"What can a presentation class do for the participant?"

How would you answer the above question? Probably the answers will include 'How to use powerpoint?', 'How to manage your body language?'..... If I were to answer this question before this week, I would give the above answers. Essentially, a presentation class is to equip the participants with effective presentation skills. It seems to make perfect sense.

My answer is not the same now. I attend a presentation class these 2 days delivered by Bentley Williams. Whilst the above-mentioned presentation skills are definitely parts of the course purposes, there is an interesting purpose which I have not focused on above - the course is to give confidence to the participant. In short, show them that they can!! In other words, you will have discussion, activities, .... etc in order to help them discover their strength.

I feel quite ashamed that I did not focus on this purpose before in my basic presentation class, because it should be obvious. Why obvious? Here is the logic. What will be a successful presentation class? Simple - the participants deliver better presentation after the class. Then, the question is what stop them from delivering better presentation. For the beginner, the lack of confidence is definitely an obstacle.

How could I miss it?

Apart from feeling ashamed, I find such discovery very inspiring. Not just that I can improve my course in the future, but also that I can use the above logic to review my other class. I should ask myself the question - what is the major factor which stop participants from the desirable behaviour? Instead of the traditional wisdom that a soft skills course should equip the participants with skills, it can be equipe them with a belief like confidence!!

"Will it be the same without the presenter?"

I sat in an external training today. One of my motivation was to learn from more trainers on delivery skills. Not exactly impressive. One, she was not familiar with the content - which is most detrimental to the delivery. No matter it is for a general presentation or trainer, the message will get across only if the speaker has reasonably good creditability. It is human nature - people trust the speaker first, before they believe in the content. Well, if you do not know the content, it is the easiest way to lose you creditability. Not knowing the content shows when you always have to refer to note or even worse the slides, and more obviously when you are not able to answer straightforward questions. Knowing the content is not magic like having charisma. If you are serious about the delivery, you will prepare and you will know the content. So, in some sense, it is kind of a dis-respect if you do not know the content. How can people trust you then?

Two, which is also about how serious she is - she arrived at the training room at 0830, the exact time when the class was supposed to start. There was no greeting, and worse no proper equipment set up. More exactly, there was no projector, which unfortunately she had to rely on a lot!! Well, like energy level, your participants will not care more about the class than you.

Three, being an external trainer who earn her living by mainly delivering class, her delivery skills is less than satisfactory. Unclear instruction for small group discussion. Tell instead of ask. Poor control of timing. Un-readable slides.

When her session ended before lunch, a question actually came to my mind - 'Would the learning (if any) be the same if without the trainer there?' Unfortunately, my answer is yes (almost yes). She was reading slides. (In fact, it may save more time if she was not there since we all could read more quickly.) She could not answer questions. Frankly, this is sad.

From a learning perspective, we should always ask ourselves this question 'Will it be the same if without me?'..... Am I making a difference?

Presenter vs Trainer vs Facilitator

What is the difference among a Presenter, a Trainer and a Facilitator? Here is my thought:

A Presenter is simply the one who is getting some messages across to the 'other side'. In most of the case, the 'other side' consists of more than 1 person. For example, a sales head in a kick-off meeting to the sales is a presenter;

A Trainer is one form of a presenter. The key feature is that the 'other side' comes to the occasion with preparation to learn. (Well, there are some presentations which the 'other side' is not prepared to learn - sales presentation is an example.) In addition, a trainer is normally more knowledgeable than the 'other side' re that topic of the occasion. For example, those who (especially basic) teach accounting skills are trainers

A Facilitator is not the same as presenter or trainer. Unlike a presenter, he / she does not necessarily have any pre-arranged message to get across. Unlike a trainer, he / she does not necessarily know more than the ‘other side’ (you cannot call them audience cos there could be nothing to hear from the facilitator). Still, most trainers have to do some facilitation in their training. A pure facilitator is more there to induce discussion among the ‘other side’, ask a lot of questions to make people think and help to adhere some ground rules (preferably set by the floor). For example, if you are conducting a team effectiveness workshop, you are facilitator. They knows more than you about themselves, and you are there most to make them to think and glue relationship. There is an interesting saying:

‘A trainer brings the participants from unknown to known. A facilitator brings the participants from known to unknown.'

But is there any similarity in these 3 roles? Yes, and this is an important one. These 3 are very much about communication. It is obviously true for the presenter and trainer. For facilitator, though he / she should not have specific messages to communicate, he / she has to listen very well and ask lot of good questions... again, communication!!

Among all the skills / learnings I have been discussing in this blog, some are only applicable to being a presenter, some for trainer and some for facilitation. For example, a facilitator should ask a lot of questions and use music to control the energy. You cannot readily do so in a sales presentation. Some are however applicable to all. For example, you should always have to give a lot of examples if you want to tell something.

