Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
The Quick Take podcast provides concise and actionable tips to help executives and leaders, like you, tackle the thorny and complex challenges that affect us daily. By leveraging their experience and relationship with other global leaders, our hosts provide suggestions that are based on their deep experience as leaders and coaches but also pressure tested in boardrooms everywhere because they asked their friends….(almost). Hosted by James Capps and Susie Tomenchok. Episodes release weekly on Thursdays.
Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
Presentations That Create Impact
Are you making these common mistakes in your presentations? This episode explores the gap between content preparation and impactful delivery, emphasizing the need for effective storytelling.
We’ll share our best tips to ensure your presentations resonate, including maintaining eye contact, harnessing the power of pauses, and practicing until perfection. Learn how to craft a compelling narrative with clear heroes and villains and avoid over-focusing on details as we draw parallels to wedding versus marriage preparation.
In this episode, we discuss the following:
1. Key strategies for delivering effective presentations.
2. Importance of practice and preparation in mastering presentation skills.
3. The impact of rapid language acquisition on cross-cultural communication.
CONNECT WITH SUSIE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok/
CONNECT WITH JAMES:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/capps/
Welcome to the Quick Take podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Suzy Tominchuk.
Speaker 2:And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today.
Speaker 1:Hey, quicksters, this is Quick Take and I'm your host, susie, along with James, and we always try to get our energy up, and that's why we're always laughing when you hear us start.
Speaker 2:And you missed Susie singing again, which is really sad for everyone on the planet Because it is really amazing.
Speaker 1:And we will move on. You know, one thing that I've noticed I have this client that had a big presentation and so she, she's a CFO and she gave me kind of the nuts and bolts of what she was going to go through and she was really prepared and she felt like she was really ready, ready. So I said, you know, let me, let me come and let me watch what, what, what, how you do, and so when I do that, I watch everybody else. And it was so interesting because, yes, she had all this great data, she had all this evidence of how she wanted to convince the room and she was so confusing, she, she just started out and there was a lot on her slides. She went really slow, it was almost like she ignored the people in front of her. And I was really surprised because in her mind she was ready and she had all those connection points, as we kind of reviewed it, and when she got there it just did not connect for the room.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Did she see that afterwards?
Speaker 1:Not until we had to have a discussion about it.
Speaker 2:Oh, fascinating, but.
Speaker 1:I did point out to your point. An evidence about it was there wasn't a lot of questions at the end, and I think it was because they didn't know what to ask about. They were so confused, they didn't know where to start about.
Speaker 2:They were so confused they didn't know where to start. Right, you did a good job. I mean, yes, that's very common. I think that what you see is a lot of people build the slides for a purpose and that purpose often is not aligned with the actual presentation.
Speaker 2:I know an individual that I've been working with who put together a deck on her business strategy and it was a very lengthy deck and it was her elevator pitch to potential clients, but really the deck itself was her working through her process and her trying to understand what she wanted to do, and it was a very interesting journey. But that whole slide deck was for her and not for her audience. And when I explained to her after the fact much like you did that that hey, you know the audience didn't need to know these things to understand what you're trying to tell them Uh, it really changed the way that she looked at it. So I think you're right. It's a very common problem, uh, uh, you know there's there's the creation of a presentation and then there's the execution of the presentation, and those are two different things.
Speaker 1:Totally. And you know, I think what people don't realize is what happens is you live in it so much and you start convincing yourself that this makes sense and this goes here, and so you are like you're building your own narrative, but you have the benefit of having the context too, and then you're with it for so long before somebody else sees it that you forget how to frame it to everybody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so true, and I always use the example of it's like a wedding, and bear with me here. Uh, so often couples uh spend an inordinate amount of time prepping for their wedding. They never prep for being married.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so once the two years of wedding prep are over and the wedding occurs, things really start to fall off the wagon. Because it's weird and I've been through many mergers and acquisitions, I've been through many transitions Companies are purchased and the leadership team spends six months putting together that announcement email or that announcement presentation to the staff, and then when they give it, they've lost the plot because they've spent so much time in the story they forget to tell the story. And so I think your point is exactly right that you've got to remember oftentimes that the audience is hearing it for the first time, not the seven millionth time that you've heard it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that wedding analogy is actually really good and I think that's why they had counseling that used to go with weddings.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:And that was that, that complimentary that's a part that's. That's for what happens after.
