Make Effective Presentations
Not getting this information sent to you directly? Sign up for your FREE monthly Smartmanager newsletter today. Sign up now!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Five Tips to Help You Make Effective Presentations
Managers Must Learn to Make Good Presentations
While some people love the spotlight, others equate making a presentation with a serious visit to the dentist without the benefit of anesthesia. Managers must learn to function, at least, between these two extremes.
Making presentations is an ongoing fact of life for managers. Whether making presentations to their employees or team, to peers, or to senior management, managers need to perfect their ability to present well. Whether you love the “spotlight” or hate it, your need to learn how to make presentations will exist.
Even if you love being the focus, you still must learn how to encourage people to listen, learn, and support your position. Should you dislike being the object of rapt attention, you need to perfect your “delivery” to attract—and keep—the attention of your audience, regardless of their location on the organization chart.
There are techniques you can learn to help you become a great “presentation manager.” Understand that they may be a bit uncomfortable at first, but, like any new positive habit, they will become more natural the more you practice. Here are five tips that are guaranteed to help you become an effective presenter.
Five Ways to Make Effective Presentations
- When making presentations, you are operating on not one but two levels. Your verbal message is obviously critical. However, your non-verbal message(s) are equally important. For example, the content of your message, hopefully thoughtful and persuasive, is also influenced by your style and structure. Your style should be engaging and friendly. Your structure should make sense and keep your audience’s interest.
- The audience. As every actor or comedian knows, you must be intimately aware of the composition of your audience. You should know their age range, sex, marital status, ethnicity, education level, and career position. Then, tailor your presentation to “match” your audience. If you are addressing fellow employees, this should be fairly easy to assess. When you address an “outside” audience, this becomes more of a challenge. Yet, knowing your audience remains a critical component of your success as a presenter.
- The channels. You have a number of channels available to deliver your message. Understanding and using those that are available to you is an important component of the success of your presentation. The basic rule: Use as many channels as you can. For example, many non-verbal channels should be available. Gestures, facial expressions, and posture changes are all available to help you make important points. Pictorial channels (diagrams, charts, graphs, pictures, and objects) also help present your message in an effective and interesting manner.
- The feedback. The activity of receiving information from your listeners about your message is being received is very important. Before any Q and A session, you can visually see how your listeners are responding. You should learn to recognize their non-verbal responses to see if they understand what you are saying. After your presentation, ask your audience questions and respond appropriately. Analyze feedback quickly as you will learn if your audience has understood the focus, if not the details, of your presentation.
- The setting. Understand that the setting for your presentation may help or offer challenges to the effectiveness of your lecture. To help ensure the setting is a positive, try to become familiar—in advance—with the setting in which you will give your presentation. Set it up the way you want it if you have the opportunity. Eliminate all the extraneous “noise factors” that you can.
Learn about the existence of both “internal” and “external” noise that can affect your performance. External noise (people talking, excessive high/low temperature, coughing, and ventilation efficiency) can affect the way your audience “hears” your presentation. Internal noise is a bit more complicated. Should you be confused about or unprepared for your topic or ignorant of your audience makeup, you can easily be bombarded by “internal noise” that leads you off topic or cripples your presentation.
The key: Practice like a great athlete. Like the great sports stars, develop muscle memory (in this case, mental memory) that takes over when you’re “on stage.” By developing auto-responses to common presentation situations, you are free to concentrate on your message and style.
Concentrating on the five tips noted above and tailoring your message to achieve these goals will help you in all presentation situations. It will not matter whether you are addressing your team, your peers, or executive management. This technique always works. Whether you are addressing 5 or 500 people, the system will offer you the power to be an effective and dynamic presenter.