I hope the above difference will help you understand the learnings which I discuss in this blog better.

"少就是多"

我（作为培训师）刚从本周为期2天演示presentation训练中学习到非常宝贵的一课。 在课上，我告诉同学说,其中一个presentation失败的主因是信息超载， 这是常见错误因为主讲人往往是演讲题目的专家， 因此， 当主讲人热情和投入的时候，他/她就会很自然的提供了很多他/她所知道了讯息。

有趣的（也不幸的）是，我发觉我也在犯相同的错误，在课堂上，由于我在过去1年的时间不断吸收了很多的演示presentation技巧，我把不少这些材料加入了在课程里，因为我深深想信这些材料能大大提高演示presentation的效用， 我控制不了自己这样造。 不过,尤其是因为这2天的课程是入门级一类的，我的改动让课程内容变得对同学太多了。 举例来说，对刚认知演示presentation技巧的人来说，告诉他们沉默或停顿的技巧可能太早了，更不用提我提及的其他约30个不同的技巧/伎俩! 此外,由于提高演示presentation技巧是一种行为改变, 同时间改变多项行为是很困难的。 我应该在一个培训中把要他们吸收的技巧/伎俩数目大大减少，顶多在一天内只讨论3-4主要的技巧/伎俩，让他们每人只注意其中一条，然后让他们不断不断的实践！

“Less is More”

I just conducted a 2-day presentation training this week, and I received a very valuable lesson from one participant who is also my fellow trainer. I was telling the participants that messages overloading is major reason for ineffective presentation. And it is common mistake because the presenter is often the subject matter expert (SME). Thus, it is just very natural for the kind and eager SME to deliver a lot of what he / she knows.

My learning is that …. I was committing the exact same mistake in the class. As I have been picking up more and more presentation skills in the last 1 year, I add all these into the delivery. I just could not help it since I found them all to be great addition to achieve an effective presentation. However, especially since this class is the beginner-level presentation class, my course content became too much to them. For example, telling someone who just becomes aware of something called presentation skills about the power of silence is not exactly useful. Not mentioning this is among some 30 different skills / tricks I mentioned!! Furthermore, since doing a better presentation is a behavioral change, it is very difficult to adopt a lot of tricks / skills at one time.

I got to reduce the number of messages in a given training intervention. Looking at it retrospectively, I should at most have 3-4 major learnings a day – make them aware of one and then practice like hell, before moving on to the next one!!

'An Inconvenient Truth' - A Must-Watch

A 100-minute movie about one presentation delivered by a politican on global warming. This description is basically what 'An Inconvenient Truth' is about. Well, such description does not sound very attractive by itself - long presentation, speech by a politican... and it is about global warming.... oh no!! However, if you notice how popular this movie is, you can imagine that there must be something great about this presentation, amid the factual description at the beginning of this paragraph.

Yes, there have been a lot of discussion and attention on this movie, in many aspects. Of course, the main message delivered by the presentation / movie is one - how important it is for us to act now to stop global warming!! On the other hand, it is facinating to have Al Gore to spend so much of his time, effort and will (since not many other politicans or large corporation would love his speech) to deliver this presentation, and thus the above message.

For me, it is also how the presentation was conducted. Other website site like presentationzen.com have staged a lot of discussion and view on this movie. And let me offer mine here. In short, my comment on this presentation - 'It is a 100% must-watchfor those who is serious to learn about presentation skills'. I think it is close to perfect - let me highlight a few points:

Preparation - I always say that preparation is the single most important success factor in presentation. Al Gore is definitely prepared. You can see from the presentation that he knows the content very very well e.g. at a point, his speech is in pace with the automatic count down of years on the chart, and he does not have to look at the chart. In fact, he mentioned in the movie that he has made the presentation almost 1,000 times. (Not that we have to do 1,000 times, but you should be able to get familiarized with your content after say 10 times. Yet, I still see a lot of colleagues in my organisation I am working in failing to comprehend his / her visual aid and content as they deliver their 80%-similar sales pitch the 11-times.)

Visual Aid - The slides are assisting his arguments. But at work, the slides are replacing or even prohibiting colleagues' arguments. Al Gore does it by showing the visual aid at the right time - mostly deliver your verbal arguments first, and then show your aid - not the opposite (which is common among our colleagues). On the other hand, the pictures are of high quality e.g. the earth photos in the beginning and relevant e.g. the balance at Chapter 28. In particular, I love the chart he used at the end to demonstrate how the CO2 emission can be reduced by various actions he suggested. They way he (or his team) designed and used the chart is simply an art - to show the contrast, to get the message across!!! In addition, he uses good variety of visual aid - comics, picture, chart, quote... and almost ZERO word slides!!