Speaker 2:Afterwards yes, yes, but we digress it is a mindset.
Speaker 1:Let's go. What, what, what can people do better around presentations? What are your tips?
Speaker 2:Well, the first one. So often, I think it's important that people presenting have a compelling narrative and tell people, put a story together that you can bring people along. And good storytelling has a lot of very fundamental elements to it. And you have to be clear. You kind of have to tell people where you're going, you have to tell them what the end looks like and how you're going to get them there. You have to have villains and you have to tell people where you're going. You have to tell them what the end looks like and how you're going to get them there. You have to have villains and you have to have heroes and you want to tell that story. That narrative has got to be there for people to understand where all these data points fit.
Speaker 2:And I think in your example, your CFO probably didn't put enough breadcrumbs out, didn't really have your audience understand. Why are you telling me this? And when you force your audience to take leaps, then you can't control where they're going. You need to tell an audience every step. You know how do you, how do you tell something? Tell somebody something, you tell them, you tell them again and you tell them again. Right, and, and that's the only way your. Your presentation is going to be successful is you have a very compelling and a clear narrative.
Speaker 1:And you know what makes it, and when they understand where you're going, then they are better suited to ask questions along the way, because they know. It kind of connects here when they don't know they like hold their questions. They're not sure when to do it, they don't know why are we telling this?
Speaker 1:Yes, it gets very confusing, it's really confusing and you know there's also data around. When you are presenting something, you want the audience to come along the way, so you want them to be engaged and you want them to ask questions, because people are five times more likely to be fully in if they feel a part of the process. So the more that you can do that, the more you're going to facilitate a great bond at the end.
Speaker 2:Right and I think that goes to my second point of view is know your audience, and so you've got to be able to give data that brings them along the way, because the audience understands that data. You can't give the same presentation to a group of CFOs that you would give to a bunch of you know Unix engineers. If you want them to follow your narrative, you've got to have information that applies. You've got to have anecdotes that are understandable. You've got to explain that journey with words and language that matter, and I think the compelling presentations that we see used over and over again, whether it's a TED talk or a board meeting or just at a leadership conference, the stories and the data are all relevant to everybody. There's nothing overly specific. If you want to have a spreadsheet conversation or you go through some data, you want to go through a network diagram, that's fine for another time. But when you are trying to bring a group of people together, you're trying to get a message across. It's got to be targeted and you got to understand who your audience is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and understanding what's important to them. You know, in negotiation, understanding the interests of the other party. So even going as far as understanding how they're coming into this meeting. What information do they need? Even thinking about them, because we all get in our heads about. This is our presentation.
Speaker 2:Here's my slides, so I have all this together, but just take a minute to really think about who are the people in the room? Well, I think one of my favorite examples of that is Jeff Bezos is known for putting out a memo telling everybody what he's going to tell them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, it's that, here's what's going to happen in this meeting, and so everybody's already on did the journey. Maybe they didn't get it, they didn't like it, they didn't feel it, but now they know what's going to happen, and so that gives some comfort to people. They know what to expect. They have questions about this whole section here. I don't know what he's, so I'm prepared for that moment. Oh, I can see where these all tie together, and so moment, oh, I can see where these all tie together, and so that's a really interesting skills approach to ensuring your audience is coming along and allows the audience then to participate, because they're not really confused about where the story's going.
Speaker 1:And that presenter. They're following the same outline and so it's so helpful, because then people get used to that and it's comfortable and it makes more engagement, deeper engagement.
Speaker 2:That's a great example.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think my third one is so important and it's this is the core of it. It's like your presentation style needs to be you have to present with authority. You have to present with authority, you have to present with an appropriate demeanor. And it is frustrating. I've seen so many executives. We spend hours and hours on a presentation and then they get up and their adrenaline goes and they run through it like crazy.
Speaker 2:They don't take advantage of eye contact, they don't read the room, they don't do the pauses that are important. I think, um, you know there's, there's dozens of ride, uh, presenters that we know that are really good at that. Um, but I think my recommendation on a good compelling presentation is, as much as I hate to say this is practice. Um, every great presentation I've ever given and I've only given a few is I because I had enough time to practice. And as good as somebody thinks you see somebody and they're presenting and you think that they're just doing it off the cuff, odds are very slim that they have.
Speaker 2:And the great presenters are the ones that have put the time in to understand where the pauses should be, to where the hands should be, where the eye contact should be.
Speaker 1:That's, it's huge and it pays dividends. I am so glad you said this because I was like, oh, I hope he goes there because it's such an important aspect. And the other thing I'll add to it is you. It helps you hear your voice out loud so that it's not new to you when you're in the presentation.
Speaker 2:And that's so weird. It happens all the time I feel the same way where I'm looking at a slide saying I have never seen that slide before. Yeah, I know I wrote this deck, but I don't remember that slide because there's maybe slide the third slide. I built in a 25 slide deck. I wrote it six weeks ago. Yeah, yeah, you need to hear that, hear your own voice. I think that's such good advice.
Speaker 1:And you're not saying what's on the slide. So it's really thinking about what is my point for this slide? So you can tell them the context around it and then think about. I often think about what now I need to wait three seconds to see like and really put in your mind some pausing that feels really awkward to you but will then feel very natural in the room, and that you know what that displays when you're able to impart silence that signals confidence in what you do.
Speaker 2:We feel like it's insecurity but it's really.
Speaker 1:You know, when you listen to somebody that has a lot of pauses, they sound smarter. So do that, use that, use that mind trick.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's a good one. You know, in my head what I try to do is I try to speak in actual sentences, with a capital letter up front and a period at the end. Yeah, because obviously when we talk it's like one giant run on sentence. And if you don't think that's true, record one of your um, one of your presentations, and have it transcribe what you said and I, you know, in a half hour meeting, where there's four periods and what you were speaking, there's a problem with your communication. And so, uh, I think about that a lot that I couldn't have diagrammed that sentence, I couldn't have actually written that. If I'd written that, I'd gotten a C minus on my English paper. So there is an element to communicating and I suspect we're doing a great job now because it's you and I, because we're thinking about it.
Speaker 1:And I always interrupt myself and like, interrupt my thought oh, I don't even want to do that, because that's going to really bring your point home for sure. Yes, oh, I don't even want to do that, because that's going to really bring your point home for sure, yes, but it's a fun one. It's a fun one, all right. What?
Speaker 2:are the three? Well, I think the first one is have a good compelling narrative. Yep, use the tricks of storytelling. Have heroes, have clarity. Tell people where you're going to go in the story so that they can understand the conversation and really appreciate where the presentation is going. Second one really know your audience. Make sure that you're speaking to them from at a level and of a of a um and uh, uh, in a way that they can appreciate, that they can apply. You want to make sure that they are, they're engaged in that compelling story. And then, third, deliver with confidence, practice. Do what it takes to honor your audience. If you want to give that, you want them to respect the time that you're giving them, then you should respect their time by giving a little practice and doing a great job and ensuring that they hear you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the more you do this, the better you get, but you always need to go back to these basics, because you can always make it better by following these tips. So this was great. Thanks, james.
Speaker 2:Good topic. Thanks, Susan.
Speaker 1:Here's a question for you, James. If you could have anyone's talent, who would you pick?
Speaker 2:You know, what I find super fascinating is there are these guys you see on the internet there I think that the term is polygon that speak almost every language or pick up a language in like five seconds or not not fluent, but can literally in real time speak to somebody from another country and pick up their language and I find that to be just the most powerful, fascinating, um and useful way, uh, useful skill and and, uh, you know, when you see this, the particular guy I'm thinking of, which many of you probably know, is this, this young white guy um, roll into a sub-Saharan African tribe and everybody's wearing their, their, their, their, maybe their, uh, their, their, um, celebratory gear or something very traditional, and then he starts speaking their language and their eyes pop out of their head and the shock.
Speaker 2:I saw a vignette where he had been taken to a tribal meeting, at a Native American meeting in the US where the elders were the last that spoke the language and they were scared that the language was going. Where the elders were the last that spoke the language Nice and they were scared that the language was going to die. There were literally less than a dozen people and then he sat there and spoke that language to them, wow, and half those people cried, half were shocked, but he was able to do it and I just thought, I just think that's the coolest thing.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is so cool. I totally. I just changed my answer because I answered that myself and mine was bad compared to that.
Speaker 2:I am with you on that. That's cool, all right, very cool, good question.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the mind of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind.
Speaker 2:You can find us on LinkedIn, youtube or whatever nerdy place on the internet. You find your podcasts. Our links to the show are in the show notes. We appreciate you.
