{"id":158,"date":"2015-11-16T20:22:46","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T20:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/?p=158"},"modified":"2023-06-13T21:37:33","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T21:37:33","slug":"the-1-reason-good-speakers-give-bad-presentations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/the-1-reason-good-speakers-give-bad-presentations\/","title":{"rendered":"The #1 Reason Good Speakers Give Bad Presentations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve analyzed hundreds of speakers, and nearly all the worst presenters\u00a0have the same thing in common. If you don&#8217;t know why it&#8217;s a problem, you&#8217;re probably one of them.<!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>The old way<\/h3>\n<p>Sixteen hundred years before PowerPoint, before Steve Jobs, before Martin Luther king, and before the VCR started blinking 12:00 in 1985, speaking was <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">the<\/span>\u00a0pinnacle of art.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"margin: 1em 0 1em 1em; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/18ulbI9k5eA\" width=\"336\" height=\"189\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Lady Gagas and Walt Disneys of the day were public speakers! &#8220;Have you ever heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>They certainly weren&#8217;t morons. Imagine standing in front of hundreds or thousands of people outdoors, with no microphone, no PowerPoint, and no rah-rah, buy-now, pseudo-pop, digital backup track. Could YOU entertain the masses for hours on end?<\/p>\n<h3>Fast forward<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Einstein-Chalkboard-NEWS-WEB.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-167\" src=\"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Einstein-Chalkboard-NEWS-WEB-300x205.jpg\" alt=\"Einstein-Chalkboard-NEWS-WEB\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Einstein-Chalkboard-NEWS-WEB-300x205.jpg 300w, http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Einstein-Chalkboard-NEWS-WEB-768x525.jpg 768w, http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Einstein-Chalkboard-NEWS-WEB.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Fast forward to an American teacher in the nineteenth or\u00a0twentieth century, armed with nothing more than a chalkboard and an eraser. That teacher&#8217;s students used a slide rule to put a man on the moon in 1969!<\/p>\n<p>Let me ask you, are kids better at math, science, and reading now that every school teacher in America relies on\u00a0overhead projectors, video on demand, and free access to PowerPoint?<\/p>\n<h3>The problem<\/h3>\n<p>Way back in the late 1980s a bunch of business people\u00a0at a little company called Microsoft noticed that people were too busy to even set the clock on the VCR. &#8220;There must be money in that somewhere,&#8221; they thought, so they sat around and brainstormed ways to help lazy people create the illusion of work without actually working harder.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Microsoft_PowerPoint_2013_logo.svg_-e1447700686887.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright wp-image-164\" src=\"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Microsoft_PowerPoint_2013_logo.svg_-300x295.png\" alt=\"Microsoft_PowerPoint_2013_logo.svg\" width=\"200\" height=\"197\" \/><\/a>The result &#8230; PowerPoint.<\/p>\n<p>PowerPoint is not the solution. PowerPoint is the problem.\u00a0The easiest way to make a bad presenter worse, is to buy him a copy of Microsoft Office.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not telling you anything you don&#8217;t already know.<\/p>\n<h3>But, but, but &#8230;<\/h3>\n<p>I know that you probably use PowerPoint. I know that you probably think it&#8217;s helpful. I know that you are expected to use it.<\/p>\n<p>I also know that you know how often your co-workers&#8217; &#8220;slide decks&#8221; are agonizing wastes of time.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve coached in fortune 500 companies that waste countless hours with the most appalling, illegible PowerPoint templates I have ever seen. I&#8217;ve begged self-righteous\u00a0conference speakers to eliminate slides, only to be refused, and watch the audience ignore the slides altogether. I&#8217;ve had clients complain that the boss comes to the meeting but spends the entire time on his laptop without listening.<\/p>\n<p>And yet somehow, the marketing team in Redmond, Washington has convinced these well-meaning professionals that\u00a0Microsoft\u00a0is\u00a0the solution, and not the problem.<\/p>\n<h3>The principles<\/h3>\n<p>The design of PowerPoint, or Keynote, or most\u00a0other presentation software packages violates the rules that make communication effective. Let&#8217;s quickly work through the <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/the-8-essential-principles-of-great-communication\">8 SpeechDeck\u00a0principles<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Clarify Your Content<\/strong> &#8211; The default PowerPoint template\u00a0is a slide that helps you create a bulleted list. So of course people add more bullets. Do more bullets\u00a0encourage simplicity and clarity? No, more bullets encourage complexity and confusion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Inject Anticipation\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211;\u00a0When you see a person open PowerPoint, how often do you think, &#8220;Wow, this looks like something different. I better pay attention!&#8221;?\u00a0Probably it happened to you ONCE. \u00a0Maybe. Nine times out of 10 (I&#8217;m being generous here) you actually send the opposite message: &#8220;This looks familiar, I&#8217;ll catch up on my email and listen at the same time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Develop Relationships\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211; If your organization expects\u00a0you to use PowerPoint, then PowerPoint will help you conform to the group. But if you base a relationship on that, you&#8217;re not really trying. Warning: sarcasm ahead: &#8220;Hey Mom, I want you to meet my best friend, we have so much in common, we both use PowerPoint!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reveal the Messenger\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211; This is where PowerPoint fails big time. The availability of slides tempts even otherwise good speakers to defer to the slides. When all your information is on a slide, the slide becomes the expert and you become &#8230; nobody. If there is not more information\u00a0in your mouth than on your slide, you lose.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Encourage Participation\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211; I hate to state the obvious, but you can&#8217;t interact with a computer projection. Participation can only happen with a human being&#8211;you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Empower the Individual\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211; Does a slide show empower the listener with\u00a0more self worth? More ownership? Or help overcome their reservations? Fail. Fail. Fail.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Manage the Theater\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211; Finally we arrive at the principle that governs visual aids. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, visual aids are good! \u00a0But if you open up PowerPoint and create slides <em>before<\/em> you create the substance of your presentation, it&#8217;s not an &#8220;aid&#8221;? It&#8217;s a crutch. No matter how cool the animation, it&#8217;s not making YOU look better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Engage the Subconscious\u00a0<\/strong>&#8211; Lastly, can a slide create an emotional or visual image better than you can do it with words? <b>Absolutely.<\/b> Finally we have a legitimate use for slides.\u00a0However, notice that it requires PICTURES&#8211;the one thing that PowerPoint can&#8217;t actually do by itself. PowerPoint makes unhelpful bulleted lists automatically, but can never create the right picture automatically.<\/p>\n<h3>The Solution<\/h3>\n<p>Don&#8217;t start with PowerPoint, Keynote, or any presentation software. Start with the &#8220;Clarify Your Content&#8221; principle. Then use PowerPoint afterwards to ADD visual aids.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"speechdeck_ad\" style=\"float: right; margin: 1em 0 1em 1em; width: 200px;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.speechdeck.com\"><br \/>\n<img src=\"logo_black.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"90%\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The importance of Clarifying Your content BEFORE you worry about slides is so commonly misunderstood and overlooked that all of my introductory training on the black and white &#8220;Clarify Your Content&#8221; cards is available free of charge at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.speechdeck.com\">SpeechDeck.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As my client, after you have a clear black and white message,\u00a0I ask you\u00a02 simple questions:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Does the slide <b>reinforce<\/b> your message headline?<\/li>\n<li>Does the slide help the listener <b>visualize<\/b> your point?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If the slide does not do one of those 2 things, eliminate it.<\/p>\n<p>Save yourself lots of time, make your message more memorable, and make a better impression at the same time. Bulleted lists <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">rarely<\/span>\u00a0serve either of those purposes.<\/p>\n<p>I develop every class, every speech, and every presentation by starting with my <a href=\"http:\/\/speechdeck.com\/app.php\">SpeechCrafter editor<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then, include visual aids only when they\u00a0reinforce the takeaway message or create a visualization.<\/p>\n<p>Better yet, try giving your next presentation without PowerPoint at all. Try a white board marker\u00a0or a physical prop instead. I bet you&#8217;ll be twice the presenter overnight with half the effort.<\/p>\n<p>For more tips on using PowerPoint right, look for posts with the <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/tag\/Slides\">Slides<\/a>\u00a0Tag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve analyzed hundreds of speakers, and nearly all the worst presenters\u00a0have the same thing in common. If you don&#8217;t know why it&#8217;s a problem, you&#8217;re probably one of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[15,27,41,49,62,69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1147,"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/1147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelspeaks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}