Movement / Set Up - The moment Al Gore used the elevating machine for him to point out what the world temperature will become - the message cannot be more clear!!

Opening - With a high-resolution earth picture in the dark room catching everyone's attention, emotionally

Ending - Asking for an action and appealing to the positive i.e. "All of us can make a difference to stop global warming"

I shall discuss in more details of specific presentation learning points from this movie..... stay tuned.

Managing the “mis-behaviour”

I am running a 5-day training workshop this week. I am not only a trainer for a few sessions but also the overall manager for the workshop.

Whilst I am writing now, today is the day 2 of the workshop. The discipline is just less than satisfactory. I have people coming late, absent on day 1, using mobile phone / blackberry, and showing up without enrollment on day 2. I am asking myself why people behave badly – and here are some thoughts

1. Unclear instruction from the trainer e.g. they are simply not clear when they are supposed to come back
2. Inadequate respect to the fellow participants and trainer
3. Need to run the BAU business whilst in class e.g. called by boss or clients
4. Personal reasons
5. Boring class – irrelevant content, lack of interaction

Unsatisfactory class etiquette has always been the major area of concerns for trainers. I have been picking up and creating various ways to render better etiquette, and thus better learning environment for all of us. I think I have done well to tackle point 1 and 5. The most difficult ones are point 2 and 3. For point 4, it is more that you show your understanding and check whether they should leave the class at all.

A personal learning from this workshop on managing etiquette – I was quite upset this morning. Some gave me lousy reasons why they did not show up on day 1. On the other hand, despite reminder on day 1, some did not come to the room on time. And then after today session started, I still found some leisurely smoking outside the room. That really irritated me. I came up to them and asked ‘do you know when the program is supposed to start?’

If I could do it again, I shall have suppressed my emotion and said ‘I need some favour from you guys. I need to tighten up the time flow so that people do not have to stay late, and we could all have a better learning environment. Could you please help to take a lead?’

In short, people will likely follow if you show respect. Or people will do what you request rather what you instruct.

Emotion control is another important learning point. As a trainer, you will someday got irritated by some behaviours. But no matter how wrong they are, you will lose if you show your emotion, cos you are the one representing the atmosphere of the class. Emotion will also make you less able to challenge your own assumption – you will think ‘They do not show up because they do not respect me, or they are always on phone because they do not arrange back-up at work!!’ The reality is .... your participants may really have something urgent to attend e.g. I have one who has his father sent to the hospital during a class. You will surely regret if you got angry and show your emotion as he was always on a call!!!

So, the learning points are:

• Never show your emotion
• Give clear instruction e.g. tell exactly when to come back, show them the clock
• Give them 'consequence' if they violate 'ground rules'
• Don’t be boring (!!!)
• Pick up effective tricks / ways to manage mis-behavior
• Be aware of your assumption on why one mis-behaves

'Why business people speak like idiots'

Another book recommended bythe presentationzen.com. There are a lot of good tips about how to get your message across effectively. On top of presentation, the book is actually more about business communication in general - more specifically about how ineffective business communication has become. Though mistakes mentioned in the book (e.g. use of complicated rather than simple words) are more often committed by native English speakers, the book still issues some relevant warning to non-native speakers. Beyond the book, the authors do continue their effort to 'fight the bull' via their website - fightthebull.com!!

Back to the topic of presentation- I am most impressed by an example mentioned in the book about the consequence of mis-use of Powerpoint - causing the failure of space shuttle Columbia.!! Judging from the Powerpoint slide itself (see the slide on the side) which was shown in a meeting the week before the disaster, the slide writer seemed to consider that the SOFI issue can cause serious damage. Yet, this message was unfortunately 'buried' somehow in the 'word slide'. (You can find the full report here.)

In the organisation which I am working in, 'word slide' is just so common, to the extent that the Powerpoint slide is supposed to contain bullet points. There are a lot of reasons why this is the case. One reason is that 'word slide' is easy to prepare - just type, or even cut and paste. It requires no imagination or creativity. And you can readily use the 'word slide' as the handout.

In short, slide is not properly used a visual aid..... and in fact, it is not the aid. It is the opposite - making communication less effective. It is sad. I personally have sit through countless presentations / product briefings, progress meetings.... where key messages failed to reach a reasonable proportion of the audience. It is a waste of time - enormous amount of time e.g. a simple briefing can easily have some 20 people for an hour. A wastage of half of the duration can be translated into 600 minutes or 10 hours equivalent. Just think of how much work can be accomplished in 10 hours!!! Not only quantity, but also quality - think of the deadly consequence in the Columbia shuttle case because of ineffective communication.

Well, I believe it all depends on whether you want to simply get the job (presentation) done, or really get the message across!!