post.